HATAY: Hittites’ Return

Most noteworthy non-governmental preoccupations of President-Dictator Mustafa Kamal Ataturk of Turkey are history, archeology, language. Long ago Dictator Kamal Ataturk set archeologists to work digging up old Hittite civilizations of Asia Minor. Favorite Kamal Ataturk theses— largely unconfirmed by reputable anthropologists and philologists—are that the Turk is a lateral descendant of the old Hittite, that modern Turkish springs from one of the as-yet-undeciphered Hittite languages, that all other languages spring from the Turkish.

President Kamal Atatürk’s habit of renaming Anatolian villages to suit Hittite history has long kept Turkish railway ticket sellers on the jump. When, two years ago, Dictator Kamal Ataturk first made up his mind that the 80,000 Turks of the Sanjak of Alexandretta of French-mandated Syria would suffer unduly under independent Syrian rule, he began his campaign for an autonomous Sanjak by calling the region “Hatay.” While sanjak is an old Turkish word meaning district, Hatay was the still older name of the old Hittite Empire. Early this summer the Sanjak became autonomous under joint French and Turkish protection. Last week the Turkish majority in the Sanjak’s Legislature also became Hittite-conscious. They formally changed the name of the Sanjak of Alexandretta to the Republic of Hatay.