Abstract
FROM KOSOVO-GILAN JOURNALIST BURHAN SAİT'S THOUGHTS AND ARTICLES ABOUT ATATÜRK
Burhan Sait, who devoted his life to the struggle of seeking and enforcing the rights of Yugoslavian Turks, took Atatürk as an example in this matter as well as in other subjects. In the time of Tito, Atatürk was always praised by the socialist administration and by the Turks. Burhan Said, one of the last youths of the socialist era, also admired Atatürk. Until the disintegration of Yugoslavia, it was unthinkable for Burhan Sait to openly say that he was a nationalist-Turkist and Kemalist due to the peculiarities of the period. This only occured after 1990, when the disintegration of Yugoslavia began. Burhan Sait saw that the modern Turkey was being formed owing to Atatürk and his reforms. He regarded the hostility toward Atatürk, seen among the religious-sectarian group within the Turks in the region, as an obsession with seeing Islam only in form. The fact that some Muslim Albanians, embraced Atatürk for his Albanian roots but rejected him in the issues of caliphate and sharia should be seen as an ethnic obsession. Burhan Said recommended that the Turks of the region should not stray from Atatürk's path.
Keywords
Atatürk, Burhan Said, Macedonia, Kosovo, Modern Turkey.