Ali Rıza Efendi

He was born in Selanik (modern Thessaloniki in present-day Macedonia, Greece), back then the most important city in the Ottoman Empire in Europe after Constantinople/Istanbul.

Ali Rıza's family comes from Kodžadžik,[3][4] in Centar Župa Municipality near the border to Albania, today in North Macedonia, where there is a memorial house.

[6][7][8][9][10][11] However the village where his family was born still has Turkish majority population,[3] and Falih Rıfkı Atay, a journalist and close friend of Atatürk, claimed that he descended from Turks of Söke, in Aydın Province of Anatolia.

[1][12] According to other historians such as Vamık D. Volkan, Norman Itzkowitz, Hasan İzzettin Dinamo, etc: Ali Rıza's ancestors were Turks, ultimately descending from the Turkic nomads called Yörüks of Söke in Aydın Province.

[18] He left the poorly paying clerk's job to start a lumber business, but bandits set fire to his stock after extorting money from him.

A portrait of a volunteer officer of the Civil Service Battalion ( Asâkir-i Mülkiye Taburu ) from Thessaloniki , supposed to be Ali Rıza Efendi. However, when the photo was shown, Atatürk reportedly said: "That's not my father". [ 1 ] This portrait had been suggested by İlhan Sungu in his article titled "Atatürk'ün Babası Ali Efendi ve Mensup Olduğu Selânik Asakir-i Mülkiye Taburu" [ 2 ] and has commenced to be published as Ali Rıza's portrait in 1939.
The reconstructed house of Ali Rıza Efendi's family, in Kodžadžik , North Macedonia