 According to some, several leading members of the Young Turk movement, a group of constitutional monarchist revolutionaries who brought down the Ottoman Empire, were Dönmeh.At the time of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923, some among the Thessaloniki Dönmeh tried to be recognized as non-Muslims to avoid being forced to leave the city.After the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1922–1923, the Dönmeh strongly supported the Republican, progressive reforms of Atatürk that tried to restrict the power of the religious establishment and to modernize society.