WPSU intern James Engel visited Istanbul, Turkey with a class in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State. He brought back this story about the political climate in the country. Engel reports some politicians in Turkey idealize a time when the Ottoman Empire ruled much of the Middle East from Istanbul for centuries.
Modern Turkey was founded on three principles: nationalism, secularism and democracy.
But in recent years, these foundations have faced a threat that’s a throwback to the past.
It’s called Neo-Ottomanism. It first emerged in Turkey in the 1990s. But experts say it’s taken on a new life under Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling AK Party.
Neo-Ottomanism glorifies Turkey’s past as the center of the powerful Ottoman Empire. It seeks to revive some of the empire’s traditions and practices.
But Çigdem Kafescioğlu, a professor of history at Istanbul’s prestigious Bosphorus University, said the ideology is “anachronistic.”
“This is part of this imagery, but also the notion that the Ottoman order was an ideal order, the Ottoman social order was an ideal order, the Ottoman political order was an ideal order,” she said.
That Ottoman order meant one-man rule by a powerful sultan and Islam as the state religion, entirely contrary to Turkey’s present-day democratic and secular identity.
Neo-Ottoman rhetoric can have real-life effects. In 2020, Erdoğan reconverted the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. The grand building was a church for almost 1000 years before it was made into a mosque in 1453 by the conquering Ottomans.
It had been a secular museum since the 1930s until Erdoğan proclaimed it a mosque again. The move was widely seen as a gesture to conservative Muslim communities.
Meltem Türköz is a folklorist at Bosphorus University. She said political moves like the reconversion use historical narratives to build power.
“I think this is part of what makes a strong politician. You need to be astute. I think they're astute about the narratives that people want to hear. People want to feel proud. They don't want to feel, you know, they're losers,” she said.
Erdoğan is unlikely to crown himself sultan. But Kafescioğlu said his reverence for an autocratic Ottoman past may accustom Turks to an autocratic Turkish present.
“So that turns into an outlook that basically legitimizes and makes palatable a very authoritarian, very patriarchal regime where you just had to say yes to your sultan or you lost your position. Or your head,” Kafescioğlu said.
