11th October~ OTTOMANIA: a hit TV show reimagines Turkey’s imperial past

Text: Ottomania: a hit TV show reimagines Turkey’s imperial past

Author: Elif Batuman, 2014.

The text “Ottamania: a hit TV show reimagines Turkey’s imperial past” was wrote by Doctor Elif Batuman, a New Yorker with Turkish heritage who writes for The New Yorker, an American magazine in which this texts was published. In the text, she deliberates about the connections between the Turkish national identity crises, the country’s political scheme, protests at the Gezi Park and the attention a popular TV show called Magnificent Century gets in this unstable social setting.

               The texts starts with an introduction to Magnificent Century, a soap opera that started airing in 2011, which talks about an Ottomanian sultan known as Süleyman the Magnificent. The show focus on the life of his harem; the intrigues between the sultan’s wife and concunbines, and has become extremely popular. Batuman explains that the show is part of a trend called Ottomania, which has spread through a variety of areas from food to design and is characteristic of the politics of the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Erdoğan’s foreign politics promoted the Ottoman style, however the Prime Minister did not sympathised with the soap opera plot. He considered that the show did not represent the Turkish family values, or the values and aspects of the Ottoman Empire that he would like to present. Batuman emphasizes the controversy of Erdoğan’s disgust for the show as she explains how Magnificent Century “conquered” the public from countries with affectionate memory of the Ottoman rule. In addition to the introduction of the text, Batuman points that it was Erdoğan’s decision of demolishing the Gezi Park to build a shopping mall in the style of Ottoman barracks that trigged protests in the country.

                In the text, the author gives important information about Turkish history, especially about the Ottoman Empire, which allows a general reader to have a better understanding of the context. It becomes noticeable on it the development of the identity crisis issue of the Turkish nation over their history. Batuman also talks about the directors of the TV show, Yağmur and Durul Taylan; about how they engaged to this project and the difficulties faced in a country with censorship. The author also discourses about the importance of Roxelana, one of the sultan’s concubine that married him and gave birth to his successor. She mentions the disparity in the way that the contemporary Ottoman society probably viewed her as a ruthless opportunist who only cared about her own children and the current opinion about Roxelana, which was tremendously influenced by the soap opera Magnificent Century. Batuman explains that many believe that Roxelana’s greed and the sultan’s decision of murdering Mustafa, his first-born with another concubine, is what lead the Ottoman Empire to its end. A believe that is not supported by Günhan Börekçi, an Ottoman historian who is one of the consultants for the Magnificent Century show. In addition, Batuman points out that the soap opera illustrates the identity crisis of Turkish people, as they for a long time were represented as a nation born by the hands of Kemal Atatürk, a commander that later became known as “The father of the turk”.

Paintings of Roxelana

Gezi Park Protestants