Nostalgia for the Empire: The Politics of Neo-Ottomanism

Making a country great again is a theme for nationalist authoritarians. Across countries with past experience as great powers, nationalist politicians typically harken back to a golden age. In Nostalgia for Empire, Hakan Yavuz focuses on how this trend is playing out in Turkey, a nation that lost its empire a century ago and which is now ruled by a nationalist authoritarian who invokes nostalgia for the Ottoman era to buttress his power. Yavuz delves into the social and political origins of expressions of nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire among various groups in Turkey. Exploring why and how certain segments of Turkish society has selectively brought the Ottoman Empire back into public consciousness, Yavuz traces how memory of the Ottoman period has changed. He draws from Turkish literature, mainstream history books, and other cultural products from the 1940s to the twenty-first century to illustrate the transformation. He finds that two key aspects of Turkish literature are, on the one hand, its criticism of the Jacobin modernization of Turkey under Ataturk, and on the other a desire to search the Ottoman past for an alternative political language. Yavuz goes onto to explain how major political actors, including President Erdogan, utilize the concept of empire to craft distinctive conceptualizations of nationalism, Islam, and Ottomanism that exploit national nostalgia. As remembered today, the Ottoman past seems to be grounded in contemporary conservative Islamic values. The combination of these memories and values generates a portrait of Turkey as a victim of major powers, besieged by imagined enemies both internal and external. In mapping out how nostalgia is crafted and spread, this book not only sheds light on Turkey's unique case but also deepens our understanding of nationalism, religion, and modernity.

Review: In this new insightful book, Yavuz offers a detailed historical and sociological analysis of one of the most striking features of contemporary Turkey, the widespread neo-Ottomanism, or nostalgia for the Ottoman past. He demonstrates that, rather than a single ideology, it is a multi-faceted phenomenon in which the Ottoman past is imagined and instrumentalized in very different ways. Yavuz shows the deep roots of neo-Ottomanism but also convincingly argues that it is about (dreams of) the future as much as about the past. * Erik-Jan Zurcher, former Professor of Turkish Studies, Leiden University, and author of Turkey: A Modern History *
Yavuz has yet again produced an invaluable volume on Turkey's complex modern political history. Charting the evolution of how references to the Ottoman past enter into modern notions of political development, modernization, and nationalism, Nostalgia for the Empire sheds fresh light on a critical phase in Turkey's state-building story. This is a must-read for scholars of political Islam, the modern history of Turkey, and the larger story of the modern state throughout the twentieth century. * Isa Blumi, Docent and Associate Professor of Asian, Middle Eastern, and Turkish Studies, Stockholm University *
Nostalgia for the Empire is a comprehensive analysis of the genealogy and permutations of neo-Ottomanism, a commonly invoked concept referring to resurrections of the Ottoman past in Turkey and the broader region. The book caps the author's findings over two decades of research and reflection on Islam in the Turkish Republic. Yavuz dissects Ottomanist political rhetoric, socio-cultural manifestations, and foreign policy aspirations against the canvas of Turkish history during the last century. Written with passion, authority, and clarity, the study bares the idealized and opportunistic dimensions of Ottoman nostalgia, as it poignantly critiques the related populist-authoritarian turn in Turkey in recent years. * Hasan Kayali, Associate Professor of History, University of California, San Diego *