Turkey’s renewed interest in its Ottoman past is often associated with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose “neo-Ottomanist” political program has tried to rehabilitate figures like Sultan Süleyman, who ruled the empire from 1520 to 1566. Part of the ongoing “Ottomania” is a hit Turkish television show, “Magnificent Century,” which follows the lives of characters in Süleyman’s court. As Elif Batuman explains in this week’s magazine, the show “has accomplished one of Erdoğan’s main goals: making a powerful, non-secularist, globally involved version of Turkey seem both plausible and appealing.”
So why isn’t Erdoğan a fan? In this video, Batuman reviews scenes from the first episode of “Magnificent Century” and explains why a show fascinated by the past is a problem for Turkey’s political present.