The previous chapter examined the emotional motives behind the AKP’s circulation of the Neo-Ottomanist narrative through the leader figure in the 2000s. This provided a useful emotional framework to extend the analysis, the most expansive aspect of which is ressentiment. It is possible to argue that ressentiment has always been an undercurrent in the symbolic politics of the AKP. In this chapter, I aim to reveal the symbolic and emotional manifestations of the Neo-Ottomanist narrative through an examination of space; more concretely, I will focus on Istanbul as one of the key symbolic sites of the AKP’s politics of emotions.

Istanbul carries symbolic value as the space where the Neo-Ottomanist narrative is most intensely embodied and actualized. Being the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul is claimed to be purportedly neglected and erased from history, its glory forgotten in the process of nation-state formation. The ‘bridge between two continents and two civilizations’, the city has long been the battleground of dichotomies such as East and West, Islam and Christianity and local and global (Keyder, 2006, 17).

Upon the Republic’s founding, the ruling elites conceived of Istanbul as a focal point that embodied ‘all imaginary obstacles to be eliminated’ (Keyder, 2006, 18). For the republicans, Istanbul was a symbol of the corrupt Ottoman Empire and its Islamic foundations (Bartu, 2006, 46). The city represented ‘a sin that the Republican elites seemed to find it very difficult to stay away from’ (Keyder, 2006, 19). This part of the story is all too familiar: the transition from empire to nation-state, a forgetting or forced forgetting of the past during the process of top-down modernization, a deliberate erasure. Far more striking, though, are the meanings and emotional freight of Istanbul as a space in the Islamic conservative imagination where a particular politics of memory operates. According to this imagery, Istanbul is the cradle of a glorious past that needs revival and resurrection. During the AKP’s rule, it has become a symbol of Islamic conservative ideology and a political tool to challenge Republican values (Bartu, 2006, 52).

The emotional and real investment in Istanbul by the AKP is not characterized solely by a sense of ressentiment; Istanbul is also a nostalgic home because it was once the capital of Islam, of splendour, of triumph. It is the trace of an imperial and mighty past that is longed for. On account of its Ottoman past, Istanbul is a promised land that whets the Turkish nationalist appetite. It is a blessed city, the apple of the eye of the world and the Islamic universe, both because its conquest was heralded by the prophet Muhammed and because it is the centre and symbol of the imperial hegemony of Ottoman Islamic civilization. Indeed, the image of Fatih’s Istanbul is one of the most fundamental nexuses between Islamism and nationalism, and a bonding motif of nationalist conservative identity (Bora, 2006, 61–66). The symbolic loss of the city when the Republic was founded and Ankara named the new capital, brought with it a popular wave of nostalgia for Istanbul. In the symbolic politics of the AKP, this nostalgia has at times functioned as a veil of ontological ressentiment, but it has always been kept alive through a ‘promise of homecoming.’ Therefore, alongside ressentiment, nostalgia will be the main emotional site discussed in this chapter.

Istanbul functions as a ‘home’ for those who see themselves as exiles expelled from ‘the garden of Eden’ (Boym, 2009, 122). Narratives about cities’ pasts are multiple, which makes them ripe for previously neglected or repressed narratives to be enacted to challenge dominant historical narratives (Pickering & Keightley, 2006, 928). Although a city’s identity is of great importance in terms of material and symbolic capital, it is not fixed but constantly influenced by history, culture and political power (Keyder, 2006, 57). In the Islamic conservative and nationalist world of meanings, the multiple narratives about Istanbul’s past oscillate between dream (in the sense that it is a sign of might, victory and superiority torn away from Byzantium, the West and the Christian world) and nightmare (in the sense that it is perceived as the chief location of conspiracies, threats and plots against Turkey). This huge city is therefore a space of both dazzling promise and the cruel confusion and anxiety of survival (Bora, 2006, 66). Especially for those who build their collective political identity on a sense of humiliation and define it through feelings of abandonment and loss, Istanbul is a very conducive space through which to romanticize dreams of victory. Indeed, in the case of Istanbul specifically, romanticism has become a key emotion together with nostalgia. Just as the invention of a national culture oriented around a specific language, history and geography served the construction of national identity in the founding period of the Republic, so too did the image of Istanbul and the golden age it evokes come about due to an intense but superficial romanticization of the Neo-Ottomanist national identity.

In fact, across the period of AKP rule, the symbolic value of Istanbul as the carrier of a spectrum of emotions born out of ressentiment and dressed in nostalgia and romanticism, is not at all separate from the material values that enable what I call a conqueror mode of feeling-thinking-acting. These revolve around such values as imperial appetite, the will to power, fantasies of superiority, delusions of grandeur and the desire for prosperity and wealth. More simply, Istanbul—with its symbolic and, perhaps more significantly, financial promise—is an oasis in which the AKP government and the crowd amassed around it can satisfy their hunger for enrichment and power. Among the many emotional investments in Istanbul, the desire to gain symbolic as well as material supremacy is paramount. As with the power gained by acquiring territory abroad during the Ottoman Empire, the AKP has not only satisfied the desire to reconquer Istanbul on a symbolic plane, but it has also materially facilitated a kind of internal plunderFootnote 1 (Aydın, 2017, 31) and insatiable forms of acquisition, expansion, sharing and distribution of profit. The AKP, by constantly discovering, creating, collecting and establishing new and untouched areas to plunder on the golden streets of Istanbul, has succeeded in addressing—and, at points, satisfying—an appetite for growth, power and material superiority, among the ruling elites and capitalists, as well as among slum dwellers sitting in neighbourhood coffeehouses and calculating their share from urban transformation projects.

By focusing on symbolic spaces in Istanbul, this chapter aims to analyse how the Neo-Ottomanist narrative has set the stage for the production of a politics of emotions through the city. Further, it argues that Istanbul is the main symbolic site of the Neo-Ottomanist narrative and the emotions that stick to it. The chapter aims to reveal how this locale works as the cradle of a metaphorical and real/material resurrection and resurgence, the purview of which covers too broad a base to attribute only to the AKP. To do so, it focuses on: sites of an Islamic desire for homecoming (the Hagia Sophia and Çamlıca Mosque); sites of war between two cultures (the Atatürk Cultural Centre and the Ottoman Military Barracks); sites of imperial greed and symbolic superiority over the West (gigantomanic fantasies); sites of appetite for material superiority and enrichment (construction sites); and, finally, popularized, publicized debates revolving around the venues of conquest for everyone (the Panorama 1453 Conquest Museum and the Yenikapı Square Conquest Festivities).

5.1 Sites of an Islamic Desire for Homecoming: The Hagia Sophia and Çamlıca Mosque

For proponents of a Neo-Ottomanist national identity, Istanbul is, above all, an Islamic city. The symbolic significance of Fatih the Conqueror’s conquest of Istanbul, is interpreted primarily as the victory of the Crescent (Islam) over the Cross (Christianity), and thus over the West. In this sense, as a symbolic site, it is a fundamental reminder of self-confidence. As one of the symbols of Istanbul, the Hagia Sophia has often been at the centre of debates on Neo-Ottomanist practices in the AKP era. Thus, it is important to take a closer look at the emotions that stick to and emanate from this historical artefact.

In the Islamic conservative narrative, when Fatih conquered Istanbul in 1453, his first act was to pray in the Hagia Sophia. Already of symbolic value before the conquest as the largest church built by the Byzantine Empire in Istanbul, today it is the city’s most important place of worship and a site of world cultural heritage. That Fatih’s first act was to pray in Hagia Sophia symbolizes the victory of Islam over Christianity. Fatih then granted Hagia Sophia the status of a mosque, an expression of imperial defiance. However, the status of Hagia Sophia as a place of worship changed in the early Republican period, when it was turned into a museum. For the bearers of the right-wing tradition, this was interpreted as a victory of the Christian West over ‘us’. From the 1950s onwards, in particular, reopening Hagia Sophia to Muslim worship became their flagship cause (Bora, 2006, 64).

The feeling of humiliation and accompanying anger over modernization and the West, discussed at length in the previous chapter, intersect with a narrative of sadness and nostalgia surrounding one of Istanbul’s most historically significant buildings. In fact, it is both correct and incomplete to read the desire to reconquer the Hagia Sophia as a manifestation of a ‘local and national inferiority complex’ (Öney, 2016) against the West. Correct in the sense that the opening of the Hagia Sophia for Muslim worship is a matter of historical reckoning. And incomplete, because the fact that Hagia Sophia has been discussed and debated throughout AKP rule, both by ruling elites and other ideologues, makes the issue too multi-layered and multi-motivated to be explained solely within the framework of ressentiment. Istanbul in general, and the Hagia Sophia in particular, symbolize the longing for an Ottoman order, a golden age, an age of bliss, a desire to return to a ‘home’ that was lost or never existed—or else, a fantasy of bringing ‘home’ into the present. This is why the story of Hagia Sophia should be read as a nostalgic means of recalling the power and self-confidence evoked by the Ottoman Empire, and summoning it into the present.

The word ‘nostalgia’ derives from the Greek nostos (homecoming) and algia (longing). At heart, nostalgia expresses a longing for a home that no longer exists, or that never existed in the first place. It is therefore essentially a feeling of loss and displacement. It is a longing for a ‘golden age of stability, strength, and “normalcy”’ (Boym, 2009, 14). The Hagia Sophia is, I argue, the nostalgic site of a fantasy of Ottoman glory, imperial power and world domination and therefore a place of utmost symbolic importance in the Neo-Ottomanist narrative.

The longing for a golden age is particularly characteristic of romanticism. One must therefore interpret the story of the Hagia Sophia through romanticism as a form of feeling that includes but is not limited to nostalgia. Romanticism is, at its core, the expression of a desire to return to an original. In the case of Turkey under the AKP, this tendency should be interpreted as a means of coping with modernity, the encounter with the West and with a sense of defeat and loss, and as an impulse to recall and regenerate core values, national spirit and roots (or to seek refuge in them). In addition, in Ottoman-Turkish romantic thinking, there are elements of the desire to prove oneself to the West and to be accepted by it. Romanticism is ‘sometimes consoling, curing and compensating, sometimes provoking, coercing and fortifying social consciousness’ (Aksakal, 2015, 15–16); perhaps this is why the romantic way of feeling and thinking has always nurtured conservative and nationalist tendencies in Turkish political culture.

Meanwhile, nostalgia should be understood not only as a longing for the old regime or the fallen empire, but also as a feeling of unrealized dreams and a vision of the future. In this sense, nostalgia is seductive rather than persuasive. It operates through a sense of being out of place and as a romantic fantasy (Boym, 2007, 7). It is my contention that the desire to convert the Hagia Sophia into a mosque is underpinned by a fantasy of resurrection, of being reborn from the ashes, of majestically rebuilding the past rather than mourning it. The romanticization of the Hagia Sophia has been prevalent among the ruling elites in the AKP era. For instance, at the 2013 opening of a carpet museum next to the building, Bülent Arınç, then deputy prime minister, expressed the fantasy of resurrection in romantic terms:

We are now right next to the Hagia Sophia Mosque. I believe there is something in your heart, even if your ears don’t hear it. Hagia Sophia is telling us something. What is Hagia Sophia telling us? [...] We look at this sad Hagia Sophia, and we wish from Allah that the days when it will smile are near.Footnote 2

Far from a frozen image suspended in a faded past, the Hagia Sophia, whispering to us, is imagined as an entity that has feelings, that has been persecuted, that has suffered oppression, that has been grieved, that asks for accountability, that imposes a responsibility, that demands reparation and compensation. In this rhetoric it has a soul, one that is waiting for a new conqueror who will hear its silent cries and conquer it anew.

Noting that nostalgia has generally been conceived of as looking back, scholars argue that the feeling in fact includes the intention to integrate the past into the present and the future. In other words, while nostalgia is in part the desire to return to an ideal past, it is also an attempt to find in the past the possibility of renewal and future victories, and to realize these in the present (Pickering & Keightley, 2006, 920–921). Therefore, for AKP elites, the battle over Hagia Sophia is not a means of escaping from the present to the past, but an attempt to rebuild the future from a position of power, grandeur and superiority. Thus, nostalgia should be understood not just as a static, melancholic or sad feeling, but an active, future-oriented one (Pickering & Keightley, 2006, 937). From a similar perspective, Fred Davis (1977) argues that nostalgia tells us more about the mood of the present than about the realities of the past. Reminding us who we are, it also enables us to determine where we are heading. During AKP rule, elites have occasionally proposed laws to grant Hagia Sophia the status of a mosque; in 2016, the first Friday prayer was held in the Hünkâr Pavilion in the Hagia Sophia and news reports emphasized the ardent interest of the congregation.Footnote 3 Similarly, as part of the Conquest of Istanbul Festivities in 2014, the Conquest Prayer was held in the building’s garden, again with a large congregation. In an article on this symbolically and emotionally potent act, Sanem Avcı explains, in very clear terms, what the articulation of the Conquest Prayer at Hagia Sophia means for the Islamic conservative collective subject:

On the night of 30 May to 31 May, at dawn, thousands of people laid their prayer rugs in front of the Hagia Sophia. “Break the chains, open Hagia Sophia”, men and women chanted and gathered under the rain. They were the descendants of the ancestors who marched ships over land and trains under the sea, they were the generation of conquest. Now they were in the Hagia Sophia to reconquer it, to revitalize the Ummah. Because the Hagia Sophia was a lock and this lock had to be unlocked so that the fortune of the nation could be unlocked. […] With the reconquest of the Hagia Sophia, the golden age of Turkish-Islam will begin again. The time has come. Persecution has lasted a very, very long time. Islam has been abandoned, the state was taken away from the Ummah, the country was exploited and religion was made to be forgotten.

But thank God, all this has come to an end, the state is in the hands of Muslims again, no matter what internal and external factors do. The golden age of Islam will now begin anew under the wings of the revived Ottoman Empire. (Avcı, 2014)

Interpreting the opening of the Hagia Sophia for Muslim worship as a kind of symbolic conquest was not only confined to the AKP elites. The issue began to resonate among nationalist conservative elites and the grassroots alike. The sensitivity around the Hagia Sophia became a symbol not only of Islam but also of Turkishness, of the millet, of the revival of Ottoman roots and of taking action and proving its strength to the world. The nostalgia that permeated the story of the Hagia Sophia not only evoked pain and sadness but also motivated both the ruling elites and the people to mobilize and reconstruct the present and the future of this historic site. In 2020, Erdoğan as the president of Turkey thus announced his decision to ascribe the status of a mosque to the Hagia Sophia:

Today, the Hagia Sophia is experiencing one of its resurrections, which it has witnessed many times since its construction. The resurrection of the Hagia Sophia is a harbinger of the liberation of Masjid Al-Aqsa. The resurrection of the Hagia Sophia is the footsteps of the will of Muslims around the world to emerge from the age of retreat. The resurrection of the Hagia Sophia is not only the resurrection of Muslims, but also of all the oppressed, the victims, the exploited and it is the rekindling of the fire of hope. The resurrection of the Hagia Sophia is the sign that as the Turkish nation, Muslims and all humanity, we have new words to say to the world [...] The resurrection of the Hagia Sophia is a symbol of our rising sun of civilization, the basis of which is justice, conscience, morality, unity and brotherhood, which humanity has longed for. The resurrection of the Hagia Sophia is the breaking and throwing away of the chains in the doors of this temple, as well as the shackles on the hearts and feet. […] Hagia Sophia, the heritage of Fatih the conqueror, is now put into service as a mosque which is long overdue. This is the best response to the vulgar attacks on our symbolic values all over Islamic geography.Footnote 4

For Erdoğan, the reconquest of the Hagia Sophia and its change in status conveyed not only a message of resurrection to the whole world and especially to the West, but reflected a victorious position in domestic political conflicts. Soon after the decision to change its status, the Hagia Sophia was opened for Muslim worship with a grand ceremony on 24 July 2020, in front of a large crowd and in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. The ceremony was planned as a sensational one. One of its most notable moments was when Ali Erbaş, the head of the Religious Affairs Directorate, came to the pulpit, sword in hand, to deliver a sermon. The sword resonated with the public as a sign of imperial Neo-Ottoman power and a symbol of reconquest. Erbaş later said, ‘Khutbahs [Friday sermons] have been delivered with a sword, without interruption, for 481 years during the Ottoman times. If Allah permits, we will resume this tradition from today on’.Footnote 5

At this point, I return to Boym’s argument that there are two basic forms of nostalgia: reflective and restorative. For her, reflective nostalgia emphasizes the algia, that is, the longing itself. Such nostalgia, she argues, does not mobilize those who feel it. Restorative nostalgia, on the other hand, emphasizes nostos, which calls for a reconstruction of the lost home. Restorative nostalgia presents itself as truth and tradition (2009, 20). The Neo-Ottomanist dream of opening the Hagia Sophia to Muslim prayer was framed as a truth and realized as the extension of a past victory. This restorative move was a strong symbolic manifestation of the AKP’s power and was expected to find support among the people. Yet, it did not resonate as strongly with the Turkish public as AKP elites desired.Footnote 6 The political climate of the country in 2020 was such that even AKP supporters did not feel themselves safe and sound ‘at home’. Intense political polarization, the destructive effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and an economic crisis had pushed the AKP regime to the edge. Symbolic political attempts to mobilize and motivate the nation thus fell short at this time.

The emotional and concrete manifestations of Neo-Ottomanist restorative nostalgia were not confined to the Hagia Sophia. Especially in the 2010s, as Neo-Ottomanist discourses were on the rise, Istanbul was frequently used as a symbolic space to resurrect the country’s Islamic aspects. Among the invasive actions which were legitimized in the name of restorative nostalgia was the construction of a huge mosque on the hilltop of Çamlıca, the Anatolian side of Istanbul. As a manifestation of ressentiment and revanchism dressed in nostalgia, the plan to build Çamlıca Mosque was first mentioned by then-Prime Minister Erdoğan in May 2012. Speaking at an inauguration ceremony that coincided with celebrations of the conquest of Istanbul, Erdoğan underscored that, as one of the oldest cities in the world, Istanbul has been home to many ancient cultures and civilizations but that ‘our’ culture and civilization have left the most lasting and deep traces on the city:

In the 559 years since the conquest of Istanbul, our architects, poets and artists have worked day and night, have produced and created works to make this city truly ‘ours’. Of course it is difficult to build a civilization, but a civilization is not built by lazing about. You will think, you will implement it and then you will engrave it so that civilization will continue, as a stamp, for centuries. But at least as important is to preserve this civilization and culture, to keep it alive, and to develop the passed-down heritage as much as possible. The cultural heritage filtered through history is enriched and gains continuity by generations.

One of our thinkers gives a clear definition when asked, ‘What is culture?’ He says, ‘It is all the material and spiritual heritage inherited from ancestors’. That’s the point. Carrying the legacy inherited from ancestors to the future. Therefore, we have to connect today to ancient culture and tradition and reproduce it at present. As Turkey, unfortunately, we have not been sensitive enough on this issue in the past. We have not paid enough attention to the values we have in the past. We will build a mosque on 15 thousand square metres next to the television tower in Çamlıca. This giant mosque in Çamlıca was designed to be seen from anywhere in Istanbul. Thanks to Allah, Üsküdar’s windows will now have different reflections.Footnote 7

Carrying the heritage inherited from the ancestors into the present and the future paves the way for the symbolic reconstruction of Ottoman grandeur and might. The fact that this grand project is a mosque to be built on the Anatolian side of the city additionally implies a note of revenge, as Erdoğan contrasts it to Hagia Sophia, which cannot be fully captured and conquered due to its international significance. Mehmet Atlı states that mosque architecture in the Republican period, with the exception of a few examples, lacks care, from physical characteristics such as site selection, dimensions, proportions, material selection, workmanship and usage. According to Atlı, Neo-Ottomanism also functions as a motif, directing public opinion towards the issue of mosques. To be sure, mosques are political symbols. Their symbolic meaning renders their location the subject of fierce debates on topics such as political symbolism and Republican values (2017, 57–64). The Çamlıca Mosque project sparked vehement political debate almost immediately following Erdoğan’s nostalgic announcement. In Turkey, the dome and the minaret have always held symbolic meaning, both in the imagination of the average Muslim and in the eyes of those who feel threatened by Islam (Atlı, 2017, 65). When Erdoğan announced that this ‘giant’Footnote 8 mosque would be designed so that it would be visible from anywhere in Istanbul, he implied his own power and might, as well as that of the tradition he represents. Indeed, immediately after Erdoğan’s announcement that the mosque would feature ‘a dome larger than the one built by ancestors’ and six minarets, the tallest in the world, the Chamber of Architects took action. Representatives of the Chamber of Architects filed a lawsuit, claiming that the construction on the hilltop of Çamlıca, which has under protection status, was unlawful. The Chamber further declared the act a show of power and authority on Erdoğan’s part; they noted that it would be nothing but a bad copy of the Blue Mosque, and that it should be seen as a revenue generating project.Footnote 9

Indeed, starting with the Çamlıca Mosque, and particularly after 2011—the AKP’s ‘period of mastery’—there has been a rapid and intense circulation of expansionist spatial practices directed at Istanbul which are cloaked in nostalgia and heavily emphasize Islamic symbolism. This wave can thus be explained not just by restorative nostalgia, but also in terms of revanchism. The concept of the ‘revanchist city’ was first introduced by Neil Smith in the 1990s in the context of urban policies, and reflects the motivation of the bourgeois elites to ‘reconquer’ historically lost places by acting out of revenge against those who are not considered one of ‘us’. In the case of Turkey, this tendency has exhibited itself most prominently first in public architecture, then at the popular level, in private enterprises. Seen in this light, the Çamlıca Mosque is clearly one of the most tangible and invasive symbols of the reconquest of Istanbul. It has created a grand sense of victory for the ‘conqueror’ and a source of great unease for the ‘conquered’.

What else do we learn about the expansionist, ostentatious Neo-Ottomanist emotions that are attached to and emanate from the Çamlıca Mosque—a huge structure located in present-day Istanbul, built on top of other buildings so that anyone who sets foot in Istanbul can see it in all its majesty and splendour? Could the desire to reconstruct an Islamic home and carry it into the future also be the manifestation of a ‘culture war’ against Turkey’s republican heritage? It is true that the AKP’s attempts to reconquer Istanbul and reconstruct an Islamic Neo-Ottomanist national identity have predominantly been conducted by instrumentalizing nostalgia. Yet, in so doing, its hostile discourses and practices have led to a culture of revanchism which has spread to the society as a whole. In the next section, I will elaborate on how the Neo-Ottomanist discourse of reconquest has exposed a culture war centred on Istanbul.

5.2 Sites of War Between Two Cultures: The Atatürk Cultural Centre and the Ottoman Military Barracks

In Fatih-Harbiye, written in 1931, Peyami Safa interpreted the newly established Republic as ‘two different continents, two different conceptions of life, two different metaphysics’. On one side were the rich, noble, modern districts of Istanbul like Beyoğlu/Harbiye, and on the other side was Fatih, a poor, traditional, religious district. The novel was based on the binary oppositions implied by these two sides: Fatih was an oud, Beyoğlu a violin; Fatih was the call to prayer, Beyoğlu the glamorous ball. Fatih was a peşrev played on the saz,Footnote 10 Beyoğlu was jazz; Fatih was wooden, Beyoğlu was stone. Fatih was the smell of hacıyağı,Footnote 11 Beyoğlu was the perfume (Gürbilek, 2015, 85). Beyoğlu has been coded as a symbol of distorted modernity in the imagination of the AKP and in terms of Islamic conservative cultural codes, it was interpreted as a place where the old order was disrupted and corruption was laid bare. And indeed, Beyoğlu was the main vessel through which Istanbul’s cultural fashions flowed as a centre of entertainment; it was the birthplace of the ball and waltz culture associated with the Republic (Demirağ, 2009). Thus, in the eyes of Islamic conservatives, Taksim, the main square in Beyoğlu, has always been the space of a privileged minority and the secular bourgeoisie (Gürbilek, 2015, 86).

Today in Turkey, the culture-oriented conflicts between the two different worlds have grown more visible and are echoed by ‘statesmen, government spokespersons, media commentators’ rather than solely literary figures (Gürbilek, 2015, 86). For example, Erdoğan’s 2013 statement, ‘There is Kazlıçeşme, bigger than Taksim’, can be read as a reinterpretation of the Fatih-Harbiye rift. In the eyes of the oppressed, Taksim (Beyoğlu) has always existed as the square of the privileged, while for nearly a century, Kazlıçeşme has been the neighbourhood of the poor and the religious.

The culture war over Istanbul can in fact be traced back to 1994, when Erdoğan was nominated as a candidate for the Welfare Party and won the mayoralty of Istanbul. Indeed, Istanbul was the most important stronghold for the Welfare Party in the struggle for political power, a city where ‘the energy to conquer’ would be unleashed in full force (Bora, 2006, 60). It is also a place of culture (and class) war where the unapproved cultural heritage and distorted modernization of the Kemalist Republic could be challenged and century-old ontological ressentiment could be expressed. Thus, in its 1994 local election campaign, the Welfare Party called on those whom it referred to as the real owners of the city to conquer it a second time (Bartu, 2006, 53).

As soon as he became a mayor, Erdoğan succeeded in addressing the emotional needs of the poor on the outskirts of the metropolis by proposing projects that would reproduce the dichotomy between the people and the elites in favour of the former. He commanded building a mosque and an Islamic Cultural Centre in Taksim Square built that would emphasize Istanbul’s Islamic identity (Bartu, 2006, 55). He closed brothels, banned the sale of alcohol in municipally owned locales, and instead of cultural activities such as ballet, which he deemed immoral and ‘bawdy’ (Bora, 2006, 67), emphasized activities that appealed to ‘our’ roots and essence. By the 2000s, Erdoğan had set out to turn his ‘dream’ of the 1990s into reality. Especially in Taksim, he engaged in practices of producing space that, at heart, implied absolute dominance.

The Atatürk Cultural Centre (AKM) in Taksim Square has become a significant spatial symbol of the cultural war and emotional investment under the AKP. The AKM, the foundation of which was laid on 29 October 1946 and which was originally designed as an opera house, was a national identity project that the early Republican elites created to prove the city’s Westernization in the cultural sphere. The building’s highly charged symbolic history requires us to take a closer look at its past. Although the foundation was laid in 1946, the construction was only partially completed by 1969. At the time, it was called the Istanbul Palace of Culture. Giving such a name to a building that was to be the cultural symbol of the Republic and Westernization incited debates among intellectuals at the time. Muhsin Ertuğrul criticized the name:

Why the Palace? What age are we living in? Why a new palace when the padishah’s palace, the sultan’s palace, the vizier’s palace, the tekfur’s palace have all gone down in history? The name of such places should not frighten my patched pants and half-empty stomach. We should have looked for a more appropriate, humble name for ourselves! (Uluşahin, 2016)

Ertuğrul’s words are striking for their ideological and emotional implications. Immediately after suggesting that the word ‘palace’ directly evokes the Ottoman order, he mentions poverty, noting that such a structure should invite humility, not boasting or splendour. Indeed, he speaks in stark contrast to the emotions that stick to the Neo-Ottomanist national identity constructed today. At the same time, Ertuğrul was also opposed to featuring the opera ‘Aida’ at the building’s inauguration, and favoured instead a more ‘local’ performance. This can be read as a criticism of the function of cultural and national identity construction in the early Republican period, which reinforced a dichotomy between the elites and the people, though it may also signal a more modest conception of national identity. In 1970, a fire broke out in the building, an incident which remains unexplained to this day. In 1971, the then-Minister of Culture, Talat Sait Halman announced that the building would be repaired and reopened: ‘No palace is built in the Republican era; that was in the imperial era. Accordingly, the building has been named the “Atatürk Cultural Centre”’. It was reopened in 1978 under the new name. At its opening, events such as the Yunus Emre Oratorio, a staging of Othello, a screening of the movie ‘Al Yazmalım’, an İdil Biret recital, a concert by Ruhi Su and various exhibitions, from sculpture to cartoons, were held (Uluşahin, 2016). The nature of these events sheds light on the mood of the encounter with the West during the founding period of the Republic: the emphasis is on both the essence of national culture and on Western cultural values, yet is stuck somewhere between the two.

In 1999, the AKM was declared a ‘Registered Cultural Asset’ and thus made part of a specially protected urban area. However, in 2005, the Minister of Culture and Tourism suggested that the building be demolished on the grounds that it had outlived its usefulness. In 2008, the AKM was closed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and all activities there were terminated. A compromise was sought between parties regarding the ‘restoration and reopening’ of the building. In May 2013, however, the restoration of the building was halted by a decision from the Ministry of Culture (Uluşahin, 2016). In 2017, President Erdoğan announced the decision to demolish the building.Footnote 12 This took place in 2018; the construction of a new centre in the Ottoman architectural style is now underway.

In terms of both its historical past and the symbolic meanings attributed to it, the AKM is a key ideological and cultural battleground coveted by the AKP government. For AKP elites, it is a symbol of Western mimicry and Republican elitism. During a speech in June 2017, President Erdoğan stated that art is a value that keeps societies together. After noting that this field had been ‘in the hands of a certain segment of the society’ in the old Turkey, he said the following:

I want to express something that many of you may not know. The real opera house in Turkey, which is rare in Western countries, is the Beştepe National Congress and Culture Centre of the Presidential Complex in Ankara. While making this, I showed it to all my architect friends. There was actually no opera house in Turkey. Now we have made a magnificent one. We have an opera house that can hold 2,000 people at the same time. For many years, the understanding that brought such a work (Beştepe Congress and Culture Centre) to our country was vilified for wanting to demolish that unhealthy and certainly ugly building in Taksim and replace it with a more beautiful work. We have no enmity towards artists, no disrespect for art. On the contrary, we worked to bring a work worthy of both Istanbul and our world of culture and arts to our country. Harbiye Congress Centre is an example of this. How was Muhsin Ertuğrul Stage there, and what have we turned it into now? Now, thanks to God, we had the Atatürk Cultural Centre in Taksim built by the same architectural group, and the project design is now finished. We will demolish it by including the spaces on the side and the back, and we will give a very, very beautiful building to our Istanbul.Footnote 13

Considering the date, Erdoğan’s statement can be read as a declaration of reconquest that contains a hint of ressentiment. At the same time, it implies that a century-long cultural war has been won, and can be seen as a declaration of his success in monopolizing Beyoğlu culture by translating it into his own codes. In November 2017, at the launch of the new AKM, Erdoğan presented the building still under reconstruction as a ‘civilizational project’. On the cultural level, he criticized Western mimicry. Considering the battle over the AKM at the time, one could argue that the AKP’s new construction of national identity, which is irreducible to Islam and Islamism, has Ottoman heritage at its core, and reveals an imperial appetite and a claim to superiority and civilization.

Not surprisingly, the announcement of the new AKM project incited a public debate. The two expert architects (Korhan Gümüş and Eyüp Muhcu) interpreted the new AKM project as ‘an attempt to overcome the tension between the Box and the Dome’. For them, it was ‘as if [the project] symbolized a compromise between the two main currents within the state’. The main hall was designed in a box shape reminiscent of the old AKM, with a dome placed inside it. In this way, the box, a symbol of Republican modernism, and the dome, a symbol of Neo-Ottomanism, were brought together. Indeed, the fact that the dome was enclosed in the box was seen as an act of taming.Footnote 14 Yet from my perspective, the new AKM symbolizes not a reconciliation of the Neo-Ottomanist national identity with the Republican one but its victory over it. Yet, this victory, like all victories, was extremely fragile, for it was not easily won. Throughout AKP rule, Taksim Square has become the site of the mobilization of golden-age nostalgia and of the revenge of the oppressed, and a symbol in the war of hegemony waged over the national culture. That said, Taksim Square was recently witness to one of Turkey’s most popular, spectacular, visible and, for this reason, most potent opposition movements in its history.

In 2013, Erdoğan announced that a replica of the Ottoman Military Barracks, a historical structure laden with symbolic meaning and emotion, would be built in the area where Gezi Park stands. The park is a symbol of Taksim, a space that carries the historical weight of Republican-era modernization. This project undoubtedly emerged as a means of symbolic domination over and revenge against urban culture. Indeed, the history of the Military Barracks reveals a cultural ressentiment and desire for dominance dressed in nostalgia.

With the declaration of the Second Constitutional Monarchy (II. Meşrutiyet) in 1908, an attempt at modernizing and westernizing the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan was forced to share governing power with the parliament. In opposition, military and religious figures at the Barracks set in motion the 31 March Incident. This uprising was put down by the Army of Action from modern-day Thessaloniki; Sultan Abdülhamid II was dethroned and exiled to the city.Footnote 15 In this respect, for the AKP, the events of 31 March symbolize the betrayal to Abdülhamid II. According to them, ‘the IttihadistsFootnote 16 who collaborated with Armenian, Bulgarian and Macedonian gangs within the army committed treason’.Footnote 17 Therefore, the plan to reconstruct the Barracks performs a dual mission of both avenging Abdülhamid II, with whom Erdoğan identifies, and recalling and reviving the Ottoman Empire in the present day. Various statements by AKP elites that the building would be designed as a shopping centre, then as a hotel and residence and finally as a city museum (Aksoy, 2014, 42) reveal an emotional investment in the symbolic presence of the building, rather than in its function.

From the AKP’s point of view, Taksim–Beyoğlu is a ‘nest of germs’ (Bora, 2006, 70). Even a promotional video for the Metropolitan Municipality of Istanbul describes Beyoğlu as a ‘poisoned princess’ (Çavuşoğlu, 2017, 88–89). Conceived of as a woman’s body, it is a place that needs to be wholly possessed and conquered. Clearing Istanbul’s most emblematic square of ‘germs’ and replacing it with the Military Barracks, the symbol of betrayal to the Ottoman Empire, is undoubtedly intended to portray the might and cultural magnificence of Neo-Ottoman national identity, and declare the victory of the oppressed over the oppressor. When construction equipment entered the square on 27 May 2013 to cut down trees in Gezi Park for building the Military Barracks, however, it sparked a nationwide resistance movement. Approximately 2.5 million people participated in the protests against the AKP’s culture war (in particular against its post-2011 manifestations), its neoliberal practices of urban development and its expansionist appetite. Meanwhile, Erdoğan continued to insist on the construction of the barracks, his demeanour indicative of the ontological ressentiment embodied in his character.Footnote 18 Depicting the protests as a coup attempt and a plot by external powers, he labelled protesters marginal groups and marauders. Twisting the whole issue into a culture war, he provocatively stated: ‘They say “Erdoğan will not let us drink alcohol, gamble or fornicate freely.” What they care about is not the trees’.Footnote 19

Svetlana Boym argues that restorative nostalgia has two fundamental aspects: a desire to return to particular origins and the circulation of conspiracy theories. For Boym, nostalgics project their anger and hatred onto those they render scapegoats, believing that their ‘enemies’ are trying to prevent a ‘homecoming’ or even aiming to destroy them (2009, 78–79). In the case of the Gezi Park Resistance, both the motif of a return to origins and conspiracy theories were on full display in the AKP’s statements. Their conspiratorial worldview rested, above all, on an imagined battle between good and evil. This inevitably led to the scapegoating of a mythic enemy. The basic feeling of those who resorted to conspiracy theories during the Gezi Park Resistance was a sense of perpetual threat which suggested that home was forever under siege and in need of defence against the plotting enemy.Footnote 20

The dream-nightmare dichotomy in the AKP’s relationship with Istanbul came out in full force during the Gezi Park protests, unleashing the AKP’s ontological ressentiment, which is based on a century-old emotional legacy of anger and hatred, a perception of threat and an urge for revenge. The AKP emerged from this war relatively unscathed, and although it had to postpone the construction of the barracks, the project was not abandoned. Even in 2016, Erdoğan’s statement that the barracks would be built in Taksim ‘whether they want it or not’ revealed his determination to avenge Abdülhamid and to realize the reconquest of Istanbul not only by taking land but by seizing cultural power as well.Footnote 21 Of course, the full satisfaction of this expansionist appetite also depends on proving through Istanbul that one could become ‘more Western than the West’, thereby overcoming the inferiority complex and rebuilding self-confidence in the face of Westernization. In the next section, I will focus on the emotional manifestations of spatial projects wherein domestic and foreign imperial appetites were most visible.

5.3 Sites of Gigantomanic Fantasies: Symbols of Supremacy over the West and Imperial Greed

In this section, I will consider the emotional underpinnings of particular ‘civilization projects’ put forward by the AKP in Istanbul. In doing so, my main claim will be that the appeal of the new national identity characterized by Neo-Ottomanism not only allures the AKP and the members of this tradition but also an ever-broadening supporter base, who embrace it as a balm for the Turkish (and Muslim) wounds inflicted by Westernization. This section will focus on a broader fantasy of symbolic supremacy that exceeds the framework of the Islamic conservative motives.

In his book focusing on traces of romanticism in Turkish political culture, Hasan Aksakal argues that Occidentalist anger at the West is characteristic of almost all groups across the political spectrum in Turkey. For Aksakal, the inculcation of this anger, especially in the nationalist conservative side, is achieved by claiming a position of superiority. According to them, the West learned civilization from Muslims and the untouched essence of Muslim Turks contains all the seeds of civilization. Indeed, Turks are purportedly ‘the original founders of modern Western civilization’ (2015, 76–77). The AKP’s emphasis on ancestors and civilization has its roots in an effort to overcome a one-hundred-year-old envy of the West. This is why regaining the sense of grandeur lost with the fall of the Ottoman Empire has become one of the AKP’s most vital missions. Particularly in its post-2011 ‘period of mastery’, the AKP has attempted to transform its domestic imperial appetite into a symbolic show of superiority vis-à-vis the West. In doing so, the party has not only stoked the desires of a broad supporter base but also demonstrated that its actions go beyond merely satisfying the needs of Islamic conservatives. The party has showed that it too aimed to join the neoliberal order, to benefit from all the opportunities it promises and to prove its power both to domestic and foreign actors. Istanbul was to showcase Turkey’s ambition to join the neoliberal global order.

Announced by Erdoğan himself during the 2011 general election campaign, the Target 2023 project was crucial to satisfy this appetite. Erdoğan promised that Turkey would be one of the ten largest economies in the world by the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic (Logie & Morvan, 2017, 16). Accordingly, a series of civilizational and development-oriented spatial initiatives, described by the AKP itself as ‘crazy projects’, were put forward. These projects were to be instrumental in the revival of national pride and the source of a symbolic sense of superiority over the West. The planned initiatives, which we can term the ‘reincarnation of splendour’, would supposedly make present-day Turks worthy of the ancestors who had built bridges, inns and baths in their time; they would herald the return of the Ottoman Empire and would be a sign of superiority in the competition between nations (Bora, 2017, 13). Among the AKP’s ‘crazy projects’ in Istanbul are Marmaray, Canal Istanbul, the Eurasia Tunnel, the Third Bridge and Third Airport, as well as various skyscrapers, mosques and shopping malls. The most striking feature these projects share is an emphasis on being ‘the most’ (Adanalı, 2015, 121). Each project has been claimed as superlative: the world’s fastest, the world’s biggest, the world’s largest and so on.

The passion for magnitude stems from a fetishization of and appetite for power. This appetite may fuel a more general greed for the symbolic supremacy of the Muslim-Turkish subject. The concept of gigantomania, first used to describe the obsession in Nazi Germany with erecting disproportionately large buildings and monuments (Bora, 2017, 15), constitutes the psychological-emotional grounds for AKP’s fantasies about Istanbul. Gigantomanic fantasies have become the means by which Ottoman grandeur and a glorious past are rediscovered or fictionalized and transformed through contemporary representations into an imperial show of power both internally and externally.

The AKP realized most of its ‘crazy’ projects after 2011. One of these, Marmaray (the below-sea rail system connecting Europe and Asia), referred to as the ‘project of the century’, opened on 29 October 2013. The then-Prime Minister Erdoğan began his speech by quoting a line reportedly uttered by Fatih when he conquered Istanbul: ‘The trick is to build a city; it’s to make prosperous the hearts of the common folk’. On this day, which coincided with the 90th anniversary of the Republic, Erdoğan first and foremost commemorated Fatih with God’s compassion and gratitude. He explained how Marmaray boosted national pride and self-confidence:

This great pride we are experiencing today is undoubtedly the pride of Turkey, our beloved nation, and of Istanbul. Marmaray not only connects two continents, Marmaray brings the dreams of 150 years ago to reality. Marmaray brings together past and present, present and future. Marmaray brings this sacred nation together with self-confidence, with a faith that will show them what they can do when they believe.Footnote 22

A similar discourse of pride and self-confidence can be seen in images that circulated online after the tunnel’s opening. They reproduce the myth of Fatih the Conqueror marching ships over land to conquer Istanbul, implying that Erdoğan, as the grandson of Fatih, had repeated the conquest with a similar action. One of these images accompanies a text saying: ‘His ancestor [Fatih] drove ships on land. Erdoğan drives trains under the sea’.

The construction of the Eurasia Tunnel, another gigantic project like Marmaray, was completed in 2016. The Ministry of Transportation organized an online survey, asking citizens to name the tunnel. The survey was launched with the slogan ‘Continents unite from below, the name comes from the people’. The names of Abdülhamid II, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Alparslan Türkeş were struck from consideration due to their conflictual prominence. Stating that they were extremely saddened that the survey had turned into a ‘contest of values’, Ahmet Arslan, minister of transportation at the time, declared that project should be named the ‘Eurasia Tunnel’.Footnote 23 The tunnel, which was opened in December 2016 when Erdoğan was president, was touted as Sultan Abdülhamid’s dream, a framing that thus enabled Erdoğan to once again identify with both Abdülhamid II and Fatih. Thanks to the Eurasia Tunnel, being an Ottoman descendant became honourable, constituting a main source of national pride. In addition to securing national self-confidence at home, the tunnel also gave expression to the fantasy of symbolic superiority over the West, with its emphasis on being an example and inspiration to the world.

Another one of the AKP’s crazy projects materialized in 2016. Unsurprisingly, the Third Bridge was named after Yavuz Sultan Selim. The bridge was inaugurated with a collective prayer led by the president of religious affairs, Mehmet Görmez. President Erdoğan was the first to cross the bridge.Footnote 24 Erdoğan’s central role in the inauguration of these giant projects underscores that the Neo-Ottomanist narrative is embodied in Erdoğan’s persona and fetishized and transformed into a heroic epic through his actions. Turkey’s glorious history is remembered, written and made anew through the circulation of fresh mythic narratives for the people that inspires not an inferiority complex but self-confidence and satisfies the sense of superiority.Footnote 25

I claim that the pride generated by these ‘giant’ projects appeals to a wider audience than just the supporters of the AKP. By instrumentalizing the West and its symbols for the revival of a new national identity, a reincarnation of Ottoman grandeur and a means of overcoming inferiority complex and building self-confidence, the AKP managed to speak to the hearts of the nation. The revision of the 2023 target with ‘mega’ fantasies for 2053 and 2071 is an indication of how exciting the desire to be ‘the biggest in the world’ (Adanalı, 2015, 120) is for everyone. The national reconstruction of self-confidence heals the sense of defeat that the Turkish subject has been nursing for more than a century. While concepts such as development, civilization, prosperity, resurrection and ascension provide a widespread emotional satisfaction, one wonders what real needs, desires, dreams and fantasies they appeal to. As the AKP proclaims the resurrection of the Ottoman Empire through gigantomanic fantasies, can these projects be conceived independently from the greed for expansion evoked by the conquest of Istanbul? In seeking answers to these questions, the next section focuses on ‘the lust for construction’. I will analyse how the symbolic conquest of Istanbul has stroked and at times satisfied the appetite for material superiority and enrichment not only among the ruling elites but also among the people.

5.4 Sites of Material Supremacy and an Appetite for Enrichment: The Lust for Constructions

Across its two decades of rule, the AKP’s central plan for economic growth in urban space has undoubtedly been ‘the lust for construction’. Indeed, the concept of urban transformation (kentsel dönüşüm) as a model for economic growth based on construction has become the party’s hallmark. Urban transformation should be understood as an opportunity which appeals to the appetite for enrichment on the part of the ruling elites, construction companies and contractors, but also among lay people. Since the beginning of AKP rule, Istanbul has undergone a radical transformation; the city is regarded as a world of opportunities and unrealized profits (Adanalı, 2015, 119–121). From this perspective, the Neo-Ottomanist narrative has embraced the dream of conquering Istanbul with an imperial appetite for material superiority.

Jocelyn Pixley argues that the most fundamental shortcoming of economic studies is that they ignore the relationship between economics and emotions. According to her, the concepts of ‘interest’ and ‘expectation’ are too emotionally charged to be explained by rationality alone. Yet, economists, as with many other disciplines, have tended to adopt the dichotomy of emotion/ration, preferring to analyse economics only in terms of rationality. Yet to fully comprehend economic activity is to take into account people’s feelings about the present and the future. What is called self-interest is actually based on a person or group’s desire to improve their ‘pleasure, wealth, fame, status or power’ (2002, 80). From this perspective, I interpret the economic growth model based on ‘the lust for construction’ mainly through the contagious and mobilizing functions of the domestic imperial appetite. Indeed, Çavuşoğlu claims that by blending with Neo-Ottomanism, the AKP’s construction-based growth model has become a ‘national popular project’. He argues that analyses aimed at understanding the AKP’s ability to gain popular support remain insufficient if they do not take into account the hegemony derived from this growth model. To Çavuşoğlu, the AKP’s urban policies have succeeded in incorporating previously non-commoditized spaces into the real estate market, distributing (albeit unequally) the wealth generated to both ruling elites and some segments of society, thereby gaining mass support (2017, 78).

Undoubtedly, the AKP’s construction-focused growth model has mobilized a vigorous political economy, but it has also become a way of generating a new middle class. The popular fondness for construction and housing projects in this period should be understood as an admiration and emulation of ‘concretized power’, of the capital embedded in construction itself (Bora, 2017, 14). The force behind the material conquest of Istanbul and the appetite for land acquisition and expansion is the Housing Development Administration (TOKİ), which was granted expansive powers under the prime minister’s office. TOKİ intervenes in neighbourhoods where the poor in Istanbul live in a ‘destructive and predatory’ manner, using the fear of earthquakes fanned by the media and the promise of reaching civilization and modernization as a means of gaining consent (Çavuşoğlu, 2017, 87–88).

On the one hand, the AKP is displacing the poor from their neighbourhoods and directing them to TOKİ buildings through urban transformation practices. On the other hand, it promises housing opportunities to ‘the new middle classes and white-collar workers who are eagerly looking forward to’ the housing opportunities wrought by displacement. Housing has long been a ‘commodity of thrust’ for the middle class under AKP rule (Gülhan, 2017, 41). This new middle class is made up of people who ‘once lived on the outskirts of the city and of politics, but have taken advantage of opportunities that moved them upwards in the social ladder. Now they naturally emulate those who were showing off before them, and suppress them if necessary’ (Çavdar, 2017, 115). Luxury housing projects in Istanbul are given names like Manhattan, Metropol or Viaport Venezia, all of which are metropolises of the West that evoke wealth and globalization (Peker, 2015). Alternatively, they mix Ottoman and Turkish names such as Ab-ı Hayat Evleri, Şehr-i Bahçe, Sultan Makamı that recall and keep alive the splendour of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, the practice of consuming housing, which the middle classes engage in with greed, functions as a signifier of individual identity, prestige and social status; owning a flat in Istanbul has become the dream of an ever-growing cohort. For the new middle class, which has the biggest share of the housing pie, accruing wealth is no longer shameful or something to be concealed but is desired, displayed and praised (Çavuşoğlu, 2017, 135–148).Footnote 26

Meanwhile, the AKP moved to satisfy the desires for enrichment and civilization among the lower classes that it displaced through the discourse and practices of urban transformation. Already in the 1990s, as mayor, Erdoğan promised wealth to the poor and religious people on the outskirts of the city, stating that he would rescue them from the squalor of the slums and move them into modern, high-rise apartments so that they too could experience modernity through ‘huge blocks and colourfully illuminated parks’ (Çavdar, 2017, 119–120). Indeed, TOKİ has become a means of satisfying, or at least pretending to satisfy, the appetite for ‘civilization and enrichment’ of those on the city’s periphery. It created new mortgage opportunities, and ‘brought civilization to their feet’ with small down payments and low interest rates. Thus, the appetite for material superiority and enrichment promised by the construction-based growth model in combination with the Neo-Ottomanist narrative enabled the slum dweller to become a real estate developer, speculator and contractor. In the precarious Turkish economy, everyone dreaming of a secure future for themselves and their families adopted the spirit of a ‘land developer’ (Çavuşoğlu, 2017, 85–86). The coffeehouse conversations of low-income people began to be dominated by stories of wealthy developers and speculation that urban transformation would also begin in their neighbourhoods (Gülhan, 2017, 37).

The figure of Ali Ağaoğlu, a contractor unique to the spirit of the 2000s, has arguably become emblematic of the appetite for enrichment of both low-income groups and the new middle class. Before the AKP years, wealth was based on the principle of living sumptuous lives out of sight. However, Ali Ağaoğlu, ‘the king of construction sites’, put his signature on ‘giant’ housing projects, becoming a popular media figure who was keen to show the public ‘the life he lives, the money he earns, the car he drives, the bed he sleeps’. In a sense, he was the embodiment of the oppressed’s dreams of money, cars and women (Türk, 2017, 103). Ağaoğlu’s example became an object of desire for a large segment of the society, primarily because it made possible the transformation of the ‘lazy contractor’, who had been denigrated by the capitalists of the old Turkey and referred to as a DIY contractor, into a spectacular possessor of wealth and power. Sometimes he appeared on the screen searching for a plot of land, sometimes driving his million-dollar luxury car on Bağdat Street and listening to music at full volume. In this way, he showed that he was one of us, even what we might become! Ağaoğlu always aspired to more land, more power and more pleasure; his world was a dream for those who watched him (Türk, 2017, 104–111).

There is a key characteristic of buildings constructed in Istanbul during the AKP period, both by TOKİ and by the individual contractor, who represents the imperial spirit of the period: the constructions reach endlessly to the sky. These multi-storey towering buildings are monuments to power and ostentation. Referred to in the literature as ‘Dubaization’ (Adanalı, 2015, 120), this aspect underscores how the imperial-neoliberal appetite, an urge for ostentation and fantasies of superiority prescribed by the Neo-Ottomanist narrative conquer the body of Istanbul: a masculine invasion evoked by huge phallic buildings.

I argue that the strength of the AKP’s construction-based growth model draws on the sentiments preached and promised by the Neo-Ottomanist narrative. This power

is not only nourished by Islam, but also by its capacity to reconstruct an authentic nationalist identity. The AKP’s model of reinventing the Ottoman Empire has the support of the masses. Those who longed for the imperial Ottoman Empire, those who were tired of the domination of the nation-state, non-Muslim minorities, nationalists trapped in inferiority complexes by the sophistication of the EU, former Ottomans outside the borders of the nation-state, and those who believed that strong regional leadership is necessary for the stabilization of the region in general, were greatly impressed by Neo-Ottomanism (Çavuşoğlu, 2017, 84)

It is true that throughout its history, Istanbul has overflowed with and been dazzled by prosperity and has been a source of both attraction and envy (Demirağ, 2009). In Turkey, the main capital was always the capital of Istanbul, which reproduced itself there (Bora, 2006, 73). Perhaps for this reason, those who have directly or indirectly taken their share from it have been those who were caught up in a Neo-Ottomanist dream and desire to become powerful, glorious and wealthy. Of course, these people are not limited to AKP supporters. The construction-based economy gained legitimacy because of the wealth it promised to large segments of society. Neo-Ottomanist discourses were the emotional driver of this process of persuasion, as construction has become about reconstructing national honour and pride as well.

During the Ottoman period, the conquest of a city was followed by the looting and pillaging of that city by the soldiers of the victorious army. The conqueror reshaped the city and arbitrarily decided who would share its economic and symbolic resources. As city dwellers were enslaved and driven out, they were replaced by new population groups (Berman, 2013). In Istanbul’s case, the economic and symbolic conquest and looting driven by a lust for construction includes actors both large and small, from the ruling elites to the middle class and, to an extent, the lower classes too. Is it not possible, then, for someone other than these actors to experience the pride and splendour of the Neo-Ottomanist national identity? How do those who cannot share in the wealth and can only witness from the sidelines the giant projects and enrichment in Istanbul feel the splendour, power and dignity that the city’s reconquest invokes in their own ‘small’ worlds? In the next section, I will attempt to answer these questions by analysing the meaning of the Panorama 1453 Conquest Museum and the Conquest Festivities that were organized in Yenikapı Square.

5.5 Sites of Reconquest for Everyone: The Panorama 1453 Conquest Museum and the Yenikapı Square Conquest Festivities

The Panorama 1453 Conquest Museum was opened by Erdoğan in 2009, when the Neo-Ottomanist narrative was beginning to be aired and circulate more intensively. The location of the Conquest Museum in itself carries a weighty symbolic meaning: it was built in the Topkapı Culture Park, located between Topkapı and Edirnekapı, the site of a battle during the siege and capture of Istanbul in 1453. On the museum’s official website, the symbolic meaning of this area is nostalgically conveyed:

Topkapı Culture Park: where one era ended and a new one began, where the epic of conquest was written, where Fatih began to be known as the Conqueror, where Byzantium, Istanbul and hearts were conquered, the address of the future of the Ottoman lineage, which blossomed in the shadow of the mountain covering the horizon in Söğüt and grew into a mighty sycamore in 1453, breaching the city walls and spreading its branches.Footnote 27

An introductory text emphasizes that the museum’s opening was attended by all the major dignitaries of the state, demonstrating the significance attached to this museum by the ruling elites. The text concludes with a wish: ‘We hope that your excitement of conquest will always remain fresh and inspire the conquerors of tomorrow’. The website, which provides information ranging from the construction phase of the museum to its physical features, essentially promises that the museum will be a leading and superior example among its global counterparts, being ‘full panoramic’. Thanks to this panorama technology, visitors will ‘suddenly feel as if they themselves are at the dawn of 29 May 1453 and witnessing the moment of conquest’.Footnote 28 Visiting the museum, one will not only view these majestic and all-encompassing images but also ‘rediscover and comprehend the spirit of that day’ through such effects as the takbirs of soldiers, the neighs of horses, the sounds of cannons and the Mehter march.

In fact, as one of the most fundamental tools of national identity construction and processes of myth-making, museums have always been at the forefront of cultural policies in Turkey (Bozkuş, 2014, 2). For those unable to be the addressee, subject or actor of the Neo-Ottomanist expansionist regime, the Panorama 1453 Museum offers the opportunity to feel the ‘spirit of conquest’ and ‘the power and glory of the Ottoman Empire’, to be a part of it. For an entrance fee of 7.5 TL for local tourists and 3 TL for students, the museum makes it possible for everyone to experience this historical moment. Its website, which claims to have broken visitor records since its opening, offers a 360-degree panoramic virtual tour for those who cannot visit in person. Everyone, thus, has the opportunity to experience and feel the conquest of Istanbul, even while sitting in front of their computer screens.

In enabling people to remember and relive the glorious past, the Conquest Museum makes sure to employ superior technologies and all the possibilities of modernity and civilization. In this respect, the museum can be seen as a marker of assertiveness and defiance, as global as it is local, as contemporary as it is historical. There, it is possible to transfer the glorious history on which the Neo-Ottomanist narrative is based to the present and to ‘keep the spirit and magic of the conquest alive for everyone from 7 years old to 70’. Moreover, there is no beginning or end to the panoramic images that surround the visitor; the end of the images in a gigantic sphere corresponds also to the beginning. Conquest thus becomes the object of a desire that is constantly reproduced and satisfied, rather than something that happened in the past. Indeed, visiting the museum, you are certain to come across old men with goose bumps, women in wide-eyed admiration and young people and children competing to have their photos taken in front of the visual displays. In sum, the Panorama 1453 Museum is foremost a site of encounter for bodies mesmerized by the ‘dream of conquest’. It is a spell that allows the glorious past to persist on the surfaces of bodies through emotions. In addition to being the cultural symbol of Istanbul’s recreated identity, the Panorama 1453 Museum also leaves a taste of the Neo-Ottomanist national identity in all its visitors.

The Conquest Festivities are another site of ‘conquest for everyone’. There is no shortage of analyses of the transformation and ideological content of these celebrations, which have moved gradually from the periphery to the centre throughout AKP rule. For instance, in Benim Milletim (My Nation), Büke Koyuncu conducts an in-depth discussion of the history of the Conquest Festivities dating back to 2014. What I will attempt here is to focus specifically on the celebrations that took place in Yenikapı Square in 2015 and 2016,Footnote 29 to avoid repeating the existing literature. I will also examine the content of the festivities, which promise conquest for everyone, as well as the importance of Yenikapı as a symbolic space. First, however, it is necessary to take a brief look at the historical journey of the Conquest Festivities.

Records show that the first celebration of the Conquest of Istanbul was held in 1910. At a time when nationalism was on the rise, it is no surprise that a search for a national ritual was on the agenda. The newspaper Tanin reported that the 1914 ceremony was celebrated with great enthusiasm, and that shops were even closed ‘on all the streets between Hagia Sophia and Fatih’s tomb’. During the ensuing years of the First World War and the early republican period, there is no evidence that the conquest of Istanbul was celebrated. In 1939, on the instruction of then-President İsmet İnönü, a preparatory commission was formed for the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the conquest of Istanbul (which would take place in 1953). The preparations, during which major projects including conferences, exhibitions and the restoration of Fatih-era artefacts were envisioned, did not produce concrete outcomes due to economic difficulties and ‘the fear of offending Christendom and Greece’ (Koyuncu, 2014, 82–83). The first Conquest celebration in the history of the Republic was apparently held in 1953, when the Democrat Party (DP) was in power. There is no mention of İnönü’s instructions in this narrative. The hastily organized 500th anniversary of the conquest of Istanbul was held on 29 May 1953 outside the walls of Topkapı, at the site where Fatih had set up his tent. Neither the then-President Celal Bayar nor Prime Minister Adnan Menderes attended the ceremony (Koyuncu, 2014, 84).

The Istanbul Conquest Society, founded by Islamic conservative intellectuals during DP rule, embraced the celebrations between the 1960s and 1980s, turning the conquest of the city into a symbol of opposition. In this respect, the Society was arguably the forerunner of the discourse of reconquest on show today. The pressures (discussed earlier) that the tradition from which the AKP emerged faced on the political scene prior to the 1990s finally came to a head in 1994, when the first great conquest celebration was held in Istanbul after Erdoğan became the mayor of the city. Since then, conquest celebrations had been monopolized by the Welfare Party as an alternative ritual of national identity and as an oppositional event. The scope of the celebrations, which appealed to a narrow ideological circle, inevitably changed in the 2000s when the AKP came to power. The marker of this change was the free Kenan Doğulu concert, which was held in 2005 as part of the celebrations organized by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (Koyuncu, 2014, 95). Making the concert free of charge was a strategic move to popularize the celebrations. In 2009 and ever since, the celebrations became a popular festival and national ceremony.

At this point, let me jump forward and pick up where Büke Koyuncu left off, tracing the course of the Conquest Festivities in the last few years. In so doing, I will regard Yenikapı as the site of conquest for everyone, as the celebrations have been held there since 2015. The construction of the Yenikapı rally site began in 2012 and was completed in 2014. The symbolic importance of the square comes from its location within Istanbul’s Fatih district. The fact that Conquest Festivities are now being held in Yenikapı reveals the symbolic winner of the war between the parties in the Fatih-Harbiye dichotomy. Moreover, not only is it the final destination on the emotional journey of the AKP from victim to victor, but a site of collective euphoria, where national self-confidence reaches new heights.

The most important feature of the Yenikapı rally area is that it is big enough to host 2.5 million people. Indeed, records show that nearly two million people participated in the celebrations on the 562nd anniversary of the conquest in 2015. People were brought to Yenikapı Square in free buses from all over Istanbul, even from other cities. At a banquet organized under the slogan Resurrection and Resurgence, President Erdoğan started his speech by reciting the Surah of Fatih. He emphasized that it was Fatih who brought the call to prayer to Istanbul. He then prayed that the mosques of Istanbul would not remain without prayer or congregation. Koyuncu argues that the language which dominated the speeches of state officials at the feasts held in the 2000s was a discourse of tolerance. However, Erdoğan’s 2015 Conquest Festivity speech boasts a discourse of defiance and even war, grounded entirely on a dichotomy of us and them. In it, he promises to eliminate any attack on Istanbul’s (read Turkey’s) religious identity, stating: ‘The conquest is 14 May 1950, the millet’s assertion of its will at the ballot box! The conquest is 1994!’,Footnote 30 implying that the conquest of Istanbul began with the DP government and with his reign as mayor.

The content of the 2015 Conquest Festivities, meanwhile, was performance-oriented enough to give the feeling of conquest for everyone and to create a Durkheimian sense of collective effervescence among participants by mobilizing feelings of victory, magnificence and self-confidence. From the air show by the Turkish Air Force’s ‘supersonic acrobatic team’ to the installation of Turkey’s largest stage, from the 4,700 square-metre poster of Erdoğan and then-Prime Minister Davutoğlu (which made it into the Guinness Book of Records) to the laser-guided conquest simulation and the giant Mehter team, this feast was a gigantomanic fantasy manifested. Indeed, the following day’s newspapers would report that the celebration of the 562nd anniversary of the conquest was watched with admiration all over the world.Footnote 31

In 2016, the Conquest Festivities were held in Yenikapı Square once more. At the celebration, which was attended by an estimated one million people, Erdoğan was introduced as ‘the architect of the Resurrection and Resurgence’ and ‘the loud voice of the world’s oppressed’, as he was called to the stage to deliver his speech, accompanied by the enthusiastic applause and cheers of the crowd. This time, his speech dealt with the motif of ‘terrorism’. In the short period between the 7 June general elections in 2015 and the 2016 Conquest Festivities, several bombs had exploded in Suruç (20 July 2015), Ankara (10 October 2015), Sultanahmet Square (12 January 2016), Diyarbakır (13 January 2016), Ankara (17 February 2016), Ankara (13 March 2016), Istiklal Street (19 March 2016) and Diyarbakır (12 May 2016), killing hundreds of people. The 2016 Conquest Festivities therefore took place amid a climate of socio-political turmoil and collective fear. As soon as Erdoğan took the stage, the AKP Youth Branch unfurled a giant poster reading: ‘Let’s Drill the Mountains and End Terrorism’. Participants waved a giant Turkish flag. In his speech, Erdoğan said that behind the political and social unrest in the country lay the desire of domestic and foreign powers to take revenge of the conquest of Istanbul: ‘Their concern is to avenge the conquest. There you see, the puppets they used were buried in the pits they dug.Footnote 32 Those who unleashed them on us will eventually meet the same fate!’.Footnote 33

Although the celebration of the 563rd anniversary of the Conquest was held under extraordinary circumstances and attendance was almost half what it was the previous year, it is important to note that it was nevertheless a show of power unsurpassed in previous years in terms of content. The acrobatics of the Turkish Air Force, the concert of the giant Mehter team and the on-stage re-enactment of the conquest of Istanbul using three-dimensional technology made it possible for the new national identity to be performed (and in a spectacular manner before hundreds of thousands of people). Today, Yenikapı has become the most vivid site of conquest for everyone, satisfying—albeit on a simulated level—the urges and needs, the appetite for conquest and the desire for enchantment of those who could not experience the reconquest of Istanbul in the symbolic sites relayed across this chapter, those who could not take their concrete share from this conquest—in other words, of lay people. In July of the same year, Yenikapı Square was to become the scene, and capture the spirit of a completely different and much larger rally. It hosted the creation of a new myth that embodied the emotional reservoir of Neo-Ottomanism: projecting victory, magnificence and self-confidence. And its participants were not limited to the AKP and its supporters. In the last chapter, I will analyse the 15 July 2016 Coup Attempt and subsequent events in light of the national narcissism that today characterizes the Neo-Ottomanist spirit.