*Metin Arditi is a writer and honorary ambassador to UNESCO. His latest novel has just been published: The Bastard of Nazareth (Grasset, 2023).
A quick look at the circumstances that led to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and then to the violent events that marked the history of the Turkish Republic during its first century (1923-2023), shows how the current election of the President of the Turkish Republic does not involve any major stakes. The country is on a predictable and consistent trajectory, with two key dates as inflection points.
The first seems futile. In 1842, Abdülmecid I ordered the construction, on the edge of the Bosphorus, of Dolmabahçe Palace, the new seat of the sultanate. Until then, the center of Ottoman power was in Topkapi, in the heart of a sweltering old city, swept away by plague epidemics. This decision was inherently contrary to the spirit of a warlike and nomadic dynasty. After conquering Constantinople in 1453, Mehmet II preferred...
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