ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on representations of the 1453 Conquest of Constantinople in Turkish museum and memory culture, in order to explore the interplay of official heritage and political discourse. I argue that in the populist rhetoric and cultural interventions of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (the Justice and Development Party, JDP, in power at the time of writing) the historic, expansionist encroachment on others is glorified, and Islam is placed at the heart of the story of Turkish identity and homeland, contrary to the secular, Westernized identity of the early Republic. A second aim of this chapter is to characterize the responses to this governmental and authorized heritage in visitors to the Panorama 1453 Museum. Here, the politics and affects of people’s encounters with the Conquest in the museum need to be related, on the one hand, to the emotional appeals of the JDP’s nostalgic populism – which concerns the need to recover a glorious past that has been stolen by political foes – and, on the other, to visitors’ resentment towards those very foes: the disempowered secular elites. Finally, I explore the socio-political role of the museum in providing a space for the expression of animosity that helps to maintain social division.
