The Turk in Southeastern Europe

Turkish ravishers of Christian maidens (Schick Reference Schick, Buturovic and Schick2007; see also Čermák Reference Čermák1861; Makovsky 1887), Janissaries snatching Christian boys from their mothers’ arms to be forcibly converted to Islam in faraway lands, and landscapes of impaled bodiesFootnote ¹ and human skull towersFootnote ² are some of the most vivid images of popular historical memory of the Balkan Ottoman past.

The Ottomans expanded into the Balkans in the 14th century, even before the conquest of Constantinople. As the empire eventually extended into present-day Hungary, much of southeastern Europe was incorporated into the Ottoman polity, inaugurating five centuries of urban, political, and cultural development as part of a powerful empire in which its inhabitants played a momentous role. Whereas the majority of the population remained Christian, significant conversions to Islam and, less so migrations contributed to the existence of Muslim populations across the Balkans. The economic and sociopolitical disturbances of the late 18th and 19th century led to empire-wide transformations, though the empire endured until the end of World War I.

“Turkey in Europe” became the Eastern Question for the European Great Powers of the 19th century. It was framed around notions of “liberation of a people from the spiritual domination of the Ottomans” and “progress of the West toward the East” (von Ranke Reference von Ranke and Kerr1853, 459). Rulers, diplomats, and intellectuals of various persuasions more or less agreed that the Balkans were a “splendid territory [that] has the misfortune to be inhabited by a conglomerate of different races and nationalities,” held back by the “fanaticism of Islam” (Marx and Aveling Reference Marx and Aveling1897, 4). Likewise, the very cause of the existence of the Eastern Question was found in the presence of the Ottoman Turk—an “alien substance” in the “living flesh of Europe” (Marriott Reference Marriott1940, 3). This historical paradigm that juxtaposes the civilized West against the barbaric East with overtures of Islamic “fanaticism” continues to burden Balkan historiography into the 21st century (see Hajdarpašić Reference Hajdarpašić2008).

The majority of the present-day nation-states in the region were carved out of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Maria Todorova (Reference Todorova2009, 182) observed the “remarkable similarity” and “amazing continuity” in nationalist historiographical discourses that shaped Balkan history writing by rendering the Ottoman Empire backward and any problematic phenomena as a consequence of its legacies (see also Adanir and Faroqhi Reference Adanır and Faroqhi2002). The new nations’ historians worked to construct a record of nationalist struggle impeded by a foreign, “Asiatic” empire, appealing to 19th-century European intellectual sensibilities (Mazower Reference Mazower2000, xxxviii–xli).

Post-Ottoman history telling in Southeastern Europe was marked by this negative image of the Turks, into which Muslim populations across the region were blended. In this simplified narrative, the ethnically and linguistically diverse native communities of Muslims in Southeastern Europe—the Turks, Pomaks, Torbeš, Albanians, Bosnians, Gorani, Yörük, and Roma—were collapsed into an extension of the Ottoman invaders and a reminder of the “Turkish yoke.” Scholars observed that the “hated turčin [Turk] of popular culture is never the Ottoman but instead the (Muslim) neighbor” (Stagl-Škaro Reference Stagl-Škaro2013, 346).

Significantly, this imagery was consistently and almost identically reutilized in the new Balkan states through the compulsory educational system, social policies, literature, and the arts to instill a particular image and a precarious national existence in need of defense. It exists to this day.

Denying any role to the Ottoman past in the nation’s historical and cultural legacy also serves to repudiate the imperial hybridity and the experience of communal existence that contradicts the nation-state historiography (Yilmaz and Yosmaoglu 2008, 677). The consistent equating of Ottoman with Islamic and Turkish in historical and political discourses not only rendered established Muslim communities across the Balkans alien, but also stigmatized their social, political, and cultural characteristics: religion, architecture, language, and other symbols associated with Muslims in general and the Ottoman heritage in particular. The Muslim communities were seen as an obstacle to homogenizing nationalist projects and an indication of backwardness, the elimination of which justified the policies of “de-Ottomanization” and “de-Islamicization,” in many cases with tragic consequences (Mazower Reference Mazower2000, xxxviii; Todorova Reference Todorova2009, 180; on these processes see, for example, Aleksov Reference Aleksov2005; Alić and Gusheh Reference Alić and Gusheh1999; Kiel Reference Kiel1990; Kuş, Dıvarcı, and Şimşek Reference Kuş, Dıvarcı and Şimşek2010; Lory Reference Lory1985; Mahmutćehajić, Reference Mahmutćehajić2011; Norton Reference Norton and Norton2007).

The attitudes and imagery associated with the “terrible Turk” continue to be used uncritically by local and foreign scholars and analysts of Southeastern Europe. Most recently, the roots of the Greek debt crisis of the 2010s and its strained relationship with the European Union was blamed on the Ottomans, although the independent Greek state is almost 200 years old (Graham Reference Graham2015). Local representatives as well as the European Union officials are quick to reference Ottoman legacy at the core of economic issues in Southeastern Europe, even when it is illogical to do so (Itano Reference Itano2010; Rosenzweig and Monclare Reference Rosenzweig and Monclare2012). “Historical culture of corruption,” pointing back to the Ottomans, is a common explanation for the extensive abuses of government position by officials in many post-socialist Balkan countries (Brett Reference Brett2015).

The intellectual stance that trickled down to the popular understanding of national identity—shaped in opposition to the “other”—had drastic consequences and was in some cases exacerbated by definitions of Balkan conflicts rooted in “ancient hatreds.” The starkest example of this was Yugoslavia in the 1990s, where the military and intellectuals justified the genocide of non-Turkish, Muslim populations in Bosnia Herzegovina and Kosovo as revenge on the Turks (Cigar Reference Cigar1998, Reference Cigar, Qureshi and Sells2003). In a grim video recording of Serbian military entering Srebrenica in 1995, where Serbian forces executed almost 8,000 Muslims in one day, orchestrating the largest mass murder Europe had seen since the end of World War II, the Serbian military commander talks to the camera and offers his victory “to the Serbian people,” adding that it was time to “take revenge upon the Turks after the uprising against the Dahi” (“Footage of Mladic Entering Srebrenica Played at Trial” 2012). The uprising against the local Ottoman commanders that was intensely alive in the minds of these henchmen took place in 1804, in Ottoman Belgrade! Furthermore, occurrences such as the Bulgarian policies of assimilation of its Muslims in the late 1980s, or Greek-Turkish contestations over Cyprus and other border incidents in the Aegean, were fueled by finding parallels and causation in the legends of nationalist ideology that became an all too common reason to conceal actual social, economic, or political issues.

In a 2003 documentary, Whose Is This Song?, which attempted to trace the origin of a melody sung in various genres and languages in Turkey and across the Balkans, the director was physically threatened after suggesting to her interviewees that the song might have Turkish origins (Peeva Reference Peeva2003). Barely escaping lynching by a group of young men at a St. George’s Day celebration in Bulgaria, who casually bragged about slitting Turkish throats, the director ends the film wondering if there was ever peace in the Balkans.

However, the dichotomous and permanent nature of the “other,” as well as the definitiveness of the nationalist project, have been challenged in scholarly study. Étienne Balibar argued that nation making is intrinsically a neverending process (Reference Balibar1994, 203), while others, like Zygmunt Baumann conceptualized the liminal character of “the stranger” in the practices of nation-state building (Reference Bauman1991, 65–73). More specifically, discussing the “otherness” of the Turks in the Balkans, Edin Hajdarpasic offers a new approach to interpreting the processes of othering, as used in exclusion, as well as “brothering,” which implies shared characteristics and a potential for assimilation (2015, 15–17). He shows that nationalists viewed the native others as (br)other: a figure that is neither “us” nor entirely “other.” In the Balkan context, the Serbian and Croatian nationalists perceived the Bosnian Muslims as their brothers (“our Turks”), as they shared language, customs, and ancestry. They were seen as potential participants in the triumph of South Slavic unity, conditioned by their emergence from backwardness, which is epitomized in their Muslim-ness. Term (br)other as an interpretive device that exposes the reversibility of processes of national identification, reveals that the binaries of “us” and “them” are challenged and continuously redefined by the nationalists themselves (Hajdarpasic Reference Hajdarpasic2015, 17). It is perhaps in this space of (br)othering that contemporary TV-Ottomania can be situated.

TV Serials and Their Effect

TV programming in southeast European countries traditionally consisted of locally produced, as well as English language series and shows. Latin American telenovelas drew interest for a while, but were surpassed by the popularity of Turkish dramas that began airing in the early 2000s. The spread and popularity of Turkish serials worldwide is a consequence of a shift in local and global markets and the political factors that created favorable environment for the production and export of Turkish television shows (Yesil Reference Yesil2015, 45–46). Turkish economic growth in the 1990s and 2000s created conditions for the production of high-quality television serials that started selling internationally at low cost, increasing only after the serials achieved prominence. In response, Turkish production companies adjusted content, aligning it with universal themes that would appeal to global audiences (Yesil Reference Yesil2015, 52). Turkish television exports have so far reached Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, where they quickly achieved high ratings. More than 80 countries air Turkish TV serials that cost from US $15,000 to US $150,000 per episode (Özedincik Reference Özedincik2013).

The Balkans in the 2000s had stabilized after the Cold War, regional conflicts, and EU accession, and became a more fertile recipient for Turkish involvement in the areas of investment, trade, infrastructure development, transportation, banking, and tourism. The European enlargement process and globalization in general facilitated the increase in mobility of goods, services, people, and ideas (Bechev Reference Bechev2012, 133). This allowed Turkey to play a more active part, even beyond its EU integration and NATO membership responsibility, engaging in unilateral relationships with the Balkan countries and increasingly taking up the role of a regional diplomatic and economic powerbroker. Many have read this as Turkey’s historical sentiment and called it neo-Ottomanism, beginning with the policies of the Turkish Prime Minister and President, Turgut Özal, in the 1980s to continue into the period of the Justice and Development Party rule. Neo-Ottomanism, unlike 19th-century Ottomanism (see Yavuz Reference Yavuz2016), has been analyzed as both the guiding logic for the contextualization of history and memory of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey (Ergin and Karakaya Reference Ergin and Karakaya2017), as well as in the Turkish approach to international relations and in the former Ottoman domains (Torbakov Reference Torbakov2017; Yanık Reference Yanık2016).

Turkish foreign policy efforts created advantageous conditions for Turkish economic activity, not only in Southeastern Europe, but also in the Middle East and the Caucasus, where Turkish TV serials are equally popular. The success of Turkish serials abroad did not go unnoticed by the Turkish government, which began supporting the television industry, sometimes even giving away the episodes for free, while the producers and actors receive awards for their service to the country, including their role in promoting tourism to Turkey (“Turkish Dramas Receive Tourism Awards” 2013). That the line between the government efforts and business is not quite discrete is evident in the recurring image of Turkish high-ranking officials visiting foreign countries flanked by private sector businessmen.

One of the first shows to gain popularity in Greece was the “Foreign Groom,” which began in 2005. It tells the story of a young Turkish woman, a daughter of a baklava shop owner, who falls in love with a Greek heir to an international shipping company. The families do not acknowledge the union at first, and the show revolves around the ways in which they come to accept each other, by means of comedy playing on the Greek–Turkish enmity. For example, the fathers-in-law quarrel about whether backgammon is originally Turkish or Greek, when a waiter interrupts to tell them it was actually Persian. “Foreign Groom” was one of the first shows that began thawing the Greek–Turkish relationship, at least on television.

By far the most popular in the region, and elsewhere, was the “Magnificent Century,” a historically inspired drama about the life of the 16th-century Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and his Ukrainian concubine Roxelana, turned queen Hürrem. Other hit series, such as “1001 Nights,” “The Valley of the Wolves,” “Sıla,” and “Falling Leaves,” likewise accomplished record ratings and viewership across the Balkans. Their lead actors (often known for acting in several different serials) became overnight sensations across Southeastern Europe, and their lives became the stuff of magazines and celebrity gossip, side by side with the local and Hollywood stars. The actors themselves made numerous visits to capital cities in the Balkans. Crowds greeted them at the airports when they visited Athens, Belgrade, Sofia, Sarajevo, and Zagreb. Some were paid staggering fees to star in local advertising campaigns and were invited to local television shows (bTV 2009; Tabak Reference Tabak2010).

The Turkish language became a curiosity, and Turkish courses began filling up in record numbers each year. Language schools in capital cities, as well as in provincial towns, have been adding Turkish as a popular offering (Leskovac and Nikolić Reference Leskovac and Nikolić2012; Tanjug 2011). The University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology boasted several dozen students in 2012, after many years with no enrollment (Loš Reference Loš2012). An increasing need for Turkish translation in the television industry opened up mainstream work opportunities for the routinely marginalized native Turkish speakers in countries with Turkish minorities such as Bulgaria, Greece, and North Macedonia. Translation is usually done by way of subtitles, although a few countries have opted for dubbing. In addition to TV stations, many online platforms are dedicated to streaming the translated Turkish serials. Such portals are especially popular among viewers who follow shows that are not aired on their national television channels, as well as those in the diaspora who were not spared the mania for Turkish serials. Similarly, serials with Albanian translations available online are watched in Kosovo, Macedonia, and Albania, reducing the role of the state and private TV companies in moderating Turkish content, language, and mode of translation. In the case of Macedonia, TV stations dub the Turkish content in Macedonian, while the country’s Turkish and Albanian populations often follow the Turkish content on private Turkish and Albanian TV channels and online.

In addition to promoting the Turkish language, soap operas are also a way of introducing Turkish literature to viewers: some of the most popular shows are based on Turkish classics, such as Falling Leaves and From Lips to Heart by Reşat Nuri Güntekin, Lady’s Farm by Orhan Kemal, and “Forbidden Love” based on Aşk-ı memnu’ by Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil. A daytime TV show on the Bosnian OBN television channel, which hosted a competition for best costume inspired by the “Magnificent Century,” also invited a scholar of Ottoman literature, who read and discussed her translations of poetry written by the Sultan Suleiman I, thus introducing the viewers to the Ottoman literature of the 16th century (OBN 2016). Similarly, the popularity of the Turkish drama “1001 Nights” triggered sales and reprints of the famed collection of Middle Eastern tales One Thousand and One Nights, which rather loosely inspired the Turkish series (Sinovčić Reference Sinovčić2010). Contemporary Turkish literature can be found in translation in bookstores across the region: not only the works of the Turkish Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, but also novels by Ayse Kulin and Nermin Bezmen, dubbed “the Turkish Danielle Steel” (Abadžić Navaey Reference Abadžić Navaey2014; Kuzmanović Reference Kuzmanović2015). Riding on the popularity of Turkish TV, audiences demonstrated an interest in film, and Turkish film festivals took place in several capital cities in Southeastern Europe.

As part of the increased Turkish cultural presence there, many official and unofficial Turkish friendship associations are bourgeoning across the Balkans. Croatia alone has three such associations. One of them, the Croatian-Turkish Friendship Association, is working on plans to restore a bridge on the river Drava built by the once infamous conqueror, Sultan Suleiman I. This is likely due to an interest in heritage initiated by the popularity of the “Magnificent Century” (Kartus Reference Kartus2012).

Ottomania, ushered by the “Magnificent Century,” prompted both amateur and academic interest in history and archaeology. In Hungary, near the town of Pécs, archeologists are working in an area where Sultan Suleiman I camped during the siege of Szigetvár in 1566 (Smith Reference Smith2014). Legend has it that when the Sultan died of old age during the campaign, his heart was buried under his tent in a golden trunk, whereas his body was taken to Istanbul for burial. A settlement developed on the site, known as Turbek (from the Turkish türbe, meaning tomb), which had its own inn, tavern, public bath, dervish convent, and a mosque, but was completely destroyed by Habsburgs in the 17th century when they captured the area. After significant archeological discoveries, the Turkish government began to fund the project, which, together with other restoration projects in Hungary, equaled $3 million in 2014 (Smith Reference Smith2014). Turkey is involved in restoring many Ottoman heritage sites across Southeastern Europe, underscoring the Ottoman presence and its legacy in the region (Andric Reference Andric2010).

The TV serials portray attractive Turkish women and men living in luxurious homes, vacationing along the picturesque coasts of Turkey’s four seas, and staying in opulent hotels, interspersed with images of the Istanbul skyline and the Bosphorus. Curious tourists from Southeastern Europe increasingly visit Turkey (Bechev Reference Bechev2012). Tours are organized specifically on the themes of the soap operas, such as “In the Steps of Suleiman,” while visits to the Bosphorus mansion, where “Forbidden Love” was shot, are still popular. Turkish cuisine, personal names, design, and fashion accessories are marketed in most of the Balkans (see Batuman Reference Batuman2016). A correlation was made between the inbound tourist flow from a particular country to the number of hours Turkish soap operas aired, paired with bilateral visa waiver agreements (Balli, Balli, and Cebeci Reference Balli, Balli and Cebeci2013).

Turkish TV has influenced the regional music and art scene as well. Severina, a Croatian pop music icon, appeared on the cover of her single dressed in a fictitious Oriental outfit (her pendant reading “Hürrem” in Arabic script), promoting a song inspired by the “Magnificent Century.” Her lyrics mention Ramadan, the month of fasting practiced by Muslims, which would have been impossible to imagine as a reference in Croatian popular culture before the advent of the Turkish TV serials (Milenković Reference Milenković2013). Romanian singer Otilia went even further to release a song in Turkish in order to “show her love for the Turkish people and Turkey” (Anadolu Agency 2015). Turkish music groups appear in music festivals, while many began to make connections between the Turkish origins of Balkan folk musical genres and instruments.

Turkish TV serials significantly contribute to the changing image of Turkey in the countries of Southeastern Europe, despite some persistent negative attitudes. Modern urban lifestyles and attractive characters in relatable family environments, drawing on universal stories of love and power, are able to reach individuals in the intimacy of their homes—a range hardly achievable by any economic or political means.

Turkish Appeal

An often quoted answer to the puzzling popularity of Turkish TV serials in Southeastern Europe involves several facets: the appeal of, and even nostalgia for, a patriarchal, traditional society where elders are respected, high value is placed on friendship, and mothers are highly regarded. In addition, there are few scenes of violence and obscenity, and these are features supposedly lost in contemporary Balkan societies (Beekman Reference Beekman2010; Hamzic, Nedelkovska, Demolli, and Cabric Reference Hamzic, Nedelkovska, Demolli and Cabric2013; Loš Reference Loš2012; Moore Reference Moore2013). The focus on the emancipation of women in Turkish TV serials is the primary appeal in Middle Eastern countries, where viewers are attracted by the compatibility of shared traditional values and modernity as exemplified in the storylines (see Buccianti Reference Buccianti2010; Georgiou Reference Georgiou2012; Paschalidou Reference Paschalidou2014). While this is not the main draw for viewers in the Balkans, the “progressive and liberating” plots do find approving audiences, who are interested in stability and modern lifestyles (Moore Reference Moore2013). Some analysts have called attention to the paradox when comparing the distinct perceptions of the Turkish television serials in the Middle East, where the stories symbolize the progressive potential of society, to those in Southeastern Europe, where they are viewed with nostalgia as a past version of their own society (Tunç Reference Tunç2012, 337). This apparent paradox stems from the observation of Balkan and Ottoman cultures solely in comparison to so-called Western standards, while failing to observe the common social history that remained under the radars of the various national de-Ottomanization projects, especially when it comes to food, music, language, customs, and values (Todorova 1996, 59–60).

Audiences are more precise when they describe their enthrallment with Turkish serials through shared cultural features and issues raised in the plotlines. The audiences relate to close-knit family and extended kin networks; multigenerational family units; children living with their parents through early adulthood, often until they marry; emphasis on friendships and eating rituals; as well as some shared intimate cultural practices, such as throwing water out the door after one leaves for good luck, making a spitting sound to ward off the evil eye, or rocking a baby to sleep on outstretched legs. Linguistic commonalities, often words carried over from the Ottoman period, are noted with excitement from Greece to Croatia, and many popular magazines across the Balkans feature lists of such shared words, as well as translations of Turkish personal names that appear on television (Hamzic et al. Reference Hamzic, Nedelkovska, Demolli and Cabric2013; Moore Reference Moore2013). These answers fit into the cultural proximity argument that explains the appeal of television productions based on the familiar cultural and linguistic references they contain, including shared historical experience, however negatively it might be perceived (La Pastina and Straubhaar Reference Pastina, Antonio and Straubhaar2005, 274–275).

The cultural proximity argument, however, does not explain the popularity of Turkish soaps in regions such as Scandinavia and Latin America, with no such cultural or linguistic ties, but where shows such as “1001 Nights” and the “Magnificent Century” are prime-time hits (Kaplan Reference Kaplan2016; Wilson Reference Wilson2015). Based on a study of the popularity of Latin American telenovelas in Eastern Europe, a notion of multiple proximities was developed that focuses on the appeal of the genre (melodrama), themes (family, romance, etc.), and social values (religious, moral, hard work) (Straubhaar Reference Straubhaar2007, 199–202). Similar proximities are discernable in the thematic choices of the internationally popular Turkish shows appealing to Balkan audiences. The attractiveness of the melodrama element in hybrid genres has been analyzed to include the placement of strong emotion in one’s everyday world (Abu Lughod 2003, 116) and to articulating popular consent for transnational capitalist hegemony (Artz Reference Artz2015). Some of the serials are adaptations of South American, U.S., and Korean screenplays (Aşka Gebe, İntikam, Hayat Şarkısı), testifying to their international translatability. Nonetheless, localized Turkish themes, some even foreign in parts of Turkey itself, such as those dealing with honor killings, child marriage, and tribal politics (“Grapevine Mansion,” “Sıla,” “Sultan,” and “Life Goes On”), found adoring audiences globally: stories exaggeratingly characterizing southeastern Turkey became popular in southeastern Europe.

The engagement of the Turkish government, businesses, and civil organizations in the Balkans followed the TV serials. This presence—very different from the historically constructed one—fortified Turkish participation in political, economic, and sociocultural arenas. Turkey, through its government and public institutions, established relations with Muslim communities across Southeastern Europe and has had a major role in religious education and the restoration of mosques and other religious sites. The Turkish Ministry of Religious Affairs took an active role in handling challenges, including warding off divergent religious influences such as Salafism and taking up a mediating role in local religious leadership disputes, particularly those in Serbia and Bulgaria.

Turkey is omnipresent on TV and in business in Croatia, the most recent member of the European Union in the Balkans. Turkish businesses established a foothold in Croatia in the period before the accession, and have focused primarily on tourism, with investments projected to reach 350 million euros in 2018 (HINA 2016). Croatian newspapers announced Turkish business investments with headlines such as “Turkish Economic Offensive,” but also saluted Turkish companies as saviors when they bought failing companies and paid outstanding wages to workers after months of strike and unrest (HINA 2012; Milovan Reference Milovan2012). Even more admirable was the reaction to Turkish aid after the 2014 floods in southern Croatia, when Turkey stepped in to offset the failure of the state and provided compensation to reestablish farming in the stricken area by donating livestock, seeds, greenhouses, and equipment (Bešić Đukarić Reference Bešić Đukarić2016).

Turkish television companies expanded their reach and presence by not only the sale of serials, but also their remake rights. Kanal D, a TV station in Romania, was established with Turkish investment for the purpose of introducing Turkish serials and their sale to other Romanian television stations (see Çolakoǧlu Reference Çolakoǧlu2007). Romania, an EU member, has since became one of Turkey’s leading economic partners in the region (Chirileasa Reference Chirileasa2015; “Turkey Is Romania’s Number One Economic Partner Outside EU” 2014).

The Turkish government also supports Turkish private businesses and NGOs, which significantly intensified economic and social networks between the Balkan countries and Turkey. Television series are a business venture in their own right: they bring US$350 million in revenues to Turkey (Güngör 2015). Turkish Vice Minister for Culture and Tourism stated: “With T.V. series we can enter every house and spread the influence of Turkish culture” (Hürriyet Daily News, October 12, 2012), signifying the importance of this television export for Turkish interests abroad and the reason behind the government’s strategic giveaway of the shows. The TV series are at the forefront of changing Turkey’s image in the region and are often referred to as the tool of Turkish “soft power” by their critics. Discussing these phenomena, some have called the strategy “TV-screen diplomacy” and “soap opera diplomacy” (Tursunbaeva Reference Tursunbaeva2014).

Along with the mania for Turkish serials in Southeastern Europe, there is a critical call for limiting or entirely halting the Turkish imports. The critics, who are largely concentrated on the political far-right of the spectrum, lament the harmful effect of Turkish soaps on the national consciousness and independence. They include ultra-nationalist groups and parties, media commentators, government officials, and even the representatives of the Church. The titles in the press frequently announce “Turkish Invasion,” “Turkish Re-Conquest,” “Neo-Ottoman Imperialism,” and the like. North Macedonia’s official TV stations dub the serials in Macedonian to limit the presence of the Turkish language in public broadcasts. Even the names of the main characters are changed to North Macedonian ones, with the exception of the names of the servants, the poor, and those on the fringes of society, whose names in the dubbed shows remain Turkish. These choices testify to the persistence and perpetuation of anti-Turkish stereotypes: the Turkish names in the shows are the most common names of Macedonia’s Muslim citizens. Macedonia is the only country in the region that has taken legal steps to curtail the popularity and spread of Turkish soaps. In 2012, a three-year plan to limit the percentage of foreign language programs in prime time was proposed, to be replaced by locally produced shows. A government official’s support of the bill reasoned that “500 years of Turkish servitude” was more than enough (Hürriyet Daily News, November 14, 2012). Furthermore, the state-owned Macedonian television agency launched a locally produced series, “Hardcore” (Тврдокорни), as a response to the popularity of Turkish serials among Macedonian viewers. “Hardcore” focuses on the bandit groups that caused considerable loss of life and devastation at the turn of the 20th century in Macedonia, but were spun into heroes in the nationalistic version of contemporary Macedonian history (Radikal 2012; for the historical account see, Yosmaoglu Reference Yosmaoglu2013).

The Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party orchestrated protests in front of the television station that broadcasts Turkish shows, while some Greek Orthodox religious officials advised against watching the Turkish serials (Makris Reference Makris2012; Papantoniou Reference Papantoniou2013). The Serbian ultra-nationalist group, Pokret 1389 (the name referring to the year of the Kosovo Battle, when the Ottomans defeated the Serbian forces), even included a reference to Sultan Suleiman in its election campaign advertisements. The nationalists dread the impact of Turkish TV programs on the youth, while others see the abundance of foreign programs as hindering local production. Critics of their nations’ obsessions with Turkish shows across the region are distrustful of Turkish political and economic intentions that count on the TV programs’ soft power potential.

Rumelia: Former Ottoman Territories in Europe

Ottoman lands in southeastern Europe were collectively known as Rumelia. In the Turkish televised imagination, Rumelia also has a significant role. The Balkans historically hold a dear place in the Ottoman self-perception as a westward expanding empire, since parts of southeastern Europe were Ottoman even before Constantinople. Losing much of Rumelia left a painful imprint on the collective national memory. The humiliation of the loss of its European territories, as well as the feeling of betrayal by the Balkan peoples, played a momentous role in the creation of the early Republican Turkish national identity (see Boyar Reference Boyar2007).

Just like in Southeastern Europe, the nation-building project in the Turkish Republic focused on creating an ethnically homogenous nation, in an attempt to make a definitive break with the imperial legacy. Turkishness in that sense was not to have anything to do with the ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse populations that made up the new nation. It is only in the last few decades, with globalization and interactions on a regional and international scale, that the examination of Turkish identity and the regional role of Turkey ushered in public curiosity about national and family histories.

The interest in history translated onto the screens in biographical and historical TV serials such as “Magnificent Century,” “Once Upon a Time in the Ottoman Empire,” “Resurrection: Ertuğrul,” “Filinta,” and “Fatih,” while shows such as “Kapalıçarşı” (“Grand Bazaar”) brought attention to the Ottoman-era historic covered market in Istanbul. Others, such as “The Rose and the Thorn” and “Remember, Darling” visit the 1970s political struggles in Turkey. Some shows promote unique regional, cultural, and historical centers such as Diyarbakir (“Sultan,” “Wish We Were Never Apart,” “You and Me”), Mardin (“Sila,” “Can’t Run from Love”), and Cappadocia (“Love is Everywhere,” “Grapevine Mansion”). Ottoman and Turkish history, literature, and the arts invigorated intensive production that was further sponsored by state and private institutions through grants, exhibitions, and large-scale projects (Demir and Gamm Reference Demir and Gamm2011).

Re-connection with Ottoman history through TV entertainment, however historically incoherent, encouraged a new trend. Neo-Ottoman–inspired art and design are in demand, while readership of Ottoman-themed books and novels, as well as visitations to museums, has increased (Barlas Reference Barlas2012). That history is consumed off TV screens with significant sociopolitical clout became obvious to the producers and the state. It is no surprise then that a recent drama, “The Last Emperor,” portraying the challenging historical period of one of the last Ottoman sultans, Abdülhamid II (1842–1918), does not open with his first major act in office—the suspension of the Ottoman Parliament in 1878. It starts, however, with the building of the Hijaz Railway, intended to connect parts of the empire with the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, enhancing the Sultan’s caliphal title and his status as the guardian of Islam and Muslims worldwide. The series emphasizes the Sultan’s international challenges, such as the first Zionist Congress seeking to establish a Jewish State in Ottoman Palestine, recognizably tackling contemporary political issues relevant in Turkey, as well as relevant to the audiences from South Asia to Southeastern Europe.

The television shows not only examine the geographical East–West or urban–rural dyads, but also include the “other” in two paradigms. The first are foreigners abroad and their relations with Turks and Turkey. Second, the shows introduce native minorities, challenging official, socially and politically constructed, homogenous identity. While the focus on Anatolia in some of the shows juxtaposes it to the Istanbul-based cultural microcosm, it also vividly introduces landscapes, objects, and sounds of alternative Turkish existences: historic churches, Kurdish language, regional folk music genres, and unorthodox religious rituals (see Krajeski Reference Krajeski2012; Sauers Reference Sauers2011).

The attention on Southeastern Europe in the serials’ storylines has mostly been historical. “Farewell Rumelia” and “Last Summer” were two TV series that dealt directly with the late Ottoman period in Southeastern Europe. “Farewell Rumelia” was filmed in locations in Macedonia and the plot is based on the Fiddler on the Roof, transposing the story of a Jewish milkman in pogrom-era Ukraine to a Muslim in the early 20th century Macedonia. “Last Summer” follows the Muslim exodus with the outbreak of the First Balkan War, while “The Last Epic” is set in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Both enliven the large-scale migration of several million Muslims from Southeastern Europe to the Ottoman Empire and Turkey in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Partially filmed in Ukraine, yet another Turkish historically themed TV serial, “Kurt Seyit and Şura,” a story of love between a Crimean Turkish officer and a Russian notable who meet in St. Petersburg, invigorated audiences’ imagination about historical relations and cross-regional exchanges. Corresponding to the shows’ popularity, research into family histories and ethnic and religious origins across Turkey became an interest for many, with remarkable results: it became fashionable to have an Armenian grandmother, and almost everyone acknowledges having an ancestor from the Balkans, as witnessed in the profusion of literature on the topic (Akgün Reference Atıf2016; Çetin Reference Çetin2012; de Waal Reference de Waal2015, 245; İrfan Reference Palalı2005).

The tourism boost also worked the other way around. Many Turks are vacationing in Greece, and especially the island of Lesvos, made famous in yet another TV serial about a Greek–Turkish love story (“Two Shores, One Ismail”). Turks are going for the historical tours, mainly to North Macedonia and Bosnia Herzegovina, where Ottoman architectural heritage was not entirely destroyed, while the Turkish government is engaged in restoring and building other tourist attractions across the Balkans. In addition to economic exchange, increase in educational and cultural connections began in the 2000s. Turkish students are taking up residence in Bosnia Herzegovina and Albania to attend international universities established with Turkish investment (Birnbaum Reference Birnbaum2013). For several decades now, Turkey has been awarding scholarships to students from the Balkans for study in Turkish universities, thus creating cultural representatives in the countries of Southeastern Europe and intensifying regional linkages. The cultural, educational, and, one might even say, emotional focus on the regions with significant Muslim populations such as Bosnia Herzegovina and North Macedonia did not translate to equivalent economic efforts, especially when compared to Turkish commercial investments in Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Bulgaria. Beyond the smaller market size, the precarious political circumstances and bewildering bureaucratic systems impede such development.

Epilogue

“Turkish, but ours” is how the Serbian media announced the revelation of the Bosnian-Albanian family origins of Kıvanç Tatlıtuğ, one of the most prominent Turkish actors (A.L. Reference A2014). Another tabloid excitedly disclosed that there were 9 million Serbs living in Turkey (referring to the descendants of migrants who originated from the Balkans over the long period of Ottoman rule and beyond), and both extolled cultural similarities between the two nations and advised for closer relations between them (Milosavljević Reference Milosavljević2015). However, Serbian historians were tasked with resolving a crisis when, during Sultan Suleiman’s televised campaigns into Hungary in an episode of the “Magnificent Century,” a reference was made to the Hungarian population of Belgrade, the modern capital of Serbia. Historians resolutely criticized the assumption that Belgrade would have non-Serbian inhabitants—a fact incompatible with a national history centered on the perpetuity of only Serbs living in Serbian lands—a homogeneity that was not even achieved through policies of ethnic cleansing and expulsion in the 19th and 20th centuries (Subašić and Mijatović Reference Subašić and Mijatović2012). In juxtaposition, and perhaps building on the popular interests in history, an agreement was made between the Turkish Prime Ministry Ottoman Archive and the Archive of Serbia on sharing the Ottoman archival documents pertaining to Serbia. Such an opportunity could potentially encourage a more intensive scholarly study of Serbian Ottoman past and, hopefully, a shift in popular perceptions of history.

Greek TV productions also examined official historical narratives. One such example was “1821,” a documentary about the Greek Revolution that received praise in the Turkish press for its positive rendering of the Ottoman rule, but was critiqued by the ultranationalists (Moraitis Reference Moraitis2011). A Greek TV comedy drama, “Tamam,” focusing on a Greek–Turkish stepfamily, achieved high ratings since its first airing in 2014. Building on the foundation set by the Turkish shows, “Tamam” questions common stereotypes, introducing the ordinariness of Turkish and Muslim presence in Greece by references to “Greek Muslims” and the normalcy of a headscarf-wearing teenager (Yağcıoğlu Reference Yağcıoğlu2014).

The popularity of Turkish television serials in Bulgaria influenced a reconsideration of Turkey and the Bulgarian Muslim and Turkish populations, including a push toward local production emulating the Turkish serials. Bulgarian film director, Sofia Popgantcheva, who was involved in directing one such historical love story between an Ottoman officer and a Bulgarian rebel in the last years of the Ottoman rule, said: “Thanks to the television series, the Bulgarian people saw how our ‘old enemy’ was so much like ourselves, so close” (Anadolu Agency 2012b).

The popularity of the Turkish TV serials and their new imagery ushered a reconsideration of the shared past and of the otherness of the “local Turks,” that is, the many Muslim communities across Southeastern Europe. It has also introduced a reconsideration of the Turkish national identity that was established in the early Republican period, allowing for the recognition of internal ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity, and an acknowledgment of nuanced, transregional, and multilayered identities. The exchange between Turkey and countries in Southeastern Europe, initiated by seemingly banal television serials, turned out to be the impetus for a much deeper self-examination, often realized in the mirror image of the “other.” While political, economic, and strategic circumstances played a vital role in Turkey’s growing importance as a regional player in Southeastern Europe, it was the Turkish TV serials that challenged the existing stereotypes and negative imagery of the Turk, by offering an awareness of the “other” as a multidimensional human with relatable life aspirations.

The role of media in the development of the “imagined community” (Anderson Reference Anderson1991, 44–46) and the spread of nationalism has shown that there is a need for hesitation in concluding that interconnectedness would inevitably bring about fertile conditions for dialogue and inclusion. In cautiously locating such potential in soap operas, it can be determined that the direct individual engagement through media and, even more remarkable, the absence of a Euro-American quantifier opened up channels for examining shared social histories beyond the aforementioned dichotomies.