Worlds collide in Constantinople-Istanbul

People walk past a sign featuring Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after he was declared the run-off election winner, in Istanbul, on Monday. [Hannah McKay/Reuters]

Five hundred and seventy years after the Fall of Constantinople, Recep Tayyip Erdogan chose the Hagia Sophia to celebrate the anniversary and his own victory in Sunday's elections. "Allah willing, we see this election as the gateway to the next century of Turkey and it will go down in history as such a turning point," as that of the Conquest, he declared on Sunday.

With the Turkish Republic celebrating its centenary this year, and after 20 years in power, Erdogan feels that his country's fate is one and the same with his fantasy of an Ottoman imperial revival. The most majestic church of Eastern Christendom is a useful symbol for the clash of two worlds, where the fall of one is the conquest of the other, allowing Erdogan to appear to dominate the past, present and future. The legitimacy which elections bestow, like the fawning, tolerance or even admiration of foreign...

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