As a Muslim in the majority Orthodox Christian country of North Macedonia, which sits at the heart of a region that has been torn apart by religious and ethnic strife, the woman’s fear of the “infidel” is perhaps understandable. The memory of the wars that accompanied the break-up of Yugoslavia and the Srebrenica genocide of Bosniak Muslims still haunts the Balkans and beyond. However, the pastry seller’s admiration for Turkey’s president is not just about fear of the other. It arguably has as much to do with Ankara’s foreign policy and the mobilization of Ottoman nostalgia — a mobilization that long predates the rise of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).
In her memorable “Ottoman Odyssey: Travels Through a Lost Empire,” Alev Scott writes, “Muslims in the Balkans are aware of their Ottoman heritage and already identify with Turkey — there is a ghost empire here ripe for the taking and it just needs to be brought to life.” As any historian will attest, just how the Ottoman spirit has been summoned lies in its past; in this case, the empire’s corporeal life and eventual death offers clues about the rise of neo-Ottomanism today.
