Selim Koru

I had a similar thought.

I did the flimsy 3-week military service, but think that it's a good thing overall.
Every young person should have do at least a year of civil or military service.

The Rise and Fall of Turkey's Democrat Party A conversation with historian Reuben Silverman on the 1950s, democratization, and what went wrong

Had a great discussion with @selimkoru.bsky.social and Reuben Silverman about Reuben's new book:

kulturkampftr.substack.com/p/the-rise-a...

I am not an expert on this issue! Just a guy who likes to read about it. Which episode of Turkey book talk? @williamarmstrong.bsky.social does an amazing job with that.

they'd have to arrest a serious chunk of the ruling elite. GDP might go down :)

The decision in South Korea today would not be possible without those people helping their MPs to get to the parliament and stop Yoon from declaring martial law. Their fight mustn't be forgotten.

and you're paying for it

There's a common assumption in Western political thought: republicanism grew out of centuries of nobles and parliaments challenging kings. And that this tradition is unique to the West — that in the Islamic world, rulers were obeyed with religious submission, and self-government was a foreign import

How far we've come: Ukrainians are going to train German soldiers in Germany because they know more about fighting Russians than anyone else on earth

The State as Edgelord TRT's revenge fantasy and the audience that didn't show up

Turkish state TV just aired a scene where an Ottoman prince slaughters Jewish merchants on screen while the Khaybar chant plays in the background. This is new territory — even for TRT. I wrote about what it means, and why almost nobody in Turkey noticed or cared.

ugh, I hope they're not using the new name

yeah, great stage. They also hold their swords like guns. It's a little unsettling.

The "Ottoman constitutionalism" idea is fascinating, and echoes Kaldellis' idea of the Medieval Roman Empire being still a non-dynastic state. Literally the same location (and people).

I'm not 100%, it's just the feeling I had. I looked everywhere I knew to look, and nobody seemed to care about this scene except a handful of pretty extreme people.

this is a very good point. Will think on it

The piece walks through the scene, the symbolism, the online reactions (such as they are), and what this tells us about where Turkish Islamism is headed before 2027.

The scene is designed to break a taboo, and it does. But the really interesting part is the silence. TRT is acting as edgelord — deliberately transgressive, performing to a room that's largely empty. The state wants this to land. It isn't landing.

The State as Edgelord TRT's revenge fantasy and the audience that didn't show up

Turkish state TV just aired a scene where an Ottoman prince slaughters Jewish merchants on screen while the Khaybar chant plays in the background. This is new territory — even for TRT. I wrote about what it means, and why almost nobody in Turkey noticed or cared.

V interesting thread

Discussing the Roots of Turkish Republicanism with Alp Eren Topal We are all kingslayers

@nicholasdanfort.bsky.social and I also invited the author, @alperentopal.bsky.social for a podcast discussion, available here:

Discussing the Roots of Turkish Republicanism with Alp Eren Topal We are all kingslayers

I think it included other subjects (not "citizens" at that time). The author is expanding the book into a full-length English language text. We did a podcast discussion with him here:

Janissary asphyxiating the Little Prince, by the inimitable Selçuk Erdem

The Roots of Turkish Republicanism A new book argues that Turkey’s republican culture goes deeper than we thought

Journalist Fatih Altaylı was jailed partly for saying Turks are a nation that strangled its own sultan. The presidential palace found it threatening. That tells you the memory of the "cumhur" still has power — and they know it.

One key ideologue backed the executive presidency explicitly because it was "closer to the sultanate." Topal's book argues that this reading of Turkish history is wrong on its own terms.

This matters now because Turkey's Islamist movement treats the republic as a Western parenthesis — a detour from the country's "natural" monarchic order.

The difference wasn't the events — it was the historiography. England got a "Glorious Revolution." The Ottomans got cautionary tales. But the janissaries had their own political theology: "We are not prisoners of Sultan Süleyman… we are servants of God alone," wrote the poet Hayretî.

Long before anyone was translating Montesquieu, Ottoman texts used "cumhur" to describe organized crowds confronting the sultan. Six sultans were deposed. Three were killed.

A new Turkish book challenges that idea.

Alp Eren Topal traces the word "cumhur" — the root of Turkey's word for republic — back to 17th-century janissary revolts.

There's a common assumption in Western political thought: republicanism grew out of centuries of nobles and parliaments challenging kings. And that this tradition is unique to the West — that in the Islamic world, rulers were obeyed with religious submission, and self-government was a foreign import

Oh my god I can use python now to do cool stuff with my computer.