THE Ottoman Empire is in vogue in Turkish politics and popular culture. “Magnificent Century”, a 2011 soap opera based on the life of Sultan Süleyman, ran for five seasons and amassed an audience across 47 countries. The country’s foreign policy stance, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan exercising Sultan-esque authority, has grown increasingly aggressive. Yet this nostalgia is short-sighted. The causes of the Ottoman dynasty’s decline—racial tensions and the first world war chief among them—are being ignored; exploring them could provide some much-needed insight into the divisions that plague modern Turkey. The defeat of the Ottoman Empire during the first world war is seen as a forgettable precursor to what transpired from the ashes in 1919: the Turkish War of Independence, which ended with the declaration of the modern republic in 1923. That neglects the relationship between the two; as Ottoman military resources fought on five fronts, independence movements flourished. Military defeat in the war led to the end of the Ottoman Empire; the multiple regional nationalisms it engendered are its lasting legacy.

Yet Turkey’s cultural institutions are not exploring—or even acknowledging—the defeat and its ongoing impact. While ceremonies were held in Yerevan, Armenia on April 24th 2015 to mark the anniversary of the Armenian genocide, Turkey held a centenary event for fallen Anzac and Turkish soldiers in Gallipolli on the same day. This drew negative press; the clash in dates looked like a diverting of global attention from the genocide. Turkey’s ongoing tensions with Kurds, too, are going ignored in centenary events. Promised statehood from Britain upon the Ottomans’ defeat, the Kurds got no such result and their subsequent revolts against Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s new Turkey were suppressed for decades. As today’s clashes with Kurds in the South-East and its disputed Armenian genocide shows, Turkey’s past intrudes upon its present. The lacklustre institutional and public interest in the period only serves to prolong this jarring disconnect.

The only Ottoman imagery permitted in the national consciousness is that which suggests martial strength, Islamic values and imperial heritage. In February 2015, the remains of Suleyman Shah (the grandfather of Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire) were repatriated from Syria: officials stated that it was essential to protecting national history. Earlier this month, two new suspension bridges were named after Ottoman sultans, and plans to erect a shopping arcade in the style of Ottoman barracks continue to shadow Istanbul’s Gezi Park. This May, Mr Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim celebrated the 563rd anniversary of the Conquest of Istanbul (also known as the Fall of Constantinople)—when Ottomans took the city for their capital, effectively turning the centre of Eastern Roman Christianity into the centre of Islam. Festivities included a giant mock castle wall emblazoned with the words “Revived, Rising”. It rather overshadowed 19 May Youth and Sports Day, established by Ataturk as a celebration of secularity and republicanism. In choosing to spotlight an Islamic-imperial milestone, the government signalled their new national priorities: making Islam the centrepiece of Turkish politics, increasing their influence in previously Ottoman regions of the Middle East, and seeking a presidential system that emulates a Sultanate.

Ottomania abounds, but the lessons of the Empire’s last war are yet to be learnt. The Military Museum in Istanbul’s centenary exhibition, “The First World War”, featured photographs, uniforms, artefacts, weapons and domestic objects—but was as imaginative as its title suggests. Many of the items were evocative, from the soldiers’ standard issue bread and pocket Korans to Ataturk’s prisoner-of-war cap. Never-before-seen photos were released from army archives, revealing British Sikh captives at Çanakkale and Ottoman boy soldiers at hand grenade practice. But their captions stuck to dates and names, giving little suggestion of defeat or what these remnants might symbolise today. A shallow bit of curation for a well-endowed museum on any day: as a centenary event, a wasted opportunity to paint a balanced picture of both the imperial origins of Turkey’s ethnic tensions, and how Allied strategy provided the decisive spark for nationalism.

“Propaganda and War: The Allied Front During the First World War”, an exhibition at Koç University last year, had the most discerning approach. Through everyday objects, adorned with slogans and imagery praising the Central Powers, visitors were reminded that propaganda infiltrates ordinary lives. Accompanying text drew useful parallels between the martial imagery of the period and its form in the Turkish nationalism of following decades, where the military are poised as caretakers of a secular Turkey. This propaganda was useful in garnering public support during Turkey’s 1960, 1971 and 1980 military coups. Its rhetoric has been recycled for today, too: Mr Erdogan frequently frames his ongoing power struggle with Fetullah Gülen, an Islamist cleric, as a battle between the sovereign nation and the enemy forces within. The show was a welcome example of a centenary exhibition with contemporary relevance—but it rarely saw visitors.

Given the recent failed coup attempt and its charged political aftermath, culture is likely to be at the bottom of the Turkish agenda for a while. Any centenary commissions that are put on until 2018 are likely to remain firmly within the ruling party’s Ottoman stylings. By focusing on some glorious long-gone past, Turkey’s cultural centres do nothing to explain why the country’s inhabitants find themselves searingly polarised.