ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has always had ambitions of surpassing Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, as the country’s most consequential figure.

Now, a failed coup may allow him finally to do that.

For years, Mr. Erdogan, an Islamist, has celebrated great moments of the Ottoman past when Istanbul was the seat of the Islamic caliphate, and played down Turkey’s secular history established by Ataturk. With last month’s failed coup, he now has his own story, and he has wasted little time propagating his own set of events and symbols to cement the narrative in the national consciousness.

A bridge over the Bosporus that was seized by renegade soldiers has been renamed for the civilians killed there. A square in Ankara, occupied by tanks as the military tried to take power, has been renamed as a symbol of democracy. Numerous street names have been changed to honor those who died defending the government.