Markers of self-identities for young Polish diasporic female viewers of The Magnificent Century (Turkish TV series,2011–2014)

Introduction

In my contribution, I examine why young women in the Polish diaspora are consuming a Turkish historical drama series called The Magnificent Century (Muhtesem Yuzyıl, 2011-2014) and reading it against their experiences of an oppressive gender regime. Interviewees witnessed many times an anti-LGBT+ or homophobic rhetoric by the Polish government or religious figures. As we will examine more fully later, this political and religious rhetoric often targets women and their social rights. This qualitative inquiry conducted in Vienna was situated within the theoretical framework of the early 1980s, studying popular culture as a political act (Hermes and Teurlings, 2021). By researching a subgroup of popular culture consumers, I engaged with social power relations by considering viewers’ perspective rather than that of popular culture’s critics (Hermes, 2010). This series was purposefully selected to be used as a stimulus due to its topicality, in the hopes that it would stimulate debate on female identities. The reason I am focusing on the young Polish diasporic audience for an identity examination is the antagonist female character Hürrem, considered as being either Polish, Ukrainian or Russian. In the series, she was given a Russian identity to be portrayed as a slave girl abducted by Tatars to be offered to the Ottoman Harem. Within the Ottoman state system, treating its subjects differently than European empires, she became a legendary Ottoman Sultana. The audience’s interest in that content counters former post-colonial mindsets that painted the East as inferior and suggests narrative and aesthetic pleasures that are potentially intertwined with political shifts. Furthermore, conducting this research in Vienna is thought-provoking as the Ottoman, the Austro-Hungarian and the Russian empires were eternal enemies who fought until their collapse in 1918 to share what belongs to Poland and Ukraine today.

Circulation of The Magnificent Century has shifted from Turkish national television to digital platforms, making it part of the digital ‘living archive’ (Hoskins, 2014). This marks new contours of changing circulation, distribution and exhibition practices of international TV markets globally. The Magnificent Century was broadcast in October 2014 on a daily, daytime basis on TVP1, the main private television channel of Poland. Due to the series’ popularity, it was subsequently moved to primetime on a more prestigious public channel, TVP. After the first episode, the interviewees preferred watching the series with its original audio and English subtitles on YouTube. As I learnt from interviewees, the series was in circulation again on Polish TV schedules as of 2021. The initial success of The Magnificent Century in Poland inspired Polish producers to film a historical TV drama series called Korona Kurólów (English: The Crown of the Kings, 2018). The series aired on TVP1 for four seasons, with 400 episodes of half an hour length. Such an occurrence indicates the presence of neo-liberal multiculturalism and the triumph of global capitalism in global TV business relations, as well as the dichotomy of core-centre/periphery losing ground as global tastes emerge from hybrid zones in the field of television programmes (Pieterse, 2009).

Personal characteristics are markers people may draw on to define themselves and their positions in society. To date, there has been limited research based on Turkish series consumption as markers of identities among European viewers. This lack of scholarship further underlines the inspirational significance of this study, in which the markers are unpacked in relation to self-perception of the young Polish diaspora. Identity is understood in this study as ‘differently constituted and more overtly political in a diasporic context’ (Story and Walker, 2016: 138). It has been argued that, in diasporic contexts, ‘the markers of identity often draw attention to a connection with a place that is distant in time or space’, and ‘might be curated differently at home and abroad, leading over time to a divergence in expressions of belonging’ (Story and Walker, 2016: 137). The findings of this study suggest three types of markers with which identities may be inscribed: (1) physical marker: resemblance to Harem beauties; (2) cultural marker: linguistic and cultural practice as resemblance of the musicality, intonation and accent of old Turkish in comparison to the Polish language; (3) social marker: the ways in which female identity is marked by social practices and values.

The selection of the Polish nationality in specific was prompted by a conversation I had with an acquaintance, who mentioned a Polish university student taking a private Turkish course in Vienna as a consequence of her Turkish drama series consumption. Thus, I contacted the first interviewee and used the ‘snowball method’ to generate further contacts (Lamnek, 2005). I delimited the corpus of the study with young Polish viewers who moved to Vienna for mainly educational purposes in the last decade. As young individuals, they are considered ‘not mature’, their comments and interpretations reflect crucially upon young people in the period of early adulthood, a critical stage of identity formation (Kroger et al., 2010).

The magnificent century

The interviewees watched the entire duration of The Magnificent Century at least twice or more, which amounts to more than 300 hours of content. Although fictional, this riveting series indicates acquiescence with patriarchal rules. It is centred around the 10th Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent (r.1520–1566), known in the West as Soliman le Magnifique or Suleiman der Prächtige, in the East as Kanuni, that is, the Lawmaker. The leading female antagonist character, Hürrem Sultana, is a real-life historical figure who challenged gender norms, patriarchal rules and is seen to be inspiring for young women. For readers unfamiliar with Poland’s history, the communist era (1945–1989) started after the Second World War. Late communist and post-communist times followed, spanning from 1980 to 2013. Following the official end of the communist era, the Catholic religion gained a stronghold. Today, it is noted that ‘the Polish landscape has been filled with diverse religious objects and forms (churches, crosses, monuments, public processions, annual festivals and rural and urban nomenclature) associated chiefly with the Roman Catholic Church, the dominant denomination in the country’ (Przybylska and Czepczyński, 2017). The church’s power and imposition has generally increased in the last decades in Poland, similar to the popularity of Islam in Turkey. Both countries exhibit the ‘characteristic of twenty-first century politics using ethnic or religious identity in political discourse’ (Eriksen, 2010: 287).

A Turkish series is locally referred to as dizi, a ‘genre in progress’, with unique narratives, use of space and musical scores (Öztürkmen, 2019). Defined by the interviewees as ‘artistic, glamorous and expensive studio work’, The Magnificent Century series strove to immerse viewers in the historical setting of the 16th-century Ottoman empire with Harem politics, palace intrigues, Hammam (Ottoman-style bathroom consoles) ceremonies and legendary field battles between Ottomans and Christians who fought with ferocity against one another, eye for an eye and tooth for tooth on both land and sea.

The series was directly inspired by the internationally acclaimed historical dramas The Borgias (2011–2013) and The Tudors (2007–2010). The parallels seen in the plots, storylines, products used for advertisements in global TV fairs, and the portrayal of characters facilitated the promotion of The Magnificent Century (Veyisoglu, 2019: 31). The Magnificent Century is certainly a historical drama, but it could be also described as a heritage drama, sensational drama, costume drama, wardrobe drama or Harem drama. ‘Historical dramas are largely judged by reference to audience and commercial considerations and not conformity to historical standards as storylines involve considerable amounts of fiction designed to sex-up history’ (Beck, 2012: 184). As such, The Magnificent Century portrays the ‘considerable power that comes from history’ (Beck, 2012: 175). Mainly, the series tracks the Harem and the Ottoman court throughout a familial saga and dynasty politics, featuring important Ottoman Muslim, Christian and Jewish figures. To cite a few: Alvise Gritti, a Venetian politician who was influential in the Hungarian Kingdom and regent of Hungary from 1530 to 1534; Tahmasp I, the second Shah of the Safavid dynasty; Pope Clement VII; Francis I, King of France; Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria); and additional Jewish merchant characters who were welcomed into the Ottoman Empire at that time. The male characters popular among female viewers played various roles of people very close to the Sultan, such as his sons, relatives, advisors, grand advisors, Janissaries, ambassadors, tradesmen, servants and slaves. The empire was multi-ethnic and multi-lingual with various religious communities that coexisted for centuries within the same society while preserving their separate, corporate identities (Mango, 1999). Fictional characters included Albanian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Greek, Bosnian, Persian, Russian, Jewish, Georgian and Greek or Eastern Orthodox Christian and Armenian Gregorian people, to name a few.

Harem women

From their day of arrival into Ottoman territory, Harem women’s long journey commences. Their ethnic identities are sometimes unclear, as this was either not clearly documented or purposefully hidden. Their country of origin could be anywhere from Europe to central Asia, Russia, Poland or Ukraine as the national borders in the 16th century were transgressed. Most strikingly, the series has successfully portrayed Harem women who would usually be simply shown as young, beautiful, sexy women as smart and intriguing experts of many different disciplines. These female protagonists are all young, conventionally attractive and markedly heterosexual, mainly having relations with the Sultan. The female characters who do not fit into the young age category are glorified for other values and characteristics such as loyalty, self-sacrifice, motherhood, dignity, integrity, morality, or as a fully devoted slave. Once a few Harem women are selected for the Sultan, they fight like warriors for the most powerful man, the notably virile and sexually active handsome Sultan, who is seen to be a ‘good catch’. Violent verbal quarrels, challenges and insults between Harem women were part of their daily routine; their deadly rivalry caused by their obligation to provide and protect their princes’ claim to the throne.

To briefly explain a note on Ottoman history: none of these women were Turks, as no Muslim could be made a slave under the Ottoman Empire. In the Ottoman state tradition, ‘as open succession became an acknowledged custom so did the practice of fratricide’ (Peirce, 1993: 44). The Ottoman tradition relied on concubinage along with legal marriage to power ‘the politics of reproduction’, meaning that these slave women were recognised socially as wives. In the case of legal marriages, they would have been suspected to have vested interests in their own families’ affairs (Peirce, 1993: 30–31). As the series showed, power was completely centralised, and this system was biased against bourgeoisie and privileged families, much unlike European empires. Moreover, Harem women had crucial roles in the state system because they acted as political advisors to the Sultan and their own daughters, as they had to marry their daughters to men within the palace with the most promising careers. Therefore, the Harem represented much more than the simple visualisation of sexual politics; it was also a domestic place reserved for women.

Harem women’s learning of the new host culture, language, religion, customs, norms and values at the harem court could be fatal when put into practice. During their struggle of the adaptation period and afterwards, they observed and practised Harem rules and intrigues through trial and error method. Understandably, they wanted to survive in this multicultural, multinational and multilingual space that did not offer a comfort zone for anyone, including the Sultan himself. Each and every single person’s life was in danger. Of course, all women who came there quite understandably wished to be treated well, be respected and achieve a higher position than a slave girl completing domestic work in the palace. If they desired and were ambitious enough to challenge death and climb to the top, they might one day attain the Mother Queen status, the highest rank of the Harem. The social structure of the Ottoman Harem at Topkapı palace, a place for Harem women selected for a rank above being a maid works as follows (in ascending order): simple concubines, bedded concubines (gözdes), childless concubines of non-haseki rank, concubines of non-haseki rank who are mothers of children, imperial princesses or daughters of the Sultan and Sultana, haseki Sultana and Mother queen (Peirce, 1993). Understanding this female ranking is important to understanding the status quo of that time. Now we will turn to Hürrem, a character who reached the top position of Mother Queen.

Hürrem Sultana

Hürrem is believed by the interviewees to have been an Orthodox Christian from modern-day Poland or Ukraine, although the series assigned her a Russian identity. This was a rather strategic decision that resulted in enormous benefits for the series considering the current war between Russia and Ukraine. Hürrem, in her strategic thinking, first became Muslim like many girls who aspire to the highest rank. After making the Sultan fall in love with her, she requested her freedom from Suleiman. Once she got her free woman status, he was obliged to marry her. The Islamic sharia laws of the 16th century Ottoman empire did not allow a Muslim woman to live together with a man outside of a legal marriage. Of course, the plan of achieving official marriage as an unprecedented female act was demonised by Ottoman society at that time, at least this is how fictional stories showed it to viewers. Hürrem broke the traditions, and her paradoxical acquisition of power was perceived as a compromise to the Sultan’s authority (Peirce, 1993). Historians commented that ‘the Ottoman Empire was a state of status quo and this type of change of a tradition was not a desirable thing’ (Peirce, 1993: 61). The series adopted this historical perspective and successfully transmitted the ‘empiricist and classical realism’ to viewers through melodramatic imagination (Ang, 1985: 45). By using the language of choice, empowerment and authority, as well as disregarding the ways in which rivalry and female positions of privilege have a concrete impact on the variety of choices available to her, Hürrem challenged an unjust system in the name of feminine identity.

For this reason, it would not be wrong to say that Hürrem wrote her own legacy, which provided her an indelible place in collective Turkish memory. Collective memory can be constructed, shared and passed from social groups to nations, generations and other communities (Halbwachs, 1992). This is how she earned her well-deserved historic title as ‘the first Empress of the East’ (Peirce, 1993). The historical Hürrem Sultana is present in world museums today, together with Sultan Suleiman for instance at the Musée d'Histoire de Marseille (MHM) in France. This is due to the alliance established in 1536 between King Francis I of France and Sultan Suleiman. Hürrem is also present at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, presented as Sultan Suleiman’s concubine. Hürrem’s story mythologises how an ordinary slave girl can achieve the extraordinary, dazzling persona of a historical figure with immense political power, an identity construction of an exemplary Sultana. Hürrem does not represent the unattainable, unrealistic beauty ideal, but a captivating intelligence.

Hürrem is an identity project that aligns with literature that argues for the impossibility of a true identity (Giddens, 1991). When she did immoral things like poisoning her rivals who were once her friends, sacrificing her best servants for her secret affairs and ordering crimes, she was not deglamorised. She is neither pure heroine nor is she condemned as an unethical whore figure. She is the object of admiration and respect, but also of hate. ‘Hürrem is not Cinderella, she has blood on her hands’, Interviewee 9 said. Young media consumers enjoyed watching the series many times, as they could experience another female identity construction or self-identification experience each time that stretched beyond the traditional portrayal of the female gender as being graceful, delicate, soft and obedient that constructs a female figure as passive and universally oppressed.

Theoretical framework

This study acknowledges the intrinsic plurality of the ways in which feminism can be practised and theorised in the 21st century within digital media and in various socio-political contexts. The literature on diasporic female audiences has observed that the values and beliefs associated with subgroups underscores the role of popular culture and media as sites of feminism and (subversive) feminist struggle, ranging from celebrity feminism to neo-liberal and post-feminism (Rottenberg, 2017). Paradoxically, the study’s reflected female perspective on patriarchal values diverged from a Muslim country contributes to the scholarship which challenges the West-centric normative mainstream feminist models and provides a space for a diversity of voices and feminist positions (Tlostanova, 2017). By taking into account the viewers’ understanding of female gender in this series, this study is aimed at bridging a gap in empirical and theoretical understanding of feminism between various academic traditions such as Anglo-American, post-Socialist, postcolonial and Islamist. Through diversification of the feminist movement and fragmentation of feminist academic networks, this study contributes to the paradigm within the neoliberal digital economy, allowing for complex transnational feminist connections.

From the findings of this study, we can see that a liberal feminist approach has emerged. The female heroine Hürrem could succeed because she first got access to education, after which she could claim her legal and political rights. The interviewees criticised the lack of multiracial sisterhood among women that could have created a female solidarity in the Harem. This finding highlights the importance of ‘social context of media use’ as the parameters of qualitative empirical audience study of the 1990s argued (Hermes, 2010). The interviewees have experienced a change in their social environment, facing the challenges of making new friends and new connections in a foreign country as young adults. According to recent surveys, although Austria ranks high in quality of living, the country was voted as one of worst countries in welcoming foreign residents (Previdelli, 2022). Through interviewees’ discussion of contact with distant people living in Poland and places in that country, diasporic identities are reworked over time in order to sustain a link with a ‘remembered homeland’ and to reimagine that link for contemporary purposes; it is this sustained connection with a distant place, whether real or imagined, whether expressed through traces of language, artefacts, or DNA, that activate the markers of identities (Story and Walker, 2016: 136).

Furthermore, in line with existing literature on female audiences and real-life events, as seen in the series Dallas, ‘life is presented as inherently problematic; unhappiness is the norm and the rule and not the exception and this is the core of the tragic structure of feeling’ (Ang, 1985: 122). The Magnificent Century covers ‘mythic realism whereby viewers see the texts to embody “deeper truths”’ (Barker, 1999: 91). This ‘mythic realism’ also facilitates considerable emotional identification and emotional involvement with the characters, involving identification with and distance from the characters simultaneously (Aston and Harris, 2006). As Barker (1999) argues, television programmes broadcast across geographical boundaries greatly contribute to the construction of rich and complex hybrid and diasporic identities.

From the communication theory of identity, there are four frames of identity: personal (self-perception), enacted (self-expression), relational (social interaction) and communal (group analysis) (Hecht et al., 2002). The interviewees define their personal identity (self-perception) as atheist, secular, young, feminist, future oriented, prospective Austrian citizens, university students, Polish/European, multicultural and open to global culture(s) (Hecht et al., 2002). Identities are not a given product of a social system, they are open to change and construction; they don’t have a fixed modus which the individual can simply adopt, they are actively created by the persons partly through consumption practices (Giddens, 1991).

Methodology

The Austrian capital city Vienna, the primary place of residence of both the researcher and the interviewees, is the place where all research was conducted. Although all informants fall under the category of diasporic audiences, I visited the capital Warsaw, Krakow and met two of the interviewees in their native villages, in close proximity to these two cities, to improve my knowledge of Polish culture. Therefore, I propose to present my work as ‘ethnographically inspired’. During my short visit, I visited national, historical and city museums to address my lack of cultural knowledge on Polish history and some historic places such as the Jewish ghettos. Although limited in time, this visit made me realise the importance of having some a priori knowledge on the interviewees, such as where they come from, where they live, what their backgrounds are and what their collective memory is. During this visit, we spoke in an informal way about the series. I also gained perspective on their ideas about Poland’s neighbouring countries: which nations do they feel closer to or distant from, and who were friends or foes and why? I also wanted to realise to what extent it might be a struggle for these young people to express their emotions, feelings, thoughts and prejudices in German when it comes to complex issues and political events, including when they try to explain to a foreigner/researcher which past events affect their current thinking. During the process of self-reflexivity, I discovered that the theme of identity is made of a cluster of several related issues and subthemes. Consequently, I collected my findings around the identity issue and emphasised cultural particularities.

A semi-structured interview was the most suitable method for studying viewers’ perceptions and opinions (Barriball and White, 1994). However, it was not conducted immediately after the viewing experience, but some months or years afterwards. Despite this time lapse, the interviewees were more involved in the series due to already having a priori interest in cultures and languages. The interviews were recorded and spanned from half an hour to 1 hour due to the slow flow of conversation in a foreign language. All interviews were conducted in German and the process of transcription included translation. To protect the privacy and identity of the interviewees, each of them were assigned numbers to make them anonymous. A sample of nine Polish nationals were recruited: seven of them were aged 18–20 years, one 24 and one 29 years old. The last four interviewees were reached via the Polish culture centre in Vienna.

I should acknowledge that the empirical findings described in this article cannot be regarded as representative of Polish identities in general; nor should it be assumed that the interviewees speak for the entire female Polish diaspora regarding their reception of Turkish dramas. Of course, their daily consumption of that content could also indicate an escape from negativity for the day or avoiding exhaustion, such as a workload surge for instance (Georgiou, 2012). However, as a cultural product the interviewees considered this content to be very positive, personal, entertaining, motivating, new and intellectual in its essence owing to the current political situation in Poland.

Social context in Poland

The main motivation behind interviewees’ aspiration to travel and live abroad is the product of a public context suffocated by religiously guided political discourse. A controversial court ruling was commonly mentioned by interviewees, as it imposed a near-total ban on abortion in Poland in 2021. This was considered by interviewees as ‘the last drop’. Two interviewees participated in the massive protest in Warsaw organised in 2022 against the abortion law which already cost the life of a young mother at the time. Two of them officially left the church, although they are still Catholic in their hearts. The religious values imposed by the Catholic church obliged Polish citizens to pay more money to the church than they desired and the only way to stop paying church taxes is to leave the church, interviewees elaborated further.

I was also informed by interviewees about a highly debated project titled ‘Virtues of women’ announced in July 2021 by the Polish government. In a nutshell, the family issues are extremely important for the Polish government, which believes the Polish family is under attack by liberal values. This instance in Poland is part of a general trend of ‘crisis’ seen not only in Poland, but also across the whole of Europe and the rest of the world (www.edziecko.pl). In doing this, state authorities emphasise the importance of the classical, patriotic, historical and environmental education canon to modern Polish identity (www.edziecko.pl). According to another source, tvn24.pl, ‘the proper education of women and strengthening girls to become virtuous women is their priority’ (Suchecka, 2021). As a third source, the German Bild der Frau examines some outcomes of such ‘educational policies’ by using the example of a school in Gdańsk (Danzig) in Poland that started requiring ‘a modest dress code for girls’ so that ‘girls do not seduce the boys at school with visual stimuli’ – suggesting that boys are thus prevented from misbehaving in advance due to the girls’ dress code (Klemmer, 2021).

This politically infused discussion about young girls has psychologically affected the interviewees of this study. During their time living outside of their home country, they distanced themselves from the heart of this political discussion and Poland as a nation while utilising their opposition to that discourse to build an ‘imagined community’ characterised by a shared sense of belonging and a ‘deep, horizontal comradeship’ (Anderson, 2006 [1983]: 7). Situated between Eastern and Western Europe, Vienna is considered by them to be a rich and international city compared to Krakow, Warsaw, and other surrounding Polish cities or villages. These city-based differences in terms of audience backgrounds and their actual situatedness to rural environments, infrastructure, skills and access were a priori conditions given that there are not a lot of similarities between Polish and Turkish cultures. This is the socio-political context within which interviewees negotiate gendered representations that entangle feminist and anti-feminist ideas (Gill, 2007).

Identification with Harem women

I was given the following example as an instance of a physical marker of self-identities with Harem women. Interviewee 1 was asked by her Polish high school teacher if she has Turkish origins as she described her; ‘a girl with a white skin and dark hair, characteristic face traits, not petite or tall’. During the interview, I heard a prideful tone in the voice of Interviewee 1 in reference to her ‘self-identification’ (Giddens, 1991). This association with Harem beauties was perceived by her as a desirable, intelligent feminine identity as her following statement illustrates: ‘apparently my teacher also watched the series as she saw in me one of these Harem women rather than a Polish girl’.

The following quote from Interviewee 2 (a 19-year-old university student), who was very engaged with the series, is further exemplary of interviewees’ general ideas about Harem women:

They do not have families, they do not share anything with them, they have no relatives to talk to, they are always slaves on holidays or any special day. Their new family is now the big Harem system, they have no rights here, just sex with Suleiman. These women were able to study at the palace school, which was a great chance for that time. The life of these Harem women works like a roulette, on the one hand they can have a lot, on the other hand they can be mistreated. They could not leave the Harem, they owned a house, clothes, jewellery, they were not on the street, they had the right to a better life in the Harem. The mentality at that time was that women should always be beautiful, have beautiful things, dresses from beautiful fabrics, there was stability in their lives, this is good for them if she is a woman from the street, peasant or poor because your class is rising, you have clothes, you have income, but if you are like Mahidevran, who was noble, this may be very difficult for you.

Through identification with Harem women, Interviewee 3 made connections between Harem women’s lived experiences and female problems that persist in a modern lifestyle:

I think this is really interesting that Harem women were later retired and married. Since there were no men in front of those women until that time, they appreciated and were happy when they got married. Their husbands were not chosen randomly, they are found by someone who has been researched through an intermediary, especially if their husbands treat them well. Now, many people might come in front of women, however, they don’t appreciate it because women could meet or marry many different people.

When I asked the interviewees what they learnt in school about 16th-century Ottomans, I expected to hear about some historical knowledge that would indicate ‘ideological uses of the past to glorify the Polish nation and its victory over Ottomans, as I have learnt that sixteenth century Poland is seen to be the country’s golden age’ (Eriksen, 2010: 287). Furthermore, as young adults, their national education acquisitions are fresher and newer than the rest of the population. To my surprise, interviewees’ cultural cache about that period is focused upon learnt kinship relations with Ottomans. As with these two university students, interviewees repeatedly emphasised: ‘yes they did wars but also did many business and commerce in that time’ (Interviewee 4). Interviewee 5 spoke similarly about the renewed commercial relationships between Turkey and Poland that led to better trade agreements.

In the absence of a shared cultural past, heritage and religion between Poles and Turks (with the exception of some commercial relationships), what should be considered when researching their markers of self-identities? To learn this, I asked interviewees what they see as resembling the current situation in Poland within this series. Interviewee 1 explained it as follows:

There used to be a very wealthy Jewish group in Poland. The country was not racist, but Jews did not have as many social rights as Poles. Despite doing the same jobs, Jews were hitting a wall of social inequality. There were social status and class differences between Poles and Jews. There are similar depictions of different peoples in this series. At that time, the Ottomans and Poles had strong and developed trade relations, the societies were the same, there was no difference in religion; a very strong belief in both religions, one God, similar values, family, position and prestige in the society, respect, being virtuous, being a good person are important, people had virtues.

As this study was developed in the context of today’s political situation, the topic of war in Ukraine came up automatically in discussion despite interviewees not being asked about this issue. Interviewees clearly expressed ideas that Ukrainians are natural friends and Russians are the enemy. ‘It was always like this and it will always remain like this’, Interviewee 8 commented further. However, Interviewee 8 also criticised the Ukrainians who moved to Vienna who do not like the Austrians now, thinking that they are racist, distant, and cold. On the other hand, when it comes to health issues including medical treatment, surgery or other technological things, then Ukrainians say ‘well, it’s okay here (meaning Vienna)’.

When I asked them, with whom they identify themselves most, all interviewees felt close but also distant to Harem women and to Hürrem who is not an identificatory figure for her contemporaries, although they all appreciate her. As Interviewee 4 explained it,

Mahidevran is impulsive and silly in character. Hürrem is aggressive as a character. I do not identify myself with anyone, if I were in their place, I would not kill anyone and act in partnership with other women. I do not find this aggression of women in the Harem as a feminist approach. I believe that there should be a common women's movement, they should have cooperated, and created solidarity among themselves.

Although the patriarchy locked women in the Harem institution by adhering to the frameworks of reproduction politics, and foreclosed the possibility of an ethics of solidarity necessary for a feminist movement that might produce political transformation within the Harem, single efforts of individuals like Hürrem succeeded. Interviewees observe the high importance placed on children and guaranteeing their protection to be ‘a feminist act’. Interviewee 5 explained that even if Hürrem had a share in the execution of Suleiman’s son Mustafa from Mahidevran, Mustafa was a man when it happened. Had he been a child, Interviewee 5 continued, she would not have done this. Another feminist marker is Harem women’s sense of loyalty: loyalty to Suleiman, to children, to family, to the state. During the flow of conversation, Interviewee 6 mentioned Cinderella as a semi-feminist character of comparison. Interviewee 6 commented,

Cinderella was free, she could choose, the Harem women did not have such a chance. Hürrem is in love with Suleiman with Stockholm syndrome. It wasn't love at first sight, she saw a possibility when she was taken there for the first time. Islam didn't play a big role but without Islam her plan wouldn't progress, you can’t get out of that system.

Interviewee 6 interpreted Hürrem’s love for Suleiman like Stockholm syndrome, meaning that she saw her as a victim of her abuser. She further added that, in the absence of romantic (heterosexual) love, marriage, children and family members, the atmosphere would be good for lesbians in the Harem, however, the series did not show any presence of lesbian affairs. The presence of Harem women’s loneliness was heartbreaking. Many of the obstacles Hürrem faced in the Harem were created by other women loyal to Suleiman, the state, their own sons or other family members. Due to her ‘Stockholm syndrome’, as labelled by interviewees, Hürrem did not confront an affective dissonance or discrepancy between her expectations that were shaped by dominant ideological formations in the Harem and her individual affective responses to such formations. By using her feminine power and self-coherence, she used her new identity to transform into a ‘woman who has it all’ (Sandberg, 2013: 121). To reference Sandberg (2013) who argues that ‘having it all’ is best regarded as a myth, ‘an ideological structure that has a complex relationship with real-life experience’ and ‘the greatest trap ever set for women’, this ‘having it all’ was successful in Hürrem’s case and popular culture portrayed it brilliantly (p. 121). Moreover, Hürrem’s ring, earrings, crown, and other women’s and men’s jewellery were heavily promoted by the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul to the world.

By using her self-help manual, Hürrem wrote her own ‘feminist manifesto’ (Sandberg, 2013: 9). She gained access to leading Sultana positions in fields traditionally dominated by men. Hürrem successfully combined the ‘aesthetic structure of affective expectation’ by being beautiful and charming with the political structure of affective expectation as she learnt the inner workings of the state system, status quo, language, religion, traditions, mentality and literature. The discrepancy between her experience of being in the Harem world and the models of identity and positionality provided by dominant discourses of being a slave, maid and concubine, thus created a dissonance in her that triggered a desire to influence political discourse and mobilisation. However, her mode of processing the experience of affective dissonance indicates her commitment to the neoliberal status quo of that time. Hürrem achieved Sultana status, esteem, political power and acquired individual happiness despite the limits of the Harem’s ideological and political parameters. Hürrem’s feminist rhetoric echoed throughout the Harem when she said ‘I will rule the world’, supporting neoliberal thought when she was intricately intertwined with neoliberal political structures.

Linguistic and social markers of identities

The Polish TV market has a special system known as ‘the lektor system’, meaning that a voice overlaps the sound of film. The lektor person, who is formally called a ‘voice artist’, is the voice-over or dubbed-over, acting as a sort of audiovisual translator (Kajzer-Wietrzny and Tymczyńska, 2015: 344). The interviewees wanted to be more involved in the story, opting to watch the series in Turkish on YouTube. This decision motivated interviewees to learn Turkish, and all claimed to have learned Turkish words and phrases while watching the series.

The music, literature and poetry, also called ‘Ottoman Divan poetry’, was little known outside of contemporary Turkey before the global expansion of Turkish drama series. In this style of poetry, cited occasionally by the Sultan himself, his Viziers or Grand Viziers, poets and artists of that time declared love and affection towards Harem women. Extensive use of Arabic and Persian words is present in this poetry, marking the language as vastly different from contemporary Turkish. During its time of use, knowledge of this form of literary Turkish was largely limited to the educated classes. Interviewees heard this version of Turkish, a musical language that lasted as a poetic tradition for 700 years, for the first time in a TV series.

All interviewees agreed that the Turkish and Polish words cited in the poems, kind declarations of love and intimacy, have worked in perfect harmony and congruence with Ottoman Turkish music tradition. As such, music is a key element of the appeal of the series. Highlighting historic and contemporary Turkish’s musicality, tone and accent is essential as the interviewees attribute meanings and significance to the foreign words under the influence of an extradiegetic soundtrack that the characters cannot hear. Similar to North American soap operas, the music was a key part of the show’s ‘serious’ emotional register as it tended to move between an extradiegetic soundtrack, which the characters ‘can’t hear’, and intradiegetic music performed and experienced by the main characters (Aston and Harris, 2006: 50).

Interviewee 3 explained her use of the series as a marker of linguistic and cultural marker of her self-identity as below:

There are poetry, romantic thoughts, words, platonic, sad but beautiful words in the nature of the Polish people. Since history is always a subjective thing, people learn about the subjectivity of others from this series. Polish is a romantic language, so Suleiman’s or other men’s romantic words, their intonation reminded me of Polish. When Suleiman spoke to Mahidevran (the first woman dethroned by Hürrem) at first, his words were long and melodious but after that his love ended, his words became short, without intonation, shorter than pathetic, and his tone was harsh. There was a change from longer words to shorter words.

All interviewees said that religion currently means less to them then than when they were younger, which suggested an overall decreasing interest in religion. These continuities also indicated their curiosity and uncritical acquiescence to fictional Islam. Secular identity should be understood here as a construction process. It is not inherited, it is a creation that minimises the note of religion and the rejection of an assumed religious Polish identity (Hall, 1991: 21). Interviewees’ collective identity and the political national context of Poland made them refuse a facile, unitary identification with Christianity within the series. Instead, it evoked curiosity and a critical approach. Seeing that, in the series, Muslims are not obliged to pay tax services to the religious affairs or mosques to practise or to be buried in the graveyard, interviewees interpreted Islam as more tolerant than Christianity. Interestingly, the interviewees appreciated the religious forbidding of not eating pork in Islam similar to in Judaism. Their youth identities also imply a vegan or half vegan identity conceptualised as part of social identity, reflective of identity projects and life values. They also observed many issues pertaining to self-care and self-cleaning issues:

The bathroom is a new concept, so is the hammam. There was no toilet in Poland at that time. They bought medicine, shampoo, wax, hygiene, and many things from the East.

Concluding remarks

With a focus on trans-regional flows, the identity issues, popular culture, shifting notions of popular sovereignty, and the endurance of the diaspora, the sub-themes of identity categories are explored. One strand of research in this theme focuses on how and under what structural, historical and economic conditions the domain of the ‘popular’ functions as a rich site of identity struggles. The interviewees moved to Vienna hoping for a better future. The current political situation of their country triggered progressive activist movements and motivated them to appropriate the host culture in a conjuncture marked by new geopolitical alignments. A second strand of inquiry, intimately connected to the first, draws attention to everyday, ordinary and deeply affective experiences of media use that shape new cultural imaginaries and worldmaking possibilities in diasporic social contexts.

By focusing on the popularity of The Magnificent Century (2011–2014) in this paper, I not only make a significant contribution to transcultural flows between European audiences and Turkey’s emergent role as an international content producer, but also lay the foundation for a more rigorous analysis of the markers of self-identities depicted within audiences’ disclosures. Austria remains largely invisible in terms of TV drama on the global stage as it is strongly preceded by Germany’s strong presence in European entertainment markets. Though the series was not broadcast in Austria, its diasporic population consumes it. Interrogating the popularity of this historical content in Vienna subsequently allows us to understand the series’ audience demographics, the promotional and marketing strategies and fandom culture that reiterates the need to examine popular Turkish series’ dissemination and consumption beyond the series’ broadcast countries.

As university students, the interviewees do not have to deal with economic struggles for resources which are fundamental to the dynamics of diasporic identity. They receive regular allowance as financial support from their parents, and the absence of financial struggle allows them to focus their attention more on the social, cultural and political markers of self-identity which are as fluid and contingent as identities themselves. These markers are rather manipulated, shared, interpreted, contradictory and sometimes even misleading, but despite that, they are useful tools to unfold identity processually. Existing literature demonstrated that the possible outcomes of watching soap operas at home might be turned out for female viewers’ own ‘self-criticism and guilt; and critical pronouncements from male members of the family’ (Brown, 1994). However, interviewees considered their viewing experience to be an implicitly educational, seminal, inspiring and eye-opening process.

As such, the present work is not without limitations. Future studies are needed to bolster these results in order to assume whether shared or distant markers of self-identities were appropriated by the viewers in Polish, European or other diasporic contexts with different cultural and socioeconomic characteristics that could also influence one’s series watching activity. It would be also important to additionally explore series watching among male audiences or elderly individuals.