The aims of the chapter

It is important to bring the subject of this book, if only modestly, up to the present day. The following discussion will show the versatility of the myth of Manzikert and how a battle fought in the eleventh century could serve as a key symbol in the formation of the new Turkish Republic almost a millennium later. It will demonstrate how the Islamic credentials of the Seljuq Turks, so stressed and exploited in the medieval accounts of the battle, could give way to an emphasis on the ‘Turkishness’ of the Seljuqs in a new and strongly nationalist political context. It is also of considerable interest to focus for a while on the contribution of modern Turkish scholars to the field of Seljuq history, and more generally, the themes addressed in this book. Their work is almost always ignored by western scholars of medieval Islamic history.