Ayse Saracgil’ essay offers an analysis of the ideological and political nature of Turkish nationalism, reflecting on its relationship with the writing and teaching of history. A careful examination of historical texts shows a surprising continuity from the last years of the XIXth century until the present day. The evolution of nationalist ideology is examined in three key moments: first, the last decades of the Ottoman Empire and the beginnings of a historical discourse on the Turkish nation; second, from the later 1920s, when a priority of the new Kemalist state became the formulation of some interpretative theses of the history of the Turks; third, the 1980’s, when the Muslim religion, reintroduced in the political and cultural arena during the 1970’s, came to be integrated with the Turkish identity constructed by the Kemalists.