I will explore the changing interpretation of history in nationalist culture in Turkey between 1960 and 1980. Rejection of the Ottoman past and the praise of pre-Islamic Turkish history was a central theme in the early years of the Turkish republic. By the 1960s, the revival of the Ottoman legacy had a marked impact. I will question the underlying causes of this shift. This analysis will be helpful in investigating the reception of this new concept of history and its implications for social and political culture, such as the idea of the ''eternal state'', self-differentiation from the colonial experience of other states; and how to perceive the minorities in the country and the nations in the former lands of the Empire like Jews, Armenians and Greeks. Secondly, I will try to flesh out the similarity of the Turkish case with other Mediterranean nation states. The 1960s seemed to be an appropriate period to question formative assumptions by Republican nationalists implanted in Turkish historiography. The ruins and legacy of long lasting wars were evanescing and early republican power holders were losing ground. The appeal to the Ottoman Past, however, took place in structured forms. What came from this partial analysis of the Empire was the revival of the Golden age of the 15th to 17th centuries, rather than the failures of the 19th century. In other words, the vast history of the Ottoman Empire proved to be a good asset. In my study, given the fact that the Ottoman Empire lasted 600 years, I will not treat the Ottoman History as a monolithic body and pay a special attention to the periodization of it, which is not underscored by the analysis on the invention of history in the Turkish case. Finally I will dwell on its ramification and complications. The Ottoman Empire had its own totally different social and juridical structure, territorial existence and cultural compositcon but the question of how to accommodate these with the realities of the mid 20th century was hardly answered.