The Ottoman sultanate was overthrown in 1908, and in 1913 the empire was taken over by extremist ultranationalists who preached a vision of a completely mythic pure ethnic Turkish past that was placed in threat by the presence of non-Turkish, non-Muslim minorities (the mythology here is particularly extreme, as the Ottoman Empire’s home of modern-day Turkey was the site of one of the world’s most powerful and longest-lasting Christian empires, Byzantium).
