Every year the famous Great Mosque of Djenne in Mali is rebuilt with a big festival. Thousands gather in this architectural marvel of African Islam, displaying some of the most refined samples of music, food, story-telling and social interaction. But the main purpose of the festival is to repair and rebuild the damaged parts of the mosque. Built originally in the 13th century from sunbaked earth bricks, the Djenne Mosque is subject to erosion, heat and humidity and thus needs annual maintenance and repair. Every year it is partially destroyed. Every year it is rebuilt to its original form.The life story of the Djenne Mosque is similar to the cultural transformation of many nations. While responding to the needs of the time and addressing the new challenges, nations with a strong cultural identity seek to remain true to the spirit and form of their cultural heritage on the one hand, and renew themselves on the other.This is one of the key elements of Turkey's cultural life in the 21st century. The loss of the Ottoman Empire created a sense of identity crisis. To turn a new page and make Turkey part of the "civilized world," the new Republic introduced radical cultural reforms to the point of self-alienation. Today, Turkey is seeking a new mode of cultural transformation: while rediscovering its historical heritage, it is also presenting itself as "contemporary" (i.e., present at the moment). As being modern is no longer confined to being Westernized, Turks, like many other nations, are both recovering their tradition and making new entries into modern ways.This is reflected in the immensely vibrant and multifaceted cultural life of Turkey. From the big urban centers such as Istanbul, İzmir, Bursa and Konya to the relatively smaller cities of Mardin, Eskişehir and Erzurum, one can find a huge variety of cultural creations: music, architecture, calligraphy, marbling, painting, acting, handcrafts, carpet weaving, ceramic tiles, precious stones and numerous other forms of cultural production. Turkish artists use both traditional and modern techniques to create their art and craft. They use traditional as well as highly modern/contemporary styles, forms and designs.More than in any other area, tradition and modernity meet in Turkey's new cultural life. They display the artistic treasures of the tradition but also unveil the dynamism created by its confrontation with modernity. Turkey's search for an authentic identity in a world of radical modernization and secularization creates new modalities of co-existence and cross-pollination.Two great novels of contemporary Turkish literature may help us clarify this point. In his masterpiece novel "Huzur," Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, one of the giants of modern Turkish literature, talks about the pains and confusions of modernization in the 1940s of Istanbul. He describes a generation torn between the glory of the old and the lure of the new. Its main character Mümtaz cannot give up on such traditional masters as Itri and Dede Efendi but also enjoys Bach and Beethoven.In his "My Name is Red," Orhan Pamuk, one of the prominent novelists of the present time, delves into the world of Ottoman miniatures, revealing a rich world beyond the standard stereotypes of the Ottoman artists. Pamuk crafts a story that is both fictional and historical, crossing the boundaries between real and imaginary. But more importantly, his novel is a testimony to the vitality of a traditional craft with or without much interaction with the outside world.Both Tanpınar and Pamuk create a space for a form of cultural imagination that looks east and west, old and new, past and future all at the same time. This multi-faceted approach is reflected in the recent academic and popular interest in Ottoman culture and history.There are three main reasons for Turkey's rediscovery of its own heritage. The first is the leveling impact of globalization. Globalization has introduced various degrees of homogenization but also created new opportunity spaces for different cultural traditions to express themselves in a new-found sense of confidence.Secondly, the Ottoman state was an empire in the sense that it had to embrace different cultural forms, religions and ethnicities. Empires by definition had to be pluralistic in order to rule over diverse nations and communities. The Ottoman culture, though firmly established in the Turkish and Islamic elements, were also a mixture of different cultural traditions. It should be noted that the current interest in the Ottoman heritage has nothing to do with neo-Ottomanism or imperialist adventures. To the contrary, the Ottoman past is helping the people of Turkey to overcome the rough edges of 19th century nationalism.The third reason is the rising profile of Turkey in the economic and political arena. As Turkey becomes an economic powerhouse and an active player in world affairs, it also projects a certain cultural identity that ties it to a wide geography from the Balkans to the Caucasus, North Africa, the Middle East and central Asia.As Turkey seeks a new geo-political position for itself in the world, it also redefines its cultural self-perception. This is likely to lead to new creative syntheses in Turkey's new cultural life that goes beyond the tradition-modernity binary that has shaped much of the Republican period.