Religion, National Identity and the Empire Narrative in "Harim-e- Sultan" TV Series

The "Harim-e- Sultan" (King’s Sanctuary) TV series, originally titled "The Magnificent Century", a 2011-2014 Turkish product, was a popular TV series that has been broadcast by various Persian-language satellite channels. In this research, we have studied the content of the series using the method of narrative analysis of communication texts. The sampling of the study consists of 21 related scenes that have been selected with a purposive sampling method from among 60 episodes. The important characteristics and functions of the narrative, the manner of narrative and its distinction from the story in the novel Sultanah, the series’ frameworking, identity and narrative relationship, and the most important emotional and dramatic factors in the narrative of the series were identified. Finally, an analysis of the elements of historical narrative of the life of "King Solomon”, which appealed to Iranian viewers, has been presented. Though the story of the series tells about the events of the previous days of the Ottoman rule in the sixteenth century, its language and visual discourse and storytelling style are modern, and the audience in no way feels a sense of remoteness and strangeness with the story characters. In other words, the series attempts to present the narrative of the past with a modern outlook and by adopting modern signs it inspires in the viewer a sense of contemporariness.