Istanbul: With its opulent palace life, heroic storyline and beautiful lead actors, the Turkish drama set in the court of Sultan Suleyman, Magnificent Century, should have represented the artistic pinnacle of the phenomena known Ottomania.

Yet for all its historic grandeur and its 200 million weekly viewers, Magnificent Century fell foul of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Ottoman vision for Turkey's future.

The wildly popular drama has Suleyman the Magnificent, who ruled Turkey from 1520 to 1566 and pushed the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire until it stretched from Hungary to the Persian Gulf, spending way too much time in the imperial bedroom and not enough conquering nations, Erdogan railed.

In the bitter battle for Turkey's national identity, it seems even the most Ottoman of ventures can make an enemy of a leader determined to see traitors at every turn.

From restaurants serving Ottoman-era cuisine – the "heritage of a great empire which lasted for 700 years" – to elaborate celebrations of Ottoman conquests, Turkey's renewed devotion to its past even stretched to the design of the controversial mega mall that was slated for Gezi Park in Istanbul's central Taksim district.

But no amount of pride in the Ottoman Empire can hide the fact that today's Turkey is a deeply polarised state and or that Erdogan, whose Islamic-inspired Justice and Development Party (AKP) won a majority in last month's local government elections, appears determined to drive those divisions even deeper.

Describing Turkey as under attack from foreign and domestic adversaries, Erdogan used his party's victory to warn that he will "liquidate" his enemies.

Experts say Erdogan's determination to punish those who oppose him – from the Gezi Park protesters who brought the nation to a standstill last year over their opposition to the controversial mall, to the country's fractured opposition and the supporters of Fethullah Gulen, a cleric living in exile in the US – threatens Turkey's unique position as an emerging democracy in a troubled region and a vital bridge to the West.

It seems Turkey, and Erdogan himself, are at a crossroads.

In power for more than 11 years, Erdogan is prevented by party rules from seeking a fourth term as prime minister. He can seek to change his party's rules, or, as many predict, he will run in Turkey's first direct presidential elections, expected to be held in August.

Amidst this internal turmoil, he is showing no signs of backing away from the multiple battles he has started against those he sees as traitors.

He has declared war on the media, an enemy Erdogan sees as giving voice to his opponents who are running a "shadow state" in order to topple him.

The social media sites Twitter and YouTube have also been targeted after they provided a platform over the past six months for illegally obtained audio recordings that implicated the government in a series of corruption and foreign policy scandals.

One recording purportedly has Erdogan ordering his son to dispose of large sums of cash in response to a graft inquiry, while another has senior government officials discussing plans to stage a fake attack on Turkish soil to justify a counter-attack on Syria.

Erdogan, who along with his allies denies the allegations, reacted with fury, banning Twitter and YouTube and blaming the recordings on the moderate Islamic movement led by his former ally, Fethullah Gulen.

The recordings were manipulated, the Turkish foreign ministry stated, to discredit the government in the lead-up to the local elections and the presidential election in August.

"We'll eradicate Twitter," Erdogan said of his decision to block the site on March 23. "I don't care what the international community says. Everyone will witness the power of the Turkish Republic."

But on April 2, Turkey's highest court, the Constitutional Court, ruled the ban violated the right to free expression and ordered that access be restored.

Erdogan grudgingly complied.

Yet despite corruption allegations at the highest levels of government and deeply unpopular restrictions on the media, Erdogan's AK Party still gained an election-winning 45.5 per cent of the vote on March 30.

"Voters were able to ignore it all because they believe the economy is still performing well," says Fadi Hakura, associate fellow and Turkey analyst at Chatham House.

"Turkey is a society with high tolerance for corruption and will only act on corruption allegations if there is a major economic downturn," he says.

But Turkey's economy is stagnating, he warns. Growth rates are flat at 3 per cent and only major structural economic and political reforms will save Erdogan's government – and the economy – from  a more serious downturn, he says.

Turkey is a deeply polarised, conservative society, Hakura says.

"[Erdogan] has exploited and used this ideological polarisation to consolidate support amongst his key constituents – rural Turks, the urban poor and the conservative religious segments of the society," he says.

"For those voters their key concern is the state of the economy rather than corruption, civil liberties and media freedom."

Meanwhile, more than 90 years after the father of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founded the secular Turkish republic, pushing Islam from public life and imposing limits on public religious education, many experts also warn that Erdogan's program of "Islamisation" is continuing unabated.

Erdogan's government has passed restrictive laws on the sale, marketing and consumption of alcohol, Hakura says, as well as increasing the religious content in the school curriculum and boosting the budget for the religious outreach in Turkey.

There is also a mosque-building program under way.

"These policies have generated suspicion among the liberal and secular segment of Turkey that the government has an agenda to mobilise religion at the expense of the country's secular traditions," he says of the program that goes hand-in-hand with Turkey's so-called "Ottomania".

"Ever since he was mayor of Istanbul in 1994 he always attempted to promote Ottoman history at the expense of Ataturk's legacy.

"Ottomania is sweeping Turkey, with Ottoman soap operas, Ottoman movies all giving a certain colour to the past imperial legacy of the Ottoman Empire in order to outshine the dominance of Ataturk in modern history," Hakura says.

Turkey's increasingly strident stance against its opponents – domestic and international – is also putting at risk its push to join the EU – a goal it has been working towards for the past 46 years.

In its annual progress report assessing the progress of countries aspiring to EU membership, the European Commission criticised Turkey's "excessive" use of force against the anti-government protests, describing the police actions as "cause for serious concern".

Those concerns were echoed in a report released this week by the Independent Commission on Turkey.

In its analysis, the commission praised Turkey's efforts to rebalance its military and civilian authorities but described the "severe polarisation between the government and political forces on the one hand and major sections of civil society on the other" as worrisome.

But even as EU observers were expressing worry, Erdogan's chief economic aide Yigit Bulut was attempting to pull Turkey in the opposite direction, saying Turkey no longer needed the EU, which he described as a burden.

Didem Akyel Collinsworth, a Turkey analyst with the International Crisis Group says a key test for Erdogan rests on how he uses his renewed political capital and how his actions play internationally.

"There is a risk that the Prime Minister and his inner-circle may abandon crucial pillars of democracy in Turkey," she says.

"It is important that … whatever scenario plays out – the PM running for presidency or changing his party bylaws and remaining PM – happens in an atmosphere that puts political democracy and the rule of law first."

One of the most worrying possibilities, Collinsworth says, is the potential for Ankara to abandon the EU process.

"Alternatively, we have heard talk of EU suspending negotiations if Turkey moves further away from democratic freedoms and free markets … this is taking away hopes of many Turks who … see the EU as a real benchmark in the development of their country."

The issue of Cyprus remains a sticking point, but so too does Erdogan's apparent unwillingness to carry out the next raft of deeply unpopular domestic reforms required by the EU process.

For the moment the EU is still engaging with Turkey, she says, and that makes Turkey unique in the Middle East – in meeting benchmarks for EU membership Turkey has gone through a democratising process that brings with it close ties to the West.

"It is incredibly important for Turkey to hold onto that," Collinsworth says.

But she says a rise in aggressive "war rhetoric" in recent weeks has damaged Turkey internationally.

"Turkey needs to move back to its pre-2008 policy of sectarian neutrality that has been deteriorating since Turkey became embroiled in regional conflicts such as Syria.

"It needs to step back and play a facilitator and mediator role between different groups instead of being seen as a Sunni Muslim power supporting other Sunni Muslims."

Indeed Turkey appears to have gone from a regional superpower to a country that is increasingly isolated in both the Middle East, but also from its Western backers.

"Turkey has challenged relations with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Morocco, Egypt and Jordan," Chatham House's Hakura says, driven in part by its "reactionary foreign policy, particularly on Syria".

There are now 900,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey and it is expected that number will exceed 1 million by the end of the year, he says.

"There is no doubt that the Syrian war has a growing spill-over affect both politically and economically in Turkey," he says.

But Turks do not want to be dragged into the Syrian quagmire, and they are worried about the potential for militant Islamic groups fighting in Syria to gain a foothold in Turkey.

Erdogan used the Syrian crisis at an election rally on March 23, breaking into a campaign speech to announce that Turkey had shot down a Syrian fighter jet that had strayed into Turkish air space.

His announcement may have played well domestically but internationally it was viewed with scepticism.

"Crucially the US and Europe did not issue any unequivocal statement of support towards Turkey shooting down the Syrian fighter jet – Washington and EU capitals remained uncharacteristically silent on the incident," Hakura says.

"It seems to indicate scepticism towards the plane incident and a determination not to allow Turkey to drag NATO into the Syrian quagmire."

Veteran activists like social worker Sevval Kilic are watching the deepening divisions in Turkish society with increasing alarm.

"Restrictions on our freedoms are getting worse, hate crimes are increasing and there is a deep polarisation in our society," she says. "The government is injecting a dangerous level of aggression into the political debate and we are worried about where it might end."

The 42-year-old was one of the original Gezi Park protesters and candidate for the recently formed, pro-Kurdish Democratic Party of the People in last month's local elections.

"They will do whatever they need to do to maintain their power," says Kilic, a transgender woman who has been at the forefront of Turkey's gay, lesbian and transgender movement for almost two decades. "They will restrict the internet, they will restrict alcohol consumption – in the future maybe they will restrict what we wear?"

As for the position of women in Turkey?

She shakes her head. "Time goes forward, but we go backwards."