This lecture examines how contemporary Turkish political life is shaped by a cultural repertoire that sacralizes political leadership, human sacrifice, and Staatsräson. While paternal models of rule in Turkey long predate Atatürk, Kemalism as a foundational ideology and as a lasting leader cult has structured a political landscape in which charismatic authority is reproduced across the party spectrum, and contestations over Kemalism continue to shape rival visions of the “father of the nation.” Across these same political divides stands a pantheon of martyrs whose sacralized sacrifices ideologically anchor political commitments, culturally embed political violence, and emotionally reproduce political hostilities across generations. At the center lies a wide-spread belief in the sacredness of the state and a tradition of statist nationalism that subordinates individual citizenship, civil society, and social justice to the mo- ral primacy of the state (devlet) and its eternal survival (bekâ). This lecture explores how these forms of political sacralization animate ideological contestations, memory regimes, and categories of belonging in Turkey.