MESA Banner
Re-membering a New Past in Old Places: Landscape, Memory and History in Cyprus
Abstract
This paper is about the relationship between collective memory, historical consciousness and built environment in an ethnically and politically divided geography, Cyprus. It investigates the ways in which landscape and its formulations are manipulated and transformed for selective, competing constructions of collective remembering and national history, through the analysis of lieux de memoire (sites of memory) "where memory crystallizes and secrets itself" (Nora 1989:7). The paper is specifically concerned with the post-conflict treatment of symbolic sites, and with how built environment has been used for the separate nationalist projects of both Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities to shape the way the past "should" be remembered. Today Cyprus is geopolitically divided into two parts. The Republic of Cyprus is the internationally recognized government and controls approximately two-thirds of the island. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a de facto state recognized only by Turkey, controls the northern third of the country and is inhabited primarily by Turks. Cyprus presents an opportunity to study ways in which collective memory and landscape contribute to the construction of the past, present and social identities in a divided country. Built environment and its formulations by the local people will provide evidences concerning the silent parts of history. The focus of this paper will be on patterns of physical and symbolic transformation of landscape as potential means of contestation over history. Among all types of symbolic sites, the paper will be specifically about the religious sites, including churches, mosques, chapels, tekkes, and cemeteries. Thus, the main research questions focus on politics of space, historical consciousness, and the spatial manifestation of power: How are the meanings of these symbolic sites conceptualized, negotiated, contested and transformed following violent ethnic conflict that leads to the partitioning of once-shared territories into ones dominated completely by only one groupo In what ways are such sites invoked to contribute to the process of history writing, selective remembrance and legitimization of certain power relations in new social and political circumstancesu The paper will be based on a multi-sited ethnographic study implemented in the Greek and Turkish parts of Cyprus in 2009-2010. Nora, Pierre. 1989. Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mimoire. Representations (2): 7-24.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
Cyprus
Sub Area
Ethnic Groups