IN-PERSON London Heritages. Section A

Abstract

The present paper studies the spatial functions of communal memory, anchoring and legitimisation inherent in the ideologically loaded public monuments and sculptures commissioned and erected by the Turkish Cypriot community in the TRNC since 1952. Following a decade of intercommunal fighting (1963-1974) resulting in Cyprus’ partition, Turkish Cypriots have, as a twice displaced people, developed a “necrophilic” sense of identity (Bryant: 2002) inspired by a blood power kinship rooted in Turkic mysticism. Death and secular martyrdom are omnipresent in Turkish Cypriot spaces, as the names of fallen countrymen and women are used to name streets, hospitals, schools, airports or cultural centres. Martyrdom is second to Atatürk as the main aesthetic subject of public monuments and sculptures, whether architectonic or figurative. This paper explores how public sculpture materialises and immortalises this claim to spatial anchoring through the art historical allegorical transfer of bronze as blood (Droth: 2006). Turkish Cypriot martyrdom being geo-localised and archaeological in its approach, it specifies places as communal heritage. An unsuspected result of this practice of codified commemoration is the creation of contemplative pedestrian spaces unique to a landscape often devoid of pedestrian infrastructure. This urbanistic aspect will be illustrated by the comparative study of the Karaoğlanoğlu memorial, a memorial in construction in Güzelyurt, and one in early development stages in Mağusa, in memory of the Turkish Cypriot children lost in the 2023 earthquake in eastern Türkiye. Historic examples prolonged in present-day projects illustrate the intertwined notions of death and space as (im)material cultural heritage.