The Politics of Public Memory in Turkey 0815631316, 9780815631316

Table of contents :
Contents
Illustrations
Contributors
1. Introduction: The Politics of Public Memory in Turkey
2. Weaving Modernity, Commercializing Carpets: Collective Memory and Contested Tradition in Örselli Village
3. Stories in Three Dimensions: Narratives of Nation and the Anatolian Civilisations Museum
4. Remembering a Nine-Thousand-Year-Old Site: Presenting Çatalhöyük
5. An Endless Death and an Eternal Mourning: November 10 in Turkey
6. Public Memory as Political Battleground: Islamist Subversions of Republican Nostalgia
7. Memories of Violence, Memoirs of Nation: The 1915 Massacres and the Construction of Armenian Identity
8. Polyphony and Geographic Kinship in Anatolia: Framing the Turkish-Greek Compulsory Population Exchange
References
Index

Citation preview

The Politics of Public Memory in

TURKEY

M odem Intellectual and P olitical H istory o f the M iddle E ast M ehrzad Boroujerdi, Series E ditor

M ustafa K em al A tatü rk w ith h is th en -w ife L atife H arun. C o u rtesy o f th e A n ato lian C iv ilizatio n M useum .

The P o litics o f P u b lic M em ory in

TURKEY E D I T E D

E S R A

BY

Ö Z Y Ü R E K

SYu Syracuse University Press

Copyright © 2007 by Syracuse University Press Syracuse, New York 13244—5160

A ll Rights Reserved First Edition 2007 07 08 09 10 11 12

6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements o f American N ational Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence o f Paper for Printed Library M aterials, ANSI Z 39.48-1984.°°™ For a listing o f books published and distributed by Syracuse University Press, visit our Web site at SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu. ISBN -13:978-0-8156-3131-6 ISBN -10:0-8156-3131-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The politics o f public memory in Turkey / edited by Esra Özyürek.— 1st ed. p. cm.— (Modern intellectual and political history o f the M iddle East) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8156-3131-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Turkey—History. 2. Collective memory—Turkey. I. Özyürek, Esra. DR471.P65 2006 956.1—dc22 2006031225

M anufactured in the U nited States o f A merica

Contents

Illustrations

vii

Contributors

ix

Introduction: The P olitics o f Public M emory in Turkey E sra Ö zyürek

1

W eaving M odernity, Com m ercializing Carpets: C ollective M emory and C ontested Tradition in Ö rselli Village K im b erly H art

16

Stories in Three Dim ensions: N arratives o f N ation and the A natolian C ivilisations M useum A slı G ür 40

Rem em bering a N ine-Thousand-Year-O ld Site: P resenting Çatalhöyük A yfer B artu C andan

70

An Endless D eath and an E ternal M ourning: N ovem ber 10 in Turkey N azlı Ö kten

95

Public M em ory as Political Battleground: Islam ist Subversions o f Republican N ostalgia E sra Ö zyürek 114

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Contents

M em ories o f Violence, M em oirs o f N ation: The 1915 M assacres and the C onstruction o f A rm enian Identity Cihan Tuğal

138

Polyphony and Geographic Kinship in Anatolia: Framing the Turkish-Greek C om pulsory Population E xchange A slılğ sız 162

References Index

191 211

Illustrations

M ustafa Kemal A tatürk and his then-wife Latife Hanın fron tispiece 1.

Souvenir plate designed and produced by the Çumra m unicipality 78

2.

Scene from the fashion show “Women o f Another Tim e” 90

3.

Cover page o f daily A kit, Oct. 29,1998

4.

V irtue Party’s election poster

5.

Veiled protesters form human chains

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132

Contributors

A yfer B artu C an d an received her Ph.D. in anthropology at the U niversity o f California, Berkeley. Currendy she is an assistant professor in sociology at Boğaziçi U niversity in Istanbul. She has published numerous articles on cul­ tural heritage and archeology in Turkey. A sh G ür is a Ph.D. candidate in the D epartm ent o f Sociology at the Univer­ sity o f M ichigan. In addition to representations and institutions o f national­ ism , she has worked on the politics o f cultural appropriation between empires in the nineteenth century. She is currendy w riting her dissertation, a compara­ tive historical study o f the transculturation o f French and Am erican educa­ tional institutions in the late Ottoman Empire. K im berly H art received her Ph.D. degree in anthropology at Indiana Univer­ sity. Her dissertation is about conceptions o f tim e and tradition am ong vil­ lagers in western A natolia. She has published articles on weaving and political iconography in Turkey. Ash Iğ sız received her first M .A. in French language and literature in H acettepe University, Ankara, and her second M.A. in N ear Eastern studies at the U niversity o f M ichigan. Currently she is a Ph.D. candidate in comparative literature at the U niversity o f M ichigan. Her dissertation is about the mem ory o f the Turkish-G reek population exchange and the political economy o f the cultural production. N azh Ö kten received her B.A. in sociology at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. Currendy she is a graduate student in political sociology at Sorbonne Univer­ sity and a lecturer o f sociology at G alatasaray University in Istanbul.

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Contributors

E sra ö z y ü re k received her Ph.D. in anthropology at the U niversity o f M ichi­ gan. Currendy she is an assistant professor in anthropology at the U niversity o f California, San Diego. She has published articles on the ideologies o f the state, im ages o f Atatürk, publicity and privacy, gender, and Islam in Turkey. Her book N ostalgia fo r the M odem : State Secularism and E veryday P olitics in Turkey was published earlier in 2006. C ih an T u ğ a l received his B.A. at Boğaziçi U niversity in Istanbul and his Ph.D. in sociology at the U niversity o f M ichigan. Currendy he is an assistant professor o f sociology at the U niversity o f California, Berkeley. Tuğal has published articles on A levis, Islam , urban culture, and poverty. He is currendy working on a m anuscript concerning the religious, spadal, and socioeconom ic dim ensions o f the Islam ist movement in Turkey.

The Politics of Public Memory in

TURKEY

1 Introduction The Politics o f Public M emory in Turkey Esra Özyürek

In the popular 1990 novel The Black Book by the N obel prize-winning Turk­ ish w riter Orhan Pamuk, a m iddle-aged Istanbulite named G alip travels through layers o f his memory as he searches for his w ife, who has suddenly abandoned him. He suspects that she is playing one o f their childhood gam es o f hide-and-seek and is somewhere in Istanbul with their cousin, the journalist Celal. In the novel, every object, word, and face becomes a sign from the past for G alip to decipher in order to make sense o f the present. Throughout the novel G alip searches for his w ife and him self in the m ulti­ layered space and tim e o f the city as w ell as in Celal’s cryptic newspaper essays. Early on, Celal predicts that the Bosporus River that cuts through the city w ill soon dry up and reveal the thousands o f years o f history buried underneath:

On the last day, when the waters suddenly recede, among the Am erican transatlantics gone to ground and the Ionic columns covered w ith seaweed, there w ill be Celtic and Ligurian skeletons openmouthed in supplications to gods whose identities are no longer known. Am idst m ussel-encrusted Byzantine treasures, forks and knives made o f silver and tin, thousand-yearold barrels o f w ine, soda pop botdes, carcasses o f pointy-prowed galleys, I can im agine a civilization whose energy needs for their antiquated stoves and lights w ill be derived from a dilapidated Romanian tanker propelled into a m ire-pit (Pamuk 1994,15)

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Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, citizens o f Turkey, much like the determ ined Galip, have been sorting through the rich layers o f their his­ tory, long covered by the river o f a m odernist, future-oriented vision. And like Pamuk’s evaporating Bosporus, their belief in the future has been drying up. Today many in Turkey curiously excavate through the remnants o f their past in order to find clues to help them understand or control the present. Upperclass urbanites frequent antique shops to buy pieces o f furniture that their grandparents discarded or “dealers” stole from the deserted homes and churches o f Greeks and Arm enians. Expensive restaurants invent and serve “O ttoman” food to local custom ers. M emoirs, historical novels, and films be­ come best sellers and sources o f unending public discussion in newspapers and on television. N ewly m arried couples recover the long forgotten blackand-white pictures o f their grandparents in their youth and use them to deco­ rate their homes. M iddle-class women take private lessons to learn the O ttoman script. W hile nostalgia and its industry are on the rise all over the world (Lowenthal 1985; Boym 2001), the shapes they take in Turkey are especially intriguing (Özyürek 2006). In 1923, the newly founded Turkish Republic com m itted to a m odernist future by erasing the m em ory o f its im m ediate Ottoman past. Now, alm ost eighty years after the establishm ent o f the Republic, the grand­ children o f the founders have a different relationship w ith history. New gen­ erations utilize every effort to remember, record, and reconcile the im agined earlier periods. The m ultiple and personalized representations o f the past with which they engage allow contem porary Turkish citizens to create alternative identities for them selves and their communities. As opposed to its futuristic and hom ogenizing character at the turn o f the twentieth century, Turkish nationalism today utilizes memories and generates diverse narratives for the nation as w ell as the m inority groups. The changing nature o f Turkish relationships with the past offers a unique context to study the complex nature o f public m em ory in Turkey. Contributors to this volum e come from diverse disciplines o f anthropology, com parative literature, and sociology, but they share a common understanding that in contem porary Turkey representations o f the past have become metaphors through which individuals and groups define their cultural identity and political position. The contributors explore the ways people challenge,

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reaffirm , or transform the concepts o f history, nation, hom eland, and Repub­ lic through acts o f memory. The volum e dem onstrates that m em ory can be both a basis for cultural reproduction and a source o f resistance to it. Turkish society is frequendy accused o f being am nesiac M any locals com plain that there is no social memory in Turkey. W hen I m entioned to friends and acquaintances in Turkey that I was working on a book on public memory, m any tim es they affirm ed my efforts by saying: “It is really im portant that you are w riting a book on this to p ic Lack o f m em ory is one o f the m ost im portant problem s we have in this country.” Indeed, the Turkish Republic was originally based on forgetting. Yet, at the turn o f the twenty-first century, cultural practices are replete with memory, and people relendessly struggle over how to represent and define the past. The grow ing lam ents about amne­ sia attest to the shared desire to have even more memory in Turkey.

Administered Forgetting During the Early Republic In The Book o f L aughter and F orgetting, M ilan Kundera writes: “Forgetting is a form o f death ever present w ithin l ife . . . but forgetting is also the great prob­ lem o f politics. W hen a big power wants to deprive a sm all country o f its na­ tional consciousness it uses the method o f organized forgetting.. . . A nation which loses awareness o f its past gradually loses its se lf” (Kundera 1980,235). The kind o f adm inistered forgetting Kundera talks about has been integral to politics in Turkey, especially during the foundation o f the Republic. O rga­ nized am nesia, however, was self-adm inistered by the Republican reform ers, rather than im posed by the external “big power” Kundera warns against. The founders o f the new regim e decided that in order to build a new identity for the new nation, they first had to erase the O ttoman legacy. A fter six hundred years o f rule over the M iddle East, N orth A frica, and Eastern Europe, the O t­ toman Empire had been partitioned by the A llies following the end o f World War I. The Turkish Republic was founded by a group o f form er Ottoman sol­ diers who organized an independent republican movement in the country. The new regim e established itself as a homogenous and secular nation-state that rejected the m ulticultural heritage o f the Ottoman Empire and its em­ phasis on Islam .

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In the 1920s and 1930s the new Turkish governm ent occupied itself with a series o f reform s, initiating new and state-adm inistered ways o f dressing, w riting, talking, and being for the new citizens o f the Republic. These reform s have comm only been interpreted as measures o f W esternization and secular­ ization. Although the Republican officials did aim at establishing closer ties with Europe and placing religion under state control, another m ajor motive for their reform s was to sever ties w ith the Ottoman p ast Erasing the every­ day habits and memories o f the im m ediate past allowed the Turkish govern­ m ent to establish itself as the founder o f a new era, although it was a direct inheritor o f the six-hundred-year-old Ottoman Empire. The new governm ent exerted the first attem pts o f erasure on the bodies o f citizens, possibly the deepest site o f memory inscription. In 1925, m erely two years after the Republic was established, the Parliam ent passed a law banI ning men from w earing fezes and obliging them to wear W estern hats with brim s.1The hat reform was so abrupt that when the law passed, there was not a large enough supply o f m ale hats in the country. Fam ily albums include pic­ tures o f men who proudly posed for the cam era w ith any kind o f hat they could find, including fedora, safari, or wicker hats, and sometimes with no hat (Baydar and Çiçekoğlu 1998). Although the law did not abolish veiling, many women took their veils off, and those who did not were subject to attacks on the streets.2 Female students were required to wear shorts and join gym nastics dem onstrations in the stadiums. The new bodies o f the Republic had to learn new habits o f moving to accom modate their new outfits. The second rupture w ith the recent past took place in regulating time. In 1926 the new Republic adopted the W estern clock and calendar and trans­ 1. M ustafa Kemal Atatürk legitim ized the hat reform with the following words in a speech in 1927: “Gendemen, it was necessary to abolish the fez, which sat on the heads o f our nation as an emblem o f ignorance, negligence, fanaticism , and hatred o f progress and civilization. [It was necessary] to accept in its place the hat, the headgear used by the whole civilized world; and in this way, to dem onstrate that the Turkish nation, in its m entality as in other respects, in no way diverges from civilized social life” (in Lewis 1968,268). 2. Many elderly retired teachers whom I interviewed for my dissertation research told me how young men in neighborhoods would rip o ff veiled women’s clothing (Özyürek 2006).

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form ed the way Turkish citizens experience tim e in a day, month, and year.3 The abandoned Islam ic calendar was lunar and thus eleven days shorter than the solar year. Because it is very difficult to calculate how dates in the Islam ic calendar correspond to the G regorian calendar, the Ottoman past became dif­ ficult to locate on yet another level.4 M any o f the elderly citizens I interviewed still had a hard time converting dates to the Common Era calendar, even though they have been living w ith the new calendar for more than seventy years. Thus, events that predate 1926 appear as if they belong to a different tem poral zone. The new calendar in Turkey made it possible for the Turkish Republic to move from the “O riental” flow o f tim e, which the reform ers dis­ dained, toward an “O ccidental” one, to which they aspired. The m ost powerful way in which the Republican officials disconnected with the past, however, was through adm inistering the script reform o f 1928 and the language reform o f 1932. The governm ent replaced the Arabic script with the Latin one over a period o f three months. The alphabet reform did not bring the expected increase in the level o f literacy to the nation, but it did make it im possible for the new generations to read anything w ritten before 1928. In order to couple the script reform w ith the language reform , M ustafa Kemal A tatürk founded the Turkish Language Institute in 1932. Its members worked relentlessly for three years to replace all the foreign words in the language with “pure Turkish” words collected from A natolia and Central A sia or at other times sim ply with invented words. Although the language reform slowed down after 1935, the changes were so dram atic that it is quite difficult for an educated person to understand a text w ritten before 1928, even if it is translit­ erated into Latin script. A nother reform that split connections w ith the past was the 1934 “law o f last names.” A t that date all Turkish citizens were required to drop their family, tribal, and location names and religious titles, and adopt a last name. The Re­ publican officials were actively involved in the nam ing process. They vetoed

3. This reform is rem iniscent o f the way the leaders o f the French Revolution adopted a new calendar to mark the beginning o f a new time (O zouf 1988). 4. H istorians use books and com puter program s in order to figure out the correspondence between dates in the M uslim calendar and dates in the Gregorian calendar.

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m any names on the basis that they were not Turkish or appropriate as last names, and they sim ply recorded other names in their books (Türköz 2001). The law o f last names divided larger fam ilies into sm aller groups and made it difficult for younger generations to follow their genealogies through official documents. The law also baptized the citizens for their new lives, purifying them o f older connections w ith units larger than a nuclear family. D espite the well-organized efforts to foster forgetfulness, the new Re­ public could not com pletely erase the memories. Even though past experi­ ences conflict w ith the nationalist history, they coexist in individual memories. A ccording to M artin Stokes, revoking “old ways” has a political function: “Re­ m em bering becomes both a problem and a m atter o f cultural elaboration. This is not because the state is incapable o f m aking people forget but because the politics o f forgetting paradoxically demands the preservation o f a variety o f things to dem onstrate the necessity o f their having been forgotten” (Stokes 2000,240). As early as the first decade o f the Republic, unpaved vil­ lage roads, the old education system , and veiling practices were comm only com pared in official posters to new, m odern city scenes (Bozdoğan 2001). Such visual im ages repeatedly remind citizens o f what they should leave behind and forget about desiring. A t the same tim e, these efforts have also pre­ vented the old ways from totally disappearing, at least from memories. In contrast to the famous French historian Pierre Nora’s frequently cited con­ cept o f “sites o f memory,” where “a residual sense o f continuity exists” (1996,1) w ith the past that is lost to m odern people, Turkey became awash with “sites o f forgetting.” Such sites are marked with a residual sense o f rup­ ture that should be constantly remembered to prove that the break actually took place.

Rise of Memory at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century If the turn o f the twentieth century is marked as an age o f forgetting for Turk­ ish citizens, the turn o f the twenty-first century is one o f nostalgia for people in Turkey and elsewhere. N ostalgia, a term that originated in the seventeenth century to name the symptoms o f hom esick Swiss soldiers (Lowenthal 1985), is now a widespread feeling shared by m illions o f people around the world. From the Taliban in Afghanistan (Roy 1994) to discontented postreform

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workers in China (Rofel 1999) or postsocialist citizens o f G erm any (Berdahl 1999), large groups o f people yearn for an im agined p ast A w idely held b elief about nostalgia is that since m odernity could not fulfill its prom ises for a bet­ ter and freer life, nations m arginalized in the global order now look back at the past fondly. In other words, m odernity finished w ith the end o f hope for to­ morrow, and since then people look to the past rather than the future for their utopias (Huyssen 1995). Another popular explanation about the new orientation toward the past holds rapid social and technological transform ations o f the modern age re­ sponsible. Pierre N ora, the leading figure o f this approach, argues that rapid changes cut people o ff from their past. In the m odern world people lose an embodied sense o f the past, and their access to earlier periods only becomes possible through archived, alienated, or dutifully followed histories rather than orally transm itted memories. He argues, “W hat was left o f experience, still lived in the warm th o f tradition, in the silence o f custom , in the repetition o f the ancestral, has been swept away by a surge o f deeply historical sensibility.'’ Thus, he states, “m em ory is constantly on our lips because it no longer exists” (Nora 1996,1). Although illum inating, both explanations define m em ory in negative term s, seeing it as a mere replacem ent for som ething lost, a belief in tomor­ row or a real tradition. Essays in this volum e go beyond such a replacem ent approach and suggest at least three ways in which m em ory is constructive o f new sets o f relations in the Turkish context. Each contributor, in his or her own way, dem onstrates that m em ory is both productive and a product o f po­ litical struggle in the present. Some authors (Bartu, H art, and Iğsız) point to the power o f m em ory in turning communal objects and concepts into com­ modities for personal ownership. O thers (Gür, Iğsız, Ö kten, Ö zyürek, and Tuğal) discuss the ways in which memories create identities and help members o f the nation come to term s with the past and w ith national traumas, by either highlighting or concealing them.

The Politics of Public Memory It was the French sociologist M aurice Halbwachs who in the m id-twentieth century first introduced the idea o f m em ory as som ething shared by a unit

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larger than the individual. A ccording to Halbwachs, m em ory is collective, and it is not possible for an individual to rem em ber som ething that is not already collectively inscribed. He claim s, “One may say that the individual remembers by placing him self in the perspective o f the group, but one may also affirm that the m em ory o f the group realizes and m anifests itself in individual mem­ ories” (Halbwachs 1992, 40). Thanks to his D urkheim ian approach, Halb­ wachs was able to see how m em ory serves the present goals o f society, such as m aintaining and strengthening group membership. The same emphasis on the cohesive nature o f the group, however, also inhibited him from paying atten­ tion to differences w ithin society in term s o f the memories individuals and groups own and promote. Halbwach’s understanding o f the shared aspects o f m em ory was influen­ tial am ong Anglophone scholars in the 1990s. Although contem porary schol­ ars are more reluctant to use his phrase “collective memory,” other term s, such as social m em ory or, more recendy, cultural memory, are frequently used w ith sim i­ lar connotadons. The concept o f collective m em ory is useful in discussing how “identification and knowledge o f a particular place, stories, songs or poems, and crafts or artistic forms help form a basis o f common identity, a sense o f community, and especially the continuity o f the past into the pres­ ent,” as K im berly H art w rites in this volume. Based on her research on tim e and identity in an Anatolian weaving village, H art suggests that collective mem ory is embedded in practices, objects, and land. The idea o f tradition, on the other hand, involves a conscious rem em bering and careful perform ing o f past practices. Because the term s collective, social, and cultural all em phasize the shared na­ ture o f culture and memory, the rarely used phrase p u b lic m em ory is an apt de­ scriptor o f the events analyzed by several o f the contributors to this volume. M y use o f the term p u b lic m em ory is inspired by A rjun Appadurai and Carol Breckenridge’s definition o f p u b lic culture. In the first issue o f the journal P ublic Culture, Appadurai and Breckenridge claim they chose the term p u b lic culture over more comm only used phrases such as fo lk culture or m ass culture because, they argue, the term p u b lic cu ltu res less em bedded in W estern dichotom ies like high versus low, elite versus mass, or popular versus classical. Furtherm ore, it better expresses their desire to consider culture as a “zone o f cultural debate” or “an arena where other types, form s, dom ains o f culture are encountering,

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interrogating, and contesting each other in new and unexpected ways” (Appadurai and Breckenridge 1988,6). Phrases that are frequendy associated with m em ory do not present the same problems as those coupled with culture. For exam ple, there is no com­ mon distinction between high or low or elite or mass forms o f memory. Yet, there is a generally accepted distinction between individual and social memory, and also between m em ory and history. Such divisions suggest that individual memories can be diverse, yet social, collective, cultural, or written memories are shared by all members o f the group. The phrase p u b lic memory, on the other hand, connotes both the shared and the contested aspects o f m em ory at the same time. As many o f the contributors to this volume dem onstrate, public memories are com prehensible for most members in the group. Yet, this does not mean that all members share these memories or agree with them. Rather, different groups and individuals in society promote their own versions o f mem ory in order to serve their interests in the present (see chapters by Bartu, Ö zyürek, and Tuğal). Chapter 6, “Public M em ory as Political Battleground,” for example, dem onstrates that in the late 1990s Islam ist and secularist politicians, intel­ lectuals, and citizens shared the idea that the foundation o f the Turkish Re­ public was a crucial turning point for the history o f the nation. The two parties, however, contested the foundational intent o f the Republic. Islam ists challenged the secularist m em ory o f the foundation by longing for what they remember as the religious nature o f the founding days. They retrieved pic­ tures o f A tatürk that showed him praying w ith religious leaders, traveling with his veiled w ife, and m aking statem ents praising Islam. As in the example o f the Islam ists, nostalgia creates legitim ate political space in which m argin­ alized groups can engage in critiquing the present through redefining the past. In chapter 4 o f this volum e, “Remembering a Nine-Thousand-Year-Old Site,” A yfer Bartu Candan sim ilarly dem onstrates how different groups that relate to the archeological site o f Çatalhöyük em phasize their unique relation­ ship w ith the location to claim ownership. Her rich analysis attests to the im ­ possibility o f m aking a sim ple division between official and unofficial versions o f memory, since representations o f the past are much more com plicated than such a dichotomous split can reveal.

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Commodification of Memory An extensive public dispute about m em ory arose in Turkey as politicians and citizens debated the best way to m arket Istanbul’s global service industries and tourism companies. D uring the 1994 local elections, the m ajor issue o f debate am ong candidates revolved around how to replan the city and, more im por­ tantly, w hat kind o f heritage to em phasize am ong the m ultiple layers o f his­ tory in the city w hile m arketing the city to global investors (Bartu 1999a; Bora 1999). As the case o f Istanbul dem onstrates w ell, m em ory and nostalgia turned into effective engines o f late capitalism at the turn o f the twenty-first century. K athleen Stewart once noted that nostalgia runs with the econom y o f which it is a part (1988,227). Today it m ight be more appropriate to rephrase her words as “nostalgia runs the economy o f which it is a part,” particularly because nos­ talgia is quite successful in turning comm only shared objects, concepts, and spaces into com m odities (Özyürek 2004a). In contem porary Japan, for exam­ ple, nostalgia creates desire for tourism and for so-called traditional objects by keeping Japan “on the verge o f vanishing, stable yet endangered” (Ivy 1995, 65). In Turkey, on the other hand, nostalgia comm odities allow people to re­ connect w ith a past that has already vanished. Entrepreneurs have creatively used the em ergent nostalgia for the O t­ toman Empire to sell furniture, houses, novels, film s, and food. They have in­ vented a curious new category, “Ottoman food,” to m arket pricey menu item s consisting o f comm only consumed homemade dishes such as vegetarian ap­ petizers, m eat dishes cooked w ith vegetables, pickles, and fruit desserts. M ore recendy the same dishes are also sold in Istanbul as G reek food, recalling the Ottoman residents o f the city, and for even higher prices (Iğsız 2001). As A slı Iğsız points out in chapter 8, new markets are em erging for music, literature, and m ovies, rem inding contem porary Turks o f the m ulticultural past o f the O ttoman Em pire, and Cihan Tuğal describes in chapter 7 how diaspora A r­ menians are rem inded o f the homeland they lost. A nother lost past, nam ely the pure and traditional village life, also makes urbanite Turkish and interna­ tional custom ers w illing to pay high prices for handwoven and naturally dyed rugs. K im berly H art notes in chapter 2 how, by purchasing rugs, Turkish and

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global consumers seek to connect with pastoral village life, which they im agine as their past.

Memory, Trauma, and Identity M em ory is also productive o f social relations by m anaging identities and help­ ing individuals and groups come to term s w ith the suppressed or commemo­ rated traumas o f the p ast Today many scholars agree that both individual and group identity becomes possible through claim ing and rem em bering same­ ness over tim e and space (Boyarin 1994; G illis 1994). M em ory not only helps individuals form membership in groups but also helps them create a sense o f their past, present, and future (Fentress and W ickham 1988; Tuğal 2002). This is precisely why nation-states spend so much effort on institutions o f mem­ ory, such as museums (Bennett 1995; Duncan 1995; chapter 3 in this volum e), monuments (Savage 1994), national history-w riting projects, commemora­ tions (Bodnar 1992; chapter 5), and founding myths (Ben-Yehuda 1995): to create a sense o f im agined comm unity for the nation. But what about events that are too painful to rem em ber or represent in the present? How do nations and their states deal w ith their public traum as? Foundation o f a nation-state is com m only a traum atic experience because it brings a rupture w ith the past (Antze and Lambek 1996). The process that led to the foundation o f the Turkish nation-state and national identity in­ cluded traum atic events where religious m inorities were m assacred, deported, or encouraged to m igrate in the name o f establishing a homogenous national identity. The three m ajor traum as o f the early twentieth century involved the m assacre o f Arm enians and other Christian groups in Anatolia in 1915 (Akçam 2004; D adrian 1999), deportation o f some two m illion Orthodox Christians out o f their homes in exchange for a sm aller M uslim population from G reece in 1923 (Hirschon 1998), and the infam ous wealth tax o f 1942, when Christian and Jew ish citizens o f the Turkish Republic were so heavily taxed that they had to sell all their belongings to pay their taxes (Akar 1999; Bali 1999; A ktar 2000). As a result o f such policies, religious m inorities in the country decreased dram atically. W hereas non-M uslims constituted 19.1 per­ cent o f the population at the beginning o f the twentieth century, at the end o f

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the century that num ber had dropped to a mere 0.2 percent (Courbage and Fargues 1997). The m em ory o f such traum atic events, where people killed their neigh­ bors and stole their property, live on in the silenced memories o f the individu­ als who experienced them (Yalçın 1998). In the 1990s, however, those events becam e the center o f public attention. The Singles o f Salkım H amm (Salkım Hanım’ın Taneleri), the novel and then the feature film depicting the tragedy o f the wealth tax, received substantial public attention (Bali 2001). Likewise, the question o f whether the 1915 massacres o f Arm enians can be defined as genocide becam e one o f the m ost intensely discussed issues o f public debate in the 1990s and early 2000s. M emories o f foundational traumas serve different groups in distinct ways. First, recall o f earlier traum as creates a legitim ate space in the present to acknowledge the ongoing suffering. Throughout the late 1980s and the 1990s, Turkey experienced a civil w ar between the Turkish arm y and guerrillas o f the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). A ccording to Turkish official reports, a total o f thirty thousand citizens died in the fighting. A t the tim e, individuals could get into trouble if they publicly discussed the present m isery o f the Kurdish peo­ ple. As A slı Iğsız notes in chapter 8, leftist publications and m usic houses have utilized the past traumas o f the Anatolian people to talk about the present tragedy. By alluding to a pre-twentieth-century nostalgia, when different peo­ ples o f Anatolia lived peacefully side by side, they can make an indirect critique o f the ongoing oppression o f the Kurdish population and identity. The m em ory o f foundational traumas has a different role for the victim ­ ized groups. In the 1990s, the Arm enian and, to a lesser extent, the Jew ish com m unity in Turkey also started to come to term s w ith their ordeals (Baer 2000). Such memories are utilized more effectively by the Arm enian commu­ nities in diaspora than those in Turkey. In chapter 7, “M emories o f Violence, M emoirs o f Nation,” Cihan Tuğal argues that m assacre memoirs w ritten by and for Arm enians especially in the United States are crucial for them to im ag­ ine Arm enians as a community. He also notes that memoirs are more successfill than histories in illustrating the com plexity o f representing the past and the difficulty o f finding a m eaningful explanation for violence. N ot all traum as o f the Turkish nation-state are silenced. In chapter 5, “An Endless Death and an E ternal M ourning,” N azlı Ö kten analyzes a commem­

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orated national traum a in Turkey: the death o f the founding father, M ustafa Kemal Atatürk. She argues that the never-ending m ourning for the leader and the relendess recall o f his death makes him im m ortal. As such, he becomes an ever-present figure o f the Turkish public sphere and defines its legitim ate boundaries. Ö kten argues that because the m em ory o f A tatürk has occupied a central place in Turkish political culture for more than sixty years, it is difficult for Turkish citizens to debate and create new grounds o f political legitim acy that go beyond the teachings o f the leader.

Memories in and of Turkey Beyond the National Boundaries One o f the earliest aim s o f the new Turkish Republic was to replace the living memories o f a m ulticultural and heterogeneous O ttoman Empire with a w rit­ ten history o f the unified nation that is lim ited by the newly drawn national boundaries. In chapter 3, “Reading the Stories in Three Dimensions,” Ask Gür dem onstrates how during the early Republican years, history w riting and archeology aim ed to establish connections with people who lived in Anatolia thousands o f years earlier. Archeological excavations and displays o f the 1930s fulfilled two goals. First, by defining earlier civilizations in A natolia such as the H ittites and Sumerians as Turkish, they legitim ized the Turkish state’s exclusive claim s on A natolia. M oreover, the same findings established histori­ cal connections between contem porary and ancient residents o f Anatolia. The “territorial kinship,” to use Gür’s term , that was established between Turks and the H ittites aimed to replace other kin relationships Turkish resi­ dents had established with Greeks, Arm enians, Iranians, and Arabs. A lthough A slı Gür’s study in chapter 3 o f contem porary Turkish museum visitors dem onstrates that the idea o f territorial kinship with ancient civiliza­ tions is still popular, official efforts to replace lived memories with a distant history has not been fully successful. M emories about im perial territories and times when people o f different ethnic and religious backgrounds lived to­ gether are still alive in Turkey and among diasporic Anatolian communities such as Arm enians and Greeks. E lif Ekin A kşit (2001) argues that firstgeneration Republican women integrate nostalgia for the early Republic w ith fond memories o f their Greek and Arm enian neighbors, who were erased from the national narrative o f early Ankara. The personal narratives o f these

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women do not form a conscious resistance to the nationalist narrative. But contem porary interest in music and novels from pre-population-exchange days has engendered criticism o f hom ogenizing policies and national bound­ aries. Such cultural products are consumed m ainly by younger generations who never personally experienced such coexistence, and thus gives these peo­ ple new political identities defined in the context o f the 1990s. In a sim ilar vein, Cihan Tuğal’s study in chapter 7 on m assacre memoirs w ritten by and for Arm enians in diaspora dem onstrates that m em ory-based cultural products work both to make and break territorial identities.

History of the Book The P olitics o f P ublic M em ory in Turkey already has a publicly shared past. An ear­ lier and quite different version o f it was published in Istanbul by iletişim Pub­ lication House in the summer o f 2 001.1 was inspired to put together a volume on the politics o f public m em ory in Turkey when I started to take note o f rap­ idly increasing interest in the past both by lay citizens and academics. Young scholars o f Turkey, such as the contributors to this book, have no doubt been influenced by the lively discussions o f m em ory in world academ ic circles. I be­ lieve that such interest in the past also has som ething to do w ith being mem­ bers o f the third generation o f the Turkish Republic. The first and second generations followed the m odernist and future-oriented vision o f the Turkish Republic and turned their backs to the past. For the third generation, however, the futuristic m odernization project and the erasure o f the past already belong to history. Like m any others in Turkey, contributors to this volum e define them selves through com peting memories o f the past instead o f the predeter­ mined narrative o f the m odernist vision. One way they explore some o f these memories is to w rite about them. The attention the original volum e received motivated me to revise the book for English readers. Although the basic idea behind the two volum es is the same, the content is quite different. In its second incarnation, the book has benefited greatly from the public and private discussions that followed publi­ cation o f the first volume. M oreover, it has been revised for readers who ate not necessarily intim ately fam iliar with Turkey. Some articles are substantially revised, and some others are new. A few articles published in the Turkish ver­

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sion are not included in the English version. Thus, the present volum e is more like a rem iniscence o f the original volum e than its repetition. Fam ily and friends helped me through the process o f putting the first and second versions o f the book together. I owe the greatest thanks to Asena G iinal, who encouraged and enabled me to publish the original book. I am also grateful to M ary Seldan Evans o f Syracuse U niversity Press for her con­ tinual support. As always, Ellen M oodie carefully combed through this intro­ duction and my contribution to the volume. Above all, The P olitics o f P ublic M em ory in Turkey became possible only through the enthusiasm and active en­ gagem ent o f the contributors during the lengthy process o f book production.

2 Weaving Modernity, Commercializing Carpets Collective M emory and Contested Tradition in Örselli Village Kimberly Hart The im agination has become an organized field o f social practices, a form o f work (in the sense o f both labor and culturally organized practice), and a form o f negotiation between sites o f agency (individuals) and globally defined fields o f possibility.. . . The im agination is now central to all forms o f agency, is itself a social fact, and is the key component o f the new global order. Appadurai 1996,31

Perched on the side o f a m ountain in the Yuntdağ region o f w estern Turkey, Ö rselli village is the center o f the Yuntdağ cooperative, a sister to the DOBAG carpet-weaving project (D oğal Boya A raştırm a ve G eliştirme Projesi, or N atural Dye Research and Developm ent Project). The village is uniquely poised as a location to explore ideas about tim e and identity because DOBAG has revital­ ized traditional carpet weaving and reintroduced natural dyeing. In addition to aiding the villagers economically, the project draws upon an im aginative rein­ vention o f ideas about tradition that are accepted by the people in Ö rselli as m arketing tools but not as markers o f a cultural identity. This essay explores how the people in Ö rselli are in the process o f com ing to term s with m odern­ ization, which they experience through m aterial change, and the intersection o f their identities, founded on a homogenous national ethnicity, w ith an inter­ national M uslim community. W hen I began my two-year ethnographic research in the village, I was ini-

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dally surprised to discover that, in addition to introducing significant m aterial, infrastructural, and ideological change, interpretations o f the past, carried out in the carpet-weaving project, were highly contested and charged with notions o f tradition and modernity. The com m odification o f traditional weaving con­ tributes to politically charged tensions over the past because it has created a space for contested ideas about cultural identity. These issues em erged in en­ counters between the villagers and foreign and local researchers, dealers, and tourists. In this essay, the term tradition is used not as a conscious or literal en­ actm ent o f the past, but rather as a component o f political ideology against which ideas o f m odernity are conceptualized and within which people and things are com partm entalized in a global hierarchy o f value (H erzfeld 2004). As M ichael H erzfeld argues in the case o f Greece, “Craftspeople k n o w . . . that their engagem ent with tradition is a double-edged sword. It exalts them . . . but it also serves to m arginalize them from some o f the m ost desirable fruits o f m odernity” (H erzfeld 2004, 5). In Ö rselli village, the production o f “traditional” carpets in a women's cooperative creates the econom ic condi­ tions for an improved living standard, which enables peasants to acquire some o f the trappings o f modernity. The cooperative, however, heightens the vil­ lagers’ awareness that they are engaged in the com m odification o f ideas o f tradition, which traps them in a perform ance o f authenticity for tourists, deal­ ers, and other visitors. The foundation o f the DOBAG cooperative in 1981 in Ö rselli village transform ed local weaving practices, but it should not be held solely account­ able for the com m ercialization o f weaving. M any o f the villages in the moun­ tainous and arid Yuntdağ are settlem ents o f form er nomads, or Y örük, who have a long history o f weaving, herding, and cheese m aking (J. Anderson 1998; Böhm er 1983; Brüggerm ann and Böhmer 1983; Black 1985). U ntil about twenty years ago, textiles, in the form o f carpets, sacks, bags, kilim s, prayer rugs, and pillows made in rural households, were essential furnishings and the key components o f the çeyiz (dowry or trousseau; (Atlihan 1993; Bay­ atlı 1944a, 1944b, 1945a, 1945b). Although textiles were a necessity and could be construed as traditional in term s o f their design and function, they always had a potential m arket value; they were always a potential commodity. Carpets in particular had a recognized value, and m any women carefully preserved carpets in their trousseaux and sold them when the fam ily faced hard times. It

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is therefore difficult to identify a tim e when carpet weaving was noncommer­ cial in the Yuntdağ. W eaving today, however, is very different from the first h alf o f the twentieth century. Today it is a cottage industry, devoted entirely to com m ercial production. Textiles are no longer im portant household fur­ nishings, and aside from their com m ercial value, they are not typical compo­ nents o f dowries and slowly have begun to lose their practical function. On an ideological level, however, carpets have value insofar as they are labeled as being “traditional.” Over the past forty years, the region has gradually lost its isolated charac­ ter due to the construction o f roads, the establishm ent o f schools, the in ­ creased availability o f m edical care, and the spread o f institutionalized Islam in village mosques, led by imams trained by the state. V illagers have begun to setde in M anisa, the m arket city to the south, although few have ventured far­ ther afield, and in general, m oney has become im portant, desired, and neces­ sary, even for those who want to stay in the village and lead a m odest existence. Education pulls the children away, the elderly and the pregnant need m edical care outside the village, and all the older people in the village desire to make the once-in-a-lifetim e journey to M ecca. In addition to creating a newly mo­ bile population that can im agine long journeys, a significant commute, or per­ manent resetdem ent, these activities all require paym ent in money, as does purchase o f the latest appliances, including television sets, satellite dishes, cell phones, refrigerators, gas stoves, and washing machines. Carpet weaving has provided a substantial share o f the necessary cash. It is not the com m ercial­ ization o f weaving, increased mobility, or increased consum ption, that have becom e politically sensitive issues, but rather the ideological frameworks w ithin which these activities take place. The com m ercialization o f carpets through the cooperative rests upon the sustained fiction that villagers are lead­ ing an authentically rural, isolated, and im poverished existence, governed by tradition.

Development and Ideas of Tradition The DOBAG project has two cooperatives, one based in Ayvacık and one in the Yuntdağ. The project was developed by H arald Böhmer, a German chem ist who moved to Turkey in 1960, and Josephine Powell, an Am erican

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photographer researching A natolian flatweaves who moved to Turkey in the mid-1970s. The project is adm inistered by M arm ara U niversity in Istanbul. W hile the project came from “outside,” the villagers were active in establish­ ing the cooperative in their village. Today, they organize production on a dayto-day basis. D uring 2000 and 2001, when I was conducting my research, the entire village was concentrated on this industry, and in general people were working hard to make money, to send their children to school, and to establish their older children in m arriage. W hile the villagers focus on the future o f their fam ilies and the day-to-day work o f weaving, the carpet-weaving business relies upon an im plicit vision o f the past, and especially o f tradition. The carpets are traditional, in other words, and they are constructed as “antiques o f the future,” which signifi­ cantly contributes to their m arketability abroad. DOBAG has been w ell docu­ mented by researchers and textile specialists (Anderson 1998; Böhm er 1983; Ger and Csaba 2000; G lassie 1993; M ason 1985; O’Bannon 1990; Thompson 1986). In general, m ost researchers focus on how a moribund cottage industry has been revitalized. The “return to tradition” (Anderson 1998) im plies that the villagers went “back” to som ething old and revived it; that is a very differ­ ent orientation to work and perceptions o f tim e than that experienced by the villagers who make the carpets and organize the business as an entrepreneur­ ial strike into the future. The question o f whether or not the project is based on a “backwards” or “forwards” motion is related to an “inside/outside” di­ chotomy. W hile the villagers know their side o f the story, o f how DOBAG was founded, and the interfam ilial dynamics and power struggles over author­ ity, money, and knowledge, the version o f DOBAG that reaches the ears o f academ ics, dealers, and tourists focuses entirely on the outside players. For this reason, the revitalization o f weaving, and especially the developm ent o f natural dyeing, has been alm ost w holly attributed to the work o f Harald Böh­ mer (Anderson 1998; G arrett 1988; Ger and Csaba 2000; Landreau 1978; Mason 1985; O’Bannon 1990; Thom pson 1986; and conversation w ith Harald Böhmer and Josephine Powell). In these narratives, the villagers appear pas­ sive, the recipients o f a German man’s careful study o f “traditional” and “lost” knowledge o f Anatolian natural dyes. If one judges on the basis o f dealer lore, the movement towards natural dyes, which began w ith DOBAG during the 1980s, has transform ed the carpet

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market. One finds that non-DOBAG dealers in the m iddle to low end in the covered bazaar in Istanbul, are quick to call all carpets kök boya, natural dyed, even when they obviously are not. N atural dyes have entered the realm o f dealer lore and are used to construct ideas o f value and authenticity (Spooner 1986). In fact, even ordinary textiles, such as head scarves, obviously dyed with chem ical dyes, often have kök boya printed on the edge, as a m ark o f quality. The association o f kk boya w ith quality has been one o f DOBAG’s victories. It is logical to ask why the villages ceased using natural dyes if the dyes were essential to the revitalization o f the textile market. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, the knowledge and use o f natural dyes throughout AnatQlia deteriorated, as chem ical dyes, which act quickly and produce striking col­ ors, became readily available (Thompson 1986; Böhm er 1983; Brüggerm ann and Böhmer 1983). Hawley, the w riter o f a travelogue, wrote in 1918, some o f his observations o f weavers in Izm ir: Once weavers spun their own wool, brewed their own vegetable dyes, and wove patterns embodying ideal thought and subtle symbolism. Now in two large establishm ents at Sm yrna (modern Izm ir), the weavers tie knots with m achine-spun yam , which is colored w ith chem ical dyes prepared in the lab­ oratories o f Germany, as they follow patterns furnished by their own em­ ployers, patterns o f older rugs woven in A sia M inor, Persia, or China, or new patterns largely influenced by European taste. (Hawley 1918,93)

In the Yuntdağ, weavers never dyed their own wool. Itinerant dyers ar­ rived in villages to dye spun wool. V illagers in this region still refer to colors dyed with chem ical dyes in their old carpets and kilim s by the name o f the itin­ erant dyer. O f course, m ost m anufactured textiles are made from chem ically dyed yarns. These tend to be relatively colorfast. Itinerant dyers, however, never seem to have learned fully how to use mordants to prevent the colors from running. Unlike the workshop in Izm ir that Hawley observed in the 1910s, which used wool dyed in Germany, village weavings were made with wool and cotton dyed by itinerant dyers. The colors faded to bland and unat­ tractive grays, and the colors ran. Technical problem s caused by the dyers, as w ell as the color schemes favored by the village weavers, caused the m arket for those textiles to erode. V illagers continued to make them, but there were few

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buyers. In the m eantim e, the knowledge o f natural dyeing deteriorated. As the market was flooded with cheap m anufactured carpets, kilim s, bags, and sacks, handmade item s disappeared into the hands o f collectors. As many said, “Bun­ la r çıktı, eskilerle değiştirdik ” (‘T h ese [machine-made goods] cam e, and we changed them for the old ones”). Woven item s were made because they had a functional use and not because they were traditional or regarded as special or better. In fact, as the new m arket blossom ed with machine-made textiles, the new textiles were regarded as special because they were different and new.

Memory, Tradition, and DOBAG Now that the DOBAG has been thriving in the Yuntdağ for more than twenty years, the excitem ent has begun to wear off, and ideas and feelings about memory and tradition in Ö rselli have intensified and become political. W hile conducting my research, I asked about the past because I wanted to know how people had lived in the village during prior generations. This, I thought, would be useful for understanding the social and economic changes. M aterial change was an im portant detail in narrations because it set a physical scene, and made the listener aware o f the kind o f world, which the characters experienced. W hen someone was telling a story, another person would often add, ‘T h at was when we didn’t have a road,” or “This was before electricity came to the village.” The story often had only a tangential relation to m aterial change, but would be told to explain, for instance, why, someone had lit a torch (“because there were no street lights”) or what was the significance o f cherries (they could only be bought in the market in M anisa, a five-day trip). No one im plied that access to convenient sources o f power, such as electricity, and accompa­ nying appliances, such as televisions, refrigerators, and cell phones, changed human relationships. That is, they did not explain the social changes, which that had occurred in the village as being a result o f new appliances or sources of energy. W hile visitors to the village are amused by the apparent juxtaposi­ tion o f modern technology and rural life or balk at what they perceive as its corrupting effects, the villagers do not feel corrupted. W hile m aterial changes play an im portant role in village narratives, ideas of tradition play a role in the narratives o f researchers, dealers, and tourists. On the surface, there appears to be a connection between village narratives

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that em ploy m aterial change as a pivot around which social transform ations are recounted and visitor narratives that employ ideas o f tradition, since both sets o f ideas (technology and tradition) contain an im plicit reference to time. The anthropologist, June Anderson, sums up this perspective in her book on DOBAG, entitled R eturn to Tradition: “In villages today, very litde has changed in the technology o f carpet m aking since its early beginnings; women still use the drop spindle for spinning, and weave on the same type o f loom as their an­ cestors did. V illagers shear sheep, card the wool, and dye the skeins much as their forebears did in ancient times. These traditional folkways have survived to this day, an unbroken link with the past.” 0. Anderson 1998,1). The reality is quite different. V illagers weave today, as they did in the past, but everything about the weaving, from the designs to the uses and the mar­ kets, has changed—not just once but countless times. Looms used to produce carpets in the Yuntdağ cooperative are, with few exceptions, m etal and not tra­ ditional wooden ones. Wool is carded by machine because no one w ill do this tim e-consum ing and tiring work by hand. Wool is dyed with plants, as it was before the introduction o f chem ical dyes during the late nineteenth century, but only because Harald Böhm er studied natural dyeing techniques and taught villagers in western Turkey the recipes. Traditional folkways, in other words, exist in relation to contem porary technology, wage-labor, and comm odified “traditional” village carpets. D espite these conflicting narratives about the history o f the project and differing im pressions about how to describe rural village life today, the vil­ lagers are extrem ely happy to receive visitors. The entire village is focused on the business o f weaving and selling carpets; any outsiders, regardless o f their nationality or profession, are referred to as “custom ers.” Yet many journalists, docum entary film makers, and researchers are not interested in buying car­ pets; they come to collect inform ation, im ages, and stories. These people are regarded w ith some skepticism , especially when they fail to buy a carpet, but everyone hopes that news o f the village and o f the cooperative w ill help sell more carpets. DOBAG has a handful o f dealers who sell İn their own exclu­ sive shops in California, Norway, Ireland, and Australia. The dealers all dis­ covered DOBAG and “fell in love,” as one dealer expressed to me, with the project. Initially, dealers were not experts in textiles. U ntil recendy, when the market became tight, m ost dealers sold DOBAG exclusively. They have de-

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voted a great deal o f tim e and effort as w ell as money in creating a business around DOBAG carpets and therefore need to gather im ages and inform a­ tion that help them sell carpets. In many respects, the dealers and the village carpet makers identify with each other. The dealers’ discourse on tradition is not particularly threatening because it is regarded as a way to prom ote business. The dealers, who have had long-term working relationships w ith the villagers, are trusted. Tourists usu­ ally go to DOBAG villages through groups organized by dealers. These visits are w ell orchestrated and everyone works to create a positive village experi­ ence for the tourists, the m ajority o f whom are older N orwegian textile enthu­ siasts or Am ericans looking for an interesting travel adventure. The tourists’ perceptions o f the village are not particularly im portant or threatening to the villagers, either, because everyone hopes they w ill buy carpets and spread the word about the local hospitality and pleasant way o f life. Local researchers and journalists, because they can speak Turkish and because their ideas about the local world are readily com m unicated, are regarded w ith skepticism . These visitors tend to be the least likely to buy a carpet. Hence, the villagers have con­ cluded that Turkish people do not want to spend their money on such “tradi­ tional” objects as carpets. As one weaver expressed very forcefully, “Rich Turks want to take a holiday in Am erica, not buy one o f our carpets!” The jux­ taposition o f a trip to Am erica, the quintessential “m odem ” place in the im ag­ ination o f many Turkish people, with a village carpet illustrates a common village perception that “traditional” things, as w ell as the people who make them , are not respected or highly regarded. They assume that only foreigners value carpets. W hile one m ight argue over whether weaving is traditional or m odern, the ideology o f tradition, the “unbroken link with the past,” is useful for dealers, tourists, and researchers, in that it creates a basis for m arketing carpets, fulfills custom ers’ rom antic ideas, creates a framework w ithin which visitors make sense o f their travel experience, and, for researchers, provides a ready-m ade narrative. The idea o f tradition gives the narratives o f researchers, dealers, and visitors to Ö rselli a structure and creates m eaning w ithin their discourse o f time and development. The ideology, however, does not have the same mean­ ing in the narratives o f villagers. V iewing weaving as “traditional” or “mod­ ern” relates to the perspective o f the researcher and relater, whether villager,

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dealer, tourist, or another researcher. W eaving in the Yuntdağ can be regarded as traditional in m any ways. Textiles once furnished the house and formed the prim ary content o f dowries; a component o f a nomadic heritage, they related to the local herding economy. Today, however, weavers consider their work the equivalent o f factory labor, even though it is a cottage industry. For this reason, they com plain bitterly about the lack o f health insurance and social se­ curity. This is not to say, however, that villagers are unaware o f the role o f the ideology o f tradition, which is highly charged w ith class distinctions. The point o f village narratives about the past is to dem onstrate change, whereas the goal o f the narratives o f dealers and visitors is to elim inate change. The villagers, by rejecting the association w ith “tradition,” are work­ ing to insert them selves into the m odernist narrative o f historical discourse, and to claim their identities as Turks and not as Yörük, nomads. The visitors and researchers, on the other hand, want to attach the idea o f tradition not only to the carpets but to the villagers as w ell. As journalists, tourists, re­ searchers, and dealers describe the village they see before them , they have two different nostalgic reactions, both o f which are predicated on an idea o f tradi­ tion and o f purity. This is, as Renato Rosaldo expresses it, “a particular kind o f nostalgia, often found under im perialism , where people mourn the passing o f what they them selves have transform ed” (Rosaldo 1989,108). In the first re­ action, they praise the wholesome purity o f village life, and w hile they praise the village, they express a feeling o f sadness for all that is lost in urban Turkey. The second reaction is also tinged with sadness. They bemoan the apparent lost o f purity in the village, which they see in m odem appliances in the village, cell phones, televisions, and satellite dishes. These appliances, they feel, w ill corrupt rural society from the outside. In both reactions, the past is pure, the past is traditional; all that is modern is corrupt and corrupting. V isitors are in­ spired with an em otion that stem s from a m isinterpretation o f both urban and rural societies in Turkey. T heir heavy feelings o f nostalgia for worlds they do not know and do not understand are increased by guilt over “ruined” purity.

Paradoxes of Tradition and Memory In contrast to nostalgia, which connects visitor narratives o f the present to the past, the villagers are connected to the past through collective memory. As dis-

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cussed by historians and anthropologists, memory, or, as it is dealt w ith in this essay, “collective memory,” is generally distinguished from history, as a prac­ tice, whether physical (as in craft and ritual) or oral (songs, stories, poetry), in which knowledge is transm itted from one generation to the next (Bahloul 1996,128; Boyarin 1992; Yerushalmi 1982). In the transm ission o f memory, identification and knowledge o f a particular place (Bahloul 1996), stories, songs or poems, and crafts or artistic form s help form a basis o f a common identity, a sense o f community, and especially the continuity o f the past into the present. In this sense, m em ory does not have to be w ritten; it can be ex­ pressed and transm itted orally or through action, and may be taught w ithout recourse to records. The elderly are the m ost obvious link to the past through their stories, but people also engage with m em ory in other ways, through so­ cializing their children, through their work, by living in a landscape steeped in the past, and, as already indicated, through objects— such as carpets. A paradox o f tradition and memory in Ö rselli is that the people have am­ bivalent feelings about the past and deny any connection to it, but sim ultane­ ously dem onstrate a strong sense o f collective identity. V illage life has a rhythm structured by Islam ic practice, changing seasons, and m ajor life events m arked by rituals and memory inscribed in the land. The people express a strong sense o f collective identity and communal solidarity, grounded in part in a nonverbal dem onstration o f collective memory. One example o f how collective memory is inexplicit but inscribed is in place-nam es for fields, wild pastures, wells, and w atering holes. People experience the land, its sm all for­ m ations, as being inscribed with human history. This history is consciously re­ m em bered in the names o f places and the ownership o f property (fields, trees, w ells, gardens, pastures). Although the land is inscribed with the signs o f memory, the exact details are often forgotten; this is particularly surprising in the case o f wells and w atering holes created after a person’s death as a good deed (baytryapm ak). One would think that these useful places (water being very scarce) would help people rem em ber the person being commemorated. How­ ever, w hen I asked, for exam ple, for whom a w ell was dug, the person usually had been forgotten unless he or she had died in the past decade. Also surpris­ ing was the nonchalance that accom panied such fotgetting. W hile I was sur­ prised that everyone forgot, my inform ants were surprised that they should be expected to remember. The m em ory o f specific individuals was expected to

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vanish. In fact, the people in Ö rselli dem onstrate that rem em bering specific individuals is not im portant and m ay even be negative, as it isolates individuals and forces them to recall the past. Sim ilarly, history, which relies upon inscribed inform ation and on details o f individuals’ lives, is regarded with suspicion. The am bivalence w ith which people view rem em bering the dead relates to the emphasis villagers put on the fleetingness o f life, and the human illusion o f stability in the face o f divine, absolute, and incom prehensible order. W hen I asked about the deceased and life in the past, many older people began sadly to make remarks about “ya la n dünya” (world o f illusion) and “kim geldi, kim g eçli” (who has come, who has gone). M any also asked, surprised and somewhat upset, “W hy do you want to talk about those people who are dead now?” The “world o f illusion,” a phrase and sentim ent often used in Turkish folk m usic, describes the spiritual orien­ tation o f villagers. They im agine this world to be an illusion but the afterlife to be real. Yalan dünya questions our notion o f reality on a fundam ental level. It also expresses the hubris o f human beings who, each in their individual worlds, im agine that their thoughts, feelings, pains, and pleasures are im por­ tant. Stacked up against the inevitability o f death, the incom prehensibility o f existence, and the relendess predictability o f one’s own life, individual con­ cerns are insignificant; from the villagers’ standpoint, all people really are liv­ ing a lie. In a very com plex way collective m em ory entwines daily life (work, environm ent), belief system s, a relationship to the past, and a process o f for­ getting individual lives. Furtherm ore, collective m em ory should be distin­ guished from the expectation that people have a coherent, chronological narrative o f the past. This fixed chronology is not memory, but history. In this sense, the codified past is history in which m em ory and tradition are lo st W hile there is a strong sense o f collective m em ory in the village, it does not take the form o f explicit ideas o f tradition or history. For instance, al­ though weaving is an im portant industry in the village, no one acknowledges or wants to acknowledge that women have been weaving in the village for m any generations and that their weaving dem onstrates the connection be­ tween the past and the present The connection w ith the past can be seen in the m osque, which has many old carpets; they illustrate both the history o f weaving and the practice o f donating a carpet to the mosque as a good deed upon the death o f a m other or father. Although weavers show their knowl­

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edge o f a practice, which that has passed to them from their fem ale ancestors, weaving is not acknowledged as having im portant roots. V illagers are even re­ luctant to adm it that weaving m ight express a group or local identity, even though the cooperative is careful to include only regional designs in its reper­ toire. The designs that are included in the DOBAG collection have more to do with m arketability than authenticity. For instance, every girl had a deve hah (cam el carpet) in her dowry. This carpet is never woven today because it has no com m ercial value; it does not look traditional enough to be a “traditional car­ pet.” Today, old carpets are used for design reference, and village weavers often look at old carpets in mosques in neighboring villages for new design ideas. These textiles act as reference works on design, drawn upon for new weavings, thereby synthesizing design and artistic form s across generations. However, looking at old things, such as carpets, to get ideas for new ones, marks a disjuncture with older practice. Now people look for a pattern they hope w ill sell. W ith a breakdown in the utility o f textiles, other than as a source o f incom e, designs became dislodged from specific places and began to travel more freely as women wove designs they liked or that were new to them. This relaxed attitude about locally characteristic or “traditional” design is sim ilar to the easy relationship people have w ith new technology. Ju st as de­ signs are resurrected and become valuable because they sell, the villagers fol­ low the latest fashions, tossing out obsolete practices and things as new ones come along. They never go out o f their way to m aintain an old practice if a newer, easier method appears. In the past, for instance, cheese was packed in earthenware jugs and put in the river (dere peyniri). Today cheese is packed in plastic jugs and put in the refrigerator. The elderly w ill remark that “derepeyniri tasted much better than today’s cheese,” but no one goes to the trouble to recreate an old cheese. From the village perspective, a person who would carry difficult-to-obtain and heavy earthenware jars packed with cheese to the river would be w asting tim e and energy. Perhaps in tim e some enterprising in­ dividual w ill begin recreating this cheese for the exclusive m arket in regional specialties. The im plem entation o f these practices is motivated by practical and not ideological concerns. N ot only do people in the village seem uninterested in m aintaining old practices, they seem threatened by the possibility that some aspect o f their lives could be labeled as old or traditional, as though that could

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negatively reflect on them. Since they are not indifferent to such a possibility but rather react negatively to it, they show that ideas o f tradition and moder­ nity are ideologically charged. The people in Ö rselli village think o f them­ selves as being on the cutting edge, and they disparage their neighbors in other villages as being "geri kafalı" (backward). The villagers’ designation o f their communal identity as m odem is connected with their entrepreneurial spirit, which they have invested in the cooperative. Even their neighbors note that “Ö rselli is more açık (open),” a statem ent that im plies both that Ö rselli resi­ dents are inventive and hardworking and that they are a little shameless in their readiness to expose themselves to foreign influence and money. W hile some aspects o f m aterial change were adopted with alacrity, other transform ations seem to have been accepted as inevitable. In these cases, the relationship with old things is expressed in a strangely passive manner. Women w ill say, for exam ple, about carpets, that "makinalar (makina bah) çıktı" (machine-made carpets em erged). O r they may say, “I switched my carpets for machine-made ones” ("hahlanm i m akinalar ile değiştirdim "). In fact, many did “switch” their handwoven carpets for machine-made ones. Itinerant collec­ tors o f old things (eskiri) still travel to villages with plastic goods and machinemade mats and carpets to trade new for old. In their description o f m aterial change, the people o f Ö rselli appear to im agine them selves as passive recep­ tors {"çıktı" em erged, "geldi" cam e, "değişti" changed) o f whatever is new— machine-made carpets, woven plastic sacks, and so on. A t the same tim e, they em phasize the convenience o f machine-made things and plastic bags over handmade textiles, dem onstrating the active role they take in trading in old things for new ones. Once I asked a young woman about whether she had in her dowry a particular handwoven bag that is used to carry food and w ater and has m any other uses in the fields far from home, for exam ple as a sitting m at, a pillow, or as protection for one’s back against heavy firewood bundles. It seemed not only a traditional item , but one with a continuing variety o f uses. W hen she said she did not have one, I naïvely asked what she would take with her to the fields. H er response was breezy and clear: “I’ll take a plastic bag in­ stead!” Like many young women, she was probably hoping that her m arriage would take her out o f the village and away from the chores that would require a woven bag. H aving one in her dowry would not make her proud o f her tra­

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ditional heritage or identity, but rather would suggest the future drudgery o f village labor. W hile visitors, researchers, and dealers all travel the rocky road to Ö rselli for carpets, weaving is only grudgingly recognized as being connected to the past in any significant way. People in the village usually argued that they keep sheep and weave in order to live, because they lack arable land. They did not acknowledge a historical tradition, even though they know that their grand­ parents did more or less the same types o f work that they do today. This con­ nection seemed accidental to them ; if suddenly their village were transported to a region with good farm land or other am enities, like a factory, they believed they would toss aside the work they do now and pick up new skills im m edi­ ately. That is, their identity was disconnected from what they do every day: herding sheep, weaving carpets, and m aking cheese. They did not regard these practices as having an inherent value or as having an explicit significance, at least insofar as they made verbal claim s to identifying w ith the past. T hey were also actively denying their nomadic heritage. As a young Turkish scholar told me recendy, many urban people in Turkey are offended when she says that Turks were nom adic N ot only do they not care about that history, but they feel they are being insulted. As H erzfeld notes a sim ilar reaction among arti­ sans in Greece: “In general, artisans and m odernity appear increasingly to be viewed as categorically incom patible w ith each other, except in the sense that quaintness can itself become a resource for enterprising artisans in a world in which it seems to be in short supply” (H erzfeld 2004, 60). The villagers in Ö rselli are reacting to the nostalgic im pulses o f visitor narratives, which ossify them in a cultural museum. They further suspect that these well-m eaning im ­ pulses would shut them o ff from being recognized as full citizens o f the state. D enying the past helps strip them o f cultural difference, which interferes with their allegiance to a national, homogenous, and m odernist Turkish identity.

Müzelik: Objectifying the Past The cooperative, which brought a m easure o f prosperity to the village, has re­ arranged the stratification o f social order. The effects o f increased income are evident in the structure o f houses across the three distinct generational

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groups in the village. The generation o f elders have sim ple one— or two-room houses, while members o f the m iddle generation have three-room houses, and those o f the youngest generation have four rooms. The quantity o f household goods also differs m arkedly across the generations. These inequal­ ities dem onstrate in m aterial term s how generations have had access to vary­ ing levels o f income. The houses also show how previous generations have invested as much as they possibly can to establish their children in m arriage, which is interpreted as a m eritorious act. For those left behind, the stratifica­ tion o f levels o f consum ption affects their conceptualizations o f tim e and tra­ dition, as the objects surrounding them rem ind them. One indicator o f tension about the idea o f the past in the village is in the concept o f müzelik, m eaning “a museum piece” or “an old thing.” The term m ight seem to im ply rem em bering, since museums are often thought o f as places where memories are stored, but used colloquially, it means old, objecti­ fied junk. One day I visited Fatma, who is about sixty-five years old, and she used the term müzelik w ith special effect to describe her house. This is be­ cause she lives in one o f the few traditional houses, and H arald Böhmer, with only the best o f intentions and w ith the greatest respect for both Fatma and her house, takes visitors to m eet her and see what all houses used to be like, about twenty-five years ago. V isitors are curious and respectful, but Fatma still suffers. Fatma has a two-room stone house w ith an earthen roof. The outer room is em pty except for her loom , which is beside the window, giving her natural light for weaving. The inner room has an open hearth. T he central area is used for all the household activities: eating, sleeping, sitting, and cooking. In the back o f the room there is a raised platform stretching from w all to wall. In the middle o f the platform is a single pole (direk), which supports a curtain. The curtain stretches to the right w all o f the house and covers a line o f sacks, filled with wheat and bulgur. Behind the sacks is the banjo (bath), a tiny booth with a wooden door and a drain to the outside, thcyü k lü k or bedding pile, and next to that, Fatma’s fey/%sandığı, her dowry chest. To the left are shelves with sim ple kitchen utensils. This is the cooking section. The floor is covered w ith over­ lapping carpets, kilim s, and blankets. One sits on m inder (floor cushions). A high shelf runs along the entire room, and torba (bags) are hung on hooks along with a few sparse pieces o f clothing. Fatma’s house, unlike sim ilar

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houses o f other elderly women, is fully functioning and w ell kept. A t the same tim e, its interior is quintessential^ traditional, in that it resem bles a nomadic tent (Athhan 1993,77; J. Anderson 1998,68). E verything is packed away neatly and only brought out for some purpose. Fatma is deeply ashamed o f the same qualities that visitors like about her house. As I sat w ith her, she said repeatedly, “Bettim ev firk in! " (M y house is ugly). W hen I asked why it is ugly, she paused for a few moments and then said: “E ski, esk i b ir ev” (It’s an old house). I said, “For that reason you find it ugly?” She confirm ed that, nodding her head. As with all the old people who protested that their houses are old and ugly, I pointed out that her house is made o f stone w ith an earthen roof and is cozy in the w inter and cool in the summer, unlike the stifling hot and freezing cold brick and tile o f newly built homes. Everyone im m ediately agrees that their homes are more com fortable than the new ones, but they still express shame over living in an old-style house. I drew the floor plan o f Fauna's house, and all the w hile she and her husband argued about whether their house was ugly or not. In the end, Fauna adm itted that she is em barrassed when tourists come to see her house. It is not the house itself that she finds problem atic but rather showing it to people. Fatma tends to m utter and occasionally interject, “m üzelik !” when she feels that she and her things are being singled out as being “old.” She finds this process o f objectifying her house, dating her, and also, im portantly, showing how she is too poor to fill in the hearth, tile the roof, and buy furniture very disturbing. A house, then, dem onstrates a connection to the past, just as the land is in­ scribed w ith memory and carpets are visual texts o f design traditions. In the case o f houses, the connection is not useful or relevant and in fact points out how the owner cannot afford a new house. As the past becomes müzelik, it obfuscates ex­ perience and confuses an order that people in the village believe m ust happen: that old things must make way for the new. The names o f people who die are for­ gotten, and no one attem pts to attach a memory o f a person to a place. W hen people die, their houses are allowed to fall apart and crum ble. A bride, everyone says, would never “enter” an old house (gelin gjrm evÿ, m eaning that although many o f the older women in the village took over an old house when they mar­ ried, standards have risen and only the new houses are regarded as suitable today for a bride. The past, in other words, is in the past, finished and irrelevant.

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The people in Ö rselli seem to dem onstrate a wariness that any discussion o f the past w ill lead to objectification, which w ill become an obfuscating his­ torical narrative. It is better, from this perspective, to allow the past to be buried by tim e and forgetfulness. The past, if it is selectively forgotten, cannot be a source for historical narration or a basis for generalized abstractions, be­ cause it is gone. In effect, the past is preserved by forgetting. The lives o f those who are dead are not threatened by interpretation in the present. If details are fotgotteon, they cannot threaten the present or prevent people from adopting a new, more convenient, or more com fortable life.

“You Have No Nice Traditions” W hile the people in Ö rselli share a sense o f collective memory, they do not objectify their lives or their practices as being traditional. They do not self­ consciously create an historical narrative, that would single out their region as special. Instead, they selectively forget individuals, tribal names and refer­ ences, and accounts o f the past. This process o f forgetting enables them to in­ sert themselves into a national narrative o f Turkish history and prim es them as full citizens o f the republic, where they w ill be able to have the same advan­ tages and services as any other person. DOBAG has politicized ideas about the past in the village because it m ar­ kets the carpets each household weaves as traditional. Researchers, tourists, and dealers therefore assum e that not only are the carpets traditional but so are the people. They also assume that by visiting one can discover tradition, living representations o f the past. As Rosaldo writes in his essay, “Im perialist Nos­ talgia,” we need to ask who is doing the reflecting, who needs to reim agine, reinvent, research, and remember. Rosaldo suggests that the ones who re­ member are those who are detached: the historian and the anthropologist (Rosaldo 1989,108). In Ö rselli there are many others who likewise attem pt the trip from a contem porary modern present into a traditional world o f the past: the casual visitor from the city below who is exploring the m ountains; the tourist led by a dealer who has flown halfway around the world; the journalist and docum entary film m aker who command the weavers to perform for the cam era; and the researcher looking for a subject for her thesis. The m eeting, which takes place on village soil, is not always com fortable as conflicting con­

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ceptualizations o f tim e, memory, history, tradition, economy, society, and life itself clash. A pleasant consensus m ight be ethnographic fictions; in relation to her ethnographic work in A lgeria, Joelle Bahloul discusses how her inform ­ ants may have altered their stories because they knew how they would be used. “M y ethnographic fiction entered my inform ants' reality and fiction and real­ ity merged in the w riting project. Collective m em ory claim ed to become a his­ torical discourse w hile being w ritten from an outsider’s view point” (Bahloul 1996,8). The project o f research then, whether historical or ethnographic or some com bination o f the two, may be im plicated in these dangerous processes, in objectifying, in contributing to obfuscating discourses in essentialism s, and in im perialist nostalgia. These m eetings are often painful for both villagers and visitors, as illustrated in the following story.

An Ethnographic Story It was the end o f D ecember, the holiday after Ramazan, and the village was filled w ith relatives from M anisa. I was sitting w ith ten or twelve people in the only warm room in the house where I lived with the president o f the coopera­ tive and her husband. A fire was burning in the wood stove, and the television was on. Suddenly, unexpected visitors arrived, a woman and two men. The vis­ itors did not introduce themselves, and no one asked their names. The woman m erely m entioned that she was a friend o f Şerefe A tlihan, the quality-control expert from M arm ara University, whom everyone has known for m any years. The woman had come to look at the rugs to do research. She said she was looking for M ehm et, the director o f the cooperative, and she needed to see a loom. A few o f us had been leaning against the warps on a loom , using it as a backrest. The woman pulled out a cam era, and we got out o f her way so she could photograph it. The researcher took her snap shots and began quizzing M ehm et, the di­ rector. Aysu and Emine, the president and key m anager o f the cooperative, were w aiting to be noticed by this researcher. There were m any other women in the room as w ell who weave, and they too were apparently invisible. The re­ searcher was interested in carpet weaving, for what end we did not know; pre­ sumably she was interested not only in the product but also in the process,

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which would entail asking a weaver— a woman— about weaving. She did not ask, however; she was focused on things as signs o f a traditional village life. W ithout being polite— and in the village politeness is highly valued— she m entioned that she wanted to see the rug d ep o t In order to go, she needed some help from M ehm et, the director, who was casually stretched out w ith the rest o f us on the floor. It was clear he was not going to leap up for this woman. She asked him if the women were happy with the cooperative and about vari­ ous traditions, clothing, and m usic She asked if the village was old, “at least four hundred years old?” M ehm et said it was. For h alf a second, I wondered why he agreed so readily, since I knew he did not know, or at least he had not known when I asked. It was at this juncture that a discussion about tim e and tradition began. The researcher began to com plain about how “they” do not have any “traditions” in this area, no nice clothing, no davul and %uma (drum and reeded instrum ent) at weddings. I was debating whether or not I would re­ veal m yself, when I blurted out, “Well, why do you think these traditions are so im portant?” The question threw her off. She seemed to think that it was selfevident that traditions exist and are a good thing. Although I had blown my cover, I decided I would ask about this issue o f traditions, which had in fact irked me considerably. A fter explaining who I was and w hat I was doing there, a conversation began. As an exam ple o f this question o f tradition, I told her that when I had talked to elderly women in the villages about traditional clothing, specifically a garm ent called the üçetek (literally, “three skirts”), I got many different re­ sponses. Some women said that the üçetek was annoying, too hot, or too ex­ pensive, but others remem bered it fondly as much prettier that modern clothes. Some described in vivid detail girls strutting down the path to the well w ith the long colorful tassels o f their arkaleç (sm all pieces o f flatweave) sway­ ing under the earthenware jugs on their backs. T heir lively and nostalgic de­ scriptions touched on how attractive and even sexy girls were when decked out in m ulticolored clothing w ith swaying, jangling, heavy beads and sequins. Still other wom en, I told the researcher, had patted various parts o f their bod­ ies and said that the üçetek “wanted” this and that, indicating the m any layers, the weight, and the heat o f all the doth. M oreover, I rem arked, the fact that all these different responses came out o f a single village shows how everyone has different ideas and different memories about dothing. I was about to point

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out that if everyone’s views about clothing varied so significantly, so too would their ideas about other things, such as this hazy notion o f “tradition,” when M ehm et, the director, got excitedly joined the conversation. M ehmet began to analyze the üçetek and the practice o f wearing clothing in practical and historical term s. He remarked that if I were dressed only in a shirt, sweater, şalvar (loose, pleated trousers), and head scarf (as all o f the v il­ lage women and m yself were dressed in that room ), and then I were to sit on the cold ground, I would be sorry that I was not w earing the üçetek and the kuşak ( a triangular shawl worn w ith the üçetek around the w aist). He was right, o f course. In essence, M ehm et was arguing that a common practice such as wearing certain clothing comes about because it has a function. W hen the üçetek lost its use-value, it ceased to be worn. The researcher turned to me to “explain” M ehm et’s answer, seem ing quite unaware that his response was utterly unre­ lated to her assertion that tradition is a steadfast code, inherently good and valuable, and is the basis o f identity. From her perspective, when tradition vanishes, it has been corrupted from the outside. H er argum ent echoed ironi­ cally in the room because she represented in her body, m annerisms, and occu­ pation the same kind o f outside influence she was criticizing. She did not see that M ehm et was very clearly divorcing tradition, as an ideological construct, from practice. For the people in the village, it is not age that makes som ething like clothing valuable, but utility. Finally taking notice, o f the women in the room, the researcher turned to Aysu, the president o f the cooperative, and asked if there were any üçetek left in the village. Aysu said, very bluntly, that all the old üçetek had been burnt. Since I knew this was not true, I quietly concluded that Aysu was forestalling a search for old clothing. M oreover, her calculated bluntness and assertion o f the vio­ lent fate o f old traditional clothing seemed designed to shock the researcher. Predictably, the researcher was horrified that, with such apparent wanton dis­ regard for the unquestioned value o f the past, the villagers had burnt their her­ itage. In fact, the only üçetek left in the village were the wedding dresses o f women who had m arried before 1970, when the white wedding dress first made its appearance and became the standard wedding costum e for brides. Furtherm ore, because m ost women had very few items o f clothing—gener­ ally one outfit to w ear w hile the other was being washed— it would be unlikely

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that m asses o f old clothing could have survived. The villagers in the Yuntdağ had no surplus clothing, nor did they have finely made clothing. It was clear that this woman had never realized that poverty is stronger than “tradition.” The conversation about clothing was interesting because it im m ediately showed the very practical and experience-oriented knowledge o f the villagers, in contrast to the woman's knowledge o f “tradition,” which was divorced from experience. She m ight have learned, as she claim ed, about A natolian tra­ ditions by visiting villages, and not just through books, but her knowledge, whether from conversation or texts, was still abstract and removed from prac­ tical understanding. It seemed she had no notion o f the m aterial reality o f life in the villages, nor why clothing m ight have changed over time. I asked her again, “W hat is the value o f traditions?” A visitor from a coastal town who had studied at the university and whose fam ily is originally from the Yuntdağ, jumped in and said that traditions are worthless if they are just nostalgic expressions. He said to the researcher that she “thinks it’s nice in the village because it is different, but that she would think otherwise if she were to live here.” He im agined that she thought the village was a natural, tra­ ditional place. She responded by saying that she “did not think it was nice here,” which naturally astounded everyone. In her view, the village, w ith its tiled roofs, satellite dishes, and cell phones was a corruption o f a “real” village. Perhaps becom ing aware o f her tremendous faux pas, she began to m odify her position by saying that the oya (crocheted or needlework edging on head scarves) and carpets made today in the village are “traditional,” which also served to justify her visit. I said that the carpets and oya are actually m odem , which I knew she would not understand because she did not know w hat the purpose o f carpet weaving was, nor did she make or w ear oya. She would therefore have had no experience o f how oya patterns travel around the coun­ try and are enthusiastically copied by women seeking the latest, newest, and m ost fashionable decoration for their head scarves. She also seemed to im ag­ ine that the carpets were the unthinking product o f centuries o f women weav­ ing and not a product for foreign markets. It seems she had created her own nostalgic reality and was searching for signs o f it in villages. She was disap­ pointed when nothing seemed to match her expectations and excited when she found som ething appeared to confirm them. From the discussion that day, it was clear to me and to the other people in the room (but not to the re­

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searcher) that “tradition” is an assessm ent devised from the outside, after practice has disappeared. It also seemed that the ideological role o f tradition is to create groundwork for the developm ent o f a historical consciousness.

Conclusion The people in Ö rselli use “tradition” to objectify their lives and their experi­ ences. T heir work in founding the cooperative required trust in outsiders, new knowledge and techniques o f natural dyeing, a strategic use o f local de­ sign, and a clever use o f ideas about tradition to m arket the carpets to deal­ ers and tourists. The result is a business that has survived for more than twenty years, and new prosperity for village fam ilies, which has enabled them to buy consum er goods, educate their children, and make pilgrim age to M ecca. The villagers are pleased with the results o f their hard work, although they are troubled by the objectification o f tradition when applied to their lives. M ichael H erzfeld argues, as I quoted earlier, that craftspeople discover that, “engagem ent with tradition is a double-edged sword” (Herzfeld 2004,5). In a world o f m ass-produced goods, crafts are replications o f an im agined past, a literal objectification o f ideas o f authenticity or cultural markers o f an exalted history. From the woven heritage o f form er nomads, textiles in the vil­ lages o f the Yuntdag evolved from essential household goods that furnished the house into com m ercialized knotted carpets for sale abroad. Once, textiles were as utilitarian as they were m ysteriously beautiful. Now villagers struggle to hit on the right configuration o f motifs and size and the correct juxtaposi­ tion o f colors to appeal to foreign buyers. Everyday household goods are plas­ tic bags, woven fiberglass sacks, and machine-made carpets and kilims. W hile new production textiles are not exciting to discerning collectors because they do not have the patina o f age, DOBAG markets its carpets as “antiques for the future.” V illagers are confronted with a com plex m ixture o f curiosity, quest for objectifying historical narratives, and authenticity in both m aterial culture and village life through visitors, tourists, and researchers, who come to buy carpets and collect inform ation on “traditional” carpet weaving. From the village per­

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spective, the im portance o f these perceptions is ranked in relation to the probability that a visitor w ill buy a carpet. Unfortunately, Turkish visitors, whether journalists, researchers, or casual tourists, are the least likely to buy a carpet, the m ost likely to openly criticize the village, the m ost likely to insult the villagers w ith their notions o f “tradition,” and the most likely to be under­ stood on all these counts because they speak Turkish. D ealers are w ell toler­ ated, because, like the cooperative workers, they are trying to survive by selling DOBAG carpets. Tourist narratives are the least likely to be understood, since the tourists do not speak Turkish. Tourists are not taken very seriously; they are foreigners, after all, and no one expects them to understand what is hap­ pening. Turkish visitors, therefore, are the m ost problem atic because the vil­ lagers expect an ideological closeness with them. Both are presumably, from the village point o f view, Turks and M uslims. M any visitors, especially re­ searchers, understand how to be polite in the village setting, but those who do not, disappoint their hosts and cause them to reassess the other regions o f Turkey and measure them up against the Yuntdağ. W hile there is a heightened sensitivity about interpretations o f tradition, the villagers live and work in an environm ent inscribed with collective mem­ ory. There is a truncated past that does not stretch any deeper than hazy mem­ ories o f grandparents, yet also an inexplicit but strong collective identity, an em bodied cultural m em ory in work and crafts. The result is the construction o f a notion o f the present that draws on an inexplicit reference to memory, a rejection o f alternative ethnic and social identities, such as being Y örük, from the state-based one o f Turkishness, and a forward-looking business in carpet production. Since DOBAG explicitly draws on a notion o f tradition in carpet design, weaving techniques, m aterials, and natural dyes, it is not surprising that visitors (whether researchers, tourists, or dealers) expect to see a m anifesta­ tion o f tradition in the lives o f the villagers. The resulting encounters are often uncom fortable. As Fatma suffers under the sensation that her home is being objectified as m uittik , other villagers have declared that they have “burned” all signs o f the past so that any potential future connection between these objects and their lives w ill be im possible. This shows us that between the village and the urban regions to the south, an ideological and even a philo­ sophical conflict arises over notions o f memory and tradition. The villagers

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hoped to isolate the objectification o f tradition and m em ory to the carpets. T hey find, however, that in the complex dynamics o f ideologies and objects, in the global and national m arketplaces o f ideas (not only com m odities), they are concerned by the very notions o f tradition and authenticity they have used to gain new prosperity.

3 Stories in Three Dimensions N arratives o f Nation and the Anatolian Civilisations Museum Aslı Gür

Since its consolidation in the 1930s and 1940s, the cultural politics o f the Turkish state has produced pervasive institutionalized narratives and symbols in the national public sphere.1The official ideologies have deeply touched the lives and the consciousness o f the citizens through state interventions in mass m edia, literature, history w riting, art, and education. Consequently, it is not surprising that state-sponsored representational practices that are inextricably interwoven with the official public im ageries o f nation, modernity, and devel­ opm ent have long been paradigm atic issues for students o f Turkish history. However, in the substantial scholarship on the relationship between nation­ state and nationalist cultural reproduction in Turkey, two neglected lines o f in­ quiry are striking. First, few studies pay attention to the reception o f the cultural products o f the state institutions. U sually students o f the cultural policies in the nation­ building processes judge the power o f nationalist discourses and narratives re1 .1 would like to thank Müge Göçek, Selim D eringil, George Steinm etz, Esra Özyürek, Julia H ell, and the fellows o f the 2003—4 G lobal Ethnic Literatures sem inar at the University o f M ichigan for their insightful comments on the various versions o f this essay. I am particularly grateful to Ayşe Öncü for starting me o ff in this project and opening the doors o f narrative analysis for me. I am also indebted to Nazan Atasoy for helping me form ulate my interview questions, to Esra Özyürek for her unabated patience and encouragem ent, and to Tolga Könik, Yusuf Gür, and Zeynep Gür for their various kinds o f assistance and support.

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produced in the state institutions by their pervasiveness in the texts o f the cul­ tural products. The significance o f the context and mode o f interaction be­ tween these institutions and their target comm unities is neglected. The problem with such an approach is that, sim ply by not engaging with the ques­ tion o f reception, the ability o f the receivers to interpret the products and the practices o f schools, museums, and other state agencies regulating language, m edia, and collective m em ory is underm ined. Thus, citizens are granted no agency to negotiate or subvert the messages encoded in the representational practices o f these state institutions.2 How do the citizens experience the state’s cultural politics amd institu­ tions? How do they negotiate the meanings o f the symbols and the narratives offered through museums, schools, canonical literature, and media? This study addresses these questions by focusing on one o f the earliest cultural projects in the republic’s history, the A natolian Civilizations M useum (ACM), and its visitors. The ACM is significant to the state’s nationwide museumification project, prim arily because its foundation and developm ent in Ankara and the discourse it embodies have been paradigm atic for later sm all-city museum projects in Anatolia. To understand the dom inant narrative o f the museum, this study first exam ines the institutionalization process is first examined from a historical perspective. A fter delineating the nature o f the official cultural politics o f the form ative period and exam ining how they shaped the narrative o f the museum exhibition, it explores the ways in which the dom inant narra­ tive m ediates the visitor’s experience o f the museum through the special arrangem ents by which is its represented. Finally, an analysis o f local visitors’ narratives on their experiences o f the exhibit provides insight into how the visitors engage w ith, reject, or negotiate the m eaning o f the museum’s collec­ tion. Such an approach illum inates the current readings o f the signification practices o f the early years o f the republic, providing access to a slice o f the

2.

Among the many definitions o f

agency,

I base my conceptualization on Judith Buder’s

definition. Unlike other perspectives that focus on agency embedded in revolutionary forces and resistances that are often conceived as “outside” and “against” power, Butler conceptual­ izes agency as discursively proliferating through power networks with unintended consequences, operating “in a relation o f contingency and reversal to the power that makes it possible, but to which it nevertheless belongs” (1997,15).

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collective memory. Ultim ately, it enables us to explore popular critiques o f the official narrative and to challenge the state hegem ony on the regulation and definition o f the cultural heritage. W hy should we study museums and their visitors rather than other public cultural institutions and their target audiences? This question brings us to the second line o f inquiry that is neglected in the scholarship on the Turkish state’s nation-building cultural projects: the study o f archeological museums as public representations o f official discourses on nation, modernity, and progress. The relatively sm all num ber o f studies pertaining to the effects o f official discourses about culture and history on the m useum ification processes in Turkey is particularly surprising in light o f the fact that today, in alm ost every Turkish city, there is a local archaeological museum. Since the 1940s, m ore than fifty state-funded archaeological museums have been estab­ lished throughout the country. The substantial resources devoted to the exca­ vations and the exhibitionary practices in the early years o f the republic— a period characterized by resource shortages and scarcity—is one o f the m ajor indicators o f the significance that the state elite attached to the museum ifica­ tion o f the archaeological findings as part o f the nation-building projects o f the time. Each year thousands o f people in Turkey visit archaeological muse­ ums. Still, we know very little about how local visitors experience these spaces and how they read the stories museums tell in three dimensions. Therefore, studies o f archaeological museums in Turkey are momentous, exploring them as sites where nationalism is signified, collective identities are m ediated, and visitors im agine the nation, its past, and its future. Since Benedict Anderson’s call to pay attention to the significance o f mu­ seums as representations o f postindependence nation-states (1983), museum studies have flourished in cultural studies. British cultural studies, in particular, by focusing on how museums represent im agined pasts and perpetuate certain powerful discursive repertoires, underlined the influence o f museums on col­ lective m em ory and knowledge production in a particular community.3 This approach has opened new venues for studying museums and highlighted the

3.

For some o f the best examples o f museum representations o f nationalism w ritten from

this perspective, see the volumes edited by M acdonald and Fyfe (1996); Boswell and Evans (1999); and Bal, Crewe, and Spitzer (1999).

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role o f their visitors in constructing and reproducing the m eaning o f the mu­ seum narratives. In a sim ilar vein, this study places visitors’ narratives at the core o f analyses o f the interaction between representations o f official ideolo­ gies and the public, and dem onstrates the significance o f the people’s active interpretation in term s o f the ways in which state cultural products generate social effects.

Nationalism and Archaeology in Europe and in the Middle East Scholars o f archaeology and nationalism have dem onstrated that postcolonial nationalist practices o f archaeology em erge sim ultaneously as a reaction to colonial powers and as a celebration o f young nations’ newly achieved right to w rite their own histories. W ith the advent o f the League o f Nations and other attem pts to organize the world internationally after the First World War, com­ m unities had to compete for sovereignty and independence over a given terri­ tory. Legitim ization o f their claims depended largely on a skillful m obilization o f knowledge o f the political and sym bolic fields whose boundaries were set according to W ilsonian principles (notably the right to self-determ ination) and positivism . In such a context, it is hardly surprising that disciplines such as history, anthropology, and archaeology came to the fore as vigorous fields o f national-identity construction. Archaeological excavations and exhibitions o f the archaeological artifacts are key practices in the spatio-tem poral construction and representation o f the nation.4 W hat distinguishes the nation from other comm unities is that the comm unity im agines its identity as tied to a territory and homogeneous w ithin the national borders. Consequently, the historization o f the ties im agined be­ tween the territory and the human collective living in it constitutes the core o f nation-building projects and a crucial aspect o f the nation-states’ cultural pol­ itics. Archaeology, because o f its integral relation to both land and culture,

4.

W ithin the specific literature on how archeological practices have been interpreted for

the ideological purposes o f national and colonial history w riting around the world, I find the volumes by Silberm an (1989), Kohl and Fawcett (1995), and M eskell (1998) m ost profound and useful.

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plays a special role in bridging the national territory and the im agined past o f the nation. Constructing archaeology as a practice o f knowledge production inde­ pendent from the nation-state’s ideological intervention requires intense insti­ tutional and representational struggle. N ation-states have always found archaeology an attractive field in which to intervene, particularly for the dis­ cursive possibilities it opens up for the m obilization o f official ideologies.5 These interventions have had some positive results, such as the rapid progress the field has made as a result o f the funding postcolonial nation-states have channeled toward its development. However, intervention has also estab­ lished the dom inant nationalist ideologies as the main frame o f reference for interpreting archeological findings. Consequendy, archeological discourses are frequendy m obilized to provide a “scientific basis” for ethnic discrim ina­ tion, racist politics, and culturally essentialist history-w riting practices (Chernykh 1995; Silberm an 1995).6 In the M iddle East, archaeological practices and discourses on the prehis­ toric past had their start as British, G erm an, and French endeavors to uncover the roots o f W estern civilization. Questions such as, “W hen was the first city

5. Some o f the m ost interesting cases in which nationalist views seeped into the interpre­ tation o f the archaeological findings can be found in Sumathi Ramaswamy’s 2001 essay on how Tamil nationalism has been reconstructed through the interpretation o f the findings in the Indus Valley and in N eil Silberm an’s 1995 book on sim ilar practices in Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, and M acedonia. 6. N ationalist archaeology should not be interpreted as a subverted version o f an other­ wise “purely scientific” discipline (Silberm an 1995; Trigger 1995). In every period, contempo­ rary political, economic, and social power relations influence all sciences, including archeology. For example, under the colonial regim es, archaeological practices were interrelated with the po­ litical and social dynamics o f colonialism . As M ichael Rowlands (1994) argues, colonial archeo­ logical practices that interpreted local prehistorical developments as part o f the development o f a world civilization, described civilization Eurocentrically. Thus, these practices provided ideo­ logical support for colonial enterprises and legitim ated the civilizing missions o f the European em pires; by tearing apart the history o f the geographical area to be colonized from its current inhabitants, they aided the contraction o f essentialized differences between the colonizer and the colonized. For example, the particular way in which M esopotamia was constructed through archaeological discourse provided the ideological context for colonization o f the region by the British (Bahrani 1998).

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built?” “W hose idea was it to use coins?” “W ho sowed the first seed and started a setded, agrarian life?” “W here was the first poem composed?” m oti­ vated the earliest excavations. As one after another European archeologist un­ covered ancient sites o f life and settlem ent, the antecedents o f what are deem ed to be the pillars o f W estern civilization— the city, the m onetary sys­ tem , the state, literature, the archive, the library, and so on—em erged in the lands o f “the O rient.” The nineteenth-century O rientalist discourses defined European civilization in term s o f its opposition to the O riental O ther, consequendy, archaeological findings funded by the same O rientalist institutions that located the origins o f European civilization in the lands o f the O ther highlighted a fundamental inner tension o f the O rientalist discourses. This tension was often relieved by the proliferation o f narratives based on another binary opposition, this tim e not between the O riental and the W estern but be­ tween the early inhabitants o f M esopotamia and Anatolia and the “O rientals” inhabiting the same territories today (Hodder 1998). A connection between the ancient civilizations and the “backward” people o f the region was incon­ ceivable within the O rientalist paradigm as this would indicate an inextricable link between the O rientals and the Europeans, conceptualized in many ways to be diam etrical opposites o f one another. Hence, the O rientalist discourses asserting incom m ensurable difference between East and W est, and the con­ tem porary power relations based on these discourses in the nineteenth cen­ tury, were translated into a difference between the early and the current inhabitants o f M esopotamia and Anatolia through the anthropological, ar­ chaeological, and historical knowledge production o f the period. Thus, the exceptional emphasis placed by the nationalist schools o f archaeology in the newly em erging nation-states o f the M iddle East on the continuity between the current and earlier inhabitants o f the national land should be understood against this political and cultural background. The main motivations behind the local archaeological schools’ reinterpre­ tations o f archaeological findings in light o f nationalist discourses and the postcolonial projects o f official history w riting were both to react to the O ri­ entalist history w riting by subverting the claim s o f essential difference be­ tween O rient and O ccident, and to appropriate the legitim ating power o f archaeological practices to claim a certain territory as rightfully belonging to their respective nations. Hence, the O rientalist framework that denied a link

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between the present nations inhabiting a particular land and the ancient peo­ ples who lived in the same region thousands o f years earlier was conceptually reworked into a prim ordial connection and continuity, linking these peoples across ages. This translation created a discursive space from which the post­ colonial states in the M iddle East challenged the European m onopoly on “civ­ ilization” and located the new nations and their identities on the map o f the “civilized world.” In some cases, as in Turkey, the new nationalist archaeologi­ cal discourses even enabled the new nations to claim a European identity on the basis o f these constructed connections to the oldest known cultural for­ mations in which a European past is arguably rooted.

History Writing, Archaeology, and Museumification in Turkey The developm ent o f archaeology as a discipline and the laws regulating ar­ chaeological excavations in Turkey have been closely related to the interac­ tions between the O ttoman and the European states since the nineteenth century.7 In a fashion sim ilar to European colonizers, Ottoman officials per­ ceived archaeological excavations as sym bolic practices o f power in the im pe­ rial periphery. Osman Hamdi Bey, who was in charge o f these early Ottoman excavations and sultans’ collections, transported many artifacts from the M id­ dle East to the im perial capital. These artifacts signaled the em erging Euro­ pean taste in the im perial court, and, as signs o f modernity, they em bellished the O ttoman court’s window that was dressed for the W estern gaze (Bartu 1997). A fter the Turkish republic was founded in 1923, archaeological practices and museums continued to be seen as the success barom eters o f the W estern­ ization project. A nti-im perialist and anticolonial sentim ent, however, was also pervasive in the nationalist m odernization discourse. Thus, the new régula-

7.

For politics o f museum ification and antiquities in the Ottoman Empire, see Shaw

(2003). The best sources for the historical development o f legal procedures in Turkey pertain­ ing to the artifacts and regulation o f archaeological excavations are Atasoy (1983); Özdoğan (1992,1998); Paksoy (1992); and Akin (1992). For the history o f the discourses and methods in archaeology and the influence o f these changes on Anatolian archaeology, see Hodder (1991, 1998).

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dons and laws pertaining to archaeological excavations and findings became im portant issues where the state, on behalf o f the nation, claim ed responsibil­ ity and exercised the “nation’s right to protect its own cultural heritage.” To create a core cadre o f Turkish archaeologists, the Turkish M inistry o f Educa­ tion sent a group o f bright Turkish students to G erm any and opened archae­ ology departm ents at the public universities.8 M any “national” excavations were started, particularly at H ittite sites in Central A natolia.9 Consequently, m useum ification o f the findings and their public display becam e im m ediate concerns. Upon the orders o f the national leader and the first president o f the republic, M ustafa Kemal A tatürk, the M inistry o f Education and the Turkish H istorical Society started planning a H ittite museum in Ankara. Thus, in the heart o f the new nation was born the earliest m useum ification o f H ittite arti­ facts: the Ankara A rchaeological M useum (now renamed the A natolian Civi­ lizations M useum). The A natolian Civilizations M useum should be seen as a part o f a larger project o f rew riting Turkish history.10 The m ajor institutional form o f this larger project, the Turkish H istory Foundation, started m any studies on his­ tory and culture o f the “Turks” specifically for the purpose o f defining a ho­ mogeneous Turkish culture. A t that tim e, the K em alist historians traced the origins o f Turkish identity to the H ittites. This official historical narrative was known as the Turkish H istory Thesis (or A tatürk’s H istory T hesis). It pur­ ported to show a Turkish ethnic continuity in A natolia since prehistoric times. A ccording to the thesis, H ittites were part o f the Turkic tribes who m igrated from Central A sia to A natolia. N arratives based on this thesis shaped m ost o f

8. D uring this period the faculty o f these departm ents was composed m osdy o f German professors, some o f whom had fled to Turkey to escape Nazi persecution. For details, see Canpolat2001.

9. H ittitologists estim ate that H ittites m igrated to Anatolia around 2000 B .C However, when they first m igrated and where they originally came from are still issues o f debate. H ittites established the earliest known centralized authority in Central Anatolia along the River K ızılırm ak and enlarged their area o f influence as far as today’s northern Syria. Their power faded after 1200 a c . For further inform ation on the H ittites and their art, see Gurney (1990); McQueen (1986); D arga (1992); Akurgal (1970,1997); and Yener et al. (2002). 10. For the content and development o f this larger project o f historical narrative forma­ tion, see Berktay (1983); and Ersanh (2003).

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the anthropological, folkloric, and archeological projects o f the 1930s.n In the afterm ath o f World War I, the m otivation behind this argum ent was to make a case for a prim ordial Turkish existence in A natolia and hence to support the claim that the Turkish nation-state should be recognized as the natural heir o f Anatolia in the international arena. Sym bolic Turkification o f pre-Islam ic Anatolia was both a nationalist move and an attem pt to counter O rientalist discourse. The Turkish nationalist archaeological discourses reinterpreted the chain o f historical continuity con­ structed am ong European, A natolian, and M esopotamian civilizations by in­ serting Turkish culture into the chain. This provided a rich discursive repertoire for nationalist elites eager to construct a national identity that could claim historical connections with European culture (Bartu 1997). Conse­ quently, the investigations that the Turkish H istorical Society undertook to label the N eolithic civilizations in A natolia as ‘T urkish” firm ly articulated the Turkish state’s cultural politics w ith the nationalist archaeological discourses in the postcolonial world. Even though the museum was initially conceived along the lines o f the Turkish H istory Thesis, by the tim e the renovation o f the historic building hosting the exhibition was com pleted in 1968, the predom inance o f the Turk­ ish H istory Thesis in nationalist history w riting was fading.1112 The thesis and sim ilar projects that focused on racial continuity in A natolia were replaced by less racialized but still essentialist narratives, oriented more toward the discur­ sive construction o f the homeland along the nationalist lines. These narratives com prise a discourse dem onstrating a resilience in the collective conscious­

11. The best prim ary source o f inform ation for the Turkish H istory Thesis is the tran­ scription o f the lectures that A fet İnan gave at the Turkish H istory Foundation Congress in 1933 (İnan 1933; İğdemir 1973). The most detailed account o f the archaeological practices o f the Turkish H istory Foundation in the 1930s can be found in the minutes o f the Second Turk­ ish H istory Congress in 1937. 12. Since different sections o f the exhibition were opened at different dates, it is difficult to identify a definite opening date for the museum. I use the date 1968, the year in which the name o f the museum was changed from the Ankara Archaeological Museum to the Anatolian Civilizations M useum, because only then did the museum take its final form . For more details on the form ation and opening processes o f the museum, see Bayburtluoğlu (1991) and Koşay (1979).

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ness that the im plausible Turkish H istory Thesis failed to show over the years. I refer to this discourse as the A natolian Civilizations D iscourse.13 The Anatolian Civilizations D iscourse constructs the national identity around “the peoples o f Anatolia,” which is an im agined comm unity across ages and which shares a common identity o f “Anatolian-ness.” In this im ­ agery, the underlying assum ption is that common exposure to the same nature and landscape produces essentially sim ilar cultures regardless o f diverse ori­ gins and historical change. The central signifier, A natolia, does not sim ply sig­ nify a geographical region but is rather com bined w ith another central signifier in nationalist discourse, “homeland.” Thus, its m eaning is intensified, and A natolia signifies a political territory o f the sovereign nation-state, the home­ land o f the Turkish citizens, and the birthplace o f the homogenous national culture. In this sense, the predom inance o f the Anatolian Civilizations D is­ course over the Turkish H istory Thesis marks a shift in the representations o f Turkish nation building from an essentialism based on biologically conceptu­ alized race to an essentialism based on a hom ogenized and territorially defined culture.14 W hat is, then, this discursively constructed A natolian culture? The narra­ tive usually starts w ith Paleolithic cave dwellers in the A ntalya region in south­ ern Turkey. It is an evolutionary narrative that ties scattered settlem ents and höyüks in Turkey to one another with a tale o f the developm ent o f the state and the city in A natolia: the two “pillars o f civilization.” 15 The em ergence o f the first forms o f state and city are traced teleologically as the origins o f a chain o f cumulative progressive developm ents culm inating in the present. In

13. For various practices and embodiments o f Anatolian Civilizations Discourse currendy in circuladon in Turkey, see Gür (2004). 14. This shift coincides with a tim e when biological racist discourses o f the 1930s were losing their relative force in history wriring in Europe. However, the more specific dynamics that led to such a shift in Turkey needs further exploration. 15. Focusing on state and city as the two pillars o f civilizadon is symptomadc o f Eurocen­ trism in the postcolonial translations o f the modes o f nadonalist history writing. These two dominant modes o f organization, central to the nation-state, are still paradigm atic for the nar­ ratives o f European history and influential in the subaltern practices o f history writing. For a vigorous analysis o f the relationship between Europe and history w riting in the postcolonial nations, see Chakrabarty (2000) and Chatterjee (1993).

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this discourse, the current Turkish state and the nation are constructed as the inheritors o f the sedim ented wisdom o f the A natolian civilizations that evolved from one another. The em ergence o f the “first” urban setdem ents, the “first” agriculture, and the “first” m onetary system are conceptualized as indicative o f a cultural essence im agined to originate from the A natolian land­ scape that stim ulated human progress. The Anatolian Civilizations D iscourse has inspired many representations and cultural products ranging from dance shows to construction o f local his­ tories in m unicipality annals. However, the discourse finds its institutional em­ bodim ent nowhere as much as in the Anatolian Civilizations Museum. To capture the basic tenets o f the discourse, we w ill not turn to the dom inant narradve o f the museum and exam ine the spatial arrangem ents o f the exhibition in detail.

Dominant Narrative of the Anatolian Civilizations Museum The Anatolian Civilizations M useum (ACM) is a classical museum in the sense that its spatial organization resem bles the discourse it represents. It im poses a single order on the visitors through the pedagogical orientation o f its exhibi­ tion and the ways in which the objects are classified (Hetherington 1996,160). The main organizing principle o f the ACM’s exhibition is chronology. As vis­ itors follow the route im posed by the architectural design, they are called on to witness the reconstruction o f Anatolian history through time. The feeling of time travel is rooted in a determ inistic, unilinear, and evolutionary conception o f history, which assumes a continuous developm ent o f hum anity toward a singular and universal telos o f civilization. If museums are classifications o f collective identity, ACM delineates the lim its o f the collective identity in Turkey by national borders. Given the larger nationalist discourse that shapes the exhibition, nam ing the collection “Ana­ tolian” is not a sim ple reference to a geographical location. It signifies the articulation o f the Turkish culture’s territorialization and the discursive con­ struction o f the motherland. The museum tells the story o f Anatolians: peo­ ples in a chain o f civilizations that share a cultural essence starting from the Paleolithic A ge until the present. M useum booklets and tour guides define the m ission o f the museum as “collecting all civilizations o f A natolia under

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one roof.” Thus, the museum takes pride in having pieces from every civiliza­ tion that established a city or a state in A natolia.16The space chosen for the ex­ hibition complements the story. The ruins o f the central part o f an Ottoman bazaar (bedesten) near the Ankara Castle became the site o f the exhibition after thirty years o f renovation. D etails o f the renovation and the history o f the building are included in the museum brochures. Consequently, the narrative attributes a specific significance to the Ottoman bazaar by defining it as the representative o f Ottoman civilization in the chain o f civilizations exhibited in the museum. The halls, currently surrounding the inner courtyard, were form ed through the com bination o f the shops in the bazaar. The linear arrangem ent o f the shops makes them convenient for housing a chronologi­ cal exhibit, since the microphysics o f space structures the visitors’ move­ m ents, keeping the routes in a straight line. Museum visitors usually follow the route im posed on them, going through the halls surrounding the inner court­ yard. They very rarely diverge from the designated chronological tour before they make their way into the central hall. The walking practice in the museum goes beyond just following the desig­ nated paths in a space; it develops into a bodily and cognitive perform ance. The cognitive efforts to grasp the notion o f tim e flowing in the exhibition’s narrative and the bodily motion m anipulated by the microphysics o f the space, that is, the paths designated by the walls, arrows, and signs, invite visi­ tors to im agine them selves situated in a particular history and geography. V is­ itors interacting with the museum narrative and space perceive their identity and subjectivity against a background o f history o f civilizations in Anatolia throughout the ages. M useum representations that are based on a linear progressive under­ standing o f history and culture usually have classical exhibitionary tactics, and they m aneuver their visitors through the chronological tour. In his Foucaultian analysis o f modern museums, Tony Bennett calls this organized w alking

16.

In chronological order, the exhibit is composed o f pieces from the caves inhabited in

the Paleolithic Age (K arain, Beldibi); findings from the N eolithic, Calcolithic, and Bronze Age layers o f the höyüks (Alacahöyük, Çatalhöyük, H acılar, and Kültepe are particularly significant); and artifacts dated to the Assyrian Trade Colonies, the H ittites, Phyrgians, Urartians, Lydians, the late H ellenistic and Greco-Roman periods, the Byzantine Empire, and Seljuklus.

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“an evolutionary practice” and em phasizes that the museum organizes not only the routes but also the m ental and bodily perform ances o f the visitors. Thus, classical museums em body and instantiate “ideologies o f progress by enlisting their visitors as ‘progressive subjects’ in the sense o f assigning them a place and an identity İn relation to the assumed progress’ ongoing advance­ ment” (Bennett 1995,179). The place and identity ACM assigns its visitors is that o f a privileged actor situated at the endpoint o f the developm ental flow o f history. The exhibition o f all A natolian civilizations under one roof com prises the narrative that en­ lists the Turkish ACM visitors as the heroes traveling in time. Thus, it facili­ tates a m ental perform ance where visitors construct contem porary Turkey as the achieved telos o f a historical progress. V isitors are invited to read the story o f the present and connect their identity w ith that o f the form er inhabitants o f Anatolia. The visitor narratives o f the museum show that most visitors in­ ternalize this privileged identity and respond positively to the hailing o f the museum narrative. In M ay 1998,1 studied the practices o f local visitors to the ACM, employ­ ing a participant observation method, and I collected museum narratives through interviews. A fter com pleting my own visit, I observed how my poten­ tial interviewees— any Turkish-speaking visitors— moved w ithin the museum space, w hat kind o f objects they paid attention to, and their interactions with each other. Then I asked for their perm ission for an interview.17

17.

All interviews were conducted at the museum im m ediately after the visitors completed

their tours. The duration o f the interviews varied from thirty minutes to two hours. I inter­ viewed the individuals as a group if they were visiting the museum together. After transcribing the fifteen narratives I collected at the end o f these group interviews, I employed narrative analysis and came up with the central tropes, themes, and concepts. I classified parts o f these narratives by exam ining how they engage with the dominant narrative o f the museum. Each visitor’s narrative combined various features o f my classification scheme, and there were over­ laps between categories. In other words readers should not assume that the unit o f my analysis is the individual and each individual’s narrative corresponds to one category only. In defining the dominant narrative o f the museum, I examined the historical construction o f the exhibition and the archeological discourses o f the period, made use o f the museum guidebooks, and in­ terviewed the museum staff. I am particularly indebted to the museum director, İlhan Temizsoy, for our lengthy interview.

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In the interview s, m ost visitors constructed stories about the distant past, present, and future in which they expressed affection for their “ancestors.” These stories were usually em bellished with depictions o f Turkey’s cultural wealth, the deep roots o f “our civilization,” and the pride they feel about these. I call the visitor narratives that evoke such themes, are organized around a progressive linear tim e pattern, and echo the dom inant museum narrative, territorial kinship narratives.

Responding Positively to the Interpellation: Territorial Kinship Narratives Erdoğan Baykal is a chem ist who was visiting the museum with his fam ily on the weekend.18 His narrative not only illustrates the influence o f the chrono­ logical arrangem ent o f the exhibition on the visitors but also shows how a uni­ versalist narrative, such as that o f the developm ent o f civilization, is translated into a particularistic national narrative. This interview also exem plifies the ways in which m ost o f the visitors internalize the privileged identity construed through the subject effect o f the exhibition.19 D uring the interview, as he ex­

Considering the limited number of interviews and the fact that this research was con­ ducted only in one archaeological museum, it is not possible to generate statements generalizable to all the people living in Turkey. It is my contention, however, that ethnographic data collected in detail and accompanied by in-depth interviews are invaluable in understanding the elusive meanings o f notions like “Anatolia,” “Anatolian-ness,” ‘Turkish culture,” and “home­ land” in collective consciousness, which a survey method may easily fail to capture. The conclu­ sion o f such an ethnography o f museum visiting is also a good starting point for thinking about culturally sensitive and well-contextualized survey questionnaires on the subject matter, if generalizability rather than in-depth interpretation is desired. 18. The names o f the interlocutors mentioned in this essay are pseudonyms. 19. Subject effect means subjecting the self to the meanings, power, and regulation of a dis­ course by locating oneself in a position from which the discourse makes most sense (Hall 1997, 55-56). In the ACM case, this process takes place in the visitors9efforts to give meaning to the museum-visiting experience by taking the subject position of the “grandchildren o f the forefa­ thers” inheriting a cultural heritage or identifying themselves as “children o f these lands” and as such sharing a cultural essence with the peoples who created or used the artifacts in the exhibi­ tion. Hence the visitors “enter” the story and “become” the subject o f the narratives that are based on the assumptions comprising the Anatolian Civilizations Discourse. For a more de-

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plained why museums and the history they represent are so significant for a society, we learn his definition o f “shared national culture” and the ways in which he im agines him self in relation to it. It is hard to construct a future w ithout knowing the past. I m ean, w hat kind o f a culture is he [pointing at his son] going to grow up w ith? W hich culture is he going to defend? I was bom in Turkey. W ithout knowing w hat belongs to Turkey, w ithout the knowledge o f Anatolian civilizations, I cannot know which culture I shall live in. Kids grow up in the fam ily and take the culture o f their family. They form their own consciousness, synthesize it w ith what they have learned, and Turkish culture is formed. O therwise we create alien­ ation in the society. Today, as an A natolian, I have to teach m y child w hat I have learned. O therwise he becomes alienated and cannot know w hat to do.

Erdoğan identifies the museum as an institution that transm its a collective historical consciousness that has grown out o f the Anatolian landscape. W hile arguing that the past has to set the tone o f the future for the children o f the country, he em phasizes the Turkishness o f the Anatolian past. He defines a cultural essence transm itted from generation to generation by its unique rela­ tionship w ith the homeland. A Turk stands for this cultural essence, and he has to defend İt, especially vis-à-vis the “outside.” In Erdoğan’s depiction, Turkish culture em erges as m oral codes and norm s into which Turkish children are so­ cialized prim arily through fam ily and education. The child’s spiritual growth is inextricably linked with the transm ission o f this cultural essence. Should these two processes, individual spiritual growth and cultural reproduction, diverge, according to Baykal, individuals could not forge an identity and recognize them selves as subjects. In such narratives, learning about the collective mem­ ory is a prerequisite o f the construction o f a self w ithin the collectivity. In this respect, the museum is perceived as an institution that shapes the subjectivity o f the Turkish youth through its ability to inculcate a particular cultural his­ tory. It is a pedagogically crucial institution to teach children the cultural

tailed treatment of the concept, see Foucault (1970), where he historically examines the subjec­ tifying effects o f the academic disciplines.

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essence im bued through centuries, thus to show them “what they are made of.” A fter reading the retrospective narration o f the present, m ost visitors identify w ith the subject position that the museum narrative invites them to occupy. The A natolian Civilizations D iscourse inform s the ways in which cul­ ture, history, and geography are related in these visitor narratives. In defining them selves through their membership in a national community, visitors con­ struct a narrative o f the origins, present, and telos o f a collective whose mem­ bers are bonded through territorialized culture. A culture conceived as shared by breathing the same air, using the same water, and feeling the same wind constitutes the im agined common characteristic o f the Turkish nation. A c­ cording to most visitors, being brought up in A natolia means being “the child o f this hom eland.” In this way, they naturalize their membership in the im ag­ ined cultural community. For exam ple, when Sibel Ö zdoğru, a housewife in her m id-forties who is visiting the museum with her daughter and husband, is asked which objects she liked m ost, she replies: “A ctually I like those things from the Stone Age. How much labor m ust have gone into them! It is am azing how they managed without the tools. I was m ost surprised to see the jewelry. Women are women across all ages!” A nother inform ant, Hikmet Şen, feels sim ilarly about the goddess fig­ urines: “W hen you look at the people in Turkey, you really think that these kinds o f things [referring to the artifacts] could come out o f these people. The m other goddess figurines, for exam ple, are very Turkish, very typical Turkish women! The relationship to the soil and the im portance o f fertility in the M other goddess figurines [are still here].” In their narratives, both Sibel and Hikmet im agine an invisible link be­ tween the inhabitants o f Anatolia across the ages and express these im ageries through the parallels drawn between anatom ical features o f women today and the plump bodies o f the goddess figurines, or through common use o f jew­ elry. Sometimes visitors establish sim ilar links by invoking the resem blance be­ tween the mud brick houses in Anatolian villages today and the constructions excavated at Çatalhöyük. In such narratives, which echo the museum’s dom inant narratives, the imagined cultural thread that ties visitors to their ancestors, whom they define

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as all the peoples who lived in their homeland in the past, expresses a certain affiliation and affection. I call this deeply felt affiliation with an im agined com­ m unity o f ancestors across the ages, anchored in a certain geographical space dem arcated by the contem porary national boundaries, “territorial kinship.” Territorial kinship narratives lie at the core o f the process by which elitist topdown projects can become effective in the definition o f self through im agin­ ing a collective “we” whose identity İs expressed through an imagined common ancestry anchored in the landscape. This is the moment when a ter­ ritory, a geopolitical unit, becomes a homeland for the visitor, enabling him or her to situate the self w ithin the nationalist narrative. Such a moment occurs in H ayriye Cankut’s narrative. H ayriye is an elderly housewife visiting the museum w ith her grandchildren,, daughter, and son-inlaw. In her narrative, she constructs a progressive link between contem porary and past inhabitants o f Anatolia by establishing an evolutionary relation be­ tween the cauldrons she uses in her house today and the ones used in Anatolia thousands o f years ago. H er narrative connects the signifiers o f A natolian cul­ ture to various objects she uses in everyday life that she assumes to be used in sim ilar ways for sim ilar purposes across the ages. Here we find a clear example o f the role o f the evolutionary walking practice in inducing an affinity for im agined territorial kin and anchoring larger social transform ations in individ­ ual experiences. A: How do you think this museum and the past are related? Hayriye: I see it in steps. I m ean, you see the steps, from the very begin­ ning till today. W ithout the museum, seeing these steps would not be possible. A: Could you give an example o f what you mean by steps? Hayriye: The kitchenware they used, for example. Their size changed, for one thing; you can im agine how they used to be. The illustrations and drawings help, too. You see how their life was. W hat we basically use today is a developed version o f w hat they used. It got sm aller and more developed. A ctually one cannot know whether those huge cauldrons were used for the fam ily or the whole village, but nevertheless it is a cauldron.

In many o f the interview s, as in H ayriye’s, the visitors establish imagined territorial kinship ties by m aking references to “common” everyday practices

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across the ages. The resem blance o f the artifacts to contem porary utensils and their use-value increase the significance o f the objects for the visitors. The fact that everyday practices constitute a discursive repertoire for the visitors, through which they make sense out o f artifacts in the museum, has been noted in other museum studies as w ell (Bourdieu and D arbel 1990). However, in these studies, the im portance o f the conceptual work o f im m ediate and mundane experiences in connecting larger political and social transform ations with the everyday life o f individuals is quite underappreciated.20 The contin­ uum between life and its representations in narratives that draw on everyday experiences opens a window to understanding how abstractions such as state and society across the ages gain m eaning through these kinds o f articulations. Analogies between life as the visitors know it today and the life as it is im ag­ ined to have been then constitute a basis for visitors' im ages o f the nation, their ties to the polity, and the relation between the present and the past o f the territory. Such narratives capture the moments in which Anatolia is im agined as a m otherland under the roof o f the museum, and the im agery o f a geopo­ litical space crystallizes as a meaningful category in which the citizens have an em otional investm ent.

Anxiety about the Telos: Nostalgic Narratives Museum narratives do not have a single m eaning; visitors leave the museum with different perceptions and experiences. T hey attribute various m ultiple meanings to the museum stories, based on their own experiences and the dis­ courses to which they were exposed through social institutions such as educa­ 20.

For example, in their study of the visitor narratives o f the art museums in Europe,

Bourdieu and Darbel (1990) divide the visitor narratives into two categories on the basis o f the visitor’s cultural capital. They call the narratives o f the visitors with less cultural capital, that draw on “popular aesthetics,” “naïve narratives.” In these narratives visitors attribute meaning to art objects using their own everyday practices as reference points. For such visitors the value of an art object depends on its age, use-value, and relevance to everyday life. The visitors with “sophisticated narratives,” on the other hand, judge the artifacts on the basis o f pure Kantian aesthetics and usually draw on expert narratives. In Bourdieu and Darbel’s analysis, “naïve nar­ ratives” mark a lower status habitus and are significant insofar as they are helpful in mapping the homologies among the different fields that constitute this habitus.

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tion, m edia, and family. The territorial kinship narratives presented in this essay so far constructed Turkey as either an achieved telos or a country w ith a bright future im plicated by the glorious p ast N ot all visitors, though, accepted and internalized the museum narrative and construed them selves as Turkish citizens who have inherited the sedim ented wisdom o f the thousands o f years o f A natolian history. Some o f the visitors approached the notions o f moder­ nity and civilization, and Turkey’s location on the global map, critically, coun­ tering the museum’s m odernist, nationalist narrative w ith narratives o f nostalgia for a time when Anatolian people were at the peak o f human civi­ lization. The problem articulated was not whether “we”— that is, humanity and the Turkish nation— should strive to be “modern” and “civilized,” but rather whether we were on the right track to achieve those goals. These stories questioned the proxim ity o f the Turkish nation to the prom ised telos o f the developm entalist historical narrative, even though they still entertained a lin­ ear and determ inistic conception o f time. I call these n osta lğc narratives. The evolutionary w alking practice w ithin the museum evokes an anticipa­ tion o f a good future because it draws on the unilinear, determ inistic concep­ tion o f history that anticipates a telos. In Turkish developm entalist discourse, the telos is defined Eurocentrically, and the purpose o f the nation is to “catch up with the West” and be “modern.” V isitors who are interpellated by this overarching public discourse but who also are aware o f the acute problem s in Turkey leave the exhibition disappointed. The expectations evoked by a walk w ithin the three-dim ensional story o f the glorious past are contradicted by the larger social experience. The museum narrative manages to entice these visi­ tors to connect themselves w ith the forefathers and locate their identity in the museum narrative, but it fails to evoke pride and contentm ent in the present Instead, these visitors articulate shame for the present accom panied by a nos­ talgia for the distant territorial p ast For exam ple, M ehm et A lan, an account­ ant visiting the museum w ith his w ife, criticizes contem porary architectural practices by com paring them with the museum building. Pointing to the Ot­ toman building that houses the exhibition, he says: ‘T h is building is m agnifi­ cent! A couple o f days ago I heard in the news that there was an old building used as m ilitary barracks, either in Erzurum or in Erzincan. D espite the fact that it was a second-degree historical building, they decided to dem olish i t A l­

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though they used two tons o f dynam ite, they couldn’t. See how the old build­ ings endure next to all these m odern buildings that crum ble into pieces when you touch them !” The nostalgic narratives are saturated with com plaints about pollution, political corruption, and the erosion o f values inherited from our ancestors. The m oral o f the story usually is that instead o f appreciating the Anatolian heritage and developing it further, Turkey is m aking no progress; thus, the sed­ im ented wisdom o f thousands o f years is w earing away. Yasemin Göçmen, a secretary visiting the museum with her niece, argues that today is only a shadow o f the glorious past, an em barrassing moment in our history. Then she sighs, pointing at the artifacts: “I think we do not deserve these. Compared to this civilization these people created, we are way behind them !” In these narratives, the museum is a representation o f a failure to be wor­ thy o f the past. This notion attributes an alternative m eaning to the exhibition: it is a representation o f the gaze o f the ancestors, a m oral reference for the present community. N ostalgic visitors situate the glorified historical heritage in a panoptic point.21 V isitors, who share a notion that they should be worthy o f their ancestors and history, im agine the past as a disciplining reference point for today’s m oral codes. They believe that the people in Turkey do not work hard enough to im prove w hat they inherited and thus em barrass their ancestors by the contem porary problems they have created. These visitors cannot hold their heads up in the face o f the high level o f civilization the mu­ seum represents because contem porary Turkey is not a leading nation in the world, as would be expected from the archaeological evidence that constructs it as one o f the oldest civilizations. The subject position in which nostalgic vis­ itors place them selves is defined by their constant references to themselves as

21.

Panopticism is a system of discipline embodied in an architectural design that renders

the subject under surveillance completely visible at all times, while making the surveyor physi­ cally invisible to the surveyed. It is a concept that Foucault brought up in his discussion o f the birth o f the modern prison system in Europe (Foucault 1977,197—200). Here I use Panopticon metaphorically, to delineate the pedestal on which the museum visitors place their imaginary an­ cestors. Just as in Panopticon, these imageries o f the ancestors function as invisible surveyors that can see everything at all times.

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the “grandchildren o f (their) ancestors.” Through the exhibit, these visitors im agine their ancestors looking at them and judging their lives. The ga2e o f the past disciplines their actions and oversees their m oral development.

Prisms Fragmenting the Nation: Dissident Narratives M useum visiting as a “W estern” and urban practice has elitist connotations in Turkey. G oing to a museum and being able to make sense out o f this experi­ ence is taken as a sign o f modernity. Binaries such as rural-urban and moderntraditional stand for the nation’s social fault lines and are articulated through comments on visitors’ levels o f fam iliarity with the museum codes. In other words, the museum is a space in which visitors concurrently im agine a com­ m only shared national culture and fragm ent this culture by invoking the hier­ archical network o f relations constituting it. Hence, in some visitor narratives, which I call dissident narratives, instead o f a reproduction o f the tales on homo­ geneous culture and territorial being, the story line prim arily rests on the coex­ istence o f different lifestyles w ithin the nation indicating loyalties to diverse groups engendering im ageries o f comm unity that are alternative to the over­ arching nation. By m obilizing com parative im ageries o f the different seg­ ments in the country, museum exhibitions sim ultaneously unite and divide the nation. H ikm et Şen is a twenty-four-year-old graduate student at the M iddle East Technical U niversity in Ankara. He compares contem porary peasants and the residents o f A natolia in prehistoric tim es, on the basis o f m aterial culture and norms. Hikm et projects the urban-rural distinctions he sees in contem porary Turkey onto a temporal distinction he makes between the peoples o f the past and those o f the present. He registers the differences in the lifestyles o f urban and rural citizens on an axis o f development. A: W hat do you think ACM signifies? In other words, ACM is the museum o f w hat? Hikmet: It is the museum o f the culture developed in these lands. A: Could you expand upon that? Hikmet: Okay, look, alm ost all artifacts exhibited here are found in Cen-

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tral A natolia. To be m ore accurate, [they are] from inner lands, w ith no ac­ cess to the sea. Ankara signifies deprivation from the sea, so it is just the right place. W hen you look at the people here, you really think that these kinds o f things could come out o f these people___A ctually what has been excavated is very rural. A: W hat do you m ean by rural? Hikmet: The instrum ents, the agricultural instrum ents . . . weapons . . . idols. These are very peasant-ish! In the city things are different. For exam ­ ple, you do not see well-crafted statues in ACM. Perhaps this is because they belong to an earlier period, I cannot be quite sure about that, but they are by no means like G reek and Roman statues. In other words these are not pieces o f art. These are instrum ents o f everyday life! They are from peasant life! In the city, a statue is an ornam ent, whereas in the village you can im agine how it serves a religious function.

The identification o f the m odern peasant with the peoples o f the past opens the door to a discourse o f developm ent, em phasizing the superiority o f the urban over the rural, m odern over the traditional, in term s o f a con­ structed level o f civilization. In Hikm et’s narrative, the story o f the peasants in A natolia is separated from the story o f the urban Anatolians. As such, the historical trajectories o f different groups in the nation are isolated. Hikmet’s narrative still adheres to the linear notion o f history and speaks from a subject position— that o f a privileged Turkish citizen inheriting the sedim ented w is­ dom in which the museum narrative positions him. N evertheless, Hikmet re­ fuses to im agine the nation as a homogeneous whole. Therefore, despite its adherence to the parts o f the dom inant narrative, his narrative contests the fundam ental tenets o f the Anatolian Civilizations Discourse. In dissident narratives, the stories about the backwardness o f the peasants are interwoven w ith the stories o f a “pristine, authentic Anatolian culture” lo­ cated in the village. W hile defining themselves as “urban, m odern, and culti­ vated,” visitors telling dissident stories generate social distance from the “rest of the population,” which they consider to be “rural, traditional, and unedu­ cated.” Such narratives indicate that the contradictions embedded in the na­ tionalist discourses are reflected in the conceptual repertoires the visitors use

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to make sense o f the museum. Thus, the rural-urban binaries em bedded in the m odernization discourse and the rhetoric o f equality o f all citizens embedded in the populism o f the nationalist discourse continue to battle w ithin the col­ lective memory. V isitors articulate the status differences they perceived am ong other visi­ tors through the accounts o f the relation between education and museum. My interlocutors expressed the differences they perceived between educated and noneducated with phrases such as “m aking sense o f” or “not getting” the mu­ seum. They repeatedly stated, “Educated people understand the museum.” W hen asked what they m eant by this, they explained that a sophisticated (kültürlü) person would know where and when the artifacts were excavated and to which civilizations they belong. Such inform ation is learned at school, but one learns to appreciate the im portance o f this kind o f inform ation in the family. Here, sophistication is equated with the correct upbringing. Thus, for my interlocutors, the m ajor fault lines among Turkish citizens are prim arily based on upbringing and education, and visiting a museum and appreciating the past and history signify high culture and status. Such visitor narratives show that museum visiting is a practice reproducing the differences w ithin the nation, which official nationalist ideologies strive to define as homogeneous. They are reluctant to define culture on a national level, and as such they resist im agining the culture o f different groups as shared and one. The irony in the visitors’ ability to produce stories o f heterogeneity, hier­ archy, and social distance out o f a narrative o f unity and hom ogeneity re­ minds us that the influence on a community o f the official ideologies cannot properly be understood unless we pay attention to how the target audiences interpret the narratives state institutions produced. These audiences are not only capable o f transform ing the public representations and narratives be­ yond their intended meanings and purposes, but they also employ them in ways that destabilize the discursive reproduction o f the national culture and the nation-state.

Museum Illiteracy as Dissidence The regim es o f self-expression, com prised o f publicly available form s o f sto­ rytelling, rhetorical techniques, and sym bolic repertoires, play crucial roles in

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narrative construction. The level and substance o f education and our interac­ tions w ith m edia products m ediate the ways in which we perceive and experi­ ence the world and how we narrate those experiences. Thus, incoherence and discontinuities in the visitor narratives can be accounted for by the variations in these factors. N evertheless, the intended audience is also an im portant fac­ tor in determ ining the interaction between cultural products and their audi­ ence. We should particularly question to what degree the envisioned reader o f a story at its moment o f production corresponds to the actual reader and whether the discrepancies between these two have im plications in term s o f the coherence o f the readers’ narratives o f the museums. This approach en­ ables us to understand why some visitors’ narratives seem more incoherent than others or why they attribute unexpected meanings to the museum. By paying attention to these narratives one can move away from the authoritative role attributed to the intended m eaning o f the museum and look at museum narratives from a more critical perspective. The sem iotic concept o f model reader is helpful in accounting for the m ultiplicity o f meanings in the visitor stories and going beyond a bipolar cate­ gorization o f museum narratives, such as “coherent-incoherent.” As Um­ berto Eco (1979) states, the moment o f reading is not the final instance when the text finds its meaning. The intended reader is part o f the process o f mean­ ing creation from the very beginning. The model reader o f the text influences the author’s narrative, not only as the author identifies for whom the story is being created but also as these choices delineate who is excluded from the pool o f envisioned audiences. Therefore, we should look for the accounts o f why there are m ultiple m eanings, not only in the various interpretations o f a text but also in the discrepancies between the readings o f the model readers and the excluded readers. W hen the ACM was form ed as a state project to contribute to the dissem ­ ination o f the official historical narrative, state officials projected a model vis­ itor based on the “m odel citizen,” the subject whom the nation-building projects aimed to create. W hen we also take into account the location o f the museum and the characteristics o f the exhibition, we can draw a profile o f the model visitor as an educated, urban citizen who is fam iliar with W estern Euro­ pean cultural codes and w ith the codes o f m odern public spaces. W hat hap­ pens if a Turkish citizen who does not match with the projections o f the

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Turkish elitist m odernization project visits the museum? For exam ple, some­ one from rural A natolia, who is illiterate and not fam iliar with the codes o f the city? D uring my fieldwork in the ACM, the m ost puzzling visiting practice I en­ countered was that o f two young soldiers. The two privates com pleted their visit o f the museum in only fifteen m inutes, unlike m ost other visitors, who usually took an hour and a half. W ith tim id expressions on their faces, they walked quickly through the halls without paying much attention to the arti­ facts or the explanations on the walls. They were about to rush to the exit when I stopped them and asked for an interview. Em barrassed but also inter­ ested and flattered, they agreed. A li is from the Black Sea region, and Hasan is from eastern Turkey. Nei­ ther o f them had been to a big city before beginning their m ilitary service. This was Private Hasan’s first and Private A li’s second year in Ankara. Since Ali had come to Ankara earlier, he knew more about the city than H asan, and he was leading the museum visit. Hasan was very shy and uttered just a few words, and with the authority o f having been in Ankara one year more than his friend, A li spoke on his behalf, too. W hen asked why they chose to visit the museum in their free tim e, A li said: “I come here to see people visiting, and my friend has not been to the museum before. You know, in the village there are no places like this. This is my second year in the service, and whenever we get out o f the barracks, I bring the new ones here to see w hat people do in the city.” A fter defining the museum as one o f the m ost interesting places in the city, A li identified museum visiting as an urban practice, although he confessed that he could not make out what its use İs. For him, the ACM is not a site o f ed­ ucation or a representation o f the national past, as it is for m ost o f the urban visitors. Rather, it is an exotic and wondrous display, like an amusement park or a circus. The ACM did not evoke any ideas or emotions in relation to national identity for these two voyeurs o f the city life. They see it as a part o f a lifestyle that is distant from their everyday life experiences and not accessible to them .22

22.

At one point during the interview the two soldiers started asking questions about my

project Apparently to them what I was doing at the museum was as perplexing as the museum itself. By each question they posed, I felt the slow reversal o f the ethnographic gaze blending

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Hasan and A li come from a social background where the m odernist Ke­ m alist messages do not reach, since these ideological m essages are encoded in W estern European codes o f representation and institutional practices, and fa­ m iliarity with these codes and institutions is presumed by the notion o f a “m odern Turkish citizen/’ Thus, the museum experience o f the two soldiers consolidates the m arginal status into which the K em alist m odernizing project has placed peasants and the people who rem ain outside the contem porary school system and delineates a subject position from which an alternative view o f the early K em alist cultural projects m ight emerge. Through A li’s narrative we see how the mismatch between the envisioned visitor and the actual visitor destabilizes the dom inant narrative and makes al­ ternative interpretations possible. A visitor who does not know enough about the codes has the capacity to ignore the dom inant narrative, underm ining its hegem onic power over the act o f reading. A li’s narrative is very sim ilar to the dissident narratives in this respect, yet, unlike the visitors with such narratives, Ali speaks from a socially m arginalized standpoint, and his identity is not en­ ticed in any sense by the museum’s story. This experience crystallizes a mo­ m ent that renders the Turkish m odernization project and the envisioned social function o f the ACM problem atic, since the discourses inform ing these projects fail to make a subject effect on these two young soldiers.

Conclusion As Eric Hobsbawm once pointed out, nationalism becomes genuinely popu­ lar essentially when it is drunk as a cocktail (Hobsbawm 1995,163). The ingre­ dients o f the cocktail, though, are contextual and historically specific. ACM visitors’ narratives point out that when nationalist narratives are interpreted through the practices o f everyday living in the context o f nationalist muse­ ums, they reinforce the sense o f belonging to the nation as they relate the fa­ m iliar and im m ediate to the abstract and im agined. N ationalist sentim ents

my subject position with the display of the museum. Later I was astounded with this realization during the transcription process, but I truly enjoyed the moment and thought I was a very good interlocutor for their “research.”

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thrive to the degree that hegem onic nationalist narratives are able to create spaces w ithin which meanings o f the everyday experiences o f body, gender, class, and face-to-face relations in the street, the school, at home or at work are articulated and the contingencies o f life and the sense o f self are inscribed into the national linear story. W hat kinds o f experiences, practices, and narratives crosscut nationalist discourses, m aking the concept o f nation m eaningful and resonant? How do they interact w ith nationalist narratives? And w hat kinds o f contexts facilitate such interaction? The ACM and its visitors give us a chance to see such cross­ cutting m eaning-m aking processes at work. The way in which ACM visitors respond to the Anatolian Civilizations D iscourse, which hails them as Turkish citizens, reveals how the nationalist myth o f linear destiny is negotiated and how everyday life practices, notions about womanhood, and urbanism , re­ gardless o f how variegated their meanings for the visitors, become the filters through which nationalism gains m eaning, engenders personal allegiance to the abstract notion o f nation, or leads people to challenge the ideological prem ises o f that notion. M ost ACM visitors recognized themselves as the subject o f the dom inant museum narrative, which assigned them the role o f the citizens o f a heroic na­ tion-state who are traveling back in their m otherland’s history. The land they were born in and the culture they grew up w ith defined their membership in the nation. As such, the subject position “citizen” was not constructed as a legal-rational category but rather as an em otionally charged identity, where the sense o f belonging and identification was translated into w illingness to serve and be governed by, connecting the people to the state at the m ost intim ate level. The subject position was rooted in a notion o f a shared national cultural essence that the Anatolian Civilizations narrative had anchored in the home­ land. Thus, when the visitors narrated their experience o f the museum and sit­ uated themselves in the story the exhibition tells, they im agined a cultural hom ogeneity rooted in the territory, rather than in an ethnicity constructed through the m etaphor o f blood ties. They identified w ith their ancestors by creating links between their everyday practices and those o f their imagined territorial kin. The ways in which such links were established, the kinds o f af­ fections expressed, and the narratives o f territorial kinship that ensued from

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them when the institutionalized narratives interpellate the subjects, were cru­ cial to understanding why m ost visitors accepted the basic tenets o f the mu­ seum narrative and the subject effect o f the A natolian Civilizations Discourse. Another group o f visitors, although they too im agined territorial kinship ties and a historical linear trajectory delineated by the Anatolian Civilizations narrative, expressed nostalgia, rather than pride in the nation’s past. The nos­ talgic visitors questioned the position the nation has come to occupy in the world order and were skeptical about the level o f civilization it has achieved. Even though their narratives agreed with the territorial kinship narratives in term s o f w hat the telos o f the historical trajectory should be— that is, “West­ ern m odernity”— they contested the notion that the nation-state had already achieved it or even that the nation is on the right path leading to that telos. They inverted the museum narrative and reinterpreted it as a representation o f failure, rather than success. The affection they held for their ancestors was tainted w ith sham e, since they identified contem porary Turkey as an undevel­ oped country, unworthy o f its glorious past. For the visitors who challenged one o f the m ost fundamental elements o f the A natolian Civilizations D iscourse— the tenet that all Turkish citizens have a shared homogeneous culture— the relationship between culture and mu­ seum was crosscut by stories o f habitus and nation simultaneously. For these visitors Turkey had to raise “m odem individuals” in order to achieve moder­ nity as a national condition. In other words, the agents o f the nation’s march toward m odernity were first and foremost the citizens with a “sophisticated” and urban habitus. These visitors defined museum visiting as a ritual o f the “modern subject” that draws a line between an urban, cultivated citizen and a rural, uncultivated one. W hen these hierarchies o f taste were translated to a national level, the nation was im agined as divided by a fault line o f di­ chotomized lifestyles, and the individual struggles for m odernization over­ whelmed the story o f 'T urkish nation on the road o f progress” seen in the territorial kinship narratives. The rural populations were often relegated to categories denoted as backward, ignorant, and traditional, whereas urban identity was defined by the binary opposites o f these adjectives. Thus, in the dissident narratives, the historical trajectories o f these two dichotomized groups were seen as separate, and in the language o f these narratives hetero­

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geneity, fragm entation, and hierarchy replaced national homogeneity, union, and harmony.23 W hile studying representations and narratives o f the “nation” embodied in institutions, paying attention to the intended audience is im portant because audiences that fall outside the scope o f the profile are potentially capable of subverting the intended messages by reading unexpected meanings into them. In this essay, the narrative o f the two soldiers who interpreted the museum as an urban amusement park unrelated to an Anatolian-based national identity signaled that there are visitors who do not respond to the hailing o f the na­ tionalist discourse o f the museum. The two soldiers’ concepts o f urbanity and m odernity did not crosscut an im agined Anatolian nation, which was the in­ alienable subject o f the historical narratives in both dissident and territorial kinship narratives. The museum narrative was not able to create any commensurability between their sense o f self and their conceptions o f nation. ACM, in failing to represent to these visitors the odyssey o f the heroic nation march­ ing toward an im agined state o f m odernity in linear tim e, did not have the power to pivot their im agery o f the nation and interpellate them as citizens. T heir alternative interpretation reminds us that experiencing the public insti­ tutions that embody official ideologies does not necessarily mean internalizing those ideologies. The work o f interpretation and the com bination o f official ideologies w ith other processes o f m eaning making—such as various ways in which people narrate and give m eaning to their own subjectivity and their everyday life— are crucial in how people form their im ageries o f nation. In this respect, to understand how hegemonic narratives circulate and stay pow­ erful, it is not sufficient to ask whether citizens read nationalist textbooks, at­ 23.

Ethnographies o f the practice o f not going to the museums are warranted as much as

the ethnographies o f museum visiting to fully understand how people interact with the nation­ alist and modernist discourses embodied in the museums. In my study I focused on the mu­ seum visitors to examine more closely the mechanisms and moments o f interpellation by these institutions as an empirical question, and to highlight the necessity to explore the power of these institutions to socialize people into certain subject positions. Given more time and other resources, museum studies that inquire why people do not go to museums and what kinds of narratives they generate on this subject will be invaluable to understand how and why people do not interact with these institutions and decline their hailing Such studies will no doubt shed more light on alternative narrations of museums and their relation to the nationalist narratives.

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tend state cerem onies, or are com pelled to go to museums that present na­ tionalist narratives. It is vital to exam ine how people represent these cultural products in the stories they tell and rewrite official narratives filtering them through the prism o f their own life experiences. In locating ourselves in social narratives to articulate our experiences, we com e to recognize ourselves by the social categories o f that narrative, con­ struct identities, and occupy subject positions in a collectively im agined com­ munity.24 In this regard, the links visitors established between the physical attributes o f the Turkish women’s bodies and that o f the m other goddesses, the designation o f U rartian cauldrons as the prototypes o f today’s saucepans, or the constructions o f a prim ordial authentic Anatolian culture through allu­ sions to the continuous use o f mud brick houses in A natolia throughout the ages, create a com m ensurability between the public narrative o f Anatolian Civilizations w ithin which the story o f Turkish nation-building is inscribed and the im m ediate, personally meaningful experiences o f everyday life. W ith­ out studying such minute processes o f creating com m ensurabilities between everyday practices and macro social processes and the sites that enable such conceptual work, it is hard to grasp in this globalizing and fragm enting world how nationalist narratives can continue to m eaningfully articulate “nation,” “state,” and “homeland” w ith one another, hailing people as “citizens,” and, more im portantly, why people answer to this interpellation w ith feelings o f belonging, com m itment, and loyalty to the nation. Ethnography o f the interpretive labor o f im agining the nation also en­ ables us to see the cracks in the field o f influence o f the dom inant narratives claim ing hegem ony over the interpretation o f history. In the people’s narra­ tives, the moments and spaces that crystallize the relative positions o f m argin and center in the discursive field where public narratives and their critical al­ ternatives struggle to gain hegemony over the sym bolic representation and spatial em bodiment o f the national identity construction, become traceable.

24.

See Bertaux (1981); Bertaux and Kohli (1984); Linde (1986); and Somers and Gibson

(1994) for discussions of the ways in which life stories are embedded in public narratives.

4 Remembering a Nine-Thousand-Year-Old Site Presenting Çatalhöyük Ayfer Bartu Candan

Consider the following portrayals: M. is from Küçükköy, the closest village to Çatalhöyük, a nine-thousandyear-old archaeological site in Central Anatolia. He was born in the village and has been living there with his w ife and two children and his m other, brother, and sister. T hey are among the poorest fam ilies in the village. They do not own any land, and until M. and his brother and sister started working at Çatalhöyük, their prim ary sources o f incom e had been through anim al husbandry, selling produce grown on the land they rent each year and working in the fields as sea­ sonal laborers. Now, M. is employed through the local office o f the M inistry o f Culture as one o f the guards at Çatalhöyük. His sister has been employed by the Çatalhöyük research project during the excavation season since 1994, first to work as part o f a group that sorted heavy residue and more recently as one o f the kitchen staff in the dig house. M.’s brother has also been working at Çatalhöyük, first as a laborer hired from the village to work at the excavation and more recendy as a guard. Z. is the mayor o f Çum ra, the closest town to Çatalhöyük. He is from the

The research for this project is based on fieldwork conducted between 1998 and 2003 in Turkey (Çatalhöyük, Istanbul, Ankara), Britain, and the United States. I would like to thank es­ pecially the members of the Çatalhöyük research project who so willingly accepted me as part o f their team and all the people who shared their Çatalhöyük stories with me. I owe special thanks to Can Candan for his encouragement and support and to Esra Özyürek for her patience and insightful comments on an earlier version o f this paper.

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ultranationalist conservative political party, MHP (N ationalist Action Party), which has been the m ost popular party in this region for m any years. He often visits Çatalhöyük and provides help to the excavation project through the re­ sources o f the municipality. A. owns a carpet business w ith his brother in Konya, the closest city to Çatalhöyük. He has been in the carpet business for many years and lives in Konya with his family. A.’s brother is m ainly in charge o f the store in Konya, whereas A. runs the internadonal part o f the business. He has W estern Euro­ pean partners and clients. A long with his G erm an business partner, A. has been interested in designing kilim s using im ages from Çatalhöyük w all paintings. B. is a well-known fashion designer in Istanbul. H er office is located in one o f the upscale neighborhoods in the city. Although she is based in Istan­ bul, she travels w idely for work. She recently opened a shop in France. Her main interests are natural dyes and fabrics. In 1997 she publicly presented her Çatalhöyük collection in Istanbul in a fashion show she named “Women o f A nother Time,” where the models walked out o f a reconstructed Çatalhöyük house with im ages from Çatalhöyük flashing in the background. D. is a perform ance and visual artist who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Since 1982 she has been involved in various perform ance art events and has been traveling w idely to different parts o f the world, in­ cluding Turkey, for these perform ances. She belongs to a nongovernm ental organization called the International Center for Celebration that was formed by an international group o f artists and architects. D. has also been affiliated with a women’s group in Istanbul called Anakültür (M other Culture) that is in­ terested in designing projects to empower the “ancient wisdom and knowl­ edge” o f women. D. visited Çatalhöyük a couple o f times and perform ed what she calls the “M other Goddess Dance” on the mound. T. is an archaeologist from England. She has been part o f the Çatalhöyük research team since 1998. Like other archaeologists at the site, she stays at the dig house for two months every summer. Although she has worked at other prehistoric sites in Turkey, her dream has been to excavate at Çatalhöyük, which she claim s to be one o f the m ost im portant archaeological sites in the world. These people belong to diverse groups who are involved w ith Çatalhöyük. Archaeologists, Goddess groups, local and central bureacrats, artists, and

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nearby villagers constitute the present publics o f a nine-thousand-year-old past. In recent years, there has been a grow ing awareness o f and interest in the publics o f the past, specifically the archaeological past: groups o f people claim ing rights over the remnants o f the archaeological sites (LaRoche and Blakey 1997); archaeologists, journalists, and w riters who produce scientific and popular knowledge about these sites (Abu el-Haj 2001; H odder 1999; M eskell 1998); and descendants or groups o f people who claim to be the de­ scendants o f some ancient populations who inhabited the sites (Castaneda 1996). W hat happens when a nine-thousand-year-old site such as Çatalhöyük, with no apparent links to any current ethnic, racial, or religious group, is “re­ membered” today? W hat are the entanglem ents o f its prehistoric past w ith the present?' W hen I joined Çatalhöyük research project in 1997 as a social an­ thropologist, I started exploring the claim s different groups make and the links they forge with this prehistoric site.12 In the “m ulti-sited ethnography” (M arcus 1995), I have been participating in and observing the activities o f these groups and interview ing them in an attem pt to examine the production and consumption o f different kinds o f knowledge about Çatalhöyük. In this essay I exam ine encounters between the various publics o f Çatal­ höyük with the site and with one another, explore the ways in which these en­ counters are entangled with the local, national, global, social, cultural, and political contexts, and dem onstrate the ways in which the public m em ory of Çatalhöyük is shaped by these encounters and entanglements.

Encounters with Çatalhöyük A rchaeologists In term s o f legal ownership, Çatalhöyük is owned by the Turkish state. W hen it was discovered and excavated in the 1960s by the British archaeologist Jam es

1. The use of the term “entanglement” is inspired by the use o f the term “entangled ob­ jects” in Nicholas Thomas (1991); he discusses the entanglements o f material culture, social life, and colonialism in die Pacific context 2. See Hamilton (2000) and Shankland (1996, 2000) for other kinds o f anthropological work on Çatalhöyük.

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M ellaart, this archaeological site became part o f the national heritage. A re­ constructed Çatalhöyük house and various finds from the M ellaart excava­ tions became part o f the display in the Anatolian Civilizations M useum in Ankara (see chap. 3). As is true for all archaeological sites in the country, it is guarded and controlled by the M inistry o f Culture and its local offices, and any intervendon at the site, including any archaeological excavadon, has to go through the perm ission procedures o f the M inistry o f Culture, D irectorate o f M useums and Monuments. Even with a valid research perm it, a governm ent representative has to be present at the site for any kind o f excavadon. Çatalhöyük is considered to be one o f the m ost significant archaeological sites in the world. W ith its well-preserved mud brick architectural features and elaborate symbolism and the scale and density o f the settlem ent, it has at­ tracted significant attendon from archaeological circles. W hen Ian Hodder, one o f the leading figures in postprocessual archaeology, started excavating at Çatalhöyük in 1993, the sciendfic comm unity had already claim ed it as one o f the m ost noteworthy sites, with the potential o f providing im portant clues as to the origins o f human setdem ent in the M editerranean and the N ear East. Besides its im portance for understanding the N eolithic world, w ith the re­ newed excavations headed by Ian Hodder Çatalhöyük has also become a test­ ing ground for new m ethodologies in archaeology. Hodder describes the m ajor components o f the current project as field research that involves exca­ vation, environm ental reconstruction, and regional survey; conservation and restoration; and heritage management that involves covering parts o f the site, constructing a visitor center, and devising other ways to make the site an in­ form ative and attractive place to visit (Hodder 1997). The current project has become a highly visible case study for reflexive archaeological practice and in­ novative fieldwork methods (Bartu 1999b; Hamilakis 1999; Hassan 1997; Hodder 1997,1999,2000). Already, several volumes o f books and series o f ar­ ticles about the site have been produced. Visitors Compared to some o f the other archaeological sites both in the region and elsewhere in Turkey, Çatalhöyük attracts few visitors. Although there are no official visitor statistics for Çatalhöyük, a visitor survey I conducted between

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1998 and 2001 suggests that in a year die site attracts approxim ately 5,000 to 7,000 visitors, com pared to 1.2 m illion visitors to M evlana M useum in Konya and 225,000 visitors to the Ephesus museum İn İzm ir (Shankland, Bezmen, and Bunbury 1995). Results o f the visitor survey point to the following profile o f the visitors to Çatalhöyük: 30.7 percent o f the visitors are from Western European countries, 27.3 percent are from N orth Am erica, and the ones from Central Anatolia region (including Çumra and Konya vicinity) constitute 26.1 percent. Alm ost h alf o f the visitors (44.5 percent) are forty-one years o f age and above, and the m ajority (72.5 percent) are college or university graduates. The visitors are m osdy interested in the age o f the site and the archaeo­ logical process itself. Although m ost o f them express a sense o f disappoint­ m ent due to the absence o f visually attractive monuments, different groups of visitors relate to and experience the site in diverse ways. In the following ex­ am ples, visitors to Çatalhöyük, who are from different national, social, cultural backgrounds, articulate the reasons for their visits, their experiences o f the site, and the ways in which they make sense o f the site.3 N., from Istanbul, is thirty-six years old and the owner o f a sm all shop. He was bom and raised in one o f the neighboring villages. He cam e to visit the site w ith his w ife and six-year-old daughter: It was my conscience (vicdamm) that brought me here. I was born in a village that is three kilom eters away from Çatalhöyük. I lived in that village until I finished high school but had never been to Çatalhöyük. Recently I read about Çatalhöyük and the ongoing excavations here in one o f the newspa­ pers. I was angry at m yself and was ashamed o f the fact that I had never been there although this is where I am from. People come all the way from Am erica and England to work here because they are curious about this site, but I have never been here. W hen we cam e here to visit my fam ily in the vil­ lage, I thought I should see Çatalhöyük. It was really my conscience that brought me here.4

3. These examples are based on the visitor survey I conducted between 1998 and 2001, the guest book at the visitor center, and interviews I conducted with the visitors and tourists at the site. 4. This and further references and descriptions come from my interviews and field notes unless indicated otherwise.

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Although many visitors, especially those from the nearby villages and towns, share N.’s sentim ents o f guilt and shame for not having visited Çatalhöyük before, they also express a sense o f local and national pride for having such an internationally well-known site in their region. Others express frustra­ tion w ith the governm ent, state offices, and Turkish sponsors for not showing enough interest in the site and not appreciating its com m ercial value. N ation­ alist sentim ents are also widespread am ong visitors from different regions o f Turkey. They express a sense o f disappointm ent that the site is being exca­ vated by an international group o f archaeologists with few participants from Turkey. One o f these visitors put it in the following term s: “The m ajor disap­ pointm ent for me is to see foreigners excavating this site rather than Turkish archaeologists. But I am not sure who to blame for this— the governm ent that doesn’t invest in things like archaeology, disinterest o f the Turkish archaeolo­ gists, or what?” Such nationalist sentim ents point to the construction o f a ge­ nealogy o f the site that links it w ith a particular land and territory defined by the boundaries o f the nation-state. An Australian w riter in her fifties, however, constructs a very different ge­ nealogy o f the site. W hile she sits on the mound watching the fields and the mountains, she describes what she makes o f Çatalhöyük and why she came to the site: I am from A ustralia. I am a writer. I have been in Turkey for three days only and just arrived here today. U ntil I came here I was suffering a certain am ount o f culture shock with the difference in language, not being able to communicate with people, offending them all the time because I don’t know the customs. But I sit down here in the grass and look around and I could be in A ustralia. 1 feel awfully at home in the physical landscape here. And that’s because two hundred years ago the Europeans brought the species that were dom esticated on this site to the A ustralian continent and began a process o f land degradation that we are dying to recover from now. M y fam ily as farm ­ ers had been part o f that land degradation. But more than that, they have been part o f a disposition o f A ustralia’s indigenous people, which is a great burden that all Australian writers feel one way or another that I especially feel because o f my pastoral background. One o f the things that interests me in Çatalhöyük is the perceived continuity between people who lived here nine thousand years ago and people who are farm ing today. I mean perhaps

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that is more im aginary than real. But in my country, in A ustralia, there has been a m ajor discontinuity, and those indigenous people have been m assa­ cred and dispossessed totally. And they are a living, breathing population o f people who are suffering the burdens o f this agricultural colonization. In there somewhere is an explanation for why I came here.

In her genealogy o f the site, the A ustralian w riter draws a link between her ancestors, the origins o f agricultural colonization, and Çatalhöyük that makes her feel very much at home at this site although she has been suffering from culture shock in different parts o f the country. It is through the links she makes between different parts o f the world across a wide tim e span that she constructs the present memory o f Çatalhöyük. Another exam ple o f visitor encounters w ith Çatalhöyük, that o f the “Goddess” groups, points to a different kind o f genealogy, one based on spir­ itual links form ed w ith the site. These groups claim that the site is the origin of the M other Goddess worship. Although these types o f visitors are few at Çatalhöyük, they are part o f a larger and grow ing network o f Goddess femi­ nist groups (Rountree 2001). D espite their common interests, there İs a diver­ sity within these groups ranging from ecofem inists, to Goddess worshippers, to women sim ply interested in the role o f women in early times. Some visit the site as part o f Goddess tours that they describe as pilgrim ages, and others visit in sm aller groups. These tours, which cost three to five thousand dollars per person, cater prim arily to women, m ost o f whom are from N orth America. The itinerary usually includes Goddess sites in southern Europe, Greece, M alta, and Turkey. Çatalhöyük is usually the culm ination o f these journeys. D uring their visits to Çatalhöyük, each group engages in some form o f a ritual on the mound to “com m unicate w ith the Goddess,” to “feel her positive en­ ergy,” as they put it. But the nature o f these rituals also varies from one group to another. These spiritual encounters with the site are usually described in an embodied way and include, most commonly, words like em powerm ent, awe, and transform ation.5 D.’s description o f her experience during a dance she perform ed on the mound at Çatalhöyük is a revealing example: 5. See Rountree (2002) for her discussion of similar experiences at other Goddess sites.

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I felt my spinal colum n connecting with the earth and prayed also to the [goddess] M agna D ea to fill m e, and to reveal HERSELF through me as SHE had the previous year. M y body becam e electric, an em pty vessel mov­ ing in tim elessness. I entered a Sam adhi, state o f absorption into Oneness, and slowly, gradually, alm ost im perceptibly SHE began to wake up, rattling and crum bling her paper lair exploring her surroundings. SHE found an opening to HER enclosure, and SHE felt the afternoon air, space. SHE cupped it in HER hand and withdrew, safe inside HER membrane. Yet the sensation was curious, SHE stretched both arm s out and, after a w hile, HER entire body. SHE breathed in oxygen, air, and space. SHE touched the earth and rubbed it on HER arm s and face, pulled wild grasses and poured them on HER head and tasted the earth. Sensing vastness, finding the sky, SHE stood up, a link between the sky and earth. SHE saw distance, mountains, hills, plains surrounding HER. SHE began to move in the circle inscribing them , extending out into creation, out along the earth, out in the sky and wind and light. Touching HERSELF, SHE saw others sim ilar to HER sur­ rounding HER. SHE looked into the eyes o f each person, SHE rang her Tibetian Singing Bowl and flew HER wings o f liberation.6

As the above accounts illustrate, there is m ultiplicity in the types o f visitor encounters at Çatalhöyük. As are many other tourist spaces (Edensor 1998; U rry 1995), Çatalhöyük is diversely experienced and represented by different groups o f people. These encounters are shaped by and entangled with per­ sonal, social, national, and spiritual identities. The visitors construct diverse genealogies o f the site through the nation-state, the origins o f agricultural col­ onization, and the origins o f M other Goddess worship. It is through these ge­ nealogies that they relate to the site in the present. M ayors The following series o f encounters draw attention to the ways in which differ­ ent local groups capitalize on archaeology as a means to achieve local objec6.

This is an excerpt from a text written by D. after her performance at Çatalhöyük onjune

27,1998. It is in her personal collection.

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tives. Çumra and its town governm ent have been forging links w ith Çatalhöyük in various ways. Since the excavations resumed at the site in 1993, many places in Çumra have adopted the Çatalhöyük name: the annual agricultural festival has been named the Çatalhöyük Çumra A gricultural Festival; the sports club in town is now named after Çatalhöyük; the bus term inal carries the sign “Welcome to Çatalhöyük city Çumra.” The current mayor has been very open about his nam ing strategy. As he put it in an interview in his office, “We want to be associated with Çatalhöyük, and the easiest way to do that is to use the Çatalhöyük name in as many places as we can and make Çumra a Çatal­ höyük city.” In the summer o f 2001, the mayor opened a new center called Çatalhöyük Çumra Arts and Crafts Center to produce souvenirs and kilim s based on Çatalhöyük im agery (see illus. 1). Given his interest in using every opportunity to affiliate Çatalhöyük with Çumra, he has been adam ant about establishing a local museum in Çumra where artifacts from Çatalhöyük excavations would be displayed. D espite the reluctance o f central governm ent officials in Ankara to issue a perm it to open such a museum in Çumra, the m ayor has already des­ ignated a building in town for the museum and asked his staff to start working on the interior design.

1. Souvenir plate designed and produced by the Çumra municipality. Photograph by Can Candan. Courtesy of the photographer.

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The symposium the mayor organized in the summer o f 2000, “Çumra— from Çatalhöyük to the Present,” is another exam ple o f the town’s claim to an affiliation with and “ownership” o f Çatalhöyük. For this symposium the m ayor invited scholars from Selçuk University, the local university in Konya, and various members o f the Çatalhöyük research team. Scholars were asked to present papérs on the current findings at Çatalhöyük, on the history o f Çum ra, and on the current pressing problems o f the town and the region. The proceedings o f the symposium and another book on the recent findings at Çatalhöyük were to be published by the Çumra local governm ent after the sym posium. It is im portant to note that everyone in the region, including the current mayor, knows and agrees w ith the fact that the town o f Çumra was founded in 1926 to settle the Turkish m igrant population from the Balkans (K arabayir 2001). Thus, the name o f the symposium did not necessarily im ply or claim an ethnic continuity o f the population with the N eolithic residents but rather a present ownership o f the site. But this symposium also pointed to another way in which Çatalhöyük is entangled with the present claim s and demands especially o f the farm ers in the region. The tim ing o f this sym posium overlapped with the visit o f the m inister o f agriculture and village affairs to the region. A t the end o f this sym­ posium the m inister was to have a m eeting with a group o f farm ers to discuss the current problem s in the region and the agricultural policies o f the govern­ ment. One o f the key issues in the agricultural sector has been the negotiation between the governm ent and the International M onetary Fund regarding a decrease in state subsidies. This m eeting w ith the m inister was crucial for the farm ers to sort out their anxieties about the subsidies. Farmers started com ing into the symposium room and w aiting im patiently for the presentations to end. It was clear that they were more interested in m eeting w ith the m inister than in hearing the presentations on the recent findings from Çatalhöyük. But Çatalhöyük seem ed im portant in the farm ers’ attem pts to reclaim the signifi­ cance o f agriculture in this region. There were several banners in the sympo­ sium room that read, “A griculture Is N ine Thousand Years Old in Çumra.” One o f the farm ers w aiting for the m inister explained these banners on the wall in the following way: “We know that agriculture started in this region a long tim e ago. They say Çatalhöyük is nine thousand years old. So it started a long tim e ago. We are still involved in it, and we want to continue with i t But it

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is im possible to do that without the subsidy o f the governm ent.” In this con­ text, the presence o f Çatalhöyük in the region became a means to forge links to the origins o f agriculture in the area. V illagers The town o f Çumra and its m unicipality are not the only local actors appro­ priating and claim ing Çatalhöyük. O ver the years, a grow ing num ber o f vil­ lagers from Küçükköy, some o f whom are hired at the site, have started to develop an affiliation w ith Çatalhöyük. W ith their sm aller financial and politi­ cal resources, the villagers have been trying to appropriate Çatalhöyük by using different mechanism s, strategies, and alliances. A m ajority o f the villagers perceive Çatalhöyük prim arily as a tourist site, w ith the potential to generate revenues from tourism if developed properly. Çumra m unicipality’s efforts to affiliate Çumra w ith Çatalhöyük is seen as a source o f com petition over the potential m aterial benefits from the site. Al­ though much o f tourism research dem onstrates the asym m etrical power rela­ tionship in host-guest interactions, it is tim e to go beyond the portrayal o f hosts as passive agents. As Stronza suggests, it is m isleading to depict locals as “passive, unable to influence events, as if they themselves were somehow physically locked in the tourist gaze. M issing in these analyses is the possibility that locals can, and often do, play a role in determ ining what happens in their encounters with tourists” (Stronza 2001,272). In the context o f Çatalhöyük, although there are other actors in the tourism scene, such as the M inistry o f Tourism and Culture and travel agencies, villagers in Küçükköy and Çumra m unicipality are also active agents in their attem pts to shape the nature o f touristic developm ent and the beneficiaries o f this developm ent in the region. Conflicts and tensions between Çumra and Küçükköy and the encounters be­ tween the visitors and tourists and the local population point to such attempts. One o f the m ajor sources o f conflict between Çumra and Küçükköy has been the road to Çatalhöyük. From Konya to Çatalhöyük there are two possi­ ble routes, one through Çumra and the other through Küçükköy. Although the road through Küçükköy is shorter, the Çumra road is in better condition and is thus preferred by visitors. W hen discussing the touristic opportunities Çatalhöyük presents, one o f the villagers from Küçükköy, who has been work­

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ing at Çatalhöyük for several years, expressed a sentim ent shared by m ost o f the workers at the site: “The other day when the mayor came to visit Çatal­ höyük, we asked him about the Küçükköy road, and he explicidy told us that he has no intention o f fixing it. He knows and we know why he w ill not do that. He wants tourists to go through Çum ra, and we know what that means. That means spending money there rather than our village.” Another villager joined in the conversation: “T hey also make sure they use the Çatalhöyük nam e everywhere in Çum ra, so now whenever the Çatalhöyük name is heard, people and especially tourists w ill associate this name with Çumra. The other day I suggested to my friends in the village that maybe we should change the name o f our village to Çatalhöyük. We cannot let Çumra benefit from this nam e that is supposed to be ours. This is a struggle we have to put up with.” The tensions between the villagers and Çumra m unicipality are over the potential benefits and opportunities provided by the touristic developm ent o f the region. But conflicts between the villagers and some o f the visitor groups point to the lim its and constraints o f this kind o f development and draw at­ tention to the agency o f the villagers in shaping the nature o f tourism in the region. The following example regarding a project initiated by a Goddess group in Küçükköy dem onstrates this point. It was the w inter o f 1997 when a woman’s group in Istanbul, Anakültür, bought an old house in the village to convert it into an international research center called H erlnn. In a m eeting with the coordinator o f this group in her Istanbul office, the coordinator de­ scribed the aim o f this organization as follows:

We want to advance the status and role o f women in the developm ent process. Our activities focus on educational and cultural activities for awareness rais­ ing, capacity building for girls and women in rural areas, and lobbying nation­ ally and internationally. We want to work at the grassroots level for various empowerment projects for the women by using centuries-old indigenous knowledge, wisdom , and culture that women possess. We want to call these centers H erlnn, and o f course the one in Küçükköy is especially im portant since it is so close to Çatalhöyük. This center has the potential to attract many researchers from all over the world who are interested in women’s issues in dif­ ferent historical periods. In Küçükköy, we want to be able to work with local women and bring in all those people interested in doing this kind o f research.

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The house was partially renovated during the following summer, and the coordinator o f the group organized a visit to Çatalhöyük with participants from Istanbul and N orth Am erica. T heir visit also included an opening cere­ mony at H erlnn and a gathering in the courtyard w ith a group o f women in­ vited from the village. In the w inter o f 1998, for reasons that are still unclear, the house was burned down. Although it is still difficult to untangle the rea­ sons for the incident, m y interview s w ith different groups in the village point to tensions in the village. A t first villagers claim ed that it was an accident. It was an old house, and the problems w ith the electrical system in the house caused the fire. But further conversations indicated that a group o f villagers, m ostly men, were disturbed by thé sale o f this house to what they called “for­ eigners”— m eaning people com ing from outside o f their region. They were also disturbed by the involvem ent o f their female relatives in the opening cer­ em ony o f H erlnn, the content o f which they were not so sure. The tone of the conversations pointed to the possibility o f arson rather than an accident, and this can be interpreted as a sign that the presence o f the Goddess groups in the village was not welcomed. The ongoing excavations at Çatalhöyük are also entangled w ith the local m icropolitics. The presence o f such a high-profile project so close to the vil­ lage becomes a means to achieve various local objectives and to m anipulate and contest local power relations. In a way, archaeology becomes one o f the “weapons o f the weak” (Scott, 1985). One example o f such a process is the way in which the current m uhtar (village head) o f Küçükköy has been trying to form alliances around the excavation project. One o f his prim ary aim s has been to persuade the governor o f Konya to start the construction o f a school building in the village that would accommodate more children from different age groups.7 The m uhtar had been unsuccessfully lobbying the governor’s of­ fice for several months regarding the problem. In the summer o f 2001, he de­ cided to use another strategy for his efforts—getting the archaeologists involved in the process. W hen we were discussing the schooling problem of the village, he declared his new strategy:

7.

The change from five-year to eight-year mandatory education in 1998 made the old

school building that was already in appalling condition structurally dangerous and totally insuf­ ficient to accommodate all the school-age children in the village.

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I have been going to the governor’s office so many times to raise the issue o f a need for a proper school building in the village, the need for a proper road, and the need to build a new w ell that w ill help w ith the w ater problem we have. It w ill be much more effective if Ian Hodder comes along with me to one o f these m eetings. You are more powerful people in m any ways. You are more educated. Your word w ill carry more w eight than mine. I go and tell the governor all I can tell. He just nods his head and sends me away, and nothing gets done. He w ill treat you differently, he w ill take you more seriously.

The m ubtarvfzs actually correct in his assessm ent o f social hierarchies and local power relations. A m eeting attended by the muhtar, Ian Hodder, and my­ self took place in Konya in the governor’s office in the summer o f 2001 where the governor agreed to apply to the M inistry o f Education for funds to start the construction o f a new school building in Küçükköy. Another exam ple o f the ways in which archaeology has been capitalized on and used as a “weapon o f the weak” comes from a project implem ented in the sum m er o f 1998. This project consisted o f organizing slide shows in Küçükköy as a way o f inform ing villagers about the kind o f work done at Çatalhöyük, and sharing the kind o f archaeological knowledge produced about the site. The idea was received enthusiastically by the workers at the site, but it was actually the women who expressed more interest in it. In a series o f discussions regarding the tim ing and logistics o f the shows, the women re­ vealed the main reason for their eagerness. They were extrem ely concerned about rum ors in the village, for exam ple, that they were taking their head scarves o ff around foreign men and that they were just sitting around all day long w ith the foreigners. The women insisted that I use as many slides as pos­ sible showing the kind o f work they do and highlight the im portance o f this for the project. So the slide shows would serve several purposes for the women workers. They would provide visual evidence o f what women actually do and wear at the site, thus dispelling the rumors. The emphasis on the im ­ portance o f their work for the archaeological project would also grant them social prestige in the village. Relatively speaking Küçükköy is a prosperous village relying m ainly on agriculture and anim al husbandry. The villagers hired at the site are in many ways the econom ically and socially m arginal men and women o f the village.

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They are am ong the poorest fam ilies in the village; one o f them is a divorced woman with one child who came back to the village after her divorce to live with her m other and brother’s family. It is only the ones who do not own any land who are interested in the seasonal labor provided at the excavation site. Although that has been changing in recent years, especially in the early years of the excavation, working at the site was seen as a sign and acknowledgment of poverty and desperateness for work. Given this, it was im portant to them to capitalize on their roles at Çatalhöyük as a means to achieve social prestige.

G oddess G roups Goddess comm unities relate to Çatalhöyük in different ways than the nearby villagers. Although they are few in number, they constitute one o f the most visible publics o f Çatalhöyük. They are part o f a larger network and are very active in prom oting alternative tours to Goddess sites. Even though they are not a homogenous group, they do share sim ilar interests and relate to Çatal­ höyük in sim ilar ways. Çatalhöyük Web sites developed by New Age or God­ dess groups promote a particular interpretation o f the site. On the Sacred Journeys Travel Tours Web site, m aintained by a U.S.-based group that organ­ izes Goddess tours to Turkey, the tours are referred to as “Celebrating God­ dess— a Sacred Journey” and described in the following way:

A sacred journey takes us to the heart o f the Goddess in cultures around the world. We celebrate Her as She was known in ancient times and places, and we celebrate Her continuing presence. Together, we create rituals o f grati­ tude and healing to honor and connect with Her transform ing spirit___I travel because I want to learn first-hand, from M other Earth herself, about the m any cultures, the m any people who have found spirit in the anim als, in the trees, and the grain, in the rivers and oceans, and in the land, as w ell as in themselves. She is everywhere—in all things. I find Her in my travels, and I carry Her with me— for She is w ithin me as She is w ithin you. O ur ancestors say it has been so since the beginning. Archaeologists have found sm all fig­ urines o f female figures, round with child and w ith full, heavy breasts. These figurines portray the m iracles o f reproduction and the ability o f the mother

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to feed her young horn her own body. The expression o f these m iraculous facts o f life would seem to indicate a desire to acknowledge their absolute necessity. W ithout the mother, the newborn cannot survive—nor can the people. The mother, therefore, is sacred, (www.wordweb.org/sacredjo)

Such a description o f Çatalhöyük relies heavily on Jam es M ellaart’s inter­ pretations o f the figurines from the site (M ellaart 1967) and on M arija Gimbutas’s claim s about an ideal world in prehistory when the M other Goddess ruled (Gim butas 1991).8 Sacred Journeys Travel Tours depicts Çatalhöyük as a rep­ resentation o f the prehistoric Golden Age sym bolized through the rule o f the G reat Goddess o f A natolia where “people lived in a balanced m atrilineal so­ cial structure.” The tour organizers argue that the wall paintings found at the site are part o f this worship, and they give special m eaning to the red ocher used in some o f these paintings: “The color o f blood, the regenerative blood o f the womb, w ith its prom ise o f fertility, signifies the belief that life returns, that death is a journey back to the source o f life.” The depiction o f the female figure that has become the symbol o f the site is also in line with these inter­ pretations: “Seated upon her throne, w ith each hand resting on the back o f a lioness, she gives birth, regenerating all life on Earth, and connecting human and anim al in her ‘great cultural cycle’ ” (www.wordweb.org/sacredjo). The tour organizers, like m any other Goddess groups, suggest that gynocentric cultures such as Çatalhöyük made sure that people lived in peace and harm ony and that is the main reason why we do not see any type o f fortification around the site. In addition to their interest in the site itself, some o f the Goddess groups also interact or engage with the current project members and are very eager to be inform ed about the recent findings. For exam ple, the late Anita Louise, who was also the tour coordinator o f Sacred Journeys, had started a corre­ spondence by e-m ail with Ian Hodder that is posted on the Çatalhöyük re­ search project Web site. 8.

It was primarily the archeologist Marija Gimbutes and her work on prehistoric Euro­

pean sites who popularized the idea o f the “Mother Goddess.” Although she passed away in 1994, she is still considered to be one of the icons of the Goddess movement.

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Some other groups, however, show less interest in the ongoing research at the site. T heir visits are a way o f reinforcing their beliefs about the M other Goddess and are m ostly dom inated by the rituals they perform on the mound. One example o f such a group is the one that visited Çatalhöyük in M ay 2000 on a tour called “In Her Footsteps: A Journey o f Renewal in the Land o f the M others o f Anatolia,” part o f Sacred Journeys tours. The itinerary o f this all­ women tour included visits to Istanbul, the Anatolian Civilizations M useum in Ankara, Hattusas (a H ittite site, referred to as the H ittite Goddess site), Cappodocia (referred to as the site o f ancient Goddess tem ples), and Çatalhöyük (referred to as the archaeological site o f a N eolithic city where a culture o f the Goddess dwelled in peace for two thousand years), and ended up at Tohum (Seed) Living Earth Center, a New Age resort in southern Turkey. The high­ light o f this tour was the visit to Çatalhöyük. Although their visit was during the off-excavation season, I was at the site to help the tour guides. W hen I of­ fered to give a tour o f the site and inform them about the ongoing excava­ tions, the tour guides warned me that this group was not really interested in those things but was very im patient to go up to the mound and start perform ­ ing their rituals. They were eager to be on the mound and “feel the positive en­ ergy o f the Goddess.” They were not only uninterested but were also highly critical o f the ongoing excavations and the interpretations offered by the cur­ rent team. This group especially took offense at the fact that the archaeolo­ gists are questioning and reevaluating the concept o f the Goddess and shrines. As a California artist from this group put it: “W hat Ian Hodder is doing is ac­ tually just reproducing the patriarchal interpretation o f the site by questioning these concepts. He is trying to take away the sacred qualities o f this site, and therefore I believe that he should not be digging here. You need to be able to relate to the sacred qualities o f this site, and only those kinds o f people should be digging this site.” Another Goddess group that visited Çatalhöyük shared sim ilar senti­ ments about the current project. This visit was part o f an international sym­ posium called “Earth Shaped by Woman, Woman Shaped by Earth: Woman in Prehistory, Today and Tomorrow.” The symposium was organized by a women’s group in Istanbul affiliated with Goddess groups in Europe and the United States— the group that had bought the old house in the village w ith the aim o f turning it into a research center that was later burned down. The sym­

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posium took place in Istanbul in June 1998. Participants consisted o f archaeom ythologists, archaeologists m ainly interested in M arija G im butas’ work and Goddess issues, artists, activists, and several members o f the Çatalhöyük excavation team. The one-day trip to Çatalhöyük at the end o f the symposium was the highlight o f the event. The visit included a perform ance or ritual on the mound and an excursion to Küçükköy where the group visited the burned-down house w ith the aim o f “turning the negative energies in the house to positive ones.” The head o f the women’s group from Istanbul ex­ pressed her sentim ents in the following way: It is very im portant that we claim this site through our positive energies, and I definitely believe that M other Goddess w ill help us in that way. I can feel her energy here. We cannot just leave this site to the villagers or to the ar­ chaeologists. We have to put the Goddess issue on the research agenda. T hat’s why I really wanted to establish this H erlnn as a research center where we would host researchers working particularly on these issues. I am sure the villagers did not like this idea, especially the men, because they are worried that we w ill contam inate their women. But we w ill not give up even if they burn down every single house we buy here.

Goddess groups’ depictions o f Çatalhöyük and their encounters with the other publics o f this site raise a series o f questions regarding the politics o f re­ m em bering Çatalhöyük. Although archaeologists, nearby villagers, and God­ dess groups all appropriate the site for their present agendas, various tensions arise in their encounters w ith one another. Groups o f archaeologists, includ­ ing the ones from Çatalhöyük, have been highly critical o f Goddess feminism. One argum ent has been that this movement underm ined and did harm to the agendas o f fem inist archaeologists by creating orthodoxy through the con­ struction o f a Golden Age (Conkey and Tringham 1995). Another critique has been that Goddess groups appropriate the past for their current political agen­ das based on unscientific evidence (M eskell 1995). But there is also a group o f archaeologists that takes a different view o f the Goddess groups.9 The con-

9.

Also see Rountree (2001) for a comparative analysis of Goddess groups’ and archeolo­

gists’ appropriations of prehistoric sites.

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versation I had w ith a British archaeologist after the visit o f a Goddess group at Çatalhöyük summarizes such a view. Thiis archaeologist, who has been working at Çatalhöyük for seven years, expressed her thoughts in the follow­ ing way: “W hat we do is no different than these Goddess groups. We come and dig here. We go back and w rite articles about it, so in a way we appropriate the site in this way, for our agendas. We do it through science; they do it through rituals and their belief system. We also have to accept that it is partly through the efforts o f the Goddess groups that gender issues have stayed on the research agenda o f many archaeological projects.” It can be argued, as this archaeologist does, that Goddess groups, archae­ ologists, or any other group are not that different in the sense that they all ap­ propriate Çatalhöyük for their present agendas. But it is also essential to recognize the structural inequalities and the unequal power relationships that are part o f this process. The nature o f encounters between the nearby vil­ lagers, Goddess groups, and archaeologists dem onstrates this point. The arson incident does suggest that the villagers are active agents in shaping the nature o f their interactions with the Goddess groups. But the Goddess groups still m aintain their privileged positions vis-à-vis the villagers in term s o f the resources to which they have access. The cost o f the Goddess tours, for ex­ am ple, is nearly equal to the annual income o f some o f the fam ilies in Küçükköy. Goddess groups can also publicize their interpretations and expe­ riences o f Çatalhöyük through the Internet, whereas the villagers do not have access to such a resource. Sim ilar issues are also pertinent in the encounters between archaeologists and nearby villagers. It is true that archaeologists at Çatalhöyük and villagers from Küçükköy form alliances for the im m ediate needs o f the village, such as the construction o f the school building and a w ater reservoir, and finding so­ lutions to environm ental problems that affect both the village and the archae­ ological site. It is also true that the members o f the current project are interested in getting the w ider public involved in both the interpretation and public presentation o f the site. To this end they devised various mechanisms such as an interactive visitors’ center, com m unity exhibits, and discussion groups on the Internet to engage in a dialogue with various interest groups and to represent the m ultivocality in the public presentation o f the site (Bartu 2000). The villagers, especially the ones working at the site, have also been part

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o f this process, that is, they were involved in the community exhibit where they expressed their perceptions o f the site; they participated in the discussion sessions with the archaeologists where they interpreted the recent findings from the site; and their interpretations are part o f the forthcom ing publica­ tions o f the research team. Given these efforts, the following questions still re­ m ain: W ho is in charge o f the orchestration o f these m ultiple voices? W hat are the im plications o f such an orchestration and which voices are heard more than others in this process? It can be argued that the voices o f the villagers are heard through the filter o f the archaeologists, that is, through the archaeolo­ gists’ selections o f “relevant” comments to appear in a particular form o f rep­ resentation either as part o f an exhibit or academic publishing—a process that points to the structural inequalities and the unequal power relationships that are part o f the politics o f rem em bering Çatalhöyük. A rtists Local and international artists, including kilim designers, painters, fashion de­ signers, installation artists, com posers, and jew elry designers constitute an­ other public o f Çatalhöyük. The im agery from the site takes various forms in the contem porary art world. One set o f artwork comes from a group o f painters and designers who are inspired by the symbolism from Çatalhöyük. An Istanbul-based non­ governm ental organization, Friends o f Çatalhöyük, organized an exhibit in Is­ tanbul in M arch 2003 where they brought together the work o f a group o f Turkish artists and designers. Various o f the artists who participated in the opening cerem ony o f the exhibit expressed that their work had been inspired by the “naïveté,” “purity,” “authenticity,” or “sim plicity” o f the form s and symbolism o f prehistoric art. As one put it: “The form s in prehistoric art are so genuine, so simple and pure. In the contem porary world we are bombarded with im ages, form s, and inform ation. In my work I search and yearn for the genuineness, authenticity o f the prehistoric world.” M any o f the artists ex­ pressed nostalgia for what they believed to be “uncontam inated” prehistoric times. A sim ilar search for authenticity and purity in prehistory is apparent in the work o f Bahar K orçan, an internationally recognized fashion designer who

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based the designs for her 1997 collection on Çatalhöyük themes. Fascinated by the idea o f the Goddess and interested in the role o f women at Çatalhöyük, she called her fashion show “Women o f Another Tim e” (see illus. 2). She sug­ gested that she im agined the women o f Çatalhöyük wrapped in natural fabrics and therefore she wanted her show to express the “naturalness and purity” of that time. To enhance this sense o f purity and authenticity, the models wore no shoes or accessories, and the clothes were o f natural silk without any metal fasteners or buttons. Ian Hodder introduced the fashion show; the catwalk was constructed in front o f a full-sized model o f a Çatalhöyük house with im ­ ages from the site projected in the background. In the examples o f the art ex­ hibit and the fashion show, the prehistoric past is encoded in contem porary

2. S cene from the fashion show “W om en o f A n other T im e.” C o urtesy o f Ç atalh ö yü k R esearch Project.

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paintings, sculptures, and dresses— a process through which another tim e that is believed to be more authentic, genuine, and pure is reconstructed. Another kind o f search for authenticity comes from the interest o f the local and international carpet and kilim groups İn the im agery o f Çatalhöyük. T heir interest is derived m ainly from the claim s that the origins o f designs found in contem porary kilim s can be traced back to the art at Çatalhöyük (e.g., M ellaart et al. 1989). T heir search for authenticity is, however, entangled with the politics o f the contem porary carpet m arket rather than nostalgia for the prehistoric past. An exam ple o f this is the recent proposal made by a group o f people in the kilim business to the Çatalhöyük research project. The sugges­ tion is to produce handmade kilim s using designs from Çatalhöyük w all paint­ ings and to introduce them to the market with accom panying certificates or booklets produced by the project. The certificates w ill contain inform ation about the history and significance o f the site and be signed by Ian Hodder to ensure the authenticity o f the product.10 In one o f the meetings he had with Ian H odder at Çatalhöyük, the owner o f the carpet business clarified his in­ tentions for his proposal as follows: “In the carpet business, we need to intro­ duce an original product into an increasingly com petitive m arket. There needs to be som ething that distinguishes our product from others. There has to be an authentic com ponent to it.” In this case, handmade production and associ­ ation w ith the Çatalhöyük project w ill ensure the uniqueness and authenticity o f the product. Im ages from a nine-thousand-year-old past resurface w ithin the politics o f the contem porary carpet and kilim m arket where the criteria o f authenticity is constantly negotiated between the producers, dealers, and the consumers. The artwork o f Adrienne M omi, an installation/landscape artist from California, raises another set o f issues regarding the past in the present. Momi produced an installation art at Çatalhöyük during the 2001 season that she called Turning Through Time: Communication with the D istant P ast a t Çatalhöyük. Her work constituted a big spiral on the ground made out o f w hite and brown paper, w ith Çatalhöyük im ages printed on handmade paper placed on white and brown paper. In addition to her interest in tracing the continuities o f the 10.

This proposal is still under negotiation between the kilim producers and Ian Hodder as

to whether there will be such cooperation between the two.

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ancient past in the present, Momi describes her work as an attem pt to question and blur the boundaries between art and science, drawing attention to novel ways o f using both artistic and scientific depictions in narrating the past: “We just have to accept that there are certain things that we can learn and know through science and scientific methods. But there are certain areas such as human experience, emotions, or relationships that are better understood through the use o f art. W hat I am trying to do is actually to m arry art methods with scientific methods to learn about the human condition. I use installation art as a method o f inquiry.” D uring my interview with her, M omi challenges the contem porary meth­ ods o f archaeology through her method o f inquiry—installation art. “There has been enough digging at this site,” she says. “I want to cover it up, give the im ages that have been dug out back to the site.” Placing papers with Çatalhöyük im agery on the mound is her way o f “giving back” the sym bolism o f the site. The installation art is also her means o f com m unicating w ith the pre­ historic past.

Concluding Remarks Çatalhöyük is a nine-thousand-year-old archaeological site with no apparent links to any contem porary ethnic or racial group or religion. But perhaps it is precisely this aspect o f Çatalhöyük that renders the m ultiple readings, inter­ pretations, appropriations, and claim s described above. It is presented and re-presented by various groups ranging from bureaucrats to archaeologists, from New Age groups to kilim designers, from local villagers to fashion de­ signers. The appropriation and contestation o f the past and the resulting ten­ sions and shifting alliances between various groups bring into focus the com plex m eanings the word “heritage” acquires. As Raphael Sam uel suggests, “ ‘H eritage’ is a nomadic term that travels e a sily . . .*a term capricious enough to accommodate w idely discrepant m eanings” (1994, 205). Çatalhöyük is a heritage site in this sense. For the Turkish state it is part o f the national her­ itage that should be protected and controlled. For the archaeologists it is an extrem ely significant site that can provide scientific clues as to the origins of

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human settlem ent in the M editerranean and N ear East. For the local commu­ nities it is a means for social and economic developm ent, a medium through which the nature o f the “local” is (reform ulated and (reconfirm ed, and the existing power structures and hierarchies are (re)worked. For the New Age and Goddess groups, it is a spiritual and sacred site. For the artists and fashion and kilim designers, it is a source o f inspiration and a m arketable product. It is through the encounters o f these publics o f Çatalhöyük that the pub­ lic m em ory o f the site is constructed. Series o f alliances and identifications are form ed among these groups that cross-cut, com plem ent, and trouble one an­ other. Archaeologists interact with the local and central governm ent officials in various ways, such as acquiring research perm its, participating in local sym­ posium s and festivals, and getting help in the day-to-day running o f the exca­ vation. They work with the nearby villagers in interpreting the findings at the site, but they also deal with improvements in the infrastructure o f the area. Local bureaucrats use every opportunity to claim and “own” Çatalhöyük and com pete with the local villagers over the “ownership” o f the site. Although the villagers are interested in archaeological tourism as a means for develop­ m ent, in their interactions with Goddess groups they reevaluate the nature o f this development. It is through these encounters and the practices o f claim ing the site that Çatalhöyük is presented and remembered as an archaeological site, a touristic site, a sacred site, an inspirational site, and a national site. Such varied and discrepant uses and interpretations o f Çatalhöyük do not necessarily im ply that each o f these groups has equal power in the production and consum ption o f the public m em ory o f this site nor are their interpreta­ tions all equally valid or tenable. M ultiple and discrepant representations o f the past are not free-floating representations but are em bedded w ithin the existing power relationships and are used to either reinforce or challenge them. Any representation, as Stuart Hall notes, “is always positioned in a discourse. It comes from a place, out o f a specific history, out o f a specific set o f power re­ lationships. D iscourse, in that sense, is always placed” (Hall 1991, 36). The challenge is to understand in what sense all o f these discrepant accounts o f Çatalhöyük are valid. It is vital to examine the different historical contexts that give rise to the diverse narratives and situate them within existing power rela­ tions and practices. It is only through situating the politics o f heritage in spe-

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cific locales with particular historical, political, and social trajectories that we can deal with questions o f who gets to tell which story about the past, and to whom, and under which circum stances, and through what means; and which histories are invoked for what ends, and how these are contested and reworked.

5 An Endless Death and an Eternal Mourning N ovember 10 in Turkey Nazlı Ökten

The shrill sound o f sirens heard all over the country every November 10 at 9:05 A.M. refreshes collective memory in Turkey, signaling the presumed mo­ m ent when M ustafa Kemal A tatürk, founder o f the Turkish Republic, died in 1938. It is difficult to find an educated Turkish person who has not memo­ rized the poem beginning, “My Ata closed his eyes in Dolm abahçe at five past nine, and the whole world cried,” or has not recited the line “My A ta, my Ata, wake up! I w ill lie down in your place.” 1D eclaring allegiance to him and mem­ orizing tales about his childhood and adult life are common practices for pri­ m ary school children. His portraits are ubiquitous, covering the walls o f governm ent offices as w ell as homes. Since the 1990s, his im age appears even in pop music video clips and advertisem ents. A tatürk is the most im portant hero as w ell as a controversial figure on the Turkish political scene. In his authoritative biography, Andrew M ango (1999) reveals conflicts in the historical events attributed to A tatürk as a way to un­ derstand the contradictions involved in the process o f nation form ation. Al­ though Turkish citizens unanim ously agree on his role as savior o f the country, com m ander-in-chief o f the national liberation army, and founder o f the republic, they debate the appropriateness o f his reform policies that re­ placed Islam with a secular-nationalist doctrine. Especially after the coup d’é1.

A ta m

literally means “my ancestor” and A ta tü rk means “the ancestor of Turks.” Many

times it is translated as “the father o f Turks” in English, but since father is baba, this phrase fails to give a fiili sense o f the cult o f ancestors prevalent in Turkish culture.

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tat o f 1980, adm iration for A tatürk evolved to veneration and reached its peak in the 1990s as a reaction to the rise o f political Islam . Following depoliticiza­ tion m easures in the 1980s, the only legitim ate ideology was Atatürkism .2 A tatürk was also the only rem aining symbol by which to declare support for a secular-m odern way o f life. The em ergence o f A tatürk as a cult figure can also be interpreted as a statem ent against the fundam entalists (Saktanber 1997). A dram atic increase in the building o f A tatürk monuments and statues was ac­ companied by acts o f vandalism against them. This is not a sim ple polariza­ tion between Islam and secularism , however, because the Islam ist party has also begun to appropriate the im age o f A tatürk (see chap. 6). Islam ists’ use o f A tatürk’s im age to project legitim acy in the public sphere is the m ost suspect among many so-called fake-Atatürkist acts. U sing the dom inant paradigm to gain easy access to a lim ited public sphere in this case leads to the m alform ation o f a public ground for m utual consent since its term s and conditions o f participation are not clearly and openly debated. Sec­ ularists fear that Islam ists are doing takiyye, that is, they are hiding their real in­ tention, which is to attain an Islam ic state. Islam ists sim ilarly suspect the secularists o f having a hidden agenda to preserve the existing status quo at all costs. A ccording to the Islam ist party, secularists m isinterpret A tatürk’s aims and goals for Turkey. Islam ist appropriation o f A tatürk as an icon comes after a long period o f rejection. It can be seen as an effort to use the hegemonic iconography in order to conceal the existing conflict w ith the secularists and to move on to more crucial issues for their electorate. As a result both groups express their com mitment to common national goals by venerating Atatürk. The m ost im portant part o f this veneration is organized around the leader’s death. Both Islam ists and secularists utilize November 10 memorials as an op­ portunity to express their contem porary political agenda. Ceremonies and rituals constitute an im portant part o f the political dram­ aturgy in every m odern society. They contain and transfer inform ation (Abélès 1990) and at the same time dram atize power relations in society (Balandier 1971). Hence, political culture consists o f values, codes, and symbols

2.

In that period, even the word ideology had a negative connotation. The official ideology

o f the state, once known as Kemalism, was renamed Atatürkçülük (Atatürkism) in order to re­ move any ideological connotations.

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that m ediate between affecdvity and rationality. Reverence for and adm iration o f national heroes and nation builders are shared characteristics o f nation­ states. Succeeding generations o f citizens reevaluate the historical role and ca­ reer o f their leaders. Atatürk is one such symbol, which determ ines political affectivity. Every verbal or physical act relating itself sym bolically to Atatürk gives us im portant clues about Turkish political culture. The different sym­ bolic forms that venerate A tatürk intertwine the sacred with the profane, the public with the private. Appropriation o f Atatürk’s im agery helps political groups to achieve distinct identities. Furtherm ore, his im ages provide the means to achieve legitim acy in the eyes o f the public. . The m ain prem ise o f this essay is that the rites and acts relating to A tatürk’s death play a crucial role in the form ation o f a certain type o f politi­ cal habitus that Pierre Bourdieu defines as “systems o f durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures” (1977,72).3The first section o f the essay discusses how various ac­ tors in the public sphere utilize A tatürk as a key symbol in Turkish political cul­ ture. In the second section, narratives o f senior citizens who witnessed the day A tatürk died are analyzed in order to understand how this past is recon­ structed today.

Mourning: Sacred or Profane? Since D ecem ber 26, 1938, when the Republican People’s Party Congress named A tatürk the “im m ortal leader,” comm em orating A tatürk’s death has been central to organizing the sym bolic forms o f respect for the nation builder. Today bars and dubs are no longer closed down for the national day o f m ourning, but it is possible to observe people stopping and getting out o f their cars and sometimes even warning others who do not when sirens w ail at five past nine, lik e other rites, November 10 is constantly reinvented in the sa­ cred and profane realm s through continuous production o f consent or obli­ gation. W hat sorts o f processes lead to this kind o f reinvention? Partha Chatterjee (2000) reevaluates the debate on the W esternization o f m ourning 3.

According to Pierre Bourdieu, habitus also involves interiorization o f social practices,

such as the manners o f making, of seeing, and of feeling.

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practices in the late nineteenth century in India through Jurgen H aberm as' definition o f a new personhood, where the private and intim ate is reoriented toward the pub lic An Indian poet who protests the W estern style o f com­ m em orating death, on the basis that it is showy, argues that rejecting tradi­ tional m ourning practices causes an artificial ambiance. The problem that the poet faces is the struggle between different types o f public expressions. A com parable debate took place in Turkey a few years ago over the commemo­ ration o f Atatürk's death. Some Islam ic groups proposed to recite M evtid and prayers on November 10, instead o f engaging in W estern cerem onies that are accom panied by flowers and a moment o f silence.4 They asked, “If he was a M uslim , why don’t we pray for him ?” The question is full o f allusion. There are two ways o f stating the issue: One group o f M uslims believes that Atatürk was the leader and the savior o f a M uslim nation. O thers believe that A tatürk was an enem y o f religion. The first group— a rather sm all one— searches for a way to relate the leader to their m ystical beliefs. In 2000, a group o f people calling them selves the M evlana Lovers A ssociation published a CD entitled “D eclaration o f Love: Hymns and M evlevi Service for the M emory o f the G reat Leader” (İlan-ı Aşk: Büyük Ö nder’in Anısına İlahiler ve M evlevi A yini).5 In some hymns A tatürk is called “the shadow o f God and the sword o f the prophet A li,” and m any other m ystical characteristics are still attributed to him .6 Such attributions are quite disturbing for other religious groups. M evtid cerem onies reveal the possibility o f overlapping o f religious and secular types o f publicity. N ational television channels broadcast M evtid recita­ tions from im portant mosques on religious holidays. In the final part o f the cerem ony the reciter prays in Turkish for the w ell-being and peace o f the na­ tion. He also recites a prayer for the m em ory o f the nation’s saviors and heroes and specifically for M ustafa Kemal Atatürk. W hen they lose a loved one, ur­

4. In Arabic and Turkish literature, long poems written as a eulogy to the life of Prophet Mohammed are called M evtid. These poems are recited along with other prayers during special occasions such as birth or death ceremonies. 5. Mevlana was a fifteenth-century Muslim mystic and spiritual leader o f the whirling dervishes. 6. Ali is the spiritual leader o f the Shiite sect. Turkish Shiites known as Alevis have a het­ erodox view o f Islam and are supportive o f the secular principles of the Turkish Republic

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banites pay religious professionals to recite the M evlid at their home or else­ w here and at the end ask them to pray for A tatürk as well. The scope and con­ tent o f the last prayer vary. However, this practice is a rem inder to each fam ily m em ber o f A tatürk’s death. His death continues with every other death in Turkey. Like the national comm em oration o f A tatürk’s death on November 10, M evlid prayers increase the sense o f loss and underline the continuity o f i t Volkan and Itzkowitz (1984) call this an “unfinished work o f mourning.” W ithin the same framework, they also consider the fact that A tatürk’s body was not buried for fifteen years, until his mausoleum was completed. U nfin­ ished m ourning for A tatürk’s death and the sim ultaneous rejection o f it are re­ vealed in sentences that begin with “If he were a liv e.. . ” This trend reaches its peak when people make him tell what he would do in a given situation. One o f the m ost striking examples o f this phenomenon is revealed on a billboard next to the m ilitary barracks near the 0 -2 highway in Istanbul, which can be seen by passersby.7 The text next to a picture o f A tatürk reads: “They destroyed my bust. They insulted me. M y fault was to have saved the country. It was not enough! They said, ‘If he were alive, he would be one o f us.’ N othing could have offended me more.” Anyone fam iliar with the political context can easily guess that this state­ m ent is a response to N ecm ettin Erbakan, the form er leader o f the Islam ist W elfare Party, who said that if A tatürk were alive he would be a member o f his party. This event is revealing for both sides. The Islam ist party tries to accom­ modate A tatürk instead o f rejecting him , w hile his m ost fervent defenders do not refrain from m aking him speak sixty years after his death.

Anıtkabir: The Public Space of Absence N orbert Elias (1991) argues that power relations standardize the means o f comm unication and at the same tim e have em otional im plications. Political rit­ uals are often related to psychological processes such as idealization and pro­ jection. M ausoleums built by the state, guarded by honor guards, and visited in

7.

The commander Çevik Bir ordered the placement of the billboard in Hasdai military

barracks near the 0 -2 highway in May 2000.

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silence, turn the connections between life and death into political obligation (Cohen 1979). M ajor national political gatherings and monuments to the dead are also sites o f political legitim ization. Anıtkabir, A tatürk’s m ausoleum , is no exception. In her work on the Pantheon in Paris, M ona O zouf (1984) discusses the characteristics o f individuals worthy o f remembering: the heroes and the great men o f the republic.8 She defines the hero as the fighter endowed with miraculous forces, and the great man as the founder-legislator w ith rational projects. The latter is a product o f the Enlightenm ent and takes his power from his human potential rather than possessing sacred powers. As a public figure, M ustafa Kemal A tatürk was endowed with both kinds o f powers. As the savior o f the country and the liberator o f the nation, he was protected by miraculous powers. The story o f his pocket watch, which protected his heart from a bullet, is w idely known by the Turkish public. A t the same tim e, he is seen as the one whose far-sighted projects carried the nation toward a modern future. In his personality, private and public interests overlap the sacred and profane spheres. The relation between the nation and its savior is em otional and durable: the nation shall be worthy o f him because “he dedicated his life to the nation.” The theme o f citizens being worthy o f the founding father can be observed in different domains o f life ranging from boats to novels. In 1999, a poster decorating the com m uter boats in Istanbul read, “Be a citizen worthy o f Atatürk. Do not spit!” This statem ent defines A tatürk in not only the political but also the physical habitus. A nother exam ple o f not being wor­ thy o f A tatürk comes from a novel by a well-known woman author, Adalet Ağaoğlu (1990). A fter cheating on her husband, the university professor Aysel wakes up in the m iddle o f the night and looks at the lights o f A nıtkabir with a guilty conscience. She thinks that she is unworthy o f A tatürk, the superego. A nıtkabir is also the site o f m ultiple political expressions o f national unity as w ell as conflict. A nıtkabir turned into a w ailing w all especially after the march for secularism in 1994 following the Islam ist W elfare Party’s success in

8.

Ozouf (1984) characterizes the Pantheon, where the great men o f France are buried, as

the Ecole Normale o f the dead—a reference to one o f the most important colleges where al­ most all presidents o f France received degrees.

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m unicipal elections. Since 1997, a specific kind o f protester with Islam ist ten­ dencies, called m ecruh (possessed) in the mass m edia, has haunted the Novem­ ber 10 ceremonies. C alling the protestors m ecruh insinuates that such individuals are irrational dropouts rather than conscientious citizens, for in order to be against A tatürk one has to have lost his mind. Such protesters can hardly utter a word against the cerem ony before they are caught with their Qur’ans in hand. In 1999 the police revealed plans for an airplane attack on A nıtkabir by H izbullah, a terrorist organization with radical Islam ist tenden­ cies. This event carried the sym bolic im portance o f A nıtkabir to an even higher level.9 To the extent that channels o f political expression are obstructed either because o f corruption or the structural problems o f Turkish democracy, “com plaining to Atatürk” has become an increasingly legitim ate medium o f articulation. Examples o f this phenomenon are abundant. On June 9 ,1 99 5, students from the H ürriyet Elem entary School in Ankara and their parents m arched from their school to A nıtkabir to perform a moment o f silence. T heir aim was to protest the closing o f their school. They held banners saying, “A tam , they favor money over schooling.” Although their demands should have been oriented toward the M inistry o f Education, parents and students were w ell aware that voicing their protest toward A tatürk would be a more ef­ ficient way o f gaining publicity. On June 24,2000, a convoy o f 80 buses traveled from Istanbul to Ankara. The passengers included the current and form er employees o f Türkbank, a well-known national bank. At the same tim e 120 buses o f Türkbank em ploy­ ees from other regions o f Turkey were also m oving toward Ankara. That day more than ten thousand employees gathered in Tandoğan Square in Ankara. Their objective was to protest the m erging o f Türkbank with eight other banks, which would lead to the dissolution o f their bank and their dism issal. The report o f the event in the newsletter o f the Banking and Insurance Work­ ers Union read: “At 3:00 P.M. 10,000 members o f the Türkbank fam ily visited

9.

One should also remember that the infamous events of September 6-7, 1955, when

Christian minorities o f Istanbul were attacked, started with a rumor that Atatürk’s house in Salonica had been bombed.

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Atatürk in order to pay respect with a moment o f silence, in a manner worthy o f their institutional culture.” The newsletter was covered with pictures o f their march to Anıtkabir with Turkish flags in hand and o f the moment o f silence they observed. The headline o f the newsletter over a picture o f A nıtkabir read, “A nkara, Ankara, hear our voice.” 10The article em phasized that the m entality that was trying to close Türkbank was em barrassing for “A tatürk’s Turkey.” On this occasion, too, we see that a legitim ate address to the national political w ill requires a ref­ erence to Atatürk. Sim ilarly, on June 28,2000, a father who had lost his young daughter in a car accident began to march from Istanbul to Ankara, aim ing for A nıtkabir to demand an efficient traffic code. The media supported him during his walk, and the authorities allowed him to sign the form al guest book in Anıtkabir. His access to the guest book dem onstrates that officials recognized his demand as legitim ate. The use o f A tatürk as recourse for public demands, com plaints, and wishes has become routine. A tatürk’s mausoleum has become the refuge for unfulfilled expectations. M eanwhile, citizens not only make demands and com plaints to Atatürk but also avow their feelings o f indebtedness and gratitude. The first Turk elected to the Am erican N ational Academy o f Sciences, geologist Celal Şengör, told a Turkish journalist following his election: “I am happy to see that we are on the right path. By the way, I am thinking o f going to A nıtkabir in order to thank Atatürk. We could not be where we are without him. T hat is why I w ill go to Anıtkabir and say to Atatürk, ‘Paşam, we executed this part of the m ission.’ ” Paşam is a form o f address used by A tatürk’s contemporaries and colleagues. By addressing him this way, Şengör m ight be im plying that he was a colleague o f A tatürk struggling for an unfinished project. As an accom­ plished scientist, Şengör is responsible and grateful to one person: A tatürk. He does not see his success as a personal one but as the result o f the republic’s m odernization project. On this particular occasion, Celal Şengör represented the Turkish elite who identified them selves with Atatürk.

10. Ankara is the capital o f Turkey.

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The Private Space of Absence: Individual Memory You and Us How do citizens who witnessed the death o f the savior and founder o f the na­ tion rem em ber and reconstruct his death and his im m ortality? In order to see how individual memories reconstruct and are reconstructed by collective memory, I conducted more than thirty interviews during November 1999 and June 2000 m osdy w ith m iddle-class men and women over seventy years old. I asked them to tell me about their personal reactions, as w ell as those o f their relatives and friends, when they learned that A tatürk was deceased. I inform ed them about my questions a few days in advance in order to give them time to rethink and rem em ber their experiences. I asked them if they remembered where they were that day; what they were doing when they heard the news; how they felt; when the first time was that they saw Atatürk’s im age; and how they define the characteristics o f his charism atic leadership. They also talked about their life experiences and worldviews. M y aim was to understand how moments o f personal history overlap with national ones. Every interviewee expressed anxiety over not being able to rem em ber and not having adequate knowledge. It was interesting for them to try to find those points o f intersec­ tion between private and public histories (between the ego and the other), but it was also tiring. My first interviewee was especially noteworthy. N ivert was a ninety-seven-year-old Arm enian lady who had been living alone for twentytwo years. As a m inority, a woman, and a senior citizen, her ties with the exter­ nal world were loose, but her past was as precious as her mind. She was in good health, even capable o f doing housework. N ivert’s ultim ate fear was los­ ing her memory. She told me the story o f the friend o f a friend, who rang his neighbor’s door six times in an hour in order to give inform ation that he had already given. She thought this was a nightm are, and she prayed to God to let her die before he took her memory and consciousness away. N ivert separated herself from others in another way: “Let me tell you something. I remember Atatürk very well. M en used to w ear the fez [a nineteenth-century Ottoman male head cover]. I was in Paris. I had been there to see my brother for a few months. W hen I came back I saw that men were w earing hats. That was great.

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And then you used to w rite from right to the left, you know. A t the tim e we were not learning Turkish at school. I learned it m yself by speaking. And then A tatürk wanted to have a new alphabet for the Turkish, too, didn’t he?” N ivert then started to speak about two well-chosen memories. The first one was about the role o f Agop M artayan, an Arm enian linguist and encyclo­ pedia w riter, in the preparation o f the new Turkish alphabet w ith Latin letters. The second one was about the piano tuner who tuned her piano. The tuner told her that he also used to tune the piano at Dolm abahçe Palace, where he m et Atatürk. At first he was afraid. She said, “O f course, he was not used to being in the presence o f great men.” But then A tatürk conversed w ith him about his skill. As an Arm enian intellectual who had taken an active part in the developm ent o f the republic, Agop M artayan was binding her to the nation­ state, and the tuner was connecting her to the founder o f the nation through her piano. D uring her lifetim e, N ivert was distanced from the public sphere both as a woman and as a minority. D uring the interview, however, she presented me with two stories that connected her to the national history. From the first mo­ m ent in the interview, she put herself at a distance from me without hesitation by referring to “you” as “Turks” and to “us” as “Armenians.” N ivert had not stepped out o f her apartm ent for decades. Her already lim ited participation in public life was at minimum. In a sense, N ivert had anticipated my perception o f her and easily put religious and cultural categories in their places. Speaking French, citing Goethe, playing the piano— she was cultivated. A tatürk im pressed her because he asked the piano tuner where he learned how to tune. A tatürk was so intelligent and perceptive that he thought about such details: “W hat can we say about a man o f such scale? W ho are we to talk about him ?” O thers shared her confusion. They found it difficult to under­ stand why somebody would be interested in their memories and ideas about Atatürk. Like the piano tuner who was unaccustomed to the presence of great men, as ordinary individuals they could not grasp why I asked them questions about a great man. M ost o f the tim e they saw our interview s as a useless confirm ation o f what was already evident. They thought o f our con­ versations as perform ing their duty toward A tatürk rather than providing use­ ful inform ation. W hatever their reasons for agreeing to talk to me, they all found them­

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selves related to the public life through sm all details. Although details differ sharply, the sym bolic patterns were sim ilar. T hey thought that they were not worthy o f attention when com pared w ith A tatürk and that what they had ex­ perienced did not matter. But they all had kept even sm all details o f their mem ories about A tatürk in their minds. For it is such details that make them feel a part o f the larger history o f the nation.

Common Man in the Presence of a Great Man The division between the ordinary citizen and the great man reinforces the perception o f A tatürk as “unquestionable.” The name Atatürk combines the m iraculous achievements o f the hero with the enlightened projections o f the great man. This synthesis creates a protective halo that renders him un­ touchable. W hen I asked Kenan, another contem porary o f A tatürk, what he thought when he saw A tatürk’s im age for the first tim e, he answered: “As if he were a transcendent being, like a supreme being, different from everyone— you know the mind o f a child___But as I learned more about him I saw that he was even greater, really sup erior.. . . But, you know, we im agined that he was om nipotent, capable o f frightening the entire world and our enemies. We were told that no harm could touch us w hile he was alive and so we believed.” Even though Kenan defined his perception as com ing from the mind o f a child, he regards A tatürk as “really superior.” W hat he learned and what he be­ lieves converge even if they are on different levels o f understanding. W hat he m eant by the mind o f a child was not insignificant. It is a mind that perceives its own lim its in front o f the superior one. A tatürk, the om nipotent figure, the one who scares everyone, symbolizes the unified power o f the nation. N ot only politicians, leaders, and peoples were afraid o f him: entire countries were. The im age o f a trusted father who is able to protect his children revealed itself in a conflict with Italy. Rumors have spread that when A tatürk was angry with M ussolini, he said, “They should not force me to wear the boot”— referring to Italy’s geographic shape. Kenan added: W hat I would like to tell about A tatürk is that whatever is said [about him] is useless. W hat makes him great is the fact that he dedicated him self to the Turkish nation. A m agnificent m an, there is nothing to say about him. [Al­

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m ost shouting] Nobody can do anything about it. In 1928, Atatürk made a speech in D olmabahçe: İsm et Paşa had been saying that we m ust give three years for the alphabet revolution [changing from Arabic to Latin script].11 Atatürk responded to him , “Paşa, Paşa, we w ill do it in three months, not in three years.” As a m atter o f fact, A tatürk did a lot in three months in order to put his nation into shape.121 was in prim ary school at the time. For three months every one o f our teachers studied day and n igh t A t the end o f the three months they really learned a lot and finished it as A tatürk said. Q uite an endeavor!

Fikret is a retired banker and the recipient o f a research prize given by a daily newspaper in 1981, on the one-hundredth anniversary o f Atatürk’s birthday in 1981. D uring the interview he insisted on glancing at his study. W hen I told him that I was interested in his experiences, he laughed as though they were unworthy o f attention. I encountered the same laugh when I asked Fikret to evaluate A tatürk’s accom plishments. He and I were inadequate to judge his worth, his grandeur. The difference between the ordinary man and the great man is also pro­ jected onto A tatürk’s relationship with İsm et İnönü. W hile anything was pos­ sible for the great leader (as can be seen in the m atter o f alphabet reform ), İnönü was a common man who needed to be realistic. An eighty-two-year-old retired m erchant from İstanbul made the same com parison between Atatürk and İnönü in relation to Turkey’s neutrality during World War II: “If Atatürk were alive he would have gone to war. The worst m istake o f İsm et Paşa was to let the twelve islands go from our hands. A tatürk would have taken them. How can one let go such an occasion? İsm et Paşa was good, but he was too cautious. In İnönü’s place, A tatürk would have gone to war [laughing]. I think o f this possibility. His grandeur is beyond explanation. You know the circum stances today. He would not allow this: this [political] party, that [Islam ist Welfare] party.” 11. İsmet İnönü was the second president o f the Turkish Republic, replacing Atatürk. He also carried the tide o f m illi ^ (n a tio n al chief). He took the secular reforms further and held an authoritarian position against both leftist and rightist attempts at political formation. 12. The term used here is adam etm ek. It means making someone a man so that he becomes useful to society. This phrase is reminiscent o f a father teaching his son how to be a man.

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For Fikret, w hat was appropriate for A tatürk was not appropriate for İnönü, and vice versa. İnönü did the right thing by keeping Turkey neutral dur­ ing World War II. A tatürk would not have done the same, but that would ulti­ m ately have been the right thing to do as well. G reat men have their own secret ways that we, ordinary people, cannot understand. It was easy to see from Fikret’s sm ile and his euphoria that he saw in A tatürk the energy o f an un­ m anageable litde boy. This was the key to A tatiirk’s revolutionary power. He could challenge the status quo. Fikret described seeing Atatürk: —The first tim e I saw A tatürk was when he came to Ordu. He was received with a rem arkable ceremony. A t that time he had not taken the name Atatürk y e t He was G azi M ustafa Kemal Paşa. M y mother, may she rest in peace, took me to see Atatürk. She was veiled at that time. She told me that she saw Atatürk, but personally I do not remember. People loved him. (They] would like to see him everywhere but he was hard to see in that time’s conditions. I saw him in person just once. But I do not rem em ber the exact date right now. There were villas in M ecidiyeköy at the time. I saw him in person, on the horse. —W hat did you feel? — I got excited. A ll the people o f M ecidiyeköy came by and waited for hours in order to see him. In fact I was so young at the tim e, when we went from Sivas to K ayseri (Central A natolia), that I did not even know that he was A tatürk him self. They said Paşa is com ing, and we went out. M y grandfather, my father, they were all excited, for Paşa was com ing, but I did not know who the Paşa was; I was skipping a rope.

M ecidiyeköy in Istanbul, in O rdu, or in Sivas, wherever he went A tatürk m agnetized people. His slightest glance, his sm allest gesture carried the myths about him further. His contem poraries say he could remember any person he glim psed just once, that his m agic passed to everyone who was in some way or another related with him. But at the same tim e he was humble and showed in­ terest in people, asked questions, and gave advice. He had every reason to be inaccessible and distant, but still he was approachable and receptive: unex­ pectedly accessible. On the one hand, he incorporated republican values and

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kept an equal distance from every citizen. On the other, being a m iraculous hero, he could come surprisingly close. A retired banker, İsm et, recounted A tatürk’s visit to his high school at the time. His grandson was sm iling ironi­ cally w hile the banker told me that A tatürk caressed his hair during the visit; that made me think that not all the details m ight be accurate. True or not, the desire for the m agic touch seems obvious. As İsm et recalled the event,

I was in Elazığ when Atatürk came in after taking Hatay [on the Syrian bor­ der]. A ll the teachers were called to People’s Houses (halkevleri).^ We were w aiting outside. He came out w ith a group o f people. We did not even hear his voice. Later they said that he was ill at the time. But he looked at every­ body one by one. He nodded to everyone; he was so intelligent that I am sure he would recognize everyone if he met them elsewhere. I wanted to go near him , but my husband would not let me. We saw A tatürk and then we left. But, o f course, we regretted his death very much. A fter I saw him , I held his hand in my dream . I said to m yself: If this hand does not get sm aller he w ill get w ell. But it got smaller.

Even in dreams, A tatürk’s touch could be seen as possessing the power to foretell the future. Lale, another o f A tatürk’s contem poraries, hides the frus­ tration o f seeing him as more vulnerable than she had im agined by stating that he could remember everybody. Still, his hand became sm aller in her dream. The sight o f vanishing power becomes a portent o f the inevitable end. The themes o f seeing and being seen by A tatürk arise frequently in Turkey. Like a superego watching the ego to keep it under control, Atatürk keeps his eyes on the Turkish nation to see if it does w ell on the way of 13

13.

A nationwide system o f “People’s Houses” functioned as community centers, town

halls, and venues for cultural activities for children and adults in the early days o f the republic In the memory o f the leftists they constituted a massive contribution to mass education, gradu­ ate studies, and cultural renaissance in Turkey, while for the right-wing they inculcated commu­ nist and atheist ideology in Turkey. The People’s Houses were closed by the September 12, 1980, military coup d’état.

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progress.14In response, Turkish people see his im age everywhere and not only as effigies. There are a number o f natural events and places identified with A tatiirk’s im age. The picture o f a pile o f clouds looking like A tatürk’s eyes, originally published by a national newspaper, now decorates many walls in pri­ vate and public places. A t least two places are called A tatürk cliffs because o f rock form ations that resem ble his profile. A ccording to W alter Benjam in (1969), gaze expects a response from where it is oriented. To sense the halo around an object is to give it the possi­ bility to look back at us. It is not surprising that the Turkish people want A tatürk to look back at them since his im age is om nipresent in Turkey in both public and private places. W hen the picture looks back at us, it seems as if he is looking from his death. Very few o f the interviewees replied to my question about whether they had heard anything negative about Atatürk. M ost o f the answers were about criticism s o f his drinking habits and his negative attitude toward religion. They repeated the accusations with the fear o f being m isunderstood. An in­ terviewee rem em bering the rum ors he had heard about A tatürk just after his death said the following while looking at his picture in a newspaper: “People used to talk about him , but they w ill stay just like this, like kittens. It is Atatürk who m ade a man out o f them. The greatest man o f the twentieth century is Atatürk. Nobody else-----No need to doubt, after seeing his face___ I have four pictures o f him at m y house.” The people who remain as kittens in his presence wanted to hear and know everything about him. One person said: “We heard that he was having long dinners in his private life. But his policies were for the people’s sake, for sure.” Another one said: “M y aunt told me what it seems that her father had told her before: A tatürk and Latife Hamm [his then wife] used to quarrel. Lat­ ife Hamm peeled an apple, stuck it on a knife, and gave it to A tatürk in order to make peace.” And another interview declared, “I don’t rem em ber the exact date, but when he said to M ussolini, T h ey shouldn’t force me to wear the boot,’ everybody talked about it for days.” 14.

A 1997 book written by Bedri Baykam, a famous Turkish painter and an ardent Ke­

malist, is named

G ökleri Ü vçrim ivyk (His

Eyes Are Over Us).

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W hether it concerned his relationship with his w ife or Turkey’s relations with Italy, every word A tatürk uttered, every move he made, m attered. He lived com pletely in the presence o f people. So also did he die.

Finding Out about His Death Before his death, A tatürk was ill for a long tim e; alm ost everybody knew that he was on his deathbed. For this reason, no surprises preceded the grief. Al­ m ost all interviewees remembered the details o f the ceremonies that followed A tatürk’s death quite w ell. His corpse was taken from Dolm abahçe Palace to Saraybum u, where it was transferred to a battleship that took it to a train head­ ing to Ankara. In Ankara, the corpse stayed in the Ethnography M useum until the construction o f A nıtkabir in 1953. M any o f the interviewees recounted those details before they were asked about them. His death was the beginning o f a journey that was closely followed by newspapers. The fact that the corpse was not buried for years m ust have had an effect on the people. We were in Bursa on November 1 0 .1 was at prim ary school. W hen we heard the news, the classes stopped. The teacher inform ed us o f the death, and they organized a quick ceremony. Everybody was sad; my sister cried. She was fourteen years old. A ll the week was sad. There was no television yet, so it was the radio that inform ed us live about the ceremonies. We did not have a radio. We bought one in 1940. Everybody gathered in the garden café in Setbaşı in order to listen to the radio. It took five or six days to transfer the corpse; the radio and newspapers gave all the details. We used to read Cumhuriyet.'* I can still picture the catafalque taken to the battleship. We fol­ lowed everything

The fact that means o f inform ation did not exist in individual homes but only in public spaces m ight be seen as rendering remembrance difficult. We accept Benedict Anderson’s (1983) argum ent that the means o f communica­ tion are also the means for constructing a nation. Yet, the scarcity o f those means may have led to a different kind o f sociability. Sharing the news with 15 15.

Cum huriyet functioned

as a quasi-official newspaper of the young Turkish Republic.

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others may have further enhanced social ties. Feelings o f a shared destiny in­ tensified in coffeehouses, tea gardens, and schools: “We were high school stu­ dents at the time. We used to walk from M ecidiyeköy to Şişli. There was a kiosk at Şişli where newspapers were displayed. We used to read the front pages be­ cause we couldn’t afford to buy [the paper]. O r we used to go to coffeehouses and tea gardens in order to listen to the radio.” Am ong the photographs taken on November 10,1938, one can see women o f all ages crying. M any women recall A tatürk’s lifetim e as agolden age. Women who lived outside Istanbul, especially in Anatolian cities, yearn for those days as they utter sentences such as “His m ost im portant achievem ent was to open men and women to humanity.” The same woman said: “I lived in E lazığ [eastern Ana­ tolia] for at least fifteen years; my son was five years old. There was real liberty. I could come in and go out without fear. M y daughter used to go to high school in D iyarbakır [another eastern city] without being m istreated. I saw all this.” W hen the same woman was asked about the ceremonies for A tatürk’s death, her answer gave a more accurate idea about women’s lim ited participa­ tion in public life. “There was more liberty in E lazığ than in K ayseri, but I couldn’t go by myself. I don’t remember if they did [a cerem ony].” There was “liberty” 16 but to participate in a cerem ony by herself was still inconceivable in a provincial city. Besides, A tatiirk’s loss raised new concerns. A period o f abundance and affluence came to an end with his loss. A fter the death o f the founding hero, there was a vacuum filled w ith anxiety: ‘T urkey trusted him so much___ It was feared that nobody could replace him , the country would be dam aged___Happily, İsm et İnönü, the closest friend o f A tatürk, was elected as the president. Then people got peace o f mind.” Even if citizens believed that the golden age had come to an end with his loss, they adm itted that change was inevitable. W hen I asked if A tatürk was feared, an elderly man replied: “The people paid him an endless respect, rather than fear. Love and respect all together. People were not as cultivated as today. Now there is more lib erty.. . . We say democracy, human rig h ts.. . . Those were not the concerns o f that time. In the poverty o f the tim e after the libera­ tion war, it was a huge blessing to have such a leader.” 16. The word most commonly used is not freedom (serbesttik).

(hürriyet or özgürlük),

but rather

lib erty

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This gentlem an told me about how respect and fear were intertw ined at that time. He said that the kinds o f relations fathers and sons, teachers and students have today used to be unim aginable. It is significant that he re­ counted the transform ation o f his relationship to authority by showing a par­ allel w ith school and family. Like many o f the interviewees he was able to question the sources o f legitim acy and authority by surpassing an enchanted attachm ent to the charism atic leader w hile keeping an affective relationship w ith his person.

Final Remarks: Will He Find Peace at Last? A tatiirk’s figure as the political leitm otif o f the 1990s shaped the gram m ar of the public sphere both as an object o f transference— to borrow from psycho­ analytic term inology—and as an instrum ent o f legitim ization. It is an object o f transference in the sense that it stands for another. The lack o f commonly accepted principles o f social and political ethics and the incapacity to produce a sound symbolism o f secularity, modernity, or dem ocracy pave the w ay for a public space that makes reference to A tatürk alm ost obligatory in order to gain legitim acy. For the cultural elite, A tatürk is a common point o f reference that guarantees identification with the masses. As for the m asses, who are de­ prived o f the means o f efficient participation in the public sphere, it is an in­ term ediary medium. Yet since the real term s and conditions o f this medium are not freely debated, fears and suspicions about the authenticity and sincer­ ity o f commitments to A tatürk make different sides o f the debate distrustful o f each other. The scope o f significations contained in the persona o f Atatürk is in constant evolution w ithin the social sphere, while in the political arena the m ultiplicity o f the significations is not debated. Im posing ideology not by re­ sorting to open debate but by calling on the forces'of the collective subcon­ scious, appropriation, legitim ization, and m anipulation o f the im age are the main impediments in the way o f a dem ocratic political comm unication. Talking as if A tatürk is still alive, speaking from his mouth, presenting him as the only figure o f legitim acy, points to a constantly reinvented m ourn­ ing that goes beyond w hat Volkan and Itzkowitz (1984) call the unfinished work o f grief. The sym bolic continuation o f this m ourning in different and renewed forms may be an im pedim ent to the form ation o f a ground for mu­

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tual consent and debate. Each moment o f public crisis adds new layers to the halo that surrounds the founding father. Each layer hides w ithin itself unset­ tled conflicts. The im age o f A tatürk, which sees and is seen by every Turkish citizen, stands at the heart o f the Turkish political and social sphere like an overburdened focal point. His im age is a model o f political habitus and sub­ jectivity for m illions o f Turkish citizens. Sixty-five years after his death, the ground o f his legitim acy is unquestionable. His im age intertwines the durabil­ ity o f efficient charism atic leadership and ideological manipulations o f the leader as a symbol o f legitim acy. The changing qualities o f his veneration argue for more inform ation about the evolution o f Turkish political culture.

6 Public Memory as Political Battleground Islamist Subversions o f Republican Nostalgia Esra Özyürek

On O ctober 29,1998, the seventy-fifth anniversary o f the Turkish Republic, national newspapers were covered with full-page pictures o f M ustafa Kemal A tatürk, the founding father o f Turkey. Sabah published a picture o f him sit­ ting on a w all in go lf pants with his adopted daughter Sabiha Gökçen, the first woman aviation pilot in the world and thus a potent sym bol o f modem Turkey.1M illiyet had a sm iling picture o f the leader in a three-piece black suit surrounded by young Turkish women in European clothes and hats. Cumhuriyet and Yeni Y üzyıl selected pictures o f him in fashionable hats, elegant coats, and wooden walking sticks, dem onstrating the new kind o f clothes A tatürk required Turkish citizens to wear.2 Front-page placem ent o f pictures o f the founding leader, a Republic D ay tradition o f alm ost eighty years, car­ ries A tatürk to the im m ediacy o f the present day. In 1998, it seem ed, newspa­ pers paid particular attention to displaying A tatürk in the m odern and secular context he aim ed to create for his citizens, rather than printing his isolated portraits.3 On the same day, the Islam ist daily A k it also followed the tradition, but it published a unique photograph o f Atatürk. This one has never appeared in

1. For the symbolic importance of Sabiha Gökçen in Turkish nationalism, see Altinay (2000).

2. O f these newspapers, Sabah, ist, and secularist oudooks.

Yeni Y üzyıl,

Cum huriyet is

and M illiyet have mainstream, liberal, national­

a left-wing Kemalist daily.

3. For a detailed discussion o f the changing image o f Atatürk, see Özyürek (2004a).

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school textbooks, A tatürk docum entaries on the official television channels, or Republic Day sections o f m ainstream newspapers. In this photograph, taken on O ctober 29, 1923, following the public declaration o f the new regim e as a republic, Atatürk appears among a group o f men on the balcony o f the N ational Assem bly building. To readers the most striking feature o f the photograph is that a religious leader with a white turban stands next to Atatürk. M oreover, everyone in the group, including A tatürk, is saying a prayer with their chest-level palms turned upward. Undoubtedly when they finished their prayer, they rubbed their palms to their faces, said “Amen,” and asked God to accept their prayer and protect the new regime. A kit's editors conflated the extraordinary picture o f Atatürk with another equally striking but more fam iliar one on the same page: a policewoman cov­ ering the mouth o f a veiled university student. Ju st as m ainstream newspapers placed Atatürk next to im ages o f young women and students, Akit also put a

Böylebaşlamıştı Başörtülüsü, sakallısı ve şalvarlısı ile topyekün bir milletin kan dökerek, can vererek kazandı­ ğı İstiklâl Harbi sonrasında 75 yıl önce bugün, Cumhuriyet, dualar ve tekbirlerle ilân edilmişti3

i t

ft* ’

aşında

1A0

3. C over page o f the daily

A k it,

O ctober 29, 1998. T h e larger headline reads, “It

started like this,” and the sm aller subhead on the next line reads, “A nd it becam e like that.” C o u rtesy o f R aip A rpacik.

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picture o f a young Turkish student next to that o f the leader. The fem ale stu­ dent that appears as A tatürk’s ideal, however, wore a flowery pink veil rather than a W estern hat or a m iniskirt. The picture was taken during the ongoing nationwide protests on university campuses organized by veiled university stu­ dents after they learned that they would not be allowed to register at universi­ ties for the new academ ic year unless they took o ff their headdresses.4 Hence, by using this picture A k it indicated that it was the present secularist Turkish governm ent, not the religious people, that was opposing A tatürk’s founding principles, which they defined as Islam ic. They were rem inding the secularist state officials o f the earlier alliance A tatürk had made with religious leaders in the country, an alliance that has been forgotten in nationalist history w riting and public memory. D uring the seventy-fifth anniversary o f the Turkish Republic, the memo­ ries o f the founding years became a way for Islam ist and secularist politicians to define their political position and cultural identity. These memories have been deployed, m ediated, and m anaged at an especially charged moment, when the Islam ist W elfare Party, after having received the m ost num ber of votes in the 1995 general elections, was outlawed in 1997 on the grounds of working against the laicism principle o f the Turkish Republic.5 The officials and supporters o f the V irtue Party, which replaced the W elfare Party, at­ tem pted to challenge the foundational myths o f the Turkish Republic, and more im portantly tried to inscribe them selves into the politically legitim ate center by revisiting the public m em ory o f the early years. By choosing mem­ ory as a site o f their political struggle, Islam ist activists dem onstrate that pub­ lic m em ory is not only a ground o f cultural reproduction but also a source o f resistance to it. The V irtue Party’s failure to alter the nature o f w hat is consid­ ered as the legitim ate public sphere in Turkey, however, points to the lim its of mem ory in transform ing present politics.

4. For information on the veiled-student movements in Turkey, see Göle (1996). 5. For an analysis o f the constitutional court cases that banned the Islamist Welfare Party and the pro-Kurdish People’s Labor Party, see Koğacıoğlu (2003).

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Structural Nostalgia The com peting versions o f public memory for the foundational years— and more specifically the way they are expressed in public media such as newspa­ pers, political speeches, posters, and banners— point to the fact that nostalgia is not a purely personal emotion. N either is it m erely a rom antic moment o f recollection. Rather, it can be a politically motivated representation o f the past that serves the present. Both Islam ist and secularist activists who had ac­ cess to the media utilized the prevailing disappointm ent about the present situation in Turkey to depict the foundational years as a tim e when there was perfect harm ony and unity between the state and its citizens. The nature o f that unity was, however, hody contested. W hereas the V irtue Party activists saw religion as the basis o f this unity, for secularists it was the desire to be part o f the “civilized world.” Both camps claim ed that their own interpreta­ tion o f the past should determ ine the nature o f legitim ate politics in con­ tem porary Turkey. In other words, as both camps used a nostalgic representation o f the past as a blueprint to transform the present, represen­ tation o f the past became a batdeground for struggle over political legitim acy and dom ination. D ifferent groups in society often turn to identical moments in the past in order to make com peting claim s for the present. Based on his study o f Greek mountain villages, M ichael H erzfeld (1997) argues that a shared vision o f the past allows two parties' with conflicting interests to interact with each other in a m utually understandable framework. For exam ple, in Crete both state offi­ cials and lawless citizens who engage in anim al theft share nostalgia for a time when the relations between state and society were perfecdy balanced. H erzfeld calls this shared representation o f an unspoiled past “structural nostalgia.” A nthropologist Lisa Rofel also dem onstrates that in postreform China, different generations remember the socialist regim e fondly, but in divergent ways. O lder-generation workers who are now m arginalized rem em ber M ao’s era nostalgically in order to legitim ate themselves as heroes o f socialism . Con­ tem porary factory m anagers, on the other hand, have nostalgia for the preCultural Revolution days when workers were obedient, dedicated, and afraid to speak out. Thus, Rofel argues, nostalgia is not only a sentim ent but also a

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“strategy o f representation” that individuals employ in order to create a polit­ ical space or legitim acy for them selves (1999,35). N ostalgia can becom e a political battleground for people with conflicting interests. W hat is m ost interesting for our purpose is that structural nostalgia shared by different groups in society can be a resource for the m arginalized. By creating alternative representations o f an already glorified past, they can make a claim for themselves in the present. It is this kind o f a presentist nego­ tiation that the V irtue Party adm inistration sought by redefining the founda­ tional past and more im portantly by establishing an exclusive relation to it. The V irtue Party, which invoked an alternative m em ory o f the past, did not necessarily transform the present political sphere. Rather, m em ory o f this au­ thoritative moment moved the party from the margins o f the political system to its center.

The Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Turkish Republic The seventy-fifth anniversary o f the Turkish Republic was celebrated in a unique political context where politicians, intellectuals, and citizens debated the past, present, and future o f their country. Although not traditionally a sig­ nificant number, the seventy-fifth anniversary became the m ost w idely and en­ thusiastically celebrated anniversary in the history o f the Turkish Republic. In the late 1990s Islam ist, Kurdish, and liberal intellectuals in Turkey, political ad­ visers in Europe, and funding agencies in the United States criticized the Turk­ ish state for being oppressive and lim iting political, social, and economic freedoms. Turkish state officials and arm y leaders m ost often interpreted these criticism s as challenges to the founding principles o f the Turkish Re­ public as a secular, homogenous, and independent state. T he central state and its supporters used the anniversary to. counter these challenges and demon­ strate the voluntary support o f citizens for the past and present policies of their state. The main target o f the activities was, however, curbing political Islam , which had gained unprecedented support during the m id-1990s and challenged the strictly secular principles o f the Turkish Republic. Both international and local factors have contributed to the rise o f politi­ cal Islam in Turkey. Turkish (and Kurdish) Islam ists have been influenced by the growth o f a larger, worldwide Islam ist movement (Roy 1994; K epel 1994).

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M oreover, as Turkey’s integration w ith world capitalism accelerated in the 1980s and the 1990s, owners o f sm all industries in A natolia, who were m osdy religious, grew econom ically and politically stronger (Gülalp 1999,2001). The Turkish Islam ist movement also benefited from the fact that the 1980 m ilitary coup promoted a Turkish-Islam ic synthesis as a social glue to hold together the nation, divided along political lines (Sakallıoğlu 1996), and suppressed the leftist movement that was effective in the 1970s (Tuğal 2002). As a result, al­ though living conditions have become increasingly more difficult for the low er classes İn the last two decades, only the W elfare Party has emphasized the im portance o f economic justice. M ost im portantly, the Welfare Party or­ ganized a very effective political cam paign in the early 1990s that m obilized local women and built on the already existing relations o f trust in the neigh­ borhoods (W hite 2002). In its political cam paign the W elfare Party promised a “just order” (adil dü^en) that would redistribute wealth m orally and support sm all businessm en (Buğra 2002). In the local elections o f 1994 and the na­ tional elections o f 1995, the W elfare Party won the largest number o f the votes and becam e the leading party in the Parliam ent, and the party leader, N ecm ettin Erbakan, became the prim e m inister. Even though the conditions were ripe for Islam ists to come to power, the Welfare Party’s electoral success came as an alarm ing surprise to m any Kemal­ ist citizens (Bartu 1999a, Navaro-Yashin 2002) and arm y officials. The army, judiciary, and secular nongovernm ental organizations quickly organized to conduct an effective cam paign against the party (Erdoğan 2000). On February 2 8,19 97 , the arm y issued a declaration that em phasized the urgent need to protect the laicism principle o f the Turkish Republic. W hen W elfare Party of­ ficials received the m essage, they im m ediately resigned from governm ent. O ther parties in the Parliam ent formed a new coalition governm ent and im ­ plem ented a series o f policies, named the February 28 m easures, that would inhibit political Islam from regaining power. Such measures included banning the W elfare Party and its leader, Erbakan, from politics. A ttem pting to rally people against political Islam , the governm ent worked with a nongovernm ental organization and planned a mass celebration. Be­ cause the new governm ent had come to power after the W elfare Party was banned, the new parties in the coalition were not legitim ized by electoral sup­ port. If celebrated enthusiastically and without the involvement o f the gov­

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ernm ent, the Republic D ay celebration would be a proof o f popular support for the new governm ent in power and the and-Islam ist measures. Thus, the Economic and Social H istory Foundation, founded in 1991 by a group o f two hundred academ ics in order to “develop and spread historical consciousness in Turkey,” was funded by the prim e m inistry to organize the celebration (M onceau 2000; Ö zyürek 2004b). îlh an Tekeli, the chair o f the foundation, stated that the m ain motivation for a participatory celebration was to make a statem ent against political Islam. “W hen the W elfare Party came to power in 1996,” he said to me during an in­ terview in the summer o f 2001, “as enlightened Turks (Türk aydınlan olarak) we felt responsible for the Republic and wanted to do som ething against the religious uprising.” In the report he prepared about the celebration, Tekeli ar­ gued that the social situation in Turkey required a change in the nature o f the celebrations: “Recent threats against the Turkish Republic, in term s o f its unity [Le., the Kurdish movement] and m odernization [i.e., the Islam ist move­ m ent], added significance to the celebration o f the Republic” (Tekeli 1998, 21). The new celebrations, Tekeli suggested, would be likened to a festival ((enlik) and be organized around three concepts: mass participation (kitlesel katılım), spontaneity (spontanhk), and enthusiasm (cofku). Through such a con­ ceptual reorganization, the celebration would allow citizens to express freely their support for the Turkish state. M ore im portantly, by fram ing their voice as unrestricted and spontaneous, it would give the supporters o f the Turkish state legitim acy against opposition groups. As secularist officials and intellectuals were attem pting to m onopolize the legitim ate grounds o f politics as w ell as its celebration, Islam ist politicians en­ gaged in creative methods to include themselves in the political center from which they were excluded. The banned Welfare Party was reopened w ith a new name (Virtue Party) and a new leader (Recai Kutan). Even though the party or­ ganization and membership were practically the same, Recai Kutan drew a conciliatory portrait and adopted a m oderate political discourse. He aban­ doned the earlier Islam ist, anti-W estern, and countercapitalist platform in favor o f a conservative, center-right one. One interesting strategy the new party em braced was to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary o f the republic wholeheartedly. This was a novel approach since earlier W elfare Party officials were notorious for not participating in the national celebrations, not singing

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the national anthem , and not visiting A tatiirk’s mausoleum. W hen they cele­ brated Republic Day, the V irtue Party leadership contested the earlier depic­ tions o f the early republic as stricdy secular and redefined it as Islam ic. By doing so, partisans were able to critique the contem porary secularist officials as departing from the foundational principles and thus wrongly m arginalizing Islam ists both from the past and the present o f the Turkish Republic.

Islamic Representation o f the Early Republic Prior to the seventy-fifth anniversary celebrations in 1998, prom inent Is­ lam ists had been more interested in com m em orating the Ottoman past than the republican regim e that had erased the im perial legacy as w ell as its memory (Houston 2001b). Promoters o f neo-Ottomanism had a rather flattened sense o f the seven-hundred-year-long rule o f the Ottomans and saw the em pire as proof o f the superior achievements o f a ‘T urkish” state that accepted Islam as its official religion. O ttomanism became especially popular among the newly rising Islam ist elite whose members began to use consumerism to mark their political identity as w ell as their class position (Navaro-Yashin 2002; W hite 2002). N eo-O ttomanism found nonconsum erist political expressions am ong the public as w ell. W hen the W elfare Party won the local elections in Is­ tanbul, the m unicipality organized mass celebrations for the previously un­ popular anniversary o f the conquest o f Constantinople on M ay 29 by the Ottoman sultan Mehmed IV in 1453 (Bora 1999; Çınar 2001). Alternative Is­ lam ic commemorations for Istanbul Day, A lev Çınar argues, “serve to con­ struct an alternative national identity that is Ottoman and Islam ic, evoking a civilization centered in the city o f Istanbul, as opposed to the secular, modern Turkish Republic centered in the capital city o f Ankara” (Çınar 2001,365). In 1998, after the Welfare Party was banned and reincarnated as the V irtue Party, it adopted a new political strategy in relation to history-based identity. Party activists publicly embraced the memory o f the republic without letting go o f their Ottomanism. Unlike K em alist officials and activists who see the rise o f political Islam as a fundamental threat to the secular principles o f the republic, the V irtue Party officials and some like-m inded Islam ist intellectuals em phasized the religious origins o f the republic. They argued that the current hardships faced by political Islam and religious M uslims contradict the origi-

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nal in ten t By resurrecting forgotten aspects o f republican history, the Virtue Party countered the contem porary pressures exerted on them by the secular governm ent, which defines the founding principles as stricdy secular. More im portandy, they aim ed to create a legitim ate space for them selves in the po­ litical center that is defined through comm itment to the foundational princi­ ples o f the Turkish R epublic A close look at the early years o f the republic provided V irtue Party ac­ tivists with numerous im ages and sayings o f M ustafa Kemal A tatürk in favor o f Islam. Even though Atatürk became decreasingly tolerant o f religion in the 1930s, during the early 1920s he worked w ith some religious leaders and mo­ bilized them for the national uprising between 1919 and 1922 (Zürcher 1998, 158-59). D uring this era he uttered many speeches in favor o f Islam , the caliphate, and veiling that are contradicted by his later speeches. In this period, A tatürk also form ed alliances with some Kurdish tribes in the southeastern re­ gion o f the country (Zürcher 1998,176-80). Once he established the Turkish Republic, consolidated the single-party regim e, and defeated his political ri­ vals, M ustafa Kemal delivered a marathon speech to Parliam ent in 1927 in order to leave behind an official narrative o f the foundation o f the new regime (Parla 1991). In-this narrative he denounced the great m ajority o f his earlier al­ liances. It is the later approaches and attitudes o f the leader that have defined the predom inant public m em ory about the early republic as uniform ly secular and nationalist. A fter the Turkish Republic was founded in 1923, the single-party regime increasingly becam e more oppressive toward any public expression o f Islam (Berkes 1988; Toprak 1981; D avison 1998) as w ell as non-Turkish identities (Yıldız 2001). The first m ajor attack on Islam ic institutions occurred in 1924, when the six-m onth-old G eneral Assem bly abolished the caliphate, the sym­ bol o f Islam ic leadership. A year later dervish orders were dissolved and tombs o f saints closed down. In 1926, the calendar was changed from the Is­ lam ic lunar calendar to the W estern solar G regorian one, and Islam ic law was abolished and replaced by the Swiss Civil Code, Italian Penal Code, and Ger­ man and Italian Com m ercial Codes. In 1928, the Latin script replaced the Ara­ bic script. D uring this process, m any influential religious leaders, including M uslim sheikhs and clerics, lost their jobs and positions in society; scholars became illiterate overnight. M oreover, they were forced to take o ff their reli-

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gious outfits and w ear W estern hats in accordance with the hat reform o f 1925. Although there was no law against veiling, women who veiled faced public pressure and even violent opposition. M any o f the witnesses o f the early republican era I interviewed told o f times when youth gangs would rip veils o ff women. The m em ory o f religious oppression is vivid among many religious groups in contem porary Turkey. There is no doubt that not all religious groups have a fond memory o f the early republican policies. There are Is­ lam ist Web sites that condemn M ustafa Kemal for being a drunk, a woman­ izer, and an enem y o f M uslims.6 O ther Islam ist intellectuals, such as Ahmet K abaklı, recognize him as a great m ilitary leader who saved the country from foreign powers, but argue that he is only one o f the many m ilitary heroes İn Turkish and Islam ic history and should be treated accordingly (K abaklı 1998). Thus it would be erroneous to generalize the nostalgic claim s o f the V irtue Party and affiliated intellectuals toward the foundational years and M ustafa Kemal to the heterogenous Islam ist movement in Turkey.7 It is also im portant to recognize that some religious groups were only loosely connected with the W elfare and V irtue Parties, and some others support different center-right po­ litical parties. The unusual history cam paign led by the V irtue Party during the seventy-fifth anniversary celebration was a well-planned rhetorical strategy in­ tended to neutralize past and present pressures against the Islam ists and clear a space for Islam in the politically legitim ate center.

The Islamist Subversion of the Republican Past In her contribution to this volum e, N azlı Ökten argues that A tatürk is the cen­ tral focus o f the political sphere in Turkey. Constant referrals to the leader, she claim s, serve both the political elite and the masses. For the form er, A tatürk is “a common point o f reference that guarantees identification w ith the

6. Because o f the Turkish law against insulting Atatürk, anti-K em alist individuals and groups use cyber space to dissem inate their ideas. For an example o f such a site, founded by Turkish citizens living in Germany, see www.mustafakemal.de. 7. For an account o f the ideological-, class-, and ethnicity-based diversity o f the Islam ist movement in Turkey, see Houston (2001b).

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masses,” and for the latter “who are deprived o f the means o f efficient partic­ ipation in the public sphere, it is an interm ediary medium.” The political elite often utilize A tatürk to delineate the boundaries o f legitim acy, regardless o f w hat the masses desire. In the hegem onic Turkish political sphere, Atatürk stands for the state, the nation, and the public and determ ines the boundaries o f legitim acy.8 For exam ple, prosecutors o f the court case against the W elfare Party in 1998 made frequent reference to sayings o f A tatürk critical o f Islam in order to prove that the party contradicts the state’s foundational principles (K oğaaoğlu 2003). In such a tightly dem arcated arena o f political legitimacy, V irtue Party activists utilized the medium o f A tatürk to have access to the le­ gitim ate public sphere from which they were banned. On Republic Day the headline o f A kit, located just above the picture of A tatürk praying, reads, “It started like this.” Another sm aller headline next to the picture o f the arrested veiled student contrasts, “And it became like that.” In his analysis o f newspaper photographs in Egypt, G regory Starrett suggests that “newspaper stories increasingly act as elaborate captions for their photo­ graphic coverage. D escriptions o f events provide directions for the reading of the visual im ages they accom pany” (Starrett 2003,407). By carefully selecting and conflating two powerful pictures, the editors made sure that the photo­ graphs told a story on their own. Yet, they also added subtitles to stress further the divergence between the foundational years and the present: “Seventy-five years ago, when M ustafa Kemal A tatürk established the Republic, there were religious leaders in their turbans next to him. And they were praying all to­ gether.” And “Seventy-five years later this picture is a proof against the claims that the Republic brought freedom.” Even though the pictures and their sub­ 8.

Such a close association o f political legitim acy with the legacy o f a deceased leader con­

tradicts Claude Lefort’s definition o f modem power. He argues that unlike the premodem world, where authority is invested in the sacralized body o f the king, in the modem world polit­ ical power is disembodied. He argues that in modern society “people experience a fundamental indeterm inacy as to the basis o f power, law, and knowledge” (Lefort 1988,19). In the Turkish case, the locus o f legitim ate power, law, and knowledge ceases to be under the m onopoly o f a certain individual or group, particulady because it is represented and haunted by the deceased body o f Atatürk. A discussion o f the reasons and consequences o f such a conceptualization warrants a separate essay.

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titles made a strong statem ent, A k it provided a more elaborate Islam ic inter­ pretation o f the republic’s foundational years in an editorial:

The Republic, founded seventy-five years ago following the W ar o f Libera­ tion, was fought by the whole nation, which included the veiled, the bearded, and the baggy-panted.9 It was declared with prayers and affirm ation o f the greatness o f God. Seventy-five years ago on this day, the enemies were kicked out o f the country, the French soldiers who tried to unveil our women were killed by those like Sütçü İmam; the G reek arm y had to leave the way it came. And seventy-five years ago today, Atatürk declared the Re­ public next to turbaned religious leaders. And again seventy-five years ago [the Constitution] declared that “the religion o f the Turkish state is Islam ” in accordance w ith the beliefs o f the people. In those days, there was no such concept as “secularism ” used as a tool o f oppression. The Republic that was established by blood is celebrated today with w hiskey.. . . It was declared that w ith the Republic, people would be freer. But today, the grandchildren o f the people who established the Republic are not allowed in the universi­ ties; their right to education is taken away from them.

The above narrative depicts a peculiar portrait o f the foundational mo­ m ent and defines it as Islam ic. By doing so, it turns the tables, casting Islam ists as the true republicans and secularists as people who diverge from the original aim s o f the republic. The editors o f the newspaper claim that it is the religious M uslims who saved the country from the A llies and the Greeks and allowed a new republic to be born. In those days, they argue, Islam was central to the newly founded state, but today, oppressive state officials have diverged from the foundational spirit. A fter redefining the foundational intent, A k it accuses the Turkish officials o f being “counter-Republican” because by banning veil­ ing in the universities, they disrespect the religious principles o f those who sacrificed their lives for the republic.

9.

Veils, beards, and “baggy pants” are the visible signs o f religious Muslims and those o f

rural background.

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On the anniversary o f A tatürk’s death the same year (Nov. 10,1998), M illi Gamete, another Islam ist daily closely associated w ith the V irtue Party, printed a sim ilarly nostalgic approach to M ustafa Kemal and his era, which they defined as Islam ic T hat day, their headline read, “We W ish You Had Lived” (Keşke YaşasaycUn). Under this call was a picture o f him w ith his then-wife, Latife Hamm, in her black veil, to whom A tatürk had been breifly m arried in 1924, before he launched his secularization reform s. Even though the Frencheducated Latife Hamm wore W estern garb and let her hair show at other times, she wore a black veil when she accom panied her husband through Anatolia. The section under the veiled picture o f the First Lady next to her husband read as follows:

Mustafa Kemal, the founder of the Republic, on the seventy-fifth anniver­ sary of your creation and on the sixtieth anniversary of your death, we are faced with a group that tortures our nation. This group does not consider the villagers, whom you called the masters of the nation, as humans. They betray you by calling anyone who resists their torture enemies of Atatürk. This group, which is responsible for fulfilling the goals you showed [us], cre­ ated the following scene: the literacy rate is below the rate in the rest of the world, the per capita income is painful___On the anniversary of your death we recall your sayings about veiling to those who could not learn them dur­ ing the past seventy-five years: “It is not an issue for us to make changes in how women dress. We are not obliged to teach our nation new things on this issue. As individuals, we can use all kinds of dress according to our taste, our desire, and our education and economic level,” and ‘The veil recommended by our religion suits both life and virtue well. Those who imitate European women in their dress should consider that every nation has its own tradi­ tions and national particularities. No nation should be an imitator of an­ other.” (From a speech delivered by Atatürk on Mar. 21, 1923; emphasis added)

Here M illi G ayete adopted the secularist strategy o f talking and complain­ ing to A tatürk especially on the anniversary o f his death as if he were alive and contem plating the state o f his country. The Islam ist editors blam ed govern­ ment officials for not being respectful o f the traditions o f the A natolian peo-

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pie, whom A tatürk labeled “m asters o f the nation” (köylü m illetin efendisidir). T hey claim ed that when governm ent officials denied veiled students the right to an education and work in governm ent offices, they degraded traditional val­ ues and even called people who observe them “enemies o f Atatürk” (A tatürk düşm anlan). They also accused officials o f m isinterpreting A tatürk by abolish­ ing veiling in his name. By publishing A tatürk’s words in favor o f veiling ut­ tered in 1923, several months before he declared the new regim e, M illi Gamete tried to dem onstrate that contem porary officials were acting against the leader’s teachings. Because they were so far away from the foundational intents and principles o f the great leader, editors argued, present governm ent officials are even incapable o f adm inistering the country properly. D uring the 1999 election cam paign, six months after the seventy-fifth anniversary, the V irtue Party adm inistration once again em phasized their ex­ clusive connection to the foundational intent. The party activists covered practically every single corner in Istanbul with a simple banner that bore one short sentence: ‘T h e republic is virtue” (C um huriyet Fazilettir), followed by A tatürk’s fam iliar signature. A tatürk had pronounced this sentence during the initial years o f the republic w hile telling people how good a regim e a re­ public is. By choosing this saying as a slogan for their party, the Islam ist politicians from the V irtue Party declared themselves both loyal followers o f A tatürk and the only true republicans to whom the leader had bequeathed the nation. Through this slogan, they once more challenged secularists who accused them o f being A tatürk’s enemies and wanted to exclude them from politics. D uring the same election cam paign, the V irtue Party reem phasized its ap­ preciation o f A tatürk and his reverence for religion w ith a powerful poster. In the background is a black-and-white picture o f A tatürk’s m other, Zübeyde Hamm, and her adopted son, Abdurrahim Tunçak.10 In the picture Zübeyde Hamm sits on a chair, her hair loosely covered with a white head scarf. Abdur­ rahim Tunçak, his face only partly exposed, is respectfully bowing down to

10.

In later stages o f his life Abdurrahim Tunçak declared that he was Atatürk’s illegitim ate

child and that is why Zübeyde Hamm raised him. Although Sabiha Gökçen, one o f Atatürk’s adopted daughters, denied this statem ent, the sim ilarity o f Abdurrahim Tunçak’s features with those o f Atatürk are striking.

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4. An election poster for the Virtue Party. The caption reads: “The Republic was born in the hands of mothers and will grow up in their hands.” Courtesy of Mehmet Bekaroğlu. kiss her hand, which she keeps at the level o f her chin as she proudly looks at the cam era." In the poster Abdurrahim Tunçak looks just like A tatürk.1112 Any Turkish citizen who finished elem entary school would have learned 11. For A tatiirk’s biography, see Kinross (1965), Volkan and Itzkowitz (1984), and Mango (1999). In their famous biography o f Atatürk, Volkan and Itzkowitz used the same picture, but

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that Zübeyde Hamm was a religious woman. First graders learn that Atatürk was born in a pink house in Salonika to Zübeyde Hamm and A li Rıza Bey. T hey also learn that at age seven his parents had an argum ent about w hat kind o f school litde M ustafa should attend. Zübeyde Hamm wanted to send him to a religious school in the neighborhood, but his father wanted to send him to a European-style school. In the end, M ustafa went to the religious school for one year, but because he did not like it there, his father switched him to the progressive one the following year. Soon after the incident M ustafa’s father died and his m other raised him , but she was not able to have further influence on his education. It was not even necessary to know these historical references in order to receive the poster’s m essage. The poster appears to show that M ustafa Kemal A tatürk used to bow down in front o f his m other in her head scarf. It also reminds viewers that the person who gave birth to and raised the father o f the Turkish Republic was a religious woman. The second im age in the poster is also a powerful and carefully chosen one. A sm aller color picture visible in the lower right corner o f the poster por­ trays a woman holding a sm all child in her arms. Like Zübeyde Hamm, this woman also wears a white head scarf. Her loose head cover and sim ple flowery dress indicate that she is a peasant or a squatter, a recent im m igrant to a city. The slogan on the poster reads: “The Republic was born to [veiled] mothers and is grow ing up in their hands.” The poster narrates continuity from Zübeyde Hamm and A tatürk to contem porary veiled religious mothers and their babies. By doing so, it includes veiling, the m ost potent symbol o f a reli­ gious lifestyle, in the nationalist symbolism. The choice o f these two head-scarfed women in this poster involves an­ other strategic political move. The secularist arm y and judicial authorities often argue that political Islam introduced a novel, foreign-inspired, and polit­ ically motivated practice o f veiling (Özyürek 2000). The kind o f veiling that is associated m ostly with university students or other young urbanites involves wrapping a wide head scarf around the head in a particular way and attaching

the note under the picture says: “A grateful nation pays homage to Atatûrk’s mother. An uniden­ tified Turk kisses Zübeyde Hanim’s hand” (1984,16). 1 2 .1 asked ten or so Turks who the man and woman were in this picture. They all identi­ fied the man as M ustafa Kemal and the woman as Zübeyde Hamm, his mother.

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it w ith pins.13The fact that Zübeyde Hamm and the peasant women also have head scarves highlights the fact that veiling has historical and traditional roots in Turkey and is a nonpolitical practice that is part o f everyday life. In addition to creating a new representation o f the K em alist past as Is­ lam ic, some Islam ist intellectuals also subverted the common accusations that they are reactionary (irticaa). This is an old concept used since the nineteenth century by m odernist Ottoman and Turkish intellectuals in order to accuse re­ ligious people o f hindering Turkey from its intended unilinear path toward progress and W esternization. In 1998, during the political cam paign in which the V irtue Party attem pted to associate itself w ith the republic and rescue it from the m onopoly o f the secularists, they turned the “reactionary” accusa­ tion around and used İt against the secularists who were becom ing increasingly nostalgic for the foundational years. Two weeks before Republic Day, the edi­ tor o f M illi Gamete accused the secularists o f being “backward”: Ten to fifteen years ago, covered women who worked in the fields were ac­ cused o f being reactionary because they were reluctant to send their daugh­ ters to school. Now, the same women face political accusations because their daughters go to school w ith their head scarves. The leftists, who are a contin­ uation o f the “single-party” ideology, cannot realize that in real Republican system s, it is the people that count___Does the Republic mean the people, or does it mean Ecevit and Baykal? These m en, who are trying to bring back the darkness o f the 1940s, w ill not be able to gain anything by pointing to the nation who founded the Republic as the enemies o f the Republic.

Here the editor made a subversive move by saddling the very people who accused Islam ists o f being backward with the same label. He argued that Is­ lam ists are not reactionary but rather progressive, even by the secularists’ own criteria. They want to send their daughters to school, but the reactionary secu­ lar state officials prohibit them by not allowing veiled students to enroll. He accused the two leaders o f the center-left secularist parties, Bülent E cevit of the D em ocratic Left Party and D eniz Baykal o f A tatiirk’s Republican People’s

13. About the politics o f wrapping the head scarf in different ways, see Ö zdalga (1998) and W hite (1999,2002).

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Party, o f wanting to return the country to the dark days o f the single-party regim e, when people’s demands were not taken seriously. Even the choice o f the adjective “dark” to define those days subverts the secularist association o f religious people w ith “darkness” and m odernization w ith “enlightenm ent.” In this piece, the editor clearly named only the 1940s as the “dark ages o f the single-party regime,” excluding the 1920s and 1930s. By doing so, he disas­ sociated A tatürk, who died in 1938, from the oppression o f the single-party regim e and held only İsm et İnönü, who succeeded the leader after his death and ruled the country until 1950, responsible for the severe measures against Islam .14 Although m any anti-Islam ic measures were taken during A tatürk’s tim e, the editor strategically found an Islam ic basis for the foundational intent o f Atatürk. This enabled him to go along with the fam iliar nostalgic narrative o f deterioration since A tatürk’s death. The novel turn o f the V irtue Party toward the foundational past had par­ ticular demands on the present. As secularist intellectuals were organizing an anti-Islam ist Republic Day celebration in 1998, the K em alist judiciary was dis­ cussing the possibility o f banning the V irtue Party as w ell. The opponents ar­ gued that the V irtue Party was a direct continuation o f the W elfare Party and thus a threat against the fundam ental principles o f the Turkish Republic. By redefining the foundational past as Islam ic, the V irtue Party officials empha­ sized their respect for the founding principles o f the republic as w ell as its founding leader. Rather, they claim ed, it was the secularist parties in coalition that diverge from M ustafa Kemal’s teachings. Thus, they attem pted to demon­ strate to voters from diverse sections o f society that they are the m ost appro­ priate party for ruling the country.

An Alternative Public Gathering of Holding Hands The public memory o f the foundational history was not the only political site the V irtue Party challenged to make it inclusive o f Islam. The other sym bolically powerful site they chose was the Republic Day celebrations in 1998. D uring the seventy-fifth-anniversary celebration, V irtue Party support­ ers organized an alternative gathering that subverted the official messages o f 14. For İsmet İnönü’s era, see Heper (1998), Koçak (1986), and Aydemir (1966).

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national unity. In order to understand the symbolism utilized during the alter­ native gathering, it is necessary to describe the official anniversary advertise­ ments prepared by the Economic and Social H istory Foundation. The Republic Day advertisem ents published in m ajor newspapers and broadcast on national television channels elaborated the theme o f civilian and national unity around secular Republican values. T heir main theme was a dis­ play o f Turkish citizens from all walks o f life, including urbanites, peasants, students, and elderly, holding hands. The headline o f all the ads read, “We M eet in the Republic” (CumhuriyetteBuluşuyorum), indicating that all the citizens come together in republican ideology. Although the main purpose o f the ad was to show that Turkish citizens from all walks o f life are together, hand in hand, for the Turkish Republic, religious people were excluded in these pic­ tures. A ll o f the hundreds o f women, except for four, were bareheaded, m osdy wearing suits. D iscerning eyes could see the few women in the back­ ground wearing head scarves in a mountain village. These women stood for

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5. A nationwide “Hand in Hand” demonstration in which veiled protesters in more than twenty cities formed human chains. Courtesy of Raip Arpacık.

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peasants, and their head scarves were part o f their traditional outfits rather than political statem ents. T heir physical location in the photograph matches their tem poral positioning in secularist ideology as belonging to the past. In other words, veiling represents the kind o f practice that is supposed to be dis­ appearing as Turkey progresses on its unilinear path toward m odernization. Women in the foreground, who would carry Turkey toward its new future, were bare headed and looked like secular urbanites. By depicting only certain kinds o f people, the advertisem ent conveyed the m essage that only middle— and upper-m iddle-class and secular people were devoted to republican princi­ ples. M oreover, it pointed out that only such people had the duty and privilege o f protecting the republic, not only from external threats but also from inter­ nal challenges posed by the religious groups. On O ctober 11, alm ost three weeks before Republic Day, V irtue Party of­ ficials organized a nationwide gathering that challenged the Republic Day ad­ vertisem ent. The initial aim o f the gathering was to protest increasing pressures against Islam ists in general and veiled university students in particu­ lar. Following the banning o f the W elfare Party on February 28,1997, univer­ sity adm inistrators were ordered to keep veiled students o ff the campuses for the 1998-99 school year. The protest against the new policies, named “Hand in Hand: A Human Chain for Hum anistic Respect and Freedom o f Thought,” took place sim ultaneously in more than twenty cities. In each city protestors form ed kilom eters-long human chains, holding hands, or holdingthe ends o f ribbons to prevent unm arried men and women from holding hands. Following the Islam ist gathering o f holding hands, Islam ist intellectuals and politicians argued that people in the Republic Day advertisem ents do not represent the “real” Turkish people. T hey claim ed only the ones who joined the alternative gathering do. M oreover, they asserted, “Hand in Hand” was the only true Republic Day celebration since the chain included all the groups o f society without excluding the religious. A day after the protest, İhsan K arahasanoğlu, a colum nist for the Islam ist daily A k it argued that the m eeting united the people who had been m arginalized by the secular state: Television channels broadcast an advertisem ent for the seventy-fifth an­ niversary. . . . In the advertisem ent young and old people from all kinds o f backgrounds hold hands. The only m issing people are the ones w ith head

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scarves and beards. W hat we see as the people are only the bare-headed ones. In the advertisem ent, holding hands sym bolizes the celebration o f the sev­ enty-fifth anniversary. On O ctober 11 [during the human chain] people with and w ithout beards, w ith and without head scarves were holding hands. A l­ though the m essage o f the advertisem ent talks about equality, it does not take an im portant section o f the people into consideration. On O ctober 11, people were in the streets just like the way it was originally intended in the ad­ vertisem ent. But when the real people (gerçek balk) held hands, some claimed that they were resisting the Republic. If the Republic brought equality, peace, and freedom, why are people who hold hands on O ctober 11 not equal to other citizens?

It was not only the Islam ist intellectuals who were challenging the Repub­ lic D ay advertisem ents. As Republic D ay was approaching, the V irtue Party printed an alternative poster to the Republic D ay advertisem ents. The poster was very sim ilar to the Republic D ay advertisem ent in showing large groups of people standing next to each other, but this tim e, instead o f the crowd being composed o f secular urbanites, it was dom inated by veiled and bearded indi­ viduals. Above the picture, the slogan “They m et in virtue” replaced the origi­ nal phrase “They m et in the republic.” By printing this advertisem ent, the V irtue Party officials declared their comm itment to a republican public sphere while at the same tim e signaling their intention o f redefining it as for and pop­ ulated by religious people. D espite their opposition toward the exclusionary nature o f the secularist definition o f republican principles, Islam ic intellectuals shared their under­ standing o f civilian participation in politics. Like secularist officials, they be­ lieve that there is a single unitary w ill o f the Turkish nation and only one group can represent İt. For exam ple, Sadık A lbayrak wrote the following in the daily M illi Gatçete: “The first thing to do on the seventy-fifth anniversary is to find out where the national w ill that founded the Republic lies. A fter that, we need to discuss the principles that w ill be claim ed by the whole nation, that will bring together the nation on every single issue.” Albayrak, sim ilar to other Islam ist as w ell as secular intellectuals, believed that the Turkish nation is a holistic entity, one that can come together on every issue. In negating the differences and conflicting interests, A lbayrak painted a

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corporatist picture o f society, sim ilar to the one promoted by the single-party regim e in the 1930s. This ideology took shape under the influence o f the Durkhem ian concept o f organic society and contem porary authoritarian regim es (Parla 1985). K em alist corporatism assumed that Turkish society was exem pt from interest conflicts and that status differences helped it to function like a harm onious machine working to realize the nationally shared goals. In­ stead o f em phasizing the legitim acy o f their different yet m arginalized inter­ ests in the political public sphere, post-1997 Islam ic intellectuals affiliated with the V irtue Party chose to redefine a unitary national w ill as Islamic.

Conclusion The changing tem poral orientation for constructing utopias had profound ef­ fects on the way dom inant and oppositional groups represented themselves at the end o f the twentieth century (Boym 2001). In late-1990s Turkey, both Ke­ m alist and Islam ist politicians located their utopias in the past rather than the future. As opposed to K emalists, who yearned for the 1930s, Islam ists took an alternative approach to mem ory-based identity and idealized the Ottoman pe­ riod when Islam was the official religion o f the state. Yet, when the February 28 m easures against political Islam lim ited the legitim ate boundaries o f poli­ tics in Turkey in 1997, officials o f the new Islam ic party (Virtue Party) turned toward the republican past. By highlighting the Islam ic aspects o f the founda­ tional moment, they tried to include themselves in the politically legitim ate sphere. A question that follows the above observation regards the consequence o f the political move the V irtue Party made toward the political center by in­ troducing a novel mem ory o f the founding moment. Has the V irtue Party been successful in transform ing the nature and lim its o f what is considered as the legitim ate political sphere in Turkey? Was it able to create an alternative political sphere? O r has the party transform ed and adapted itself to the rules o f the dom inant public sphere? In his recent work “Publics and Counterpublics” (2002), M ichael W arner questions the relationship between the dom inant and alternative public spheres. His analysis builds on the earlier critiques o f a Haberm asian concept o f the public sphere— a discursive arena where citizens are free to discuss po-

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litical m atters im portant to them rationally and critically (Habermas 1991). A greeing with scholars who dem onstrated that the European and Am erican public spheres were not open to all but rather were closed to women (Fraser 1999; Ryan 1999), the working class (Eley 1999), and nonwhites, W arner aims to understand the transform ative capacities o f counterpublics form ed by such excluded groups.,s He defines dom inant publics as those “that can take their discourse pragm atics and their lifeworlds for granted, m isrecognizing the in­ definite scope o f their expansive address as universality or normalcy.” Coun­ terpublics on the other hand “are spaces o f circulation in which it is hoped that the poesis o f scene m aking w ill be transform ative, not replicative m erely” (W arner 2002,88). A ccording to W arner’s definition, we can consider the secular public sphere in Turkey as the dom inant public, in the sense that it takes its life world as granted and norm al, and im agines all Turkish citizens as its natural ad­ dressees. The Islam ic public— or at least those who support an Islamic party— can be defined as a counterpublic, since it addresses a subgroup with particular needs and interests. By accepting the key symbolisms o f the domi­ nant public sphere, however, the V irtue Party replicated the codes o f the dom­ inant public sphere rather than transform ing them. In the late 1990s the V irtue Party activists made reference to the authoritative nature o f the foun­ dational history in determ ining present politics in contem porary Turkey. Yet, rather than recognizing it as a m ultifaceted process shaped by different groups w ith sometimes contradictory interests, the Islam ist politicians also defined the founding moment w ith a singular aim . They challenged the secularist mo­ nopoly over this moment, but embraced a sim ilarly narrow definition and ar­ gued that M ustafa Kemal and his friends had aim ed to create a country infused with Islam ic principles. Even if m any partisans did not em brace the m em ory o f the founding leader in their private lives, invoking the m em ory o f the founding moment in­ dicated the center-right direction the Islam ist party was heading toward. This trend was more apparent in the alternative celebration o f the Republic Day15

15. E arlier N ancy Fraser (1999) also wrote about the effects o f subaltern publics in ex­ panding the lim its o f democracy. M ichael W arner (2002) criticizes her approach by arguing that Fraser does not define how such publics would be able to transform the dominant one.

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“Hand in Hand” gathering that made a reference to the central nationalist symbol o f “the people.” In their evaluation o f the event, V irtue Partyaffiliated intellectuals reproduced the dom inant im age o f a homogenous— and exclusively Islam ic— nation, undivided along lines o f class, ethnicity, and religiosity. Instead o f introducing the m ultiplicity o f religious beliefs and po­ litical positions as a means o f legitim acy—which would have a transform ative im pact on the political sphere— they reproduced the symbolism o f the dom i­ nant public, which im agines a uniform public and perceives a singular repre­ sentation as sufficient. In the end, the attem pts o f the V irtue Party in revoking an alternative memory o f the founding moment were more effective in trans­ form ing the party from its m arginal position toward center right and less ef­ fective in challenging the lim its o f the legitim ate public sphere in Turkey. D espite its attem pts at m oving toward the center, the V irtue Party was also eventually banned from politics on the basis o f being a direct continuation o f the W elfare Party. Yet, as this essay is being w ritten, the Justice and Develop­ ment Party, which is an offshoot o f the V irtue Party, is in governm ent and im plem ents a center-right, pro-European Union and pro-International M on­ etary Fund political agenda with an increasingly less religious discourse.

7 Memories of Violence, Memoirs of Nation The 1915 M assacres and the Construction o f Armenian Identity Cihan Tuğal

How does memory shape the construction o f national identity?1 W hat is the place o f the remembrance o f violence in this construction? Social scientists have often em phasized that nations are “im agined com m unities” (B. Ander­ son 1983). The “constructivist” literature o f the last twenty years has in fact established the idea that nations are constructed (Brubaker 1996; Gellner 1983; Hobsbawm 1995), but it has not inform ed us sufficiendy about the form in which they are im agined by their individual members. Indeed, as the critics o f this literature have argued, its prom inent figures have m osdy focused on the elite’s understanding o f the nation, ignoring the passions and nonrational cravings o f the larger society (N airn 1997; Sm ith 1986). A lthough this essay adopts the constructivist position, taking the nation as a linguistic and ethnic comm unity that is politically brought together as a result o f deliberate strategy and contingent events, it also incorporates nonrational m otivations in its account o f the m aking o f the nation. In this context, the essay shows how the act o f rem em bering, which we are inclined to think o f in its individual di­ m ension, has consolidated the form ation o f an im agined group. W hile the hy­ potheses developed here are based on an analysis o f the im agination o f the

1 .1 would like to thank Ann Stoler, whose questions have laid the bases for many o f the ar­ guments developed in this essay, to Esra Özyürek, whose comments were very useful in revising it, and to Aynur Sadet-Tuğal, whose help rescued this piece in a difficult moment.

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Arm enian nation, they can be tested in other cases to reach a deeper under­ standing o f the construction o f nationhood. Under the influence o f national discourse, scholars generally conceptual­ ize the relations between Turks and Arm enians during the dem ise o f the Ot­ tom an Empire as interactions between already existing national units. This perception contradicts the social and political practice o f the Ottoman Em­ pire, which divided its subjects into m illets, or comm unities based on religion (Braude and Lewis 1982). Arm enians were distinguished from Turks and Kurds not on ethnic or national bases, but on religious grounds. Although na­ tionalism had started to spread throughout the em pire by the end o f the nine­ teenth century, people still conducted their relations w ith others in religious (and, to a narrower extent, ethnic) term s. The fact that the M uslim and Chris­ tian populations were divided further into several sects made it harder to think o f the Turks, the Kurds, or the Arm enians as unified nations. Lately, social scientists have shown that Turkish identity became conse­ quential only in the final decades o f the em pire and that the deportation o f Arm enians was crucial for this transform ation (Akçam 2004). Yet, scholars have not sufficiently questioned the assum ption that Arm enian-ness consti­ tuted a m eaningful identity on its own before the Arm enian people suffered severe violence. Indeed, m ost scholars have taken Arm enian-ness as a given (Hovannisian 1998; M elson 1992) and have paid scant attention to its con­ struction through time. Looking at the Arm enian issue from the perspective o f m em ory studies enhances our understanding o f the m aking o f Arm enian identity. Although scholars have recently explored the role o f memories and literature in unifying and empowering Arm enians, they utilized neither recent theoretical contributions to memory studies nor the constructivist under­ standing o f nationalism in their analyses (M iller and M iller 1993; Peroomian 2003). D rawing on these two alternative ways o f looking at national identity, it can be seen that the massacres o f 1915, and especially their construction in memory, played a vital role in the m aking o f the Arm enian identity. N everthe­ less, there are drawbacks to treating m em ory in exclusively political and instru­ m ental ways. Consequently, this essay also discusses the ties, exchanges, and tensions between memory and history in order to free m em ory studies from this instrum entalism . The arguments in this essay are supported by the published memoirs o f

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men and women who lived in A natolia during the 1915 massacres. The publi­ cation dates o f the memoirs span a long period o f time. W hereas there are memoirs published as early as 1916, im m ediately after the m assacres, som e o f them were published as much as fifty or even sixty years later. In addition to the memoirs o f Arm enians who have m igrated to the United States, other texts are studied in order to compare techniques that authors deploy to make claim s to truth. Such a com parison is crucial to analyzing the relationship be­ tween official memoirs or history and the memoirs o f ordinary people. Most o f the memoirs analyzed here were written for an English-speaking public They are politically im portant because they are used as evidence in the diplo­ m atic, academ ic, and popular discussions on the existence or absence o f genocide. Having been w ritten in the United States, they also involve psycho­ logical and cultural-political im plications. New World myths and a certain reading o f the Am erican dream by the survivors have immense effects on the narrative o f Arm enian nationalism , or rather on the popular reception o f this narrative. This essay explores m em ory and history as two different forms o f con­ structing the past, by analyzing the interactions between memories o f mas­ sacres and historiography. Even though memory, like history, is situated in national discourse, its mode o f working displays the horizon o f national dis­ course in a way that history cannot. M em ory and history work together in the im agination o f the Arm enian nation. However, memory has a peculiar rela­ tion to the nonsignifiable—to that portion o f human experience that cannot be expressed lucidly in language. Due to this relation, memory disrupts the con­ struction o f m eaning that is vital for the form ation o f identity.

Memories of Massacres The m assacres are intricately related to the historical context in which they un­ folded, the m ost prom inent characteristics o f which were the dem ise o f the Ottoman Em pire, W esternization throughout the O ttoman lands, and the subsequent rise o f nationalism . The Ottoman Empire turned decisively to­ ward the West in 1839, through a set o f legal reform s known as the Tanzimat. From then on, until the demise o f the em pire in 1923, the rulers o f the empire

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made several changes that led first to W estern control o f internal affairs, then, at each step, to the intensification o f this control.2 Both the introduction o f nationalist ideas that resulted from this control and the active (financial, diplo­ m atic, and logistic) incitem ent o f nationalism by W estern powers (Hovannisian 1967) led to the birth o f nationalism in various parts o f the em pire, followed in tim e by the separation o f several countries, including Greece and Bulgaria (Jelavich 1983; D adrian 2003). Even though the Arm enians were also affected by this tide o f nationalism , the fact that they constituted the m inority in m ost o f the lands on which they lived made it harder for them to organize a strong national movement, that is, one strong enough to fight against the forces o f the em pire.3 The Turkish and the Arm enian sides interpret the m assacres, which de­ veloped in response to Arm enian nationalism , quite differently.4 The first ac­ tive m anifestation o f Arm enian nationalism was in the form o f resistance to Sultan Abdulham id’s decision to standardize tax policy throughout the em­ pire. In Sasoun, which had had the privilege o f paying lower taxes, Arm enians, joined even by some non-Arm enian elem ents, refused to pay taxes (Suny 2001). According to the Turkish thesis, this resistance was w hat incited the first tide o f m assacres, lasting from 1894 to 1896. The Arm enian thesis, how­ ever, claim s that the resistance was only an excuse and that the real reason for

2. Ottoman reform movements date back to the eighteenth century. The role o f the West in incidng and shaping changes in the Ottoman system is widely discussed by Bernard Lewis (1968) and Eric Zürcher (1998). 3. The debate about the exact numbers and proportions o f Armenians living in different parts o f A natolia has remained inconclusive to this day. See Justin M cCarthy (2001) for a recent account. 4. W hen talking about “sides” in this essay, I am referring not to national essences but to certain theses. The thesis o f one side can be defended by someone who does not belong to that nation (Güney 1984). O f course, these theses are not absolute, either. As the main theses can themselves change over time, certain historians can occupy interm ediate positions that fit nei­ ther o f the theses. For example, Bernard Lewis (1968) uses the tetm gm oeide, which is a taboo for the Turkish side, and holds the Armenians responsible for their own suffering. Furtherm ore, Müge G öçek (2003) points out that postnational “sides” are em erging, the accounts o f which in the future m ight constitute alternatives to official and national positions that are now dominant.

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the violence was Abdulham id’s attem pts to thwart the upward social m obility o f Arm enians, which had gained pace after W esternizing reform s and the par­ tial liberalization o f the Ottoman econom y were set into place (M elson 1992). Indeed, by 1891 the sultan had begun organizing Kurdish tribes as param ili­ tary units that would fight against the Arm enians when necessary. From this point on, the Kurds, who were much m ore numerous than the Turks in the re­ gions, were going to become key actors in clashes am ong civilians.5 The sultan’s anti-Arm enian policies, including the 1894-96 m assacres, did not sever all relations between Turks and Arm enians because Abdulham id tar­ geted not only Arm enians but also any group that challenged the governm ent Indeed, this shared victim ization built both a political alliance and an effective tie between Arm enian nationalists and the constitutionalist Turkish national­ ists, namely, the Young Turks (Suny 2001). The autocratic regim e o f Abdulham id was overthrown by the CUP (Committee o f Union and Progress) in 1908, a political move that led to a constitutional monarchy that was enthusiastically welcom ed by Arm enians, who found in the W estern-educated Young Turks true allies and hoped that the new regim e would bring freedom and equality to Christian subjects.6 Iron­ ically, the year 1909 was marked by another series o f m assacres in which the involvem ent o f the Young Turks is questionable. These events occurred right after the M arch 31 uprising, when religious groups supported by Sultan Ab­ dulham id rebelled against secularist and nationalist Young Turk rule. This tem poral overlap between the uprising and the massacres focused the atten­ tion on Abdulham id (Zürcher 1998). However, some Arm enians suspected that CUP sym pathizers were also involved in the killings. The good relations between Arm enians (specifically, the m ain nationalist party, the Dashnaks)

5. To the degree that Turkish accounts accept that Armenians were massacred throughout the crises, they lay all the blame on these Kurdish tribes. The Armenian accounts, however, un­ derline civil and official Turkish as well as Kurdish involvement in the massacres. 6. The more nationalist and authoritarian wing o f the Young Turks (Ottoman intellectuals who had received W estern education and defended far-reaching W esternizing reform s) were or­ ganized in the Committee o f Union and Progress, which was to stay in power between 1908 and 1918.

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and the CUP members were not harm ed;7 this situation continued more or less without tension until 1915, despite increasing pressure from some Kur­ dish tribes on the Arm enians and the intensifying authoritarianism o f the CUP. Significantly, the Dashnaks supported the O ttoman state during the conscriptions for the world w ar in 1914 (Suny 2001). Even though the Arm enian and Turkish narratives regarding 1908-9 are not utterly different, those concerning the attitudes and actions o f the O t­ tomans and the Dashnaks im m ediately before and during World War I are sharply at odds. The Turkish thesis claim s that the Arm enian support during 1913 and 1914 was a façade and the Arm enians’ real intention was to obtain Ottoman weapons and join the Russian arm y (Shaw and Shaw 1977).8 A c­ cording to this thesis, the Ottoman state, which was then controlled by the Young Turks, was forced to deport the Arm enian population, which had the potential o f backing up the D ashnaks, in order to prevent large-scale rebel­ lions and secession (Lewis 1968,356). In response, the A rm enian side asserts that the D ashnak demanded only autonomy, that it did not carry out any activ­ ities in favor o f independence, and that the 1914-15 rebellions attributed to the A rm enian people never took place (M elson 1992). * W ho ordered the m assacres, and for what purpose, rem ains unclear. There is a m ajor diplom atic controversy between the Turkish and Arm enian governm ents about the degree to which the Ottoman state (its high officials, its secret service, its m inisters, and its ruling party) was directly responsible for the m assacres. Also, it is still hotly contested whether the massacres were in­ tended to exterm inate or sim ply relocate the Arm enian population who in­ habited the lands o f the empire. Likewise, the estim ates concerning the 7. By the time o f the m ajor m assacres o f 1915, the Dashnaks were the prim ary political or­ ganization w ithin the Arm enian population. They had replaced in efficacy first the local soci­ eties that were influential until the 1870s and 1880s (Halaçoğlu 2002; Hovannisian 1967), and then the socialist-oriented Hnchaks that were popular in the 1890s. In 1914, groups such as Hnchaks, Hunchakak Vergazmiyal, and Ramgavar Committees were still operating, though only under the shadow o f the powerful Dashnaks. 8. This part o f the Turkish thesis has become an official position, as attested by the procla­ mation o f the Speaker o f the Turkish Parliam ent that the Dashnaks had openly sided w ith the Russians as soon as die latter declared war on the Ottoman Empire (İzgi 2001).

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number o f people killed during the events ranges from two hundred thou­ sand in official Turkish accounts to one and a half m illion İn some Armenian accounts.

Claims of Authenticity In a field loaded with so much controversy, memoirs w ritten by survivors gain immense political significance. The proponents o f the Arm enian thesis resort to survivor memoirs to fill in the gaps in historiography or to consolidate its credibility.910 M oreover, the memoirs are held up as proofs equivalent to archives, trials, and historiography (M elson 1992,150). For exam ple, the in­ troduction to a series o f survivor memoirs com piled by the Zoryan Institute for Contem porary Arm enian Research and Docum entation presents the memoirs as “experiences by Arm enians who witnessed the Genocide” (Yervant 1988, iv).'° Introductions to other memoirs make the same claim . The aim o f the analyses below is neither to discredit nor to substantiate these memoirs and claim s but rather to show the techniques and processes o f mem­ ory construction. The em phasis on authenticity has a direct political m eaning, since the memoirs give hints about the organization o f the m assacres. In order to estab­ lish that the massacres were genocide, the Arm enian thesis must demonstrate that people unrelated in time suffered the same experiences. This would prove that the violence was coordinated centrally and that central O ttoman institu­ tions and officials had a direct responsibility. In m ost o f the memoirs, there is a fixed sequence that starts with the forced conscription o f m ales,11 followed by their disarm am ent and consequent murder, then the murder o f the remain­ 9. Participant and survivor accounts have been used in sim ilar fashion in the reconstruc­ tion o f most other traum atic events (wars, the H olocaust, revolutions, etc.). 10. The Zoryan Institute is “devoted to the docum entation, study, and dissem ination of m aterial related to the life o f the Armenian people” (www.zoryaninstitute.org). 11. This claim contradicts historical writings showing that the party with the m ost influ­ ence over Armenians, the Dashnaks, supported and encouraged conscription into the Ottoman arm y (Suny 2001). It also casts doubt on the rest o f the memoirs and increases the likelihood that some o f the recollections that are repeated in various memoirs are outcomes o f collective reconstruction.

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ing m ales, and finally the deportations o f women and children, w ith journeys on foot characterized by theft, rape, and murder. M ost im portant for the A r­ menian thesis is that this unchanging sequence is encountered not only in the w ritten memoirs analyzed here but also in oral history studies (M iller and M iller 1993).12 Arm enian historiographers use these accounts as solid proof that the massacres were highly coordinated. Publishers use different techniques to reinforce a sense o f authenticity. In m ost o f the introductions or prefaces, the authenticity associated with the word “experience” is reinforced through reference to the innocence o f child­ hood. For instance, the preface to The Urchin—a mem oir taken to be an im ­ portant source by Arm enians in Am erica— makes im plicit reference to the w idely held belief about the purity o f children by arguing that the “detach­ ment” o f a little boy makes “objectivity” possible. This does not mean that the events a person experiences as an adult are ruled out from this discursive space. W hen an adult memoir is in question, the person or institution who presents the mem oir attem pts to make its claim to truth stronger by pointing out that the memories o f an adult are not subject to the same kind o f distor­ tion and suggestibility to which memories o f childhood are prone (Sakayan 1997, xix).13Still, the innocence attributed to childhood is in sharp contrast to, for exam ple, the accounts com ing from statesm en. The latter constitute an im portant portion o f the m aterial put on the table by the Turkish side. The reader is inclined to read these accounts with a suspension o f belief w ithout necessarily being aware o f it. This contrast is intensified as childhood mem­ oirs put em phasis on vivid recollections o f everyday details and on sensory m aterial. These all together make the memoirs more natural and everyday. In academ ic and diplom atic fields, memoirs o f the 1915 massacres are 12. The greatest m ethodological problem here is the relation between history and mem­ ory: the production o f memory can be understood only when its relation with the production o f history (with which it is in constant interaction) is taken into account. The unchanging se­ quence seen in the memoirs under analysis is also put into circulation by Armenian historiogra­ phy. Hence, the unfailing repetition o f the event sequence in every written memoir might not be as straightforward a proof as it m ight seem. 13. Suggestibility is an issue that creates problems not only in the remembrance of m acropolitical violence but also in the recall o f individual cases such as forced incest. See Ceci and L ofais (1994); and Lindsay and Read (1994).

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likewise reduced to function as the raw m aterial for a political struggle based on claim s to truth. The memoirs are read either as documents expressing the truth or as fabricated stories. Instead o f trying to untie this knot and prove in a positive m anner which o f the remembrances are real and which made up, this essay exam ines the acts o f rem em bering and the memoirs they create from an interpretive angle. W ithout rejecting the political and ethical impor­ tance o f the debate about the truth o f the Arm enian genocide and the indis­ pensable place o f memoirs in this struggle, it must be em phasized that memoirs are not only factual docum ents; they also construct meaning. The re­ m ainder o f this essay analyzes the ways in which memoirs construct Armen­ ian nationality.

Utopia, Nostalgia, and Violence W hat is the cultural-political and cultural-psychological m eaning o f remem­ bering? W hy do victim s o f violence insist on rem em bering moments that are so painful for them? W hat are the cultural results o f such rem em bering? Ana­ lysts o f the Arm enian massacres have already pointed out the im portance re­ mem bering has for psychological survival since it settles accounts w ith the past and m aintains the social unity o f the survivors (Hovannisian 1998; Shirinian 1998). O thers (M iller and M iller 1993,161) em phasize how remembrance saves Arm enian culture from disintegrating. A ll these authors assum e that an Arm enian nation m eaningful in its totality already existed before the mas­ sacres and that memoirs sim ply reproduce this already existing unit. The next section exam ines the validity o f this assumption.

Violence as Destructive of Lost Community The w ay in which life before violence is nostalgically remembered gives some idea about how m em ory shapes national identity. Survivors rem em ber the way o f life before the violence in a very favorable light. There was peace and the land was fertile, everything was natural and spontaneous, people were united, and hard working (Ketchian 1988,6). Individual details enrich this portrayal further. For exam ple, a female survivor remembers the E aster just before one o f the m assacres, and her prospect o f going to a European school (M ardigan-

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ian 1 990,8-9). M em ory is doubled in its effect by the introduction o f history: Tarsus and U rfa, cities w ith thousands o f years o f a history rich in philosophy and art, were home to Arm enians (Yernazian 199 0,20 -21 ,3 5-3 9). The remembrance o f a place one has left usually involves memories o f re­ lations, plenitude, and authenticity (pertaining to that place). Scholars argue that all o f the above are the constructs o f nostalgia as afflicted and im aginative mem ory (Robertson 1991,13—37; Casey 1987). The same kind o f remember­ ing is at work in the memoirs analyzed here. W hat is specific to survivor mem­ oirs is that the authors desert their place o f origin because o f mass violence. The tim e and place o f perfection are disturbed, indeed, forever destroyed by violence. Even before the violence itself arrives, the news o f it, com ing from neighboring villages and towns, shatters the picture o f happiness. Jam es Sutherland, one o f the survivors, remembers the day when the first news o f violence reached them: “This was the end. Not only the end o f the school year, but it was the end o f the school and everything. The school [from] which I had never m issed a d a y . . . was closed forever.. . . The memory o f the beauti­ ful city, the taste o f the w ater and sm ell o f the fresh air w ill never leave my mem­ ory as long as I live” (Sutherland 1964,109—10; emphasis added). The use o f intense sensory memory refers readers to a previolent state o f affairs İn all its regularity and comprehensibility. D uring the deportations, the known world disappears altogether, and the elem ents generally excluded from the recognized flow o f daily life— such as death and excretion—become the order o f the day. People start to live side by side w ith corpses and human w aste, sometimes degrading them selves to the degree o f searching for money in the bowels o f dead people or in the bodily waste surrounding them (Bedoukian 1 9 7 8,14 ,1 9,29 ). For exam ple, a m other gets so frantic about the gold her son has lost, which they were going to use for finding food, that she cares no longer for the life o f her beloved son who faces death at that moment (24—25). In short, during the massacres the world turns upside down, a diabol­ ical carnival reverses the states o f life and death.

Violence as Constitutive of Community Taking such drastic massacres and their painful memories as factors that have played into constituting the Arm enian nation m ight seem a little awkward at

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first sight. Yet, Gyan Pandey (1998,44) has shown that while violence disturbs the known world o f the victim and a particular sense o f being in the world, at another level violence forms the previolence universe and defines commu­ nity.14The previolence condition o f Arm enians illustrates how this is also the case with Arm enian national identity. The Armenians o f the empire did not comprise a single and united community. Even though they had some sense of affiliation due to a shared language, the lives o f the Arm enians o f the capital and those o f the provinces were unrelated. W hile some Armenians were ordi­ nary peasants, others were prom inent merchants, artisans, traders, and inter­ preters (Hovannisian 1967). Furtherm ore, this Christian population was marked by the prominence o f sects that sometimes tended to separate them­ selves behind thick walls. By the end o f the nineteenth century, Armenians were divided into four churches (Halaçoğlu 2002). Despite these differences, it is only in one instance within hundreds of pages o f memoirs that we get a feeling that any significant tensions existed among Armenians. However, the one instance is poignant and inform ative: a Protestant male remembers that when he was a child, he and others used to fight Catholic Arm enians o f their city with stones and sticks. In one o f these fights, in which even the bishops participated, the narrator risked death (Sutherland 1964,33). Yet, this past full o f tension and division is rarely men­ tioned. The outsiders’ violence, and the memory o f that violence, unites the Arm enian people, dispersed by class, location, and sect, into a nation. The constitutive functions o f violence (and the remembrance o f vio­ lence) are best demonstrated in the collective signification o f individual mem­ ories. Remembering the massacres becomes central in the affirm ation and reproduction o f individual identity as Arm enian. For exam ple, in one o f the memoirs, the mother o f an Arm enian boy tells him that if he forgets what was done to his father (assassination by torture), he w ill lose him self—that is, his true self as an Armenian (Aved 1979,104). In other words, forgetting the mas­ sacres im plies opting out o f his Arm enian identity and, when considered at the collective level, would mean the annihilation o f Arm enian-ness altogether. In sum, as Pandey (2001) asserts, violence constitutes community, or, as 14.

Pandey has developed this thesis in his work on the remembrance o f violence experi­

enced during Muslim-Hindu dashes in India.

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dem onstrated in this essay, the remembrance o f violence forms the imagined community o f Armenians in the American diaspora.

America as Future Utopia In memoirs written by Arm enians who have setded in the United States, the process o f com ing to and settling in the New World occupies a central place. Survivors remember Am erica as being the aspiration o f all those Armenians who found themselves in the m idst o f the m assacres.'5 America is alm ost never represented as a contingent destination to which the narrator is drawn under the pressure o f events. Survivors also picture America as a stainless whole. In addition to being a haven o f freedom, America was also the cure for pain. For example, a survivor relates how, once he had disem barked from the ship and stepped on American soil, the lice he had been carrying around since the days o f terror were extinguished for good (Sutherland 1964,220). Amer­ ica is remembered also as the promise o f peace and happiness that kept the victim s psychologically alive during the days o f violence (M ardiganian 1990, 91). Tenacious, persevering men o f the community naturally ended up in Am erica, which was im agined as the land o f money and work (Sutherland 1964,45). W hen we keep in mind that these memoirs are being written in English for an American audience and are distributed by institutions dedicated to the Arm enian cause, we could think that reproducing the American dream in a lit­ erally ornam ented way is nothing but a strategy for getting the support o f Americans. In this case, we would be led to read the memory o f the im agina­ tion o f America as a flat, purposive memory that has nothing to do with the past. Although this purpose might have incited the grandiose and exaggerated portrayal o f the United States (and the hopes invested in it even before having arrived on the new continent), a focused study o f the depiction o f America conveys another dim ension o f utopian-nostalgic memory. W hen things are15 15.

Only in Bertha Ketchian’s memoir is America realistically portrayed, as a safe place

where the survivor’s father is and also as a natural endpoint when it is no longer possible to re­ turn home. Unlike others, the new country is not romanticized (Ketchian 1988,89-90,137).

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going w ell for the narrators, neither the nostalgic Arm enia nor the utopian Am erica is mentioned. For instance, a male survivor who describes in his memoir his successful post-1915 life in Istanbul talks about neither the lost heaven nor the promised heaven (Aved 1979). Both come into his story at points where there is a lot o f pain and violence, or the threat o f violence. In these instances, the senses o f the past and the future are so enlarged that they swallow the present. Then, because o f the im possibility o f returning to the past (of even im agining the return to it), all the positive aspects o f the past utopia are displaced onto the future utopia. A sim ilar displacem ent is frequendy seen in the memoirs o f Arm enians who have setded in the United States. For example, Leon Surm elian tells how, after all his lonely days in the United States, he found “home” again while staying with and working for an American family: “For the first time in Am erica, I did not feel a stranger. I had discovered the earth I had lost, the stars and the moon o f my childhood: my exile was o v er.. . . I was not only thoroughly Am ericanized, but, paradoxical as it may seem , was my Old World self again” (Surm elian 1945,301—3). As can be seen in this excerpt, the exaltation o f Am erica by the Armeni­ ans im plies much more than the reproduction o f the Am erican dream. Amer­ ica symbolizes the revitalization o f the old self destroyed by violence. The New World is the new homeland for the national m etanarrative founded upon the remembrance o f violence. Am erica, beyond being m erely a psychological refuge, is the reembodiment o f the obliterated old land. The utopian con­ struction o f Am erica, which has now become the new fatherland o f Arm eni­ ans who have survived the massacres, is as im portant an elem ent in the im agination o f the nation as the nostalgic remembering o f the lost lands. Vio­ lence plays an indispensable role in both nostalgic and utopian longing, and in their lived experience as such intense feelings.

National Discourse and the Remembrance of Violence Recalling the O ther is as vital to the form ation o f the im agined community as recalling violence. This section addresses the “rules o f form ation” in remem­ bering the perpetrators o f the massacres. According to M ichel Foucault (1972), rules o f form ation are the conditions o f existence for objects, con­

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cepts, and themes w ithin a discourse.16 Rules o f form ation also organize the conditions o f emergence o f an object (such as nation, in this case), the form in which its boundaries are drawn, and its relations with other objects. According to Foucault, an object constituted by a discursive form ation and its relation to other objects are independent from the reality that exists before discourse. The form o f an object, its content, its boundaries, and the plane on which it em erges become concrete only in discourse. In this essay, rules o f form ation refers to the rules that organize who can be remembered as guilty and who can be exempted as innocent in memoirs o f Arm enians.17 N ational discourse leads to the form ation o f objects with exclusive reference to the idea o f na­ tional collectivities, regardless o f the concrete subjects that are involved in the massacres. That is, the rules o f form ation attribute guilt and innocence with respect to national belonging. D espite the internal divisions w ithin the Ottoman Empire, the memoirs at hand construct the perpetrators and the uninvolved in national terms. Sur­ vivor memoirs, or the introductions that package and frame them, frequently em phasize that it is the ‘T urkish nation” that has massacred the Armenians (Bedoukian 1978, preface). Indeed, “the brutal Turks . . . had always planned . . . to kill and finish o ff the Arm enians for good” (Ketchian 1988,147). This eternal evil plan is one common theme encountered through m ost memoirs (e.g., Yernazian 1990, 43). According to one narrative, Turks would not be content until they killed all Arm enians (Bedoukian 1978,143—44). This gener­ alization is claim ed to be firm ly rooted in collective memory, “the continuing saga o f generations”: “Parents would rep eat. . . at dinner or when rem inisc­ ing w ith their many guests” that the Turks have inflicted many pains upon the Arm enians and that they always w ill (Ketchian 1988,3). The O ther is occasionally constructed as religiously or econom ically dif­ ferent (e.g., the violators as M uslim, or as poor and nomadic). N evertheless, these alternative constructions are always translated back into national lan­ guage, and specific class positions and religious affiliations become the attrib­

16. Foucault identifies these elements as objects, concepts, techniques, and ideologies/theories. 17. Julie Taylor (1994) carries out a sim ilar Foucaultian analysis using the concept regimes o f truth.

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utes o f specific nationalities. Thus, M ardiganian, a female survivor, addresses the American reader: “I sometimes fear Americans think o f us as a nomad people, or as people o f a lower class” (1990,86). Interestingly, survivors con­ sistently picture Turks and Kurds as nomads or poor in alm ost all o f these memoirs. Yet, they picture all Armenians as artisans, merchants, or otherwise rich. The class distinctions within both the Arm enian and Turkish communi­ ties are ignored.18In sum, class or occupation becomes a metaphor for nation. N ational discourse, a discourse that leads to the form ation o f objects (in our case, the agental units o f memory) with reference to the idea o f nation as a collectivity o f people sharing certain characteristics, does allow for excep­ tions.19But with what lim itations do the Arm enians remember actors in non­ national term s? In most o f the memoirs, Turks and Kurds who oppose the massacres and who even try to save at least some Arm enians from the blood­ shed are central actors. Incidents like a Turk saving an Arm enian girl from being beaten to death (Ketchian 1988,32), fam ily friends wanting to hide and save all the members o f the neighboring Arm enian fam ily (Yervant 1988,13; Sutherland 1964,17—18), or a Circassian captain striving to save a whole vil­ lage under threat (Yernazian 1990,9) occupy an im portant affective place in the memoirs. On the other hand, in m ost o f the manuscripts, these anecdotes are handled with interpretations that w ill not harm a point o f view that re­ duces everything to national essences. In one o f the memoirs, the Kurds help and save some Armenians only be­ cause o f greed: they get money in return (Aved 1979,64—65). Sim ilarly, in an­ other account, a group o f Turks help, but the narrator remembers thinking that “o f course there was a catch somewhere,” for “anything involving Turks w ill have one” (M ardiganian 1990,123). Men who show some concern for the pains o f the Armenians are thought to be o f partially Arm enian blood (Aved 1979,81; Ketchian 1988,38). Turks save as many Arm enians as they can after the m assacres because they need someone to exploit; after all, they are lazy and

18. There were ordinary farmers, and even highlanders, among the Armenians, as well as artisans and merchants (Feigl 1987,46-47). 19. As scholars o f nationalism have shown (e.g., Brubaker 1996), which characteristics will be emphasized within a set o f possible shared attributes (such as language, religion, and region o f origin) is a m atter o f events and political strategies.

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cannot produce their own goods (Yernazian 1990,10). W hen no recourse is made to such totalizing explanations and good intentions o f Kurds and Turks are recognized as that, the sources o f virtue and good action are always re­ membered as individuals, and their remembrance modifies neither the im age o f the Turk nor that o f the Kurd. This pattern seems to form the boundaries o f the flexibility o f national discourse: the massacres are the deeds o f the (oppo­ nent) nation; the civil behavior belongs to the individuals. Nevertheless, there are points at which the arbitrariness o f national discourse becomes apparent, as is the case with all discursive formations.

Beyond National Discourse The fragility o f national discourse becomes clearest when collective units other than the nation emerge in the memoirs, disturbing the totalizing urge in the depiction o f the Other. Some o f the memoirs do contain hints that there were (organized or unorganized) collectivities that helped Arm enians, or at least sympathized with them. D uring the deportations, some Arm enian girls were sold in slave markets. A survivor girl writes that “the ones who were bought by the farmers were destined to work in the fields, and they were the most fortunate, for sometimes the Turkish farm er is kind and gentle” (M ardiganian 1990, 50). In another account, when the Arm enians are being de­ ported, they come across a group o f farmers. The farmers bow their heads and say “nt, nt, nt,” a gesture and an exclamation that act together to show dis­ approval (Surm elian 1945,86). In yet another one, a survivor describes a scene where he enters a city together with a group o f other Armenians who have survived all the events, where the inhabitants o f the city gather and display signs o f disapproval and pity (Bedoukian 1978,56). Still, the remembered collectivities are unspecified (the farm ers o f an un­ known village) or restricted (as som e farmers, som e inhabitants o f the city). The only specified collectivity that helped the Armenians is the Kurdish Alevis o f Dersim.20 D ersim , the only region where the heterodox Kurdish A levi minor­ ity prevails over the ethnic and sectarian m ajority o f Anatolia, was character­ 20.

The Turkish thesis develops a totally different position regarding the role o f the Der­

sim Kurds, blaming them for most o f the civilian clashes (Halaçoğlu 2002).

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ized by periodic peasant resistance against the em pire, which m anifested itself in the case o f the Arm enian massacres as a collective w ill to protect the Arm e­ nians. In the memoirs, even the helpfulness o f the Dersim Kurds is men­ tioned in a roundabout m anner and by way o f im plication, as for example when Dersim is recalled as a safe place where Arm enians sought refuge (Ketchian 1988,104), at a time when all people who helped Arm enians were being persecuted. There is only one instance in one memoir when Dersim Kurds are remembered explicidy as a helpful collectivity (M ardiganian 1990, 168): Beyond these hills was the great Dersim___ The inhabitants o f the Dersim deserts and wastes are not the vicious type o f Kurds who live in the south in the regions to which we had been deported from our homes. The Kurds in the south are nomadic tribes, harsh and cruel. The Dersim Kurds are mosdy farmers, and often rebel against their Turkish overlords. They are fanatical Moslems and have their racial hatred o f all “unbelievers,” as they look upon Christians. But they do not have the lust for killing human beings common in the tribes o f the south. To this I owe my life.

N ational discourse has excluded memories that involve actors other than those specified by the dom inant rules o f formation. Yet even here— the mis­ understandings that mark even such positive remembrances aside— the dif­ ferential stance o f the Dersim population is neutralized and made to fit national discourse through speculations about its Christian and non-Kurdish roots. This suspect attribution is more common when Dersim is discussed in more form al (diplom atic or academic) texts. D espite all these exclusions, the emergence in m emory o f rare helpful collectivities such as farm ers, urbanites, or Alevi Kurds frustrates the totalizing urge o f national discourse and unrav­ els the constructed unity, thanks to the recognition o f variation in the Other.

Violence and the Collapse of Meaning Memoirs play a role in m aking the construction o f the nation possible through “remembering” violence, the lost heaven, the longing for the future utopia

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and the Other. Handling survivor memoirs only in term s o f the construction o f the nation and o f the Other, however, would lead to a conclusion that there is indeed no difference between national historiography and the memory shaped by that historiography. Partially valid though this judgment may be, re­ ducing memory to a mere tool o f politics and history would be sim plistic. Cer­ tain elem ents in memoirs themselves disrupt m eaning in construction; m em ory is different from history in the way that it erodes the very meaning that history is trying to establish. This difference creates difficulties for the im agination o f the nation. In m ost o f the memoirs, the past and the future are perfectly reconciled by transform ing America into a second Arm enia; in others, though, there is no easy way o f preserving both past and future utopias. In David Kherdian’s ac­ count, which is more focused on adapting to the future world than reviving the lost Arm enian heaven, the massacres are openly mentioned only once in the entire book. They are brought up during the description o f a conversation am ong fam ily members, where the discussion is cut short by one member o f the family: “This story has no end” (Kherdian 1981,181-82). In this memoir, a happy future becomes possible only at the cost o f forgetting the past and losing it totally.21 Unlike David Kherdian’s memoir, most survivor accounts o f the New World are disrupted by the past and by violence. In memoirs marked with the w ill and the determ ination to grapple with the past, the memory o f violence shatters both the past and the present, and makes harmony between them im ­ possible. For example, M ardiganian’s recall o f the moment when her brother and mother died forms an inseparable part o f her perception o f the present: “Both mother and Hovnan died with their eyes turned to me, looking into mine! M y eyes see them now, every day and every night— every hour, al­ most—when I look into the new world” (M ardiganian 1990,161). Some scholars have noted that sensory memory is potentially disruptive o f the unity and totality o f narrative memory (Leys 1996; Seremetakis 1994;

21.

This memoir is the second book o f a series, where the first book is tided

Ijosing Home

and the second Finding Home. The difference between the first and the second books is that the lost home is not revived in the second, for it is too painful to be incorporated.

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Young 1996).22 The sensory memory o f violence, in the case o f the A rm eni­ ans, disturbs the past, the present, and the future and prevents their smooth articulation in a narrative o f losing home and finding it again somewhere else. This destructive dim ension o f memory makes functional explanations o f the act o f remem bering even more problematic. Fernando Coronil and Julie Skurski (1991) argue that memory cannot be reduced to function and that its link with the construction o f social m eaning is more central than its instru­ mentality. The memoirs analyzed here demonstrate that memories are crucial also in moments when people fail to establish meaning. Alm ost all o f the memoirs, both those written by Armenian survivors and those written by Ot­ toman and Russian statesm en, try to give m eaning to the violence the other side has perpetrated. This rationalization o f remembered violence is neces­ sary in order to found or preserve a m eaningful symbolic universe. It draws at­ tention to the cultural-psychological im port o f the act o f remembering. In this context, the difference between the two types o f memoirs is quite re­ markable. The memoirs o f the statesm en, like the narratives o f historians, are m ostly consistent and successful in rationalization, whereas those o f the sur­ vivors display evident inconsistencies in rationalization. This difference casts doubt on the argument put forth by analysts o f memory that both the of­ fender and the offended repress painful memories and build secure lives in which they find peace (Levi 1986,23-36). W hen the rationalization o f violence is in question, one can see clear par­ allels between historiography and “official” memoirs (those o f men o f state). The Russian general M ayewski, who has been in the regions populated by Ar­ menians, observes that, since Arm enians were not oppressed in the villages he has visited, the cause o f Armenian rebellions must be “evil” foreign propa­ ganda (Mayewski 1916, 11). Armenians had made the Kurds suffer during these rebellions, and the Kurds took revenge when the circum stances were conducive (89—91). M ayewski’s memoir coincides with the Turkish thesis not only in term s o f its content (putting the blame on Arm enian organizations and the Kurds, rather than on the Turks and the general Armenian popula­ 22.

There are studies on memory that suggest that the sensory can also create harmony

and unity in some instances, while dissem inating disruption elsewhere (Kuhn 1995).

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tion), but also in its structure o f argumentation. The parallelism is especially apparent in the closure o f the text and in the definite m eaning attributed to vi­ olence. Erich Feigl, a historian who sympathizes with the Turkish state, devel­ ops a different strategy than that o f M ayewski in rationalizing the massacres by focusing more on the violence perform ed by Armenians. Since Armenians were incited by the Europeans to build a national, independent state on lands where they did not constitute the majority, they had no choice but to resort to violence, wiping out the Turks, and thereby becom ing the m ajority (Feigl 1987, 81-83). The m ajority o f Arm enians, by rem aining silent in the face o f crim es carried out by revolutionaries, deserved to be deported from the area (114-15). Survivor memoirs do not contradict Armenian historiography in topics such as the central coordination o f m assacres, their national character, and so on. Yet, when the rationalization o f violence is in question, not only is there no absolute coincidence with historiography, each memoir is hardly consistent and coherent within itself. D ifferent authors have different approaches con­ cerning the reasons for the massacres. One common conviction is that Turks always desired to persecute all Christians and “the Armenians knew [this] from past experience” (Yernazian 1990, 43; Ketchian 1988, 147). Another widespread opinion is that the M uslims were launching a holy war and punish­ ing those who believe in the Christian God instead o f Allah (M ardiganian 1990, 29, 74). Some believe that their community was being massacred be­ cause it was superior to the Turkish nation and the latter could not stand the apparent existence o f a superior community, or desired forced interm arriage so that its savage blood would be blended with some noble blood (Ketchian 1 988,11,38; M ardiganian 1990,157). Others attributed the violence to a de­ sire for “tasting blood,” and acquiring easy wealth, and com pensating for at­ tacks the Turks suffered from Christian states (Sutherland 1964, 54-56). In other instances narrators make sense o f it all by referring to the teachings o f the Q ur’an or the place o f violence in M uslim tradition (Sutherland 1964,2; Aved 1979, 62). Apart from the racist tone in some o f these constructions, they do not fit the previolence constructions o f the accounts themselves, in which M uslims and Christians lived together in peace, the tolerance o f Islam being one o f the reasons for this peace (Sutherland 1964, xviii; Aved 1979).

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Although the memoirs swarm with rationalizations, none o f them provide a coherent narrative that exhibits a m eaningful continuity between the prem as­ sacre lives o f Arm enians and the massacres. This same sense o f previolence peace, which renders all rationalizations problem atic, leads to a shock and an accom panying inability to make sense o f the succeeding violence. M ost Arm enians remember that they were not ex­ pecting such an extensive massacre. A t each step o f the m assacres, they rea­ soned that this was as bad as it could get and that the Turks would not engage in anything worse. According to M ardiganian (1990, 5), especially when the massacres o f 1915 started, no one could believe it, since, unlike the massacres o f 1894—96, before which some Armenians had resisted paying taxes, Arm e­ nians had been giving full support to the governm ent and the army. When news o f massacres started to come from other villages, they heard it, talked about it, but did not believe it (Bedoukian 1978,9). W hen violence hit home, it made no sense (17). N either the reasons behind the cruel deeds nor the moti­ vations behind the attempts o f some Turks to stop them made sense (Suther­ land 1964, 146-48). According to the memoirs, after a certain point the victim s started to accept the im possibility o f rationalizing violence and the people in deportation convoys stopped fearing, wondering, and crying. They submitted to what they perceived to be their fate.

History and Memory How should this difference between survivor memoirs and history or official memoirs in the handling o f violence be interpreted? Even though scholars have questioned the contrasting o f memory and history on the basis o f the supposed naturalness o f the form er and the culturally constructed nature o f the latter (Davis and Starn 1989), an opposition founded on sim ilar bases shows up in m ost o f the recent literature. For example, Pierre N ora (1989) proposes that a new kind o f memory, les lieux de memoir, has taken the place of “natural memory,” which history has eradicated. This new memory is still out­ side history, but it is open to the manipulation o f history. For those who want to preserve a more classical form o f this opposition (Crane 1997; Samuel 1994), collective memory is an oral revival o f the past based on lived experi­ ence, whereas history is an artificial and written observation o f the past.

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W hen historical truth is in question, the opposition set up between his­ tory and memory does not seem to hold. M emories do not make sense by them selves: they gain m eaning only when framed by history. In many o f the memoirs analyzed here, sections or chapters start with inform ation on the city or village o f the survivor (such as its two-thousand-year-old history, its popu­ lation distribution, etc.) that could only be reached through official means. Even the experienced violence is packaged with historical narrative, which links the moves made by some local official to the balance o f forces in the Ot­ toman capital and on the world scene. The tight relation between memory and history goes beyond the constant exchange between memory and history. Anastasia K arakasidou (1997), one o f the m any scholars who draws attention to this exchange, states that historians make use o f memories while narrators o f memory are influenced by written history. Yet, like other scholars who speak o f the history-m em ory binary, she assumes that history and memory are two separate entities. However, the de­ term ination o f the param eters o f memory by history, their com plicity in the same (national) rules o f form ation, and their critical place in the construction o f community, force us to consider the possibility that memory and history are different vectors within the same discursive-strategic plane. H istory and memory are two modes o f remembering that are situated in national dis­ course. They in turn naturalize national discourse and play into the constitu­ tion o f national identity. Given this tight kinship between memory and history, could there be any reason for differentiating one from the other? Although history and memory are vectors o f the same plane, there is a sm all but very im portant divergence in their modes o f operation. W hereas history can incorporate and rationalize vi­ olence in a fairly smooth manner, memory does not prevent the irrationality in violence from em erging at the margins o f discourse. Gyan Pandey argues that nonstate mass violence is incomprehensible and cannot be incorporated into the narration o f m odernity and nation. Consequently, nonstate violence, as opposed to state violence, which can be subsumed under the ideal o f Progress, is never signified within historical w riting but exists in all its bareness in m em ories (Pandey 1997,6). W hen the Arm enian massacres are in question, the opposition Pandey sets up between state and nonstate violence is dis­ solved by the case itself, due to the difficulty in telling the exact institutional

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and actotial source o f violence. The distinction encountered in the case at hand is not the one between state and nonstate violence but rather the differ­ ence between signifiable and nonsignifiable violence (Daniel 1996). W hereas history and official memory successfully exclude the nonsignifiable dimension o f violence and close meaning, survivor memoirs expose this dimension willy-nilly. Sensory m aterials, which generally have no place in the w riting o f history, keep alive the nightmare o f m eaninglessness in the memories o f the sur­ vivors. The power o f memory to disrupt established m eaning comes partially from this sensory dimension. Although some revisionist historiographers question m etanarratives, cause-effect relations, and totalistic-m eaning struc­ tures, they recommend other mechanisms that would account for chains of events. Even genealogy (Foucault 1984) and subaltern studies (Guha 1988), which are based on the criticism o f positivist and narrativist philosophies of history, share with traditional historiography the aim o f m aking sense o f his­ tory by m aking events signifiable. Memory, however, carries the nonsignifiable part o f life, and especially o f violence, in its artery.

Conclusion This essay analyzes the cultural-political and cultural-psychological aspects of a mass violence that has deeply influenced the lives o f m illions o f people. By analyzing survivor memoirs that lay bare the political nature o f remembering, we can see how a specific discursive form ation shapes remembering and how memories thus structured play into the im agination and form ation o f na­ tion.23 N ational discourse, though, should not be reduced to nationalism as ideology. It is in fact national discourse itself that makes nationalism as an ide­ ology possible. For exam ple, the text o f Jam es Sutherland— one o f the sur­ vivors who is distinguished from the others in his distance from the nationalist Armenian party, Dashnak, and who emphasizes that, he is not a nationalist— 23.

This essay does not address the question o f whether the rules o f form ation have an ef­

fect only on the way memory is represented, or also on the ways in which people actually re­ member. The m aterial at hand is not enough to conclude whether national discourse shapes the psychological techniques o f memory.

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operates w ithin the same national discourse as the other texts studied İn this essay. Yet, he too remembers in term s o f the “nation.” Indeed, one need not be a nationalist to be speaking from within national discourse. The memoirs o f survivors and statesm en analyzed here are firm ly situ­ ated in a historical and political context. Yet, reading the m aterial at hand as a composite o f straightforward political statements would still be a mistake. In mem ory studies, there are prominent examples where memory is reduced to contestation and politics (Swedenburg 1995). The restrictions o f such reductionism become most obvious in discussions about nostalgia and utopia. A l­ though both types o f longing are liable to political or historical use, they have dimensions that cannot be made sense o f solely in instrum ental terms. These dim ensions, rendered ever the more evident by the sensory remembering o f violence, show that memory—which should not be seen as the O ther o f his­ tory or as counterhistory— comprises treasures unknown to history.

8 Polyphony and Geographic Kinship in Anatolia Framing the Turkish-Greek Compulsory Population Exchange Aslı Iğsız

How does one translate a past ordeal when the present context does not have the language or the vocabulary to articulate this event?1Roman Jakobson tells us that “an array o f linguistic signs is needed to introduce an unfam iliar word” in a new context (1987,429). This essay proposes to extend Jakobson’s argu­ ment regarding words to include unfam iliar concepts, such as national identity or despicable ordeals, and their introduction into new contexts. W ithin this framework, it analyzes how the experiences o f the Turkish-Greek population exchange o f the 1920s found a conduit for public expression in the 1990s.2 Two cultural institutions, Kalan M usic Productions and Beige Publishing Company, were instrum ental in that process, m aking the first identifiable ef­ forts to bring the experiences o f the 1920s population exhange into the public domain. U sing linguistic signs, they redefined the relationship between

1.1 would like to thank all the cultural professionals who were willing to talk to me on many occasions, and to scholars who answered my questions. Carol Bardenstein, Aslı Gür, Hasan Iğsız, Ayşe Iğsız, and Kader Konuk patiently read successive versions o f this paper and provided detailed comments. My greatest debt is to Esra Özyürek for her invaluable feedback and encouragem ent 2.

For practical reasons, I use the word culture in its narrow sense to refer to music, cinema,

and literature and their attributes. This is how the terms cultural sphere, culturalproductions, cultural professionals, cultural institutions, cultural establishments, cultural agncy, and culturalproducts should be read.

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“Greeks” and ‘T urks” as a “geographic kinship,” thus allowing a reconsidera­ tion o f the divisive national identities ascribed to each group.3 D ifferent sociopolitical contexts translate individuals and their roles dif­ ferently as nationals, subjects, citizens, comrades, caste members, colonized, minority, and so on, and thus determ ine an individual’s position vis-à-vis a rul­ ing power and to what extent he or she has access to a share o f power. W hile each o f these categories de facto sets the term s o f relationship among indi­ viduals, the categories also assign each individual a political role by positioning them as patriots or citizens. This, o f course, can be negotiated or redefined on an individual or collective basis, a process that, in this discussion o f cultural in­ stitutions, inform s the use o f the term agency to mean the act taken to retrans­ late individuals and their relationship to one another that goes beyond the official definitions o f the Self and the Others. In defining agency in this way, the goal is not to “reduce such acts’ meaning to the conscious intentions and deliberations o f individuals” in term s o f “re­ sistance” (Rapport and Overing 2003,2). Individual and collective positions and their interrelationships can be m ultiple and com plicated. Thus, consider­ ing those who do not “act” to consciously interrupt state-ascribed identities as “active participants o f the official discourse” would be too sim plistic. In this sense, it is crucial to be aware o f varying individual negotiations o f such as­ signed positions and to refrain from disregarding the less visible attempts to undo the state-imposed identificatory practices, such as the teaching o f offi­ cial history in schools, speaking o f a national language, and so on, because in­ dividuals have multiple ways to give m eaning to things around them. Considering these nuances, this essay identifies and illustrates a narrative strat­ egy used by cultural professionals4in Turkey to inscribe a new relationship be­

3. In identifying the discourse developed in frame narratives analyzed here, Aslı Gür’s no­ tion o f territorial kinship, explicated in chapter 3 o f this volume, has been inspiring. A lbeit d if­ ferent, geographic and territorial kinship are related to one another in the way they translate human-human and human-land relationships. 4. For practical reasons, I refer to the musicians, lyric w riters, music producers, authors o f literary works, translators, and publishers as cultural professionals. These are the human agents o f music and literature institutions who produced and circulated the works concerning the Turco-Greek coexistence in Anatolia.

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tween the past and present polyphonic Anatolians, a discursive bond that binds individuals across different ethnoreligious and ethnolinguistic attrib­ utes— such as “Greek” or “Turkish.” 5The fram ing narratives used to present the cultural products prepared by Beige and K alan soften the national con­ tours drawn around people. By relating people to each other through their ge­ ographic origin, they im aginatively reconsider and suggest expanding the official identificatory boundaries to embrace all peoples from all backgrounds.

Remembrance and Representation of Things Past The 1990s witnessed a growing interest in the past in Turkey, especially among the reading public (Neyzi 2002; Ö zyürek, this volum e).6 H istory became pop­ ular, in part as a result o f the efforts o f the H istory Foundation o f Turkey, founded in 1991, which aims to involve “ordinary people” in history w riting7 and “endeavors to help the Turkish people form a direct, truly comprehensive and noninstrum entalist relationship with their own history and to make the subject o f their own history a field for civic action.” 8 In addition, the emer­ gence o f three popular history periodicals, Tarih ve Toplum (H istory and Soci­

5. The term polyphony, originally used by M ikhail Bakhtin (1999), refers to a range and vari­ ety o f voices, perspectives, and meanings that deny single authorial control. In this essay, I use the word polyphonic to describe the m ultiple voices from past and present Anatolia that are ac­ cessible in the Turkish public domain, refuting both the single voice o f the state-im agined terri­ tory and the single voice o f the ethnolinguistic/ethnoreligious homogeneity affixed to the peoples in Turkey. 6. This statem ent is based on my personal observations o f the publishing industry in Turkey and interviews with professionals working for several publishing companies and major bookshops located in Istanbul and Ankara. 7. One example o f this is the history-writing competition among high school students or­ ganized by the H istory Foundation o f Turkey in Istanbul. Another example is the project guide published under the local-history rubric o f the H istory Foundation’s Web page, which defines its goal as “to take the curiosity o f locals who are curious about the history o f their city or neighborhood one step further and to guide them to join local history groups as actors.” For further inform ation see the foundation’s Web site, www.tarihvakfi.oig.tr. 8. Ibid.

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ety), Toplumsal Tarih (Social H istory),9 and Popüler Tarih (Popular H istory),10has m anifested a growing interest in the past over the last decade. Finally, there has been a salient increase in the consumption o f cultural products that convey collective and individual memory narratives in the form o f memoirs, oral his­ tory narratives or testim onials, and historical novels. An increased number o f books, movies, and music albums have reintroduced the Anatolian past into the Turkish present, bringing the stories o f past and present peoples o f Turkey to the here and now o f the Turkish public domain. Such products have raised retrospective questions about the present, in an attem pt to retrieve the hitherto publicly inarticulated stories and to take lessons for the future (Iğsız

2001). M ichel-Rolph Trouillot describes the vernacular use o f history as the facts and narratives o f both “what happened” and “that which is said to have happened.” The first m eaning places the emphasis on the sociohistorical process, while the second emphasizes knowledge o f that process or a story about that process (Trouillot 1995,2-3). The boundary between the two is not always clear, as Trouillot reckons. Yet, this statement is complicated when ap­ plied to official ideologies and the historiographies they sponsor. The ques­ tion o f “what happened” becomes problem atically synonymous with the official version o f “that which is said to have happened,” im plem enting a monophonic narrative o f the past. M onophonyis used to describe two phenom­ ena. First, it refers to the official single voice imposed on “that which is said to have happened,” not allowing alternative narratives to circulate and raise the question, “W hat (else) may have happened?” Second, it refers to the single voice o f the ethnolinguistic hom ogeneity affixed to the peoples o f the Turk­ ish nation-state territory.

9.

Toplum sal Tarih

(Social History) is a publication o f the H istory Foundation o f Turkey.

During my interview with the editor o f the journal, he told me that after the one-hundredth issue, in April 2002, they changed the form at by enhancing the visual quality and printing more pictures and shorter articles, and they gave the journal a more popular oudook. 10. Popüler Tarih (Popular History) is perhaps the m ost widely read journal in die market, incorporating ethnographic impressions o f journalists in their corpus in addition to historical research.

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U ntil recently, the w idest circulating historical account o f the transform a­ tion from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic was the official his­ tory, perhaps most visible in textbooks.11 On its Web site, the H istory Foundation describes the Turkish history education model as “self-praising, isolationist, denying different identities and disregarding the history o f Ana­ tolia.” Esra D anacıoğlu discusses why official Turkish history w riters disre­ gard local identities and how Anatolia became the territory for constructing the hom ogenizing Turkish national identity (2001,11—12). She argues that in Turkey the “motherland” is considered sacred, and local (interpretations of) identities are perceived as possible threats that challenge the hom ogeneity of the nation (12). D espite the hom ogenizing narrative o f the official history, cultural prod­ ucts have opened retrospective debates over past state practices and have em­ phasized local cultures in Anatolia in the 1990s. The influx in the production and consumption o f such products in the late 1990s and early 2000s manifests a growing tendency in remembering the past tragedies partly staged in Anato­ lia, such as the com pulsory Turkish-Greek population exchange o f the 1920s. D ocumenting and rem embering the past through cultural products, rewriting history, collecting mnemonic objects, and recording memory narratives has become a way to decipher silenced “facts” and to render the past polyphony of Anatolia in the public domain. This array o f representations, à la Jakobson, of the Greek-Turkish population exchange as an agony and Anatolians as kin through common geography, has invited the public in Turkey today to realize that there are m ultiple ways in which one could be attached to a land as w ell as a population. W hile the texts analyzed in this essay retranslate past and present Anatolians’ relationships as kinship, they reiterate the “cultural intim acy” (Herzfeld 1997) shared by people from the same region as geographic kinship. A brief historical overview o f the 1923 Greek-Turkish com pulsory popula­ tion exchange is necessary to provide a background for the cultural products analyzed in this essay.

11. 192-219).

For views o f Turkish youth about Turkish history education, see Tekeli (1998,

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Who Belongs Where? C atastrophe and victory are two opposing terms that remind the people in Greece and Turkey o f the 1922 Asia M inor War. M olded by n ationalist) his­ toriographies based on selectively voiced national archive documents, these term s shape the perception and collective memory repertoire around this same event differentlyin Greece and in Turkey. The 1923 Lausanne peace treaty deployed a com pulsory exchange o f populations between the two na­ tion-states, forcing the religiously defined m inorities to leave their homesteads and homeland. According to A rticle One o f the Convention o f Lausanne, as o f M ay 1,1923, “there shall take place a com pulsory exchange o f the Turkish nationals o f the Greek Orthodox religion established in Turkish territory, and the G reek nationals o f M uslim religion established in Greek territory.” The population exchange was negotiated internationally, ratified and executed by the League o f Nations in accordance with the Treaty o f Lausanne. It became the last step taken in the international arena toward homogenizing the Turkish Anatolian dem ography (Aktar 2000). However, many accounts o f the Greek-Turkish case (e.g., my interviews with first-, second-, and third-generation mubadik (exchanged peoples) in both Greece and Turkey, as w ell as novels) suggest that “homogenization” and the exchange o f populations was not as smooth a process as the two states’ offi­ cials had envisioned. The sim plified nationalist notion that equated Greek with Orthodox and Turkish with Muslim did not justly render the exchanged peoples’ experiences. The loss o f their homesteads and homeland was not the only ordeal the miibadik encountered; many were alienated by what they called the “natives” o f their “motherland” (M avrogordatos 1983; Yalçın 1998), the recipient country to which they were now supposedly being returned. M ubadik were exchanged based on their religious affiliation,12yet many did not speak the language o f their new motherland but instead that o f the region o f

12.

A Turkish term literally meaning “exchanged,” which is used to identify the people

who were subjected to the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, interestingly an­ choring identification not in a place, in belonging somewhere, or in an ethnic origin, but in a process: that o f the exchange.

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their geographic origin—that is, o f the particular place İn Greece or Turkey where each had been born and raised. Falling out o f tim e, feeling out o f context, unable to make sense o f the re­ cipient country’s realities, which itself was going through radical changes and reform s (see Ö zyürek’s introduction to this volum e), all speak to the ordeals some exchanged people experienced. Perhaps these are common experiences to most im m igrants or refugees, but what makes the case o f the miibadik so in­ teresting is the fact that they did not fit into the national-identity paradigm as­ cribed to them by Greek and Turkish nation-states. M any miibadik in Turkey who are now in their late eighties and nineties still identify themselves as “being from . . . ” and see their individual geographic origin as a m arker of their identity. How did the exchanged peoples negotiate the tensions between the iden­ tity imposed by their m other-state and self-identificatory practices, such as speaking a language, that were at times different from those o f their new country?13How did their experience mediate the category o f ethniäty and what other, if any, m etaethnic concepts did they resort to in interpreting their own identity? My research indicates that the geographic origin (Le., the homeland that was now taken away from them) and the memory o f it became central to the refugees’ self-identification (Iğsız 2001). D espite their religious or at times linguistic affiliations with their new home, many miibadik realized that they did not share what the anthropologist M ichael Herzfeld calls “cultural intimacy,” common frameworks o f memory beyond national and ethnic attributes (1997,13—14) or religion. Putting these experiences o f rupture at the center helps convey an indirect critique o f national identification practices. Anthropologist Carol D elaney (1991) argues that in Turkey, procreation is

13.

In many o f the interviews I held with m iibadik from both Greece and Turkey, the ques­

tion o f language came up, as their mother tongue was not always the same as the one spoken in the motherland. Some Muslims sent to Turkey did not speak a word o f Turkish or spoke it im­ properly, with an accent, and the same was also true for the Orthodox religion practitioners who did not speak Greek, m ainly the Karamanli (widely referred to as Turkish Orthodox, which fur­ ther com plicates the issue o f who belongs to which category). See M avrogordatos (1983); Yalçın (1998); and documentaries

To T axidi (The Journey;

Tale of Population Exchange; 2002).

1998), and

B ir M übadele Ö yküsü

(A

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conceptualized through the metaphors o f the seed and the soil: while the m other is perceived as the field, the father procures the seed.14 If the nation­ state is constructed by nationalist discourses as the father figure, then it is the paternalistic nation-state that provides citizenship to those who are born under his name. That is to say, it ascribes a national identity, translating indi­ viduals into nationals such as Greeks and Turks. In this symbolic framework, the soil is the common origin, the m other from which Anatolians are born even though they do not necessarily carry her name. The cultural products analyzed here also reflect an extension o f identifi­ cation based on connection with the soil, the place o f origin that gave birth to people who spoke different languages and practiced different religions. Hence, these products promote A natolia as a trope o f mother and retranslate individual Anatolians into geographic kin.

Cultural Politics and Geographic Kinship in Narrative Frames Cultural works are produced and circulated through institutions and their agents; their reception and interpretation are closely linked with the way in which these works are presented to their audience. M ieke Bal points out that “a text does not speak for itself” but rather, “we surround it, orfram e it before we let it speak at all” (2002,8; emphasis in original). It is the French narratologist Gérard Genette (1982) who coined the term paratex t in literature, turning the fram ing narratives into a powerful tool for (narrative) analysis. He studies auxiliary texts, which he calls paratext, such as the tide, the preface, or epi­ graph accom panying the main text. These shorter texts introduce, frame, and present a text, may lengthen and comment upon it, and ensure and affect its reception. Genette identifies two kinds o f paratexts, one located in the same volume as the main text and called peritext, the other, referring to all messages

14.

In a book review Leyla Neyzi criticizes Carol Delaney’s work because her “rigid inter­

pretation o f the ethnographic m aterial through the seed-soil metaphor and the accompanying theory o f procreation results in a highly coherent and seamless cultural system” (Neyzi 1994, 213). Although this might be true, the seed and the soil metaphor were inspiring in conceptual­ izing the discursive practices analyzed in this essay as “geographic kinship.”

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concerning the text, located outside o f the text itself and called epitext (such as interviews, news, etc.). W hile peritext is a com pelling tool for narrative analysis, it is also a neg­ lected one: most close readings in literary analysis deal with the content o f a book or text rather than how it is framed within the same volume o f the main text by the institution prom oting or printing i t On the other hand, epitexts, without being called as such, have received much attention from scholars studying “representation” and discourse analysis. Gérard Genette, in his later work Paratexts (1997), suggests that these fram ing narratives cannot be consid­ ered as paratexts unless they are in complete harm ony with the author’s inten­ tion. This discussion is o f secondary value for the purposes o f this essay because in fact, regardless o f whether a fram ing narrative is a paratext (epitext or peritext), it represents the main body o f a text. It is the institutional politics o f this representation (regardless o f the author) that reveals cultural agency and operates as a renegotiation o f the past in the public domain and a reiden­ tification o f individuals from the same geographic origin as kin.ls In the 1990s, two cultural institutions, Beige Publishing Company and Kalan M usic Productions, hosted and produced cultural works voicing the polyphonic Anatolian past. Interestingly, the names o f both cultural corpora­ tions speak to the archiving process: one documents literature, and the other one assem bles music collections that “remain.” ' 6

Marenostrum: From Our Sea to “Our” Anatolia In 1990, Beige Publishing Company initiated a new series, M arenostrum (Our Sea). The series opened with the following statem ent on the first page o f the first publication, Loksandra: Istanbul Düşür.

15. In some cases, a book’s content did not promote peace as much as die book cover sug­ gested. Although this is an interesting tension that needs to be addressed and studied, it is the subject o f another study; the lim its and the purposes o f this essay is to study institutional prac­ tices o f representation. 16. This is the Turkish language translation o f k alan.

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We are starting our new séries Marenostrum with Loksandra: The Istanbul Dream, written by the Istanbul-born Maria Yordanidou who lived in Batumi and Alexandria and died in November 1989 in Athens, at the age of ninetytwo. Marenostrum is a phrase in Latin: When the Romans took possession of the Mediterranean, they called it “our sea.” Today we say, “yes, our sea. But our sea belongs to all of us—it is in common to all of us, the Mediter­ raneans!” The sea where we all have our own share, where we fight, where we fall in love, where we die. The sea which ties us to each other with solid bonds, loaded with memories in common, and which shelters all enthusiasm and extremities. If we consider the Adriatic, the Aegean, the Marmara, and the Black Sea as part of this immense sea, then Maria Yordanidou is one of the writers who best represents this Mediterranean cosmopolitanism in her persona. Our series will host a real festivity of peoples fin this region]. Our jour­ ney began with Yordanidou in Istanbul and will continue with other authors from other port cities, islands, mountains by the sea; it will sometimes lead us to the Balkans, sometimes to the Caucasus. After a promenade in Egypt with Taha Hussein, Tevfik A1 Hakim, Nawal A1 Sadawi, we will find ourselves in the Durrdl’s Cyprus, Korfou, Kazancakis’ Crete, Henry Miller’s Greece, Sciascia’s Sicily, Pasolini’s Italy. Following our journey in Babel and Odyssea, we will return to Istanbul with Istrati, with Rum and Armenian storytellers.17 The Kurdish love story of Hüseyin Erdem will be followed by Sahar Khalifa’s Jerusalem. We will then navigate from Barcelona to the shores of sadness and mountain chains in Morocco. We will meet with the Yugoslav writer Danilo Kiş. While we discover the complex world of Lebanon with Tawfik Awad’s Tamima, the Armenian fairy tales will introduce us to a new world. Marenostrum will be a special series. It will introduce us to ourselves, to each other. This adventure will carry our readers away.18

17. Hence, “since 1821, the term

R u m w as

used in a device to distinguish a Greek o f the

Ottoman Empire from one o f the independent Greek State, whose citizens are known to Turks as Yunanlı” (Alexandris 1983,17). 18. A ll translations from Turkish into English are mine, except for the Kalan fram­ ing narratives directly taken from the Kalan Web site, which were originally in English (http://www.kalan.com).

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M arenostrum aims to “introduce us to ourselves, to each other.” In other words, it first wants to discover who we are. D uring my interview w ith him, Ragip Zarakolu mentioned that their aim as publishers was “to make the sto­ ries o f Anatolians accessible for the Turkish public” in the cultural public sphere. His late spouse, the co-owner o f Belge, Ayşenur Zarakolu, on the other hand, mentioned to me in February 2000 that one o f their goals was to challenge official history, “which had been more divisive than unifying.” Be­ tween 1990 and 2000, when the series was first initiated, M arenostrum released more than sixty publications, fifty-eight o f which were com pletely sold o u t M ore than thirty o f these books were literary works either translated from Greek or were about the Greeks in A natolia, most o f which explore the pop­ ulation exchange. In fact, the publishing company Beige received the Abdi İpekçi Turkish-G reek Friendship and Peace Prize in 2000 for its M arenostrum series, which promoted a “culture o f peace and coexistence” among the Greek and Turkish peoples. Osman Bleda, for exam ple, wrote that he trans­ lated Loksandra in order to contribute to Greek-Turkish friendship. Thus, the language o f peace was not always subtle but was also openly stated. In each publication, the M arenostrum statem ent appears with slight changes from preceding versions, becom ing more Anatolian and at times com pletely detached from the content o f the book. Ertuğrul Aladağ’s The Tak o f M y City: The Traces o f the Rum in M uğla, a novel about the population ex­ change, appeared in 1993, with a statem ent that focused on Anatolia instead of on the M editerranean: "The Tak o f M y C ity is the new book o f the M arenostrum series, which aims at revealing the m ulticultural, m ultinational, multireligious heritage we have in common in our country. It supports the cultural heritage and coexistence o f the Anatolian peoples. O ur series justifies the possibility of coexistence. W hen nationalist and chauvinist claims are at their peak, M arenos­ trum brings back memories from the past, both good and bad, and promotes humane values.” This fram ing narrative highlights the memories o f the refugees o f Asia M inor to guide the readers toward reconsidering the possibility o f coexis­ tence. Obviously, the cultural professionals who produce M arenostrum do not have nationalistic claim s against which they adopt a more critical position. W ith every new cultural production in the series, they aim to gain another lost voice from the Anatolian past: each voice reinscribes an individual into the

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collective memory in the public domain. This effort becomes another step to­ ward restoring the past polyphony o f the land and refuting the nationalist ho­ mogeneous and monophonic voice within the Turkish public domain. W hile these efforts were visible, it is im portant to note, however, that not all framing narratives presented the cultural products accurately, as the content o f the books in question did not always advocate sister/brotherhood among be­ tween the M uslims and the Greek Orthodox. In turn, this makes the use o f such fram ing narratives more striking. As to the possible tensions between the books’ content and their representation, that is the scope o f another study. In 1995, the fram ing narrative o f another M arenostrum publication, A ndonia, a book by Ertuğrul Aladağ about the A sia M inor m übadil experience, re­ vealed a specifically retrospective attitude toward the ethnically defined conflicts o f Anatolians:

Ertruğrul Aladağ’s The Tale o f M y C ity (previously published in our series) at­ tracted a large number o f readers. Now with A ndonia, you w ill read the rest o f the story on the other side [of the Aegean]. This is the story o f fellow citymen from M uğla, torn apart from their m otherland, and their struggles to remake themselves in a new world. This is the grieving history o f how those who were “from us” were made into a “from them,” which we do not want to see be repeated. Recent tragic experiences and histories show once more how inhuman much ethnic cleansing is and how it belitdes societies. If we do not want the past to be remembered with remorse and regrets, then we need to defend coexistence and the common culture; we need to respect other peoples’ identities and we need to do this all together.

This statem ent brings several im portant points to the reader’s attention: first, it introduces the notion o f “from us,” and second, it promotes the coex­ istence o f “ethnic” groups. W hat, then, was the criterion that made the Greek Orthodox m übadil“ h o m us” if they were ethnically different? I suggest that it is geographic kinship. M arenostrum claims that Turks and Greeks o f Anatolia shared a common heritage, a cultural intimacy, that rendered them as Anato­ lians and, thus, as kin. In Sekends introduction, for instance, M arenostrum openly deploys a dis-

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course o f “sister/brotherhood” among the peoples o f Anatolia (Aladağ 1997): ft

Ertuğrul Aladağ’s new work Sekene should be considered as an oral history. It demonstrates how identities are constructed and also variable. It draws our attention to the consequences o f the tragic population movements and tur­ bulences in Anatolian human geography. Aladağ also gives a crucial m es­ sage: “The only magic formula to prevent w ar and overcome bad memories is love.” He reminds us o f how much we share w ithin this geography; we have common memories and our cultures are sim ilar.. . . This is going to be a special series. W ith our readers, we w ill seek for the sister/brotherhood at­ mosphere, long buried in the darkness o f the past. Here, we w ill construct a spiritual bridge to a common future. Here to construct our sea.

This fram ing statem ent guides the reader toward the future and justifies bringing past memories into the present. It invites the reader to be more re­ ceptive to Others who share the same geography. W hile speaking o f differ­ ences, the M arenostrum series does not use a consistent nomenclature but does use a consistent discourse. The M arenostrum paratexts advocate that the Ana­ tolian past should be brought to the Turkish present because this w ill render the past polyphony o f the land. Such emphasis on common geography suggests a culture o f coexistence where Anatolia does not signify a national territory but rather a soil that or­ ganically relates individuals to each other. The past tragedies o f the people connected to each other as geographic kin should thus be voiced in order to construct a common future where Anatolians can coexist. Hence, the retro­ spective approach o f the series: learning from past conflicts w ill lead Anato­ lian residents to be more tolerant toward each other.

Geographic Kinship Versus Attributed Identities The E ntrusted Trousseau: People o f the E xchange is a collection o f oral accounts disguised in novel form— at times creating confusion regarding its genre: the narrators whom the author interviewed are documented with their photo­ graphs as if to authenticate their stories, and the whole book is divided into

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chapters o f individual stories about the population exchange. Because o f its docum entary texture, it has been used as a reference book for the m übadil ex­ periences on both sides o f the Aegean. Kemal Yalçın’s The E ntrusted Trousseau was first published in 1998 in the M arenostrum series.19The novel won the Achievement Prize o f the M inistry o f Culture in the category o f fiction, and the Abdi İpekçi Turkish-Greek Friend­ ship and Peace Prize awarded in the year 2000. Consequently, the second edi­ tion o f this book was published by a more mainstream publishing company, Doğan Kitap. This suggests two things. First, by the year 2000, the statesponsored institutions had started to support the cultural products that ad­ dress past tragedies in Anatolia (although at the tim e o f w riting this essay, this was becom ing more restricted). Second, m ajor publishing companies also had started to print such cultural products. The success o f the cultural products, which created their own reader audience, gained state support in the late 1990s and early 2000 and became a financially lucrative business for publishers.20 The first edition o f Yalçın’s book appears with the following quote, which gives a strong m essage o f geographic kinship. The second edition from Doğan K itap uses the same statem ent on the back page— a quote from a nonM uslim Asia M inor mübadil, Baba Yotgo from Ayancık: “Look at the beauty o f this garden. [Look] at this peach, this plum tree, look at these flowers! Their beauty derives from their togetherness. . . The more different languages, reli­ gions, races in a country, the richer it i s . . . . These are my last words to you, to inhabitants in Sinop, in Ayancık and to the Turks: There cannot be a garden with only one type o f fruit!” The quote emphasizes the differences among people by likening them to different fruits, and it also underlines the fact that these people still belong to the same garden, which is Anatolia. W hat makes people different from each other? How do we define what

19. Since die framing statem ent used by M arenostrum in this novel is not different from the first one, I do not include it here. The fact that it did not change suggests that the discourse had become standardized or that it is the author him self who wrote the back cover statement. 20. This support came before the rapprochement between the Greek and Turkish govern­ ments. However, with the changing dynamics in Turkey, there seemed to be more direedy ap­ plied state censorship on cultural products in 2001. See January 2002 issues o f the daily newspapers M illiyet, R ad ik al, Sabab, and H ü rriyet ( o t more inform ation.

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m any call “ethnicity”? The exchanged people did not necessarily speak what we call today ethnic languages: in other words, not all Greek Orthodox spoke G reek, and not all M uslims from Greece spoke Turkish when they were ex­ changed, which often resulted in their being called names ("Turkish seed” or “Greek seed”) or being alienated from the residents o f the recipient country. The religious affiliation did not always seem to be enough for the recipient country’s people to accept the newcomers. According to my interviews, for a long time there were no interm arriages, especially in sm aller towns and vil­ lages, and the exchanged people were singled out, especially in more rural areas. For instance, a M uslim mübadil, Refet Özkan, narrates his story: “We did not speak Turkish, our mother tongue was the Rum language___In daily life, in the field, in the garden the natives would hum iliate us and call us "children o f the infidel [non-M uslim]!’ ” (Yalçın 1998,263). Özkan continues with an incident when his teacher Spat on his face when he realized that he did not speak Turkish (ironically, later, Özkan became a Turkish teacher). O ther M uslim mübadik refugees, Salih T ilki and Saliha Ko­ rucu, narrate their own stories, how people (the “natives”) would call them “creatures,” and spread stories about how the exchanged people devoured (ate) men (Yalçın 1998,208-12,238). According to interviews Kemal Yalçın conducted, the Greek Orthodox m übadil from A sia M inor received sim ilar reactions from the “natives.” Angela K atlini says: “We spoke Turkish. Turkish was our native language. They [the local people] would say T urks arrived! These are Turks! The im m igrants w ill take our fields! They should leave!’ And they would send their dogs on us [for them to attack us]” (Yalçın 1998,143). Another account from K ayserili Karabaş reads: “Because we did not speak the Rum language they would say we were Turks, and they did not give us any woman to marry, nor would they take any woman from us (for the same purpose)” (Yalçın 1998,81). In these accounts, it is possible to observe the significance o f language in the daily interactions between the exchanged peoples and the natives. It is in­ teresting to observe how in these accounts the newcomers and the locals iden­ tified each other according to their place o f .origin: Turks, Turkos sporoi (Turkish seed), ga vu r (infidel), Greek seed, or natives. Religious attributes envi­ sioned as sufficient to homogenize the nation-state by the Greek and Turkish

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state officials were not necessarily experienced by the people themselves, nei­ ther the exchanged people nor the natives. M übadil narratives o f homeland and self-identification through geographic origin are significant in terms o f revealing their feelings o f belonging, at the same time com plicating their eth­ nic attributes.

Kalan Music and an Ambivalent Genre Founded in 1991, the Kalan M usic Company contributed to voicing the Turkish-G reek population exchange by bringing the music component to the pub­ lic domain. The company states its goal on its Web page as archiving the music from different regions and pasts o f A natolia. Kalan’s approach is conveyed by quotes from the news articles on Hasan Saltık, the owner and founder o f the company, described as “the sound m issionary o f Anatolia” who “archives” Anatolian music.21 As part o f its archiving endeavor, K alan introduces a new dim ension to the folk music genre, recorded in the original languages o f the various Anatolian regions, Laz, Pontus, Kurdish, Arm enian, Turkish, and G reek, including rembetika?2 Rembetika is the Greek underground music o f the outlaw. Its origins and definitions are ambivalent. According to G ail Holst, this musical style is an amorphous genre in general.23The lyrics can be light, ironic, or sad. The mul­ tiple names that define the genre reveal its ambiguous persona: it is called rebetiko, rembetika, rebetika, and rembetika. Holst assumes that rembetika originated toward the end o f the nineteenth century in a number o f urban centers where Greeks lived. Around this time musical cafés appeared in towns on both sides o f die Aegean where sm all orchestras played music with both Turkish and Greek traditional instruments. There is no concrete inform ation regarding the origin o f the word rem ­ betika, the music o f the rembet, the outlaw. Although it is generally assumed to be a Turkish word, rembetika does not, at least directly, derive from Turkish since the mübadik from A sia M inor brought their own music styles from Ana­ 21. See

Cum huriyet, Feb.

13,1999; H ürriyet, June 13,1999; and http://www.kalan.com.tr.

22. Interview with Hasan Saltık, Apr. 5,2000. 23. Personal communication, Mar. 2000.

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tolia (Holst 1994,26—27). H olst atgues that even though the “refugees may not have been part o f the underworld, they were living on the edge o f the Greek society, com peting for jobs in poor urban areas, segregated often by language as w ell as customs from the bulk o f the Greek population.’' Here, Holst draws attention to the cultural intim acy that did not exist between the “refugees” and the natives, as attested by Kemal Yalçın’s book showing the alienation o f the miibadik in their “motherland” by the natives. It is for this rea­ son that many exchanged people who were musicians joined the rem bets or manges in their loosely organized subculture,24or were attracted to the hashish­ smoking tekés to which they were accustomed in Turkey:25 “Rembetika songs were written by rembetes for rem betes.. . . The rem betis was a man who had a sorrow and threw it out” (Holst 1994,11—27). It is therefore telling that the name o f the music o f the “other”— rembetiko—is associated with another “other,” the Turkish language. In the Turkey o f the 1990s; rembetika came to represent the pain and suf­ ferings o f the A sia M inor miibadik, o f “those who left.” This process o f repre­ sentation is illustrated in the fram ing narratives provided in the album covers of two rembetika productions from K alan, compiled by M uammer Ketencoğlu in 1991 and 1993. These are the first albums in Turkey that reproduced the already existing records o f rembetika songs in Greek and Turkish. The third rembetika album examined here conveys original rembetika songs in Turkish translation. It was produced in 1994 by a popular band called Yeni Türkü (The New Song). Kalan’s first rembetika album , Rebetika—R ebetler (1991), includes the fol­ lowing text on the album cover: The reb ets. . . our old neighbors, m ost o f whose graves are unknown, how can we say toprağı bol olsun when they don’t even have a soil?26 Those who are torn from İzm ir came to Paşalim anı, H iotika in crowds. 24. The manges were men who formed a subculture on the fringe o f the society. Many of them were actually in the underworld. The nearest English equivalents are probably “spivs,” “wide boys,” or “hep-cats” (Holst 1994,14). 25.

T eki, or tekke in

Turkish, literally means a convent o f dervishes. Here, however, it also

refers to a place, mainly a tavern, where outlaws would go to smoke hashish. 26.

Toprağı bololsun (May his grave be broad) is

a Turkish phrase used for the deceased. This

phrase literally translates as “M ay his/her earth be plenty.”

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. . . Those who escaped from fronts in the Afyon War, the Rums from Bergam a, Ayvalık, Bornova, Soğukkuyu___For years, they had no work, no food. On this side [of the Aegean] they were hum iliated as the “infidel Rum” (Rum gavuru) while on the other side they were hum iliated as the “Turkish germ ” ( Turkos sporos/Turk dölü). The population o f Greece reached 8.5 m il­ lion upon their arrival, and in only a few weeks the population increased by one-third. They [our neighbors] were in m isery for years.. . . They lost themselves in alcohol, rebellion, drugs, and music because o f hopelessness, but above all because o f the pain o f the longing for their home­ land, because o f the nostalgia___They burnt their memories, their longings into songs and ballads. This music is called “rem betika” or “rebetika.” Im agine, what these people must have gone through while listening to it [this m usic]___Think, what it must be like to have the fear o f death at your back, to put your portable belongings in sheets m aking them into bales___ How children would w eep .. . . A baby doll (made o f cloth) forgotten in a courtyard, kidney beans left on the stove, how the house in which one is born—leave aside getting back—would be lost (forever), not to be seen again-----How would one run to left and right, along the cobbled streets. W hat kind o f a life’s music is it that you are listening to? Imagine! Today what remains from them is the noise (of the streets) o f İzmir, o f Athens, and the scratched, creaking old records sitting in front o f the stores, or on the shelves o f the used bookstores___ The old Rum songs that say sorrow in a m isty voice and which perhaps bring tears to the eyes.

This fram ing narrative written by Serdar Sönmez, a cultural professional working for K alan, depicts rembetika exclusively as the music o f “those who left us.” It invites the audience to listen to the miseries o f the Asia M inor mübadik. Sönmez suggests that the mübadik' miseries are caused by their long­ ing for the hom eland, A natolia, and by their unemployed status in the recipi­ ent country. This is why those who left Anatolia became rem bets, outlaws, outsiders, and wherever they went, either to Greece or to Turkey, they would be considered as outsiders. The rest o f the album’s text cites the names o f the songs and the musi­ cians who contributed to it. Under the titles o f the songs, the reader sees what the song (m ostly sung in Greek) is about, and then the geographic lineage, the

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origin o f the m usician, and what his or her contribution has been to the rembetika style. As this is a collection o f original recordings, all m usicians are refugees. Like an anthology, the works included in the album reflect the posi­ tion o f the com piler vis-à-vis the work being edited. This “rewriting” (Lefevere 1992) process is revealed in the choice o f songs and musicians for the album and in how they represent this music and its m usicians: they have con­ nections with A natolia, and one o f the songs is even in Turkish. Likewise, this rembetika com pilation and its presentation convey geographic kinship among Anatolian peoples, past and present. R ebetika 2: 1927—1954 (1993) appeared two years after the first one, in 1993. This time both the presentation and the fram ing narratives were pre­ pared by the m usician M uammer Ketencoğlu him self, who compiled rem betika songs and produced those albums for Kalan for the first time. A gain, the album consisted o f a collection o f rembetika songs recorded between 1927 and 1954. Today, the songs o f rebetico bring new excitem ent to our people, no m atter how belated this has been. It [rebetico[ offers its poisonous and healing taste to our hearts. Unfortunately (I have a hard time saying “luckily”), we owe these songs to unemployed, poor mangas and to people who have been dis­ placed, forced to move from their place and to live in ruins in misery. Ju st like the other side o f any beauty. The ballads and songs o f the Rums from Asia M inor and İzmir, which were open to interaction with Europe, were not different from the ones o f the Turks with whom they lived on friendly term s until the 1920s. W hen they were getting into the boats it was as if it was only their songs that they could take with them. On the other hand, the difficult living conditions around the Piraeus port that developed in the 1850s, created the manga subculture that consisted o f people who were poor, m aking fun o f all kinds o f authority, re­ bellious, emotional, and unable to do without music and hashish. D uring the daytime they worked, and at night they went to those sm all taverns they called tekke to play buvpki and bağlam a and get high. Consequendy, the ex­ change o f populations between Greece and Turkey is a tragedy caused by what is either called the War o f Independence or the Great D isaster, unify­ ing the destiny o f the A sia M inor’s Rums who lost their homeland and

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wealth and became poor, with the disobedient man&R from Piraeus. They first sang their songs side by side but separately, and then together, in one voice. The first collection of rebetiaF released approximately six months ago consists of the beginning period of the rebetito music represented by the İzmir style. However, especially after the 1930s, the manga culture style (also called the Piraeus or the tekke style) has become more dominant. Taking this as the point of departure, the whole album that you have in your hands con­ sists of the recordings in the Piraeus style between 1930 and 1950, except for a few distinct examples. I feel deeply moved by being able to share with you some samples of this music, as few as they are. T h is pro du ctio n ’s fram in g n arrative is m ore elab o rate in term s o f reco g­ n izin g the mangas style in P iraeus alo n g w ith the İzm ir/Sm ym a style o f A sia M inor. In o th er w ords, rembetika is n o t p resen ted exclusively as th e m usic o f tho se w ho le ft A sia M inor. T h e p roduction o f several rembetika album s in such a sh o rt p erio d o f tim e im p lies th at th ere w as a dem and fo r it. T h is is also evid en t in th e fact th at Y eni T ü rkü p roduced a rem betika-style album in tran slatio n o n ly a year after the K eten cio ğlu -K alan p ro d u ctio n , in co o p eratio n w ith the m usic com pany G öksoy, w hich had n o t show n an in terest in rembetika b efore. L ike K em al Y alçm 's The

E ntrusted Trousseau, rep rin ted b y an o th er p u b lish in g com pany, rembetika b e­ cam e p art o f m ain stream m usic in the 1990s. U nlike th e p revious rembetika album s, Külhanı Şarkılar by Y eni T ürkü is a rem ade album . T h e p h rase külhani şarkılar (so ngs o f külhanı) em p hasizes a bo ldness used to in tim id ate oth ers b ecause the w ord külhani carries an in ten se m ale, bravado-like co n n o tatio n . A s to the lyrics, th ey are also rew ritten in T urkish; th ey are n o t tran slatio n s. T h e fram ing n arrative on the album cover reveals th e reason w hy th e w ord külhani w as chosen to refer to rem bets:

We are in the beginning of the 1900s: the years of the exchange of popula­ tions. Muslims in Greece and Christians in Anatolia are forced to migrate27 27.

Muammer Ketencioğlu prepared three albums of

rem betika. Here he mentions the

collection that he prepared for Kalan. In this study I discuss three rem betika albums prepared in different styles, in order to demonstrate the variety o f representations.

first

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collectively from both sides. Both peoples are sent out on a m igration o f nonreturn, leaving their properties, their homesteads, their habits, and m ost im portant above all, their homeland behind. Those who live in the Aegean and İzm ir region only take their culture as a relic o f the bright days o f the past. But their culture is not enough to keep them alive; they find themselves in a big misery. The places where they live are the ghettos. The number o f those who can find a decent job is very lim ited. The places o f getting to­ gether for the unemployed are tekke and amane cafes. In those places they re­ lieve their sorrow w ith hashish, m usic, and dance. O ther im portant components are, o f course, fights, police, and jail. The type o f im m igrant who lives in the triangle o f tekke, hashish, and prison is called rebet, and their music rebetika. We, as Yeni Türkü, translated the term s and found the Turk­ ish equivalent kiilbani and külhani şarkılar. In this album, Yeni Türkü brings the past into the present. It w ill con­ tinue such works in the future. We believe that it is our past that w ill carry us to our future. O ur album, in this sense, is a proposition.

Both the translation and the text ren d etrem b ets as exclusively m ale, sug­ gesting the confusion between manga and rembets. In Turkish, kiilbani is never used for women. Holst explains that the manga style o f Piraeus was highly male dominated. The Smyrna/İzm ir style, brought to Greece by the Asia M inor refugees, on the other hand, included women as rembetes (Holst 1994, 42-44). Hence, by calling “rembets” kiilbani, Yeni Türkü refers to the original m eaning and rem asculinizes the genre. The cover o f the album includes a sketched moustache, despite which, however, there are female vocals in the album— this attests to the lack o f clarity as to what this term and the m usic re­ ally mean. K iilbani Şarkılar is the first rembetika album released in Turkey that aims to establish geographic kinship relations between Greeks and Turks through the lyrics, rewritten in Turkish by Cengiz Onural. The lyrics o f the last two songs directly narrate the experience o f the refugees (those who fled be­ fore the exchange) and o f the people taking part in the population exchange. They appear on the cover with the following words: “Look what this bağlam ıï28 28.

A

baklam a

is a musical instrument with three double strings played with a plectrum.

This instrument is also used in rem betika-style music.

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says in the hands o f th e rem arkab le T saous; th e qeybek s29 chose a sid e; and lis­ ten [to th is m usic] in Sm yrna. O ne d ay T saous m igrated d u rin g one o f the (arm ed) co n flicts. T h ey say h is face n ever sm iles in th e f^ 3013o f P iraeus. T h e n igh t burn s o u r c h e st A re th ese stars o f ice? O r (is it th at) th e stars in P iraeus are less th an (the ones in ) m y Sm yrna?” T h e o th er so n g, “O ld F riends,” reads:

Two people on two opposite shores; their eyes, shadowed with a delicate sor­ row, the same song in their tongue, hazy with the same ra k t.M Who would be­ lieve they are enemies? The love for homeland has neither language nor religion. Once you are bom it bums your heart. If it is our destiny to be neighbors from now on, how can one not cry to this enmity of ours? The house I am born in, old friends, our neighborhood: Bosporus still decorates my dreams, Istanbul is a habit of old days, disregard that I am (now) coming from Athens. T h ese tw o songs, p articu larly the second on e, assert a geo grap h ic kin sh ip betw een th e exchanged peoples. T h e rew ritten ly ric s32 n arrate th e n o stalgia fo r a ho m eland th at ho uses its p resen t and p ast p eo p les: T h ey sin g th e sam e so ng, th ey d rin k th e sam e b everage, and th ey b elo n g to th e sam e regio n . T h is statem en t cuts acro ss no tion s o f eth n icity as, acco rd in g to th e so ngs, “hom e­ lan d h as n eith er religio n n o r lan guage bo un daries.” In o th er w ords, b ein g from the sam e hom eland u n ifies people. R eligio n and lan guage, on th e o th er han d, sep arated th e exchanged p eo p les: first from the people in th eir ho m eland, and then from tho se in th eir recip ien t culture. T h e tw o songs b y Y eni T ü rkü sug­ g est th at p eo p le from the sam e geo grap h y sh are d eep er connection s than lan ­ gu age and religio n th at cam e to d efin e th e “eth n ic” b o un daries in the in tern atio n al o rd er o f th e tw en tieth cen tury.33

29. Zeybek is the name of a tribe formerly inhabiting some districts near İzmir/Smyrna. In Turkey today, ^eybek is the symbol of the Aegean, o f Izmir region in particular. 30. The Turkish word e l denotes “hand,” as well as “foreign (lands)” in English. 31. Rakı is an alcoholic drink made o f anise, consumed both in Turkey and Greece. 32. Interview with Muammer Ketencioğlu, Feb. 2000. 33. Interestingly, these two songs do not exist in the cassette tape versions of the album, but only in the CD version. I could not find which came out first, and why there was a differ-

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D iscursive p ractices p ro m o tin g kinship ties am ong A n ato lian s exten d to th e p ast, p resen t, and future. T h e p aratexts d em o nstrate an attem p t to tran ­ scrib e p u b licly th e p erso n al sto ries o f the m ü b ad il and to tran slate A n ato lian s as geo grap h ic kin . W h at brin gs th ese p eo p les clo ser than sim p le in tim acy is havin g been bo rn in A n ato lia. T h e b e lie f iterated by C aro l D elaney, th at it is n o t o n ly seed and blood b u t also th e field co n cep tu alized as a w om b, provides a sp ace to co n cep tu alize th e so il o f A n ato lia as such: a d iscu rsive w om b.

Conclusion T h e p ast is in tricately w oven b y com plex n arratives o f even ts and experiences. W hen b ein g exposed o r subjected to “h appenin gs” co llectively, in dividuals also exp erien ce everyth in g in th eir ow n way. So, w here to b egin ? W h ich tales to p ick, w hose sto ries to te ll to “m ake” h isto ry? In T urkey o ver the la st decade the p ast has been reco n figu red w ith the sh ift th at articu lates in d ivid u al sto ries in the p u b lic dom ain. T h is essay recounts the d iscu rsive p ractices o f a pub­ lish in g com pany and a m usic com pany th at enab led a sp ace to m ake th e sto ries o f th e m übadik “public,” and d iscu sses how rep resen tatio n s o f th e 1923 G reek-T urkish p o p u latio n exchange convey the p ast po lyphon y o f A n ato lia, in v itin g its p resen t resid en ts to en gage in a p u b lic d ialo gu e (by listen in g to m usic and read in g literatu re) w ith th eir geo grap h ic kin — th e p ast A natolian people. C u ltu ral p ro fessio n als w ho b rin g th e p ast p o lyphon y o f A n ato lia into th eir w orks reco n cep tu alize th e hum an geo grap h y o f T urkey. T h ey rep resen t p eo p les from A sia M in o r as bound to each o th er b y th eir geo grap h ic origin: A n ato lia becom es a m etap h o rical m other w ho em braces a ll o f h er “ch ildren ,” p ast and p resen t regard less o f th eir eth n o religio u s and n atio n al affiliatio n s. W h ile cu ltu ral products ren d er th e p o lyphon y o f A n ato lia b y ackno w ledging th e p ast and th e sto ries o f th e people w ho once lived th ere, th ey also convey th eir sep aratio n from A sia M inor as a tragedy. T h is estab lish es th e language and the v o cab ulary to tran slate th e o rd eal o f th e G reek-T urkish forced m igra-

ence. As arbitrary as the removal of these songs on the exchange might be, this also demon­ strates the role of cultural producers in the production of cultural works.

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tio n in to the p resen t and lo cates the in d ivid u al and co llecdve su fferin gs caused by th is even t on th e “m ap.” T h e p o litics o f fram in g n arratives reveals th at the w ays in w hich th ese cu ltu ral p ro ducts are p resen ted to th eir audience are an a t­ tem p t to ren ego tiate ho m ogeneo usly ascrib ed id en tities. T h e cu ltu ral in stitu tio n s an alyzed in th is essay produce such cu ltu ral w orks th at archive th e n arratives o f the G reek-T urkish p o p u latio n exchange and m ake them p u b lic as an altern ative rep o sito ry fo r th e p ast ag ain st o fficial history. T h is in itiativ e is v isib le in how the fram in g n arratives exam ined here su gg est an in stitu tio n alized attem p t to m ake the au dien ce conscio us o f th eir “o rgan ic” ties to all A natolians. T h e em phasis o f th ese fram e n arratives on g e ­ o grap h ic kin sh ip ties underm ines th e d ivisiven ess o f religio n and eth n icity, and u n d erlin es th e p o ssib ility o f a m ultip le coexisten ce in th e sam e lan d. B y b rin gin g th e A sia M inor m ü b ad il m em ory n arratives o f hom eland in to the T urkish cu ltu ral sp h ere, th e cu ltu ral p ro ducts voice o r rep resen t th e p ast p eo p les from th e sam e hom eland. T h e m em ory n arratives and songs are flu id , b u t on ce th ey are in clud ed in a cu ltu ral p ro d u ctio n , th ey solidify. A s th ey are recorded and sto red , th ey tu rn in to archives fo r an au dien ce to retu rn to and verify th e evidence o f th e p ast.34 In terview s w ith the cu ltu ral p ro fessio n als p o in t at the sh ifts in the p o liti­ cal recep tio n o f th eir w orks: th e ow ner o f K alan , H asan Salo k , fo r in stan ce, w as pro secu ted fo r the K urdish album N ew ro^ th at he prep ared at th e end o f the 1980s. H ow ever, d u rin g th e late 1990s m any T urkish b ureaucrats o ffered K alan album s as g ifts to th eir fo reign co lleagues. S tate p o licies and cu ltu ral p o litics do n o t n ecessarily overlap, and in th e case o f th e cu ltu ral p o litics in ­ duced through fram in g n arratives as an alyzed h ere, cu ltu ral products can (re)in tro duce an d/o r (re)sh ap e certain concep ts and w ays o f th in kin g ab out these concep ts. T h e p ertin en t q uestio n to ask here w ould be: fo r w hom ? W ho consum es th ese p ro ducts? M y su rvey o f cu ltu ral p ro fessio n als in p u b lish in g com panies and book and m usic shops in th e sum m er o f 2003 d enotes th at there is n o t a clear p o r­

34.

This tendency of recording is also visible in the Economic and Social History Founda­

tion’s oral history project entided

Tarihe B in C anh Tamk (One Thousand

Witnesses to History),

marketed with the slogan “Kaybetmiyoruz Çünkü Kaydediyoruz” (We do not lose because we record).

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trait o f the p resen t and target p u b lic audience. In m ost in stan ces th e re­ sponses w ere estim ates o f a read ersh ip o r audience w ith “m ore le ftist ten den ­ cies and cu rio sity and to leran ce tow ards o th er cu ltu res, o r m em bers o f the religio u sly d efin ed m in o rities them selves.” T h e late A yşenur Z arakolu id en ti­ fied the M arenostrum readers as “peo p le ad d icted to read in g an d learn in g ab o u t th e realities, p ast and p resen t traged ies o f th is geography.” H ow ever, at th is p o in t, it is d ifficu lt to draw an y conclusions. T h e audience o f th ese prod­ ucts is th e su b ject o f an o th er study. T h e fin al q uestio n to th in k ab o u t regards th e tim in g o f th ese products: w hy now ? A n th ro p o lo gist L eyla N ey2İ exp lain s th e recen t “red isco very o f his­ to ry” am ong T urks w ith d isillu sio n m en ts caused b y m o d ern ity (2002, 1 3 9 -4 3 ). A lthough th is m igh t be on e o f th e reaso n s, num erous cu ltu ral pro­ fessio n als I in terview ed th o ugh t th at co m p etin g n atio n alism s in th e w o rld and in co n tem p o rary T urkey are th e m o st im p o rtan t reaso n s w hy th ese p rofes­ sio n als tu rn ed to “history.” T h ey w anted to rem ind th eir audiences th at na­ tio n alism caused traged ies such as p artitio n ed lan d s, forced m igratio n s, and m assacres all around th e w orld and in T urkey, such as th e G reek-T urkish pop­ u latio n exchange. B y d o in g so, the cu ltu ral p ro fessio n als w arn ed th eir audi­ ence ag ain st th e b ru tal resu lts to w h ich p resen t n atio n alism s can lead . T h e p ro fessio n als w ho au th o r th e fram in g n arratives an alyzed h ere ex­ p lo it d ifferen t n arrative strategies to develop a cu ltu re o f p eace, to g ain recog­ n itio n o f th e differen ces betw een p eo p les resid in g in A n ato lia, an d to prom ote m utual to leran ce and co existen ce. T h e rep resen tatio n s in th e 1990s o f th e 1923 G reek-T urkish p o p u latio n exchange op ened a retro sp ective p lat­ form to co n test h o m ogenizing p ractices and air ten sio n s b etw een stateim po sed id en tity and self-id en tificatio n . A s tho se rep resen tatio n s transfo rm the rh eto ric o f A n ato lia from a hom ogeneous n atio n -state te rrito ry in to a hom eland and a m other, th ey also ren ego tiate and p u t in to q uestio n th e tran s­ latio n o f in d ivid uals in to ho m ogeneo usly defin ed “eth n ies.” T h e fram e n arra­ tives in stead co n stru ct and su gg est a d ifferen t m odel fo r co existen ce in w hich peo p les are related to each o th er through th eir place o f o rigin . T h e m usic and film p ro ducers, p u b lish ers, and tran slato rs and th e aw ards given fo r th eir w ork m ake bo ld p o litical statem ents retrospectively, an d suc­ cessfu lly op en a n ew sp ace to reth in k eth n ic and n atio n al bo un daries. F ram ing

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n arratives su gg est th at m em ories o f th e p ast c arry th e p u b lic in T urkey tow ard th e future. T h us, in reco llectin g p ast traged ies in A n ato lia and reco n sid erin g eth n ic d ivisio n s, n ew w ays are proposed to th in k ab o u t the co n tem p o rary eth ­ n ic problem s in T urkey, and o ffer a d iscu rsive m odel o f coexistence.

References Index

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Suny, Ronald. 2001. “Religion, Ethnicity, and N ationalism : Arm enians, Turks, and the End o f the Ottoman Empire.” In God’s N ame: Genocide and R eligion in the Twentieth Century, edited by Omer Bartov and Phyllis Mack, 23-61. New York: Berghahn Books. Surm elian, Leon Z. 1945.1A sk You, L adies and Gentlemen. New York: E. P. Dutton. Sutherland, Jam es Kay. 1964. The A dventures o f an A rmenian Boy. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ann Arbor Press. Swedenburg, Ted. 1995. M emories o f R evolt: The 1936R ebellion and the Palestinian N ational Past. M inneapolis: Univ. o f M innesota Press. Taylor, Julie. 1994. “Body M emories: Aide-Memoirs and Collective Amnesia in the Wake o f the Argentine Terror.” In B ody Politics: D isease, D esire and the Family, edited by M ichael Ryan and A. Gordon. Boulder, Colo.: Westview. Tekeli, İlhan. 1998. Tarih B ilinci ve G enflik: Karşılaştırmak A vrupa ve Türkiye A raştırm ası (H istory Consciousness and Youth: Comparative Europe and Turkey Research). Istanbul: Tarih Vakti Yurt Yayınlan. Thomas, Nicholas. 1991. E ntangled O bjects: Exchange, M aterial Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press. Thompson, Jon. 1986. “A Return to Tradition.” H ah 8, no. 2:14. Toprak, Binnaz. 1981. Islam and P ohtical D evelopm ent in Turkey. Leiden: Brill. Trigger, Bruce. 1995. “Romanticism, N ationalism , and Archaeology.” In N ationalism, P ohtics and the Practice o f A rchaeology, edited by Philip L. Kohl and Clare Fawcett, 263-79. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production o f H istory. Boston: Beacon. Tuğal, Cihan. 2002. “The Islam ist Movement in Turkey: Beyond Instrum ent and Meaning.” E conomy and Society 31, no. 1:85-111. Türköz, M eltem. 2001. ‘T h e Social Life o f the State’s Fantasy: Turkish Family Names in 1934.” Paper presented at the Middle East Studies Association M eeting, San Francisco. U rry,John. 1995. Consuming Places. London: Routledge. Volkan, Vamık, and Norman Itzkowitz. 1984. The Im m ortalA tatürk A Psycbobiography. Chicago: Univ. o f Chicago Press. W arner, M ichael. 2002. “Publics and Counterpublics.” Public C ulture 14, no. 1:49-90. W hite, Jenny. 1999. “The Islam ic Chic.” In Istanbul Between the G lobal and the Local, ed­ ited by Çağlar Keyder, 77—91. Lanham, M d.: Rowman and Littlefield. ---------- . 2002. Islam ist M obilisation in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics. Seattle: Univ. o f W ashington Press.

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References

www.rcturntotradition.com. Web site o f the San Francisco dealer who m arkets DOBAG rugs. www.wordweb.org/sacredjo. Yalçın, Kemal. 1998. E m anet Ç eyisç M übadele İnsanları (Entrusted Trousseau: Peoples o f the Exchange). Istanbul: Belge Yayınlan. Yener, Aslihan, H arry Hoffner, and Sim rit Dhesi. 2002. R ecent D evelopments in H ittite A rchaeology and H istoiy. W inona Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns. Yernazian, K. Eprahim. 1990. Judgm ent onto Truth. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction. Yerushalm i, Yosef Hayim. 1982. Z akbor:Jew ish H istory and Jewish M emory. Seattle: Univ. o f W ashington Press. Yervant, John. 1988. N eedle, Thread, and Button. New Brunswick, N.J.: Zoryan Institute. Y ıldız, A hm et 2001. "Ne M utlu Türküm D iyebilene”: Türk U lusal K im liğinin E tno-Seküler Sınırlan (1919—1938) (“How Happy Is the One W ho Can Say I am a Turk”: Ethno-Secular Boundaries o f the Turkish N ational Identity). Istanbul: İletişim Yayınlan. Yordanidou, M aria. 1990- Loksandra: İstanbul Däfü (Loksandra: An Istanbul D ream). Istanbul: Belge Yayınlan. Young, Allan. 1996. B odily M emory and Traumatic M emory. C ultural E ssays in Trauma and'M em ory, edited by Paul Antze and Michael Lamber, 89-102. New York: Roudedge. Zürcher, Erik Jan. 1998. Turkey: A M odem H istoiy. London: I. B. Tauris.

Index

Italie page number denotes illustration. Abdi İpekçi Turkish-Greek Friendship and

motherland, 57,166,178,184-85,186;

Peace Prize, 172,175

music of, 162,170,177-84; national

Abdulhamid (Sultan), 141-42

identity homogenization in, 49,166,

Achievement Prize of the Ministry of

167,186; Neolithic civilizations in, 48;

Culture, 175

polyphony of, 164,164n. 5,170,173,

ACM. See Anatolian Civilizations Museum adam etmek,

174,184-85; soil of, 169,169n. 14,174,

106n. 12

184; Turkish History Thesis on, 47—48

administered forgetting, 3-6

Anatolian Civilizations Discourse, 49-50,

Afghanistan, 6

55,61,66-67

Ağaoğlu, Adalet, 100

Anatolian Civilizations Museum (ACM):

agency, 4 1 ,41n. 2,163,170

Çatalhöyük display, 73; chronological

agricultural subsidies, 79-80

narrative of, 4 1 ,5 0 -5 3 ,51n. 16,53;

A k it,

1 1 4 -1 6 , 1 1 5 , 124-25,125n. 9,133-34

evolutionary walking practice of, 51-52,

Akşit, Elif Ekin, 13-14

5 6 - 57,58; institutionalized

Aladağ, Ertuğrul, 172,173-74

(nationalistic) narrative of, 62,65-66,

Albayrak, Sadık, 134-35

68-69; interpretation of, 68-69;

Alevis, 98n. 6

interviews with visitors of, 5 2 -5 3 ,52n.

Ali, 9 8 ,98n. 6

17; model visitor of, 63-64,65; opening

alphabet reform (1932), 5,104,106

of, 48n. 12; as rewriting history, 47-48;

Alan, Mehmet, 58-59

subject effect of, 5 3 ,53-54n. 19; target

America as utopia, 1 4 9-50,149n. 15,155,

audience of, 62-64,68; Turkish History

155n. 21

Thesis and, 48-49; urban-rural

amnesia, organized, 3

dichotomy and, 60-62,64-65,67-68;

Anakültür, 71,81-82

visitor dissident narratives on, 60-62,

Anatolia: archaeology in, 13; civilizations

67-68; visitor nostalgic narratives on,

of, 50-51,52; cultural intimacy of, 168,

57- 60,67; visitor territorial kinship

173,178; cultural products of, 166,170;

narratives on, 13,53-57,58,66-67. See

Kurdish population in, 12; as a

also museum visitors

211

212

I

Index

ancestors, 56

survivor memoirs vs. official history,

Anderson, Benedict, 42-43,110

159-60; Turkish thesis for, 141-42,

Anderson, June, 22

156-57. See also survivor memoirs

A ndonia

(Aladag), 173-74

Armenians: in America, 149—5 0 ,149n. 15,

Anıtkabir, 99-102,110

155,155n. 21; class distinctions within,

Ankara, 13-14

151-52,152n. 18; deportation of, 139,

anti-Kemalist web sites, 123n. 6

143,145,153; identity of, 139-40;

Appadurai, Arjun, 8-9

nationalism of, 141-42; in the Ottoman

appliances, 24

Empire, 139,140-41,141n. 3; violence

Arabic script, 5,104,106

by, 157. See also survivor memoirs

archaeological museums, 42

army, 119

archaeologists: alliances with Küçükköy,

art: installation/landscape, 91-92;

88-89; at Çatalhöyük, 72—73,82—83; on Goddess groups, 88; Turkish, 4 7 ,47n. 8 archaeology: colonialism and, 43n. 4,

prehistoric, 89 artifacts, 56-57 artisans, 19

4 4 -4 5 ,44n. 6; gender issues in, 88;

art museums, 57n. 20

history writing and, 13,43n. 4,44,

artwork, Çatalhöyük-related, 89-92

46—47; as knowledge production, 44; in

Asia Minor refugees. See Turkish-Greek

the Middle East, 44-46; nationalism

population exchange

and, 43—47,43n. 4 ,44n. 5 ,44n. 6;

Asia Minor War, 167

westernization and, 46-47. See also

atam , 95n.

Çatalhöyük

Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal: Abdurrahiim

1

architecture, 58-59

Tunçak mistaken for, 127-28,127n. 10,

Armenian massacres (1894-1896), 141—42,

128n. 12; Anıtkabir mausoleum for,

142n. 5,158 Armenian massacres (1908-1909), 142-43, 143n. 8 Armenian massacres (1915), 11-12,14,

99-102,110; attacks on, 101, lOln. 9; being unworthy of, 100; biography of, 95; collective memory of, 95; complaining to, 101-2; criticisms of,

138- 61 ; Armenian identity and,

109; death of, 13,95,110-12; education

139- 40; Armenian thesis of, 141-42,

of, 128-29; fear of, 111-12; founding

157; authenticity of memoirs on,

principles of, 116,122,126; on hat

144-46,144n. 9; background to,

reform, 4n. 1; as hero and great man,

140- 43; as genocide, 1 2 ,141n. 4,

100,105-10; as an icon, 96; images of,

144-45; helpful groups during, 153-54,

it,

153n. 20; Kurds during, 152-53; life

memories of, 103-10; Islamists9

before, 146-47,148-49,157-58;

representation of, 98-99,122; language

national identity and, 139-40; number

reform and, 5,104,106; mourning for,

of deaths from, 144; perpetrators of,

97-99,112-13; November 10

150-53; rationalization of violence in,

memorials for, 96,97-98,110-12,

154-58; sequence of, 144-45,145n. 12;

126-27; as object of transference, 112;

109,113,114-16, //5; individual

Index official narrative speech by, 122; ordinary citizens seeing and being seen by, 105-10; pocket watch story, 100;

I

213 Book o f L aughter and Forgetting, The

(Kundera), 3 books: awards and prizes for, 172,175;

political legitimacy from, 112-13,

history, 164; increased interest in, 14,

1 23-24,124n. 8; reform policies of,

164-65,164n. 7; M arenostrum series,

9 5-

170-77,186; paratext of, 169-70,174,

96; “Republic is virtue” statement

by, 127; respect for, 112; seventy-fifth

180

anniversary celebrations and, 114-16,

Bosporus River, 1

1 1 5 ; symbolism

Bourdieu, Pierre, 57n. 2 0 ,9 7 ,97n. 3

96-

in political culture,

97; on veils, 127; wife of, it, 109,110;

böyüks, 49

Breckenridge, Carol, 8-9

women on, 111 Atatürkçülük. See Atatürkism

Buder, Judith, 41n. 2

Atatürkism, 9 6 ,96n. 2 Australia, 75-76 calendar reform, 4—5 ,5n. 3,122

Ayvacık, 18

caliphate, 122 camel carpet, 27 bağlam a,

Candan, Ayfer Bartu, 9,70-94

182n. 28,183

bags, woven, 28-29

Cankut, Hayriyr, 56

Bahloul, Joell, 33

capitalism, 10,119

Bakhtin, Mikhail, 164n. 5

carpets: Çatalhöyük imagery and, 91 ;

Bal, Mieke, 169

commercialization of, 16,17-18;

Banking and Insurance Workers Union,

dealers, 22-23,24,38; design of, 27;

101-2

DOBAG project and, 16-21,32,37;

bank merger, 101-2

marketing, 19,32,37; natural dyes for,

baptism, 6

16,19-21,22; the past and, 10-11,19,

Baykal, Deniz, 130

24,29; technology of, 22; “traditional”

Baykal, Erdoğan, 53-55

vs. modem, 23-24; tradition and,

bazaars, Ottoman, 51

1 7 -21,23-24,32,36,37-39

Beige Publishing Company, 162,170-77

Çatalhöyük, 70-94; Anatolian Civilizations

belief systems, 26

Museum display, 73; archaeologists at,

Benjamin, Walter, 109

72-73,82-83; artwork related to,

Bennett, Tony, 51-52

89-92; fashion design and, 71,89-91,

Bey, Ali Rıza, 128

9 0 ; genealogy of, 75-76;

Bey, Osman Hamdi, 46

groups and, 7 6 -7 7 ,81-82,84-89,93;

biological racism, 4 9 ,49n. 14

groups involved with, 70-72; as a

Bir, Çevik, 99n. 7

heritage site, 92-94; local mayors and,

B lack Book, The (Pamuk),

1

Goddess

77-80,93; local politics and, 82^-83,93;

Bleda, Osman, 172

ownership claims for, 9; public memory

Böhmer, Harald, 18-19,22,30

of, 93-94; road to, 80-81 ; souvenirs, 78 ,

214 Çatalhöyük (cont.) 78; tourism related to, 78,80; villagers

I

Index 151 ; transmission of, 25; urban-rural dichotomy and, 61

and, 80-84; villager-visitor conflicts at,

colonialism, 43n. 4,44 4 5 ,44n. 6

81-82; visitors to, 73-77; visitor survey

commercialization, 16,17-18

of, 7 3 -7 4 ,74n. 3; Web sites, 84-85;

Committee o f Union and Progress (CUP),

women workers at, 83; workers at, 70, 83-84 Çatalhöyük Çumra Arts and Crafts Center, 78

142,142n. 6 commodities, 10-11 Common Era calendar, 5 communication, 110-11

cauldrons, 56

community and violence, 148-49

Celal, 1

conscription, forced, 144,144n. 11

censorship, 175n. 20

Constantinople, 121

Central Anatolia Hittite sites, 4 7 ,47n. 9

consumerism, 30,121

17,27,28-29 change: material, 21-22,24,30; social,

continuity, 6

Ç eyiz

21-22,57,69,93

Convention of Lausanne, 167 Coronil, Fernando, 156

Chatterjee, Partha, 97-98

corporatism, 134-35

cheese, 27

cottage industry, 18,19

children, 54-55,145

counterpublics, 135-36,136n. 15

China,7,117-18

crafts, 37

Christians, 11. See also Greek Orthodox

cultural elite, 112

religion chronological narrative, 5 0 -5 3 ,5 In. 16, 56-57

cultural identity, 2-3 cultural intimacy, 168,173,178 cultural memory,.8

Çınar, Alev, 121

cultural politics, official, 41

cities, emergence of, 4 9 -5 0 ,49n. 15

cultural products, 14,166,185;

citizens, model, 63

presentation of, 169-70; state support

civilization, 4 9 -5 1 ,49n. 15,52

for, 175,175n. 20; target audience for,

class distinctions, 15 1-5 2,152n. 18

186

clock reform, 4-5

cultural projects, nation-building, 40-43

clothing, traditional, 34-36

Cultural Revolution (China), 117-18

coexistence, 186,187

culture: definition of, 162n. 2; political, 96,

collective identity, 25,28,38,50,56. See also national identity collective memory. ACM exhibits and, 54;

112; public, 8-9; shared national, 54—55,

66 Cum huriyet,

110,1 lOn. 15,114,114n. 2

of Atatürk, 95,103; children and,

Cum huriyette B uluşuyoruz 1 3 2 , 132-33

54—55; concept of, 8; vs. history, 25,

Cum huriyet F azilettir,

158; influence o f museums on, 42-43;

Çumra, 70-71,78-81

in örselli Village, 24-26,32—33,38; the

“Çumra-from Çatalhöyük to the Present”

past and, 24—26; of the perpetrators,

(symposium), 79

127

Index CUP (Committee of Union and Progress), 142,142n. 6

I

215 education: o f Atatürk, 129; mandatory, 82n. 7; museum visitors educational level, 62; veiled students and,

115 ,

115-16,127,130,133 daily life: artifacts and modem objects in,

Elazığ, 111

56-57; collective memory and, 26;

Elias, Norbert, 99

nationalistic narratives and, 65-66;

elite, cultural, 112

significance of language in, 176-77;

entanglements, 7 2 ,72n. 1

social changes and, 57,69

E ntrusted Trousseau: People o f the Exchange,

Danacıoğlu, Esra, 166

The (Yalçın),

174-77,181

Darbel, Alain, 57n. 20

epitext, 170

Dashnaks, 142-43,143n. 7 ,143n. 8 ,144n.

Erbakan, Necmettin, 99,119

11,160-61

ethnicity, 176,186,187

dealers, carpet, 22-23,24,38

ethnographic fictions, 33

“Declaration of Love: Hymns and Mevlevi

ethnographic research, 33-37

Service for the Memory o f the Great Leader,” 98

Eurocentrism, 4 4 4 5 ,44n. 6 ,49n. 15, 58-59

Delaney, Carol, 16&-69,169n. 14,184

everyday life. See daily life

Democratic Left Party, 130

evolutionary walking practice, 51-52,

deportation, 11,139,143,145,153 Dersim Kurds, 1 53-54,153n. 20

56-57,58 experience, 145

discourse, national, 151,160-61 dissident narratives, 60-62,67-68 Doğal Boya Araşdrma ve Geliştirme Projesi. See DOBAG project

farmers, 153 farm subsidies, 79-80

DOBAG project, 16-21,22-23,32,37

fashion designers, 71,89-91 ,9 0

Doğan Kitap, 175

February 28 measures, 119,135

dominant publics, 136,136n. 15

Feigl, Erich, 157

dowry, 17,27,28-29

fez, 4 ,4n. 1,103

dyers, itinerant, 20

fictions, ethnographic, 33

dyes, natural, 16,19-21,22

figurines, Goddess, 55,85 Finding Home (Kherdian),

155n. 21

food, Ottoman, 10 “Earth Shaped by Woman, Woman Shaped by Earth” (symposium), 86-87

forced conscription, 144,144n. 11 forgetting: administered, 3-6; individuals,

Ecevit, Bülent, 130

25-26; in Örselli Village, 25-26,32-33;

Eco, Umberto, 63

politics of, 6

Economic and Social History Foundation, 120,185n. 34 economy, 10,93

Foucault, Michel, 150-51,151n. 16 framing narratives: geographic kinship in, 163,163n. 3,173-77,182-83,185; for

216 framing narratives (eont.) Külhani Şarkılar, 181-82; for M arenostrum ,

172-73,174,175n. 19;

I

Index Greek-Turkish population exchange. See Turkish-Greek population exchange Greek villages, 117

national identity and, 163-64; for

Gregorian calendar, 5 ,5n. 4,122

peaceful coexistence, 186,187; politics

Gür, Ash, 1 3 ,4 0 -6 9 ,163n. 3

of, 185; for presenting cultural works, 169-70; for Rebetika-Rebetler, 179; for R ebetika 2 :1 9 2 7 - 1 9 5 4 , 180-81;

Habermas, Jurgen, 98,135-36

territorial kinship and, 163n. 3

habitus, political, 9 7 ,97n. 3

France, 100, lOOn. 8

Halbwachs, Maurice, 7-8

Fraser, Nancy, 136n. 15

halkevleri,

freedom, 11 In. 16

Hall, Stuart, 93

Friends of Çatalhöyük, 89

“Hand in Hand” protest, 1 3 2 -3 5 , 13 2 ,

future, belief in, 2

108,108n. 13

136-37 Hanın, Latife, ü, 109,126 Hanın, Zübeyde, 1 27-30,127n. 10,

Galip, 1 gavur,

176

128-29n. 1 1 ,129n. 12 Hart, Kimberly, 8,10 -11 ,1 6-3 9

gender issues research, 88

hat reform (1925), 4 ,4n. 1,103-4,123

Genette, Gérard, 169-70

Hawley, Walter A., 20

genocide, 1 2 ,141n. 4,144-45

head scarves: on Islamist posters, 127-30,

geographic kinship, 163,163n. 3,173-77, 182-83,185. See also territorial kinship

127n. 10; official Republic Day theme and, 1 3 2 , 132-33; single-party ideology

narratives

and, 130; “traditional”, 36; Zübeyde

geographic origin, 167-69,176-77. See also homeland

Hanın and, 127-30. See also veils Herlnn, 81-82

German Commercial Code, 122

heritage, 92-93,93-94

Germany, 7

heroes, 100

Gimbutas, Marija, 8 5 ,85n. 8,87

Herzfeld, Michael, 17,19,37,117,168

global investment, 10

history: buried, 1; collective memory and,

Göçek, Müge, 141n. 4

25,158; ideology of tradition and, 37;

Göçmen, Yasemin, 59

increased interest in, 14,164-65,186;

Goddess figurines, 55,85

memory and, 145,145n. 12,158-60;

Goddess groups, 76-77,81-82,84-89,

official, 158-60,165-66,172; periodi­

93

cals, 164-65; vernacular use of, 165 164-65

Gökçen, Sabiha, 114,127n. 10

H istory andSociety,

Golden Age of the Mother Goddess, 85,

History Foundation o f Turkey, 1 6 4,164n.

87 great man, the, 100,105-10 Greek Orthodox religion, 11,167,176

7 ,165n. 9,166 history writing: archaeology and, 13,43n. 4, 44,46-47; increased involvement in,

Index

I

217

164—6 5 ,164n. 7; rewriting Turkish

interpretation of, 62,68-69. See also

history, 47-48

official history

Hittite sites, 4 7 ,47n. 9

institutions o f memory, 11

Hizbullah, 101

intended audience, 62-64,68,186

Hobsbawm, Eric, 65

intermarriage, 176

Hodder, lan: on Çatalhöyük, 73; fashion

intimacy, cultural, 168,173,178

designers and, 90; Goddess groups and, 85,86; kilim producers and, 9 1 ,91n.

10

Islam: Atatürk and, 98; m übadils, 167,176; political, 118-22; repression of, 122-23 Islamic calendar, 5 ,5n. 4,122

Holst, Gail, 177,178,182

Islamic law, 122

homeland, 49,168,183-84,186; See also

Islamists: banned from politics, 137; as the

geographic origin; motherland

counterpublic, 136; February 28

homogenization, 14,49,166,167,186

measures on, 119,135; “Hand in Hand”

houses, traditional, 29-32

protest, 133-35,136-37;

hürriyet,

İ lin . 16

marginalization of, 120-21; m eqpb, 101;

Hürriyet Elementary School, 101

November 10 memorials and, 96,98,

hymns, 98

126-27; as reactionary, 129—30; representation of Atatürk by, 96,98-99, 122,126-29; representation of the early

identity: Armenian, 139-40; collective, 2-3,

Republic by, 121-23,135; on the

25 ,2 8 ,38 ,5 0,5 6 ; cultural, 2-3; state-

Republic’s founding principles, 9,

ascribed, 163-64; See also national

1 16-17,124-25,125n. 9,127-31,

identity

135-37; rise o f political Islam, 118-21 ;

ideology: official, 4 0 -4 3 ,96n. 2; of

seventy-fifth anniversary newspaper

progress, 52; single-party, 130-31 ; of

articles by, 114—16; Web sites, 123,

tradition, 22 ,2 3 -2 4 ,27 -28 ,3 5,3 7

123n. 6. See also Virtue Party; Welfare

Iğsız, Aslı, 10,12,162-87 illiteracy, 64-65

Party Istanbul, 10-11,71

India, 97-98

Istanbul Day, 121

individual memory, 9,103-10,148-49

Italian Commercial Code, 122

individuals, remembering, 25-26,153

Italian Penal Code, 122

“In Her Footsteps: A Journey of Renewal

Italy, 105

in the Land of the Mothers of

itinerant dyers, 20

Anatolia” (tour), 86

Itzkowitz, Norman, 99,112

İnönü, İsmet, 106,106n. 11,107, 111, 130-31

İzmir, 20 izmir/Smyrna style, 181,182

installation art, 91-92 institutionalized narratives: Atatiirk’s speech on, 122; cultural products and,

Jakobsen, Roman, 162

13-14,40-43; daily life and, 65-66;

Japan, 10-11

218

I

Index

jewelry, 55

laicism, 116,119

Jewish community, 11,12

landscape art, 91-92

Justice and Development Party, 137

language, m übadili, 168,169n. 13,176-77, 183-84 language reform (1932), 5,104,106

Kabaklı, Ahmet, 123

last names, law of, 5-6

Kalan Music Productions, 162,170,

Lapn alphabet, 5,104,106

17 7-8 4,181n. 27,185

Lausanne Peace Treaty, 167

Karabaş, Kayserili, 176

law, Islamic, 122

Karahasanoğlu, İhsan, 133-34

law o f last names, 5-6

Karakasidou, Anastasia, 159

Lefort, Claude, 124n. 8

Katrini, Angela, 176

legitimacy, political, 1 1 2-1 3,1 2 3-2 4,124n.

Kemalism. See Atatürkism

8

Ketchian, Bertha, 149n. 15

Lewis, Bernard, 141n. 4

Ketencoglu, Muammer, 178,180-81,181n.

liberty, 111, 11 In. 16

27

lieu x de memoire,

Kherdian, David, 155,155n. 21 kilims, 78,91

158

lifestyles, urban-rural dichotomy, 60, 64-65

kinship. See geographic kinship; territorial

linguistic signs, 162-63 L oksandra: Istanbul D üşü,

170-71

knowledge production, 42-43,44

Ijosing Home (Kherdian),

155n. 21

kök boya, 20

Louise, Anita, 85

kinship narratives

Konya, 71 Korçan, Bahar, 89-91 manges, 178,178n.

Korucu, Saliha, 176 köylü m illetin rfendisidir,

126-27

Küçükköy: alliances with archaeologists,

24,181

Mango, Andrew, 95 manufactured goods, 21,28

88-89; Goddess groups and, 81-82,

Mardiganian, Aurora, 146-47,155,158 1 7 0-77,175n. 19,186

87; links to Çatalhöyük, 70,80-84;

M arenostrum ,

school building for, 82-83,

marketing, 10-11,19,32,37

82n. 7

Martayan, Agop, 104

Külhani Şarkılar, 181-84

massacre memoirs. See survivor memoirs

Kundera, Milan, 3

massacres. See Armenian massacres

Kurdish music, 185

“masters o f the nation”, 126-27

Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), 12

material change, 21-22,24,30

Kurds: in Anatolia, 12; Armenian

mausoleum, 99-102,110

massacres o f 1894—1896 and, 142-43,

Mayewski (general), 156,157

142n. 5; o f Dersim, 153-54,153n. 20;

mecruh,

helping Armenians, 152-53

Mehmed IV, 121

Kutan, Recai, 120

101

Mellaart, James, 72-73,85

Index memoirs of survivors. See survivor

I

219 museums: archaeological, 42; art, 57; significance of, 42—43; studies of not

memoirs memory: adult vs. child, 145,145n. 13;

visiting, 68n. 23; target audience of,

cultural, 8; history and, 145,145n. 12,

62-64. See also Anatolian Civilizations

158-60; individual, 9,103-10,148-49;

Museum

of individuals, 25-26,153; institutions

museum visitors: dissident narratives of,

of, 11; lack of, 3; natural, 158; of the

60-62,67-68; educational level of, 62;

Ottoman past, 2 ,3—4,13; of places,

evolutionary walking practice of, 51-52,

147; political nature of, 160-61;

56-57,58; illiterate, 6 4 -6 5 ,64-65n. 22;

psychological survival and, 146; as

interviews with, 5 2 -5 3 ,52n. 17; as

replacement, 7; sensory, 147,155-56,

model visitors, 63-64,65; nostalgic

156n. 22; sites of, 6; social, 3 ,8 ,9 . See

narratives of, 57-60,67; study of,

also collective memory; public

42-43; territorial kinship narratives of,

memory

Mevlana, 98n. 5

13,53-57,58,66-67; urban-rural

Mevlana Lovers Association, 98

dichotomy and, 60-62,64-65,67-68

M evlid, 9 8 -9 9 ,98n. 4

music, 1 4 ,1 62,170,177-85,181n. 27

Middle East archaeology, 44 46

Muslims. See Islam; Islamists

M illi Gamete, 126-27,130,134

Mussolini, Benito, 105,109

m illi Şef, 106n.

m üzelik, 29— 32,38

M illiyet,

11

114,114n. 2

Ministry of Culture, 73,175 minority groups, 11-13

naïve narratives, 57n. 20

model citizens, 63

names, law of last names, 5-6

model visitors, 63-64,65

narratives: chronological, 50-53,51n. 16,

modernity, 2 ,7 ,1 9 ,1 8 6

56-57; dissident, 60-62,67-68;

modernization: corrupting effect of, 21,24;

framing. See also framing narratives;

nostalgic narratives and, 58-59; in

institutionalized (nationalistic), 13-14,

örselli Village, 16,21-22,24,27-29;

4 0 -43,62,65-66,68-69,122; naïve,

urban-rural dichotomy in, 60-62; of

57n. 20; nostalgic, 57-60,67; personal,

Yuntdağ region, 18

13-14; sophisticated, 57n. 20; territorial

Momi, Adrienne, 91-92

kinship, 1 3 ,5 3 -5 7 ,5 8 ,6 6 -6 7 ,163n. 3;

monophony, 165

tradition in, 21-22

moral codes, 54

national culture, shared, 54—55,66

Mother Goddess, 8 5 ,85n. 8,86,87

national discourse, 151,160-61

motherland, 57,166,178,184-85,186

national identity: ACM exhibits and, 49,

mourning, 97-98,97-99,112,112-13

65-66; archaeology and, 43—46;

m übadils,

1 6 7-68,167n. 1 2 ,169n. 13,176.

Armenian massacres and, 139-40;

See also Turkish-Greek population

geographic kinship and, 163;

exchange

homogenization of, 14,49,166,167,

m uhtar, 82-83

186; memory of violence in, 138;

220 national identity (cont.) m übadils in ,

168; traumatic events and,

11

I

Index batdeground of, 118; structural, 117-18; in survivor memoirs, 149-50 nostalgic narratives, 57-60,67

nationalism: archaeology and, 4 3 -4 7 ,43n. 4 ,44n. 5 ,44n. 6,46-47; Armenian,

November 10 memorials, 96,97-98, 110-12,126-27

141-42; Çatalhöyük site and, 75; characteristics and, 152n. 19; competing, 186; influence o f museums

objectification, 31,32,37-39

on, 4 2 ,42n. 3; Ottoman reforms and,

official history, 158-60,165-66,172. See

141,141n. 2; Tamil, 44n. 5 nationalistic narratives. See institutionalized narratives

also institutionalized

(nationalistic)

narratives official ideology, 4 0 -4 3 ,96n. 2

national unity, 132-33,134—35,137

ökten, Nazlı, 12-13,95-113,123-24

nation-building, 40-43,110

Onural, Cengiz, 182-83

nation-state: characteristics o f people in,

oral history project, 185n. 34

152,152n. 19; construction of, 138;

oral transmission o f memory, 25

cultural politics of, 40-43; emergence

organized amnesia, 3

of, 4 9 -5 0 ,49n. 15; sponsored violence,

Orientalist framework, 45-46

159-60; state-ascribed identity, 163-64

Örselli Village: carpet dealers in, 22-23;

Natural Dye Research and Development Project. See DOBAG project natural dyes, 1 6,19-21,22

collective identity in, 25,28,38; collective memory in, 2 4 -26,32-33,38; denial of the past in, 29; DOBAG

natural memory, 158

project in, 16-21,22-23,32;

Neolithic civilization, 48

ethnographic research in, 33-37;

neo-Ottomanism, 121

forgetting in, 25-26,32-33; houses in,

New Age groups, 93

29-32; ideology of tradition and, 22,

new personhood, 98 Newro% 185

23-24,27-28; material change in,

N ew Song, The (band),

21-22,24; meaning of 178

newspapers, 1 1 4-16,114n. 2 , 1 1 5 , 124-25, 125n. 9,126-27

m üzelik

in,

29-32; memory and tradition in, 21-24; memory of individuals in, 25-26; modernization in, 16,21-22,24,27-29;

Neyzi, Leyla, 169n. 14,186

objectification of tradition in, 37-39;

nomadic heritage, 19

the past and change in, 24; researchers

non-muslim population, 11-12

in, 22; tourist narratives of, 21-22,38;

nonstate violence, 159-60

traditional clothing in, 34—36; utility of

Nora, Pierre, 6 ,7,158

technology in, 27

norms, 54 nostalgia: in China, 7,117-18; commodities

Ottoman Empire: archaeology and, 46; Armenian massacres and, 140-43;

and, 10-11; economy of, 10; increase in,

Armenians in, 139; bazaar exhibit, 51 ;

2; modern increase in, 6-7; political

communities of, 139; erasing the

Index

I

221

memory of, 2 ,3 -4 ,1 3 ; Islamists’

political habitus, 9 7 ,97n. 3

representation of, 121-23,135; reform

political Islam, 118-22

movements, 1 4 0-41,141n. 2

political legitimacy, 1 12-13,123-24,124n.

8

Ottoman food, 10

politics: administered forgetting and, 3-6;

Ottomanism, 121 Our Sea (M arenostrum ), 170-77

Atatürk symbolism in, 96-97,112-13;

oudaw music, 177-83

Çatalhöyük and, 82-83,93; cultural, 41 ;

oya,36

institutional, 170,170n. 15; memory

özdoğru, Sibel, 55

and, 160-61; public memory and, 2-3,

özgürlük,

116; rise o f political Islam and,

H in . 16

118-22

Özkan, Refet, 176 Ozouf, Mona, 100, lOOn. 8 özyürek, Esra, 1-15,114-37

polyphony, 164,164n. 5,170,173,174, 184-85 P opular H istory, P op iikrT arib,

1 65,165n. 10

165,165n. 10

posters: Republic Day, 1 3 1 -3 3 , 1 3 2 , 134;

Pamuk, Orhan, 1 Pandey, Gyan, 148,159-60

Virtue Party, 127-29 ,1 2 8

panopticism, 5 8 ,58n. 21

Powell, Josephine, 18-19

Pantheon, 100, lOOn. 8

prehistoric art, 89

paratext, 169-70,174,184

present, the, 58-59

P aratexts (Genette),

procreation, 168-69,169n. 14

170

past, the: carpet weaving and, 10-11,19,

progress, ideology of, 52

24,29; collective memory and, 24-26;

protestors, mecruh, 101

cultural identity and, 2-3; denial of, 29;

psychological survival, 146

as m üzelik, 31-32; nostalgic narratives

public culture, 8-9

on, 58-59; purity of, 24; rapid change

public memory: o f Çatalhöyük, 93-94;

and, 7; representations of, 2-3; vision

complex nature of, 2-3; concept of,

of, 19,117; weaving connects the

8-9; politics and, 116; of the Republic’s

present with, 26-27

founding principles, 117-18 publics, counterpublics and, 135-36,136n.

peasants, 60-62 People’s Houses, 108,108n. 13 periodicals, history, 164—65

15 “Publics and Counterpublics” (Warner), 135-36

peritext, 169-70 personal narratives, 13-14 personhood, new, 98

publishing company. See Beige Publishing Company

PKK. See Kurdish Workers Party place-names, 25 place of origin.

geographic origin

racism, biological, 4 9 ,49n. 14

places, memory of, 147

rakı, 183,183n. 31

poems, 9 8 ,98n. 4

Ramaswamy, Sumathi, 44n. 5

222 R ebetika-Rebetler,

178-80

I

Index Rum ,

R e b e tik a 2 :1 9 2 7 - 1 9 5 4 , 180-81

regimes of truth» 151n. 17 religious affiliation, 167-68,176-77,

171,171n. 17

rural-urban dichotomy. See urban-rural dichotomy Russian army, 143,143n. 8

183-84 rem betika, rembets,

1 77-83,181n. 27

177,179,182

Sabah,

114,114n. 2

remembering. See memory

Sacred Journeys Travel Tours, 84-85,86

representation: institutional politics of, 170,

Saltık, Hasan, 177,185

170n. 15; strategy of, 117-18

Samuel, Raphael, 92

Republican People’s Party, 97,130

Sasoun, 141

Republic Day: alternative gathering for,

school building, 8 2 -8 3 ,82n. 7

131-32,133-35,136-37; newspaper

script reform (1928), 5,104,106

articles on, 1 1 4 -1 6 , 1 1 5 , 118-21,

secularism: 1994 elections and, 100-101; as

124-27,125n. 9; official advertisements

the dominant public, 136; early reforms

for, 131-33; posters,

and, 4-6 ; seventy-fifth anniversary

1 2 8 , 131-33,134;

seventy-fifth anniversary of, 119-21, 131-35,136-37 Republic o f Turkey: administered

celebrations and, 118,131-33 secularists, 9,96,130 seed, 169,169n. 14,184

forgetting in, 3-6; early reforms of, 4-6,

Sekene (Aladağ),

95-96; erasing the past in, 2 ,3 -4 ,1 3 ;

self-determination, 43

founding of, 3,11-13; founding

Şen, Hikmet, 55,60-62

principles of, 9 ,1 1 6 ,1 1 8 ,1 2 4 -2 5 ,125n.

Şengör, Celal, 102

9,127-31,135-37; Islamists’

sensory memory, 147,155-56,156n. 22

representation of, 121-23,124-31,

serbestlik,

125n. 9; non-Muslim population in,

seventy-fifth anniversary, 1 1 4 -1 6 , 1 1 5 ,

11-12; official history of, 158-60,

173-74

İ l i n . 16

1 1 8-2 1,1 2 4-2 7,125n. 9

165-66,172; official Republic Day

shared national culture, 54—55,66

theme, 1 3 1 -3 3 , 1 3 2 ; seventy-fifth

Shiites, Alevis, 98n. 6

anniversary of, 1 1 4 -1 6 , 1 1 5 , 118-21,

signifiable violence, 160

124—2 7 ,125n. 9; westernization of, 4-6,

single-party ideology, 130-31

46—47

Singles o f Salkim H anim , The (Taneleri),

12

researchers, 22 R eturn to Tradition

(Anderson), 22

sites of memory, 6

Rofel, Lisa, 117-18

Skurski, Julie, 156

Rosaldo, Renato, 24,32

slave markets, 153

Rowlands, Michael, 44n. 6

Smyrna/Izmir style, 181,182

rugs.

social change, 2 1-22,57,69,93

carpets

rules of formation, 150-53,151n. 1 6 ,160n. 23

social class, 1 51-52,152n. 18 Social H istory,

165,165n. 9

Index

I

223

social memory, 3 ,8 ,9

Tale o f M y C ity,

social relations, 110-11

Tamil nationalism, 44n. 5

soil, 169,169n. 14,174,184

Taneleri, Salkım Ham m’in, 12

Sönmez, Serdar, 179

Tanzimat reforms, 140

sophisticated narratives, 57n. 20

target audience, 62-64,68,186

sophistication, 62

T arihe B in C anh Tantk,

souvenirs, Çatalhöyük-related, 7 8 ,7 8

Tarih ve Toplum, 164-65

state. See nation-state

tax, wealth, 11

state-ascribed identity, 163-64

Taylor, Juke, 151n. 17

7fc(Aladağ), 172

185n. 34

Stewart, Kathleen, 10

technology, 21,24,27

Stokes, Martin, 6

Tekeli, İlhan, 120

strategy of representation, 117-18

tekés,

Stronza, Amanda, 80

territorial kinship narratives, 13,53-57,58,

structural nostalgia, 117-18 students, veiled,

1 1 5 , 115-16,127,130,

133 subject effect, 5 3 ,53-54n.l9

178,178n. 25

6 6 -6 7 ,163n. 3 textiles, 17-18,21,28,37. See also carpets Tülci, Salih, 176 time: chronological museum narrative and,

subsidies, agricultural, 79-80

51-52,56-57; clock and calendar

suggestibility, 145,145n. 13

reforms, 4 - 5 ,5n. 3 ,5n. 4,122 165,165n. 9

superego, 100,108

Toplum sal Tarih,

Surmelian, Leon, 150

tourism, 10,78,80

survival, psychological, 146

tourist narratives, 21-22,38

survivor memoirs: on America, 149-50,

tradition: in carpet weaving, 17-21,23-24,

149n. 15 ,1 5 5 ,155n. 21; authenticity of,

32,36,37-39; concept of, 17; ideology

144-46,144n. 9; by children, 145;

of, 2 2 ,2 3 -2 4 ,27 -28 ,3 5,3 7 ; importance

construction of meaning and, 12,

of, 34; m üzelik and, 29-32; in narratives,

154-58; Dersim Kurds in, 153-54,

21-22; objectification of, 37-39; value

153n. 20; helpful groups in, 153-54,

of, 36

153n. 20; of life before violence,

traumatic events, 11-13. See also violence

146-47,148-49,157-58; massacre

Treaty o f Lausanne, 167

sequence in, 144-45,145n. 12; vs.

Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, 165

official history, 158-60,172; on the

truth, regimes of, 151n. 17

perpetrators, 150-53; political nature of,

Tuğal, Cihan, 10,12,14,138-61

160-61; rationalization o f violence in,

Tunçak, Abdurrahim, 1 2 7-29,127n. 10,

154-58; rules o f formation in, 150-53,

129n. 12

151n. 1 6 ,160n. 23; violence constitutes

Türkbank, 101-2

community in, 148—49; See also

Turkish archaeologists, 4 7 ,47n. 8

Armenian massacres (1915)

Turkish-Greek population exchange:

Sutherland, James, 147,160-61

Anatolian polyphony and, 164,164n. 5,

Swiss Civil Code, 122

170,173,174,184-85; cultural intimacy

224 Turkish-Grcek population exchange

(con/.)

I

Index veils: hat reform and, 4 ,4n. 2,123; Latife

and, 168,173,178; cultural products

Hanın wearing, 126; students wearing,

and, 1 4,166,169-70,175,175n. 20,

1 1 5 , 115-16,127,130,133. S eealsoh czd

185,186; framing narratives on, 163-64,

scarves

169-70,172-73; geographic kinship

villagers, 80-84,81-82,88,117

and, 173-77,182-83,185; geographic

violence: by Armenians, 157; community

origin and, 167-69,176-77; homeland

and, 148-49; constitutive functions of,

and, 168,183-84; linguistic signs and,

148-49; life before, 146-47,157-58;

162- 63; M arenostrum series on, 170-77;

national identity and, 138;

motherland for, 166,178,184-85,

rationalization of, 154—58; sensory

186; music and, 162,170,177-85,

memory of, 155-56; signifiable and

181n. 27; overview of, 167-69;

nonsignifiable, 160; state vs. nonstate,

religious affiliation and, 167-68,

159—60; survivor memoirs vs. official

176-77,183-84; significance of

history, 158-60

language in, 168,169n. 13,176-77,

Virtue ftuty: election campaign o f 1999,

183-84; state-ascribed identity and,

127-31; founding of, 116,120-21;

163- 64

history-based identity of, 121-23;

Turkish Historical Society, 48

posters, 1 2 7 -2 9 , 1 2 8 , 134; on the

Turkish History Foundation, 47

Republic’s founding principles, 116,

Turkish History Thesis, 47-48

117,118,127-31,135-37; seventy-

Turkish identity. See national identity

fifth anniversary celebrations and,

Turkish Language Institute, 5

120-21,123,131,133-35,136-37;

Turkish Republic See Republic of Turkey

use o f Atatürk by, 124

Turkos sporoi,

visitors, museum. See museum visitors

176

visitors to Çatalhöyük, 7 3 -7 7 ,74n. 3,

Türkü, Yeni, 181-84 Turning Through Time: Com munication w ith the D istan t P ast a t Ç atalhöyük

(Momi),

81-82 Volkan, Namık, 99,112

91-92 twenty-first century nostalgia, 6-7 Warner, Michael, 1 35-36,136n. 15 wealth tax, 11 üçetek, 34—36

unfinished work o f mourning, 99,112 unity, national, 131-33,134-35,137 urban-rural dichotomy, 60-62,64-65,

carpets Web sites: Çatalhöyük, 84—85; Islamists, 123,123n. 6 Welfare Pärty: banning in 1997,116,124;

67-68 U rchin, The,

weaving, 17-18,21,26-27,28-29; See also

145

elections of 1994 and 1995,100-101,

utility, 27,35,37

119,121; February 28 measures on,

utopia, America as, 149-50,149n. 15,155,

119; representations o f Atatürk by,

155n. 21

99

Index “We Meet in the Republic” theme,

13 2 ,

I

225 Yalçın, Kemal, 175-77,178,181 Yeni Türkü, 178

132-33 westernization: archaeological practices

Yeni Y üvgil,

114,114n. 2

and, 45-47; early reforms and, 4-6; of

Yordanidou, Maria, 171

mourning, 97-98; nostalgic narratives

Yorgo,Baba, 175

and, 58-59

Young Turks, 142,142n. 6

women: on Atatürk, 111; personal narratives of, 13-14; seventy-fifth

Yuntdağ cooperative, 16 Yuntdağ region, 17-19,20,22,37

anniversary images of, 114,/ 15 , 115-16; workers at Çatalhöyük, 83. See also head

scarves; veils

“Women of Another Time” (fashion show), 9 0 , 90—91 world of illusion, 26 World War II neutrality, 106,107

Zarakolu, Ayşenur, 172,186 • Zarakolu, Ragıp, 172 zeybeks, 183,183n. 29 Zoryan Institute, 144,144n. 10

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