Conflicts and Uses of Cultural Heritage in Cyprus

Abstract

This paper examines the conflicts and politics of heritage within communities and across the ethnic divide in Cyprus. By looking at three case studies of religious, antiquarian and modern heritage, it underscores the selective appropriations and restorations of heritage as well as problems of heritage identification and protection. Specifically it is concerned with the status of churches and building of mosques in the northern part of the island, the symbolic uses of the Kyrenia shipwreck and its replicas, and the difficulty in politically appropriating the ruined Nicosia airport that is located in the UN Buffer Zone.

Notes

 [1] See C. M. Constantinou and M. Hatay, ‘Cyprus, ethnic conflict and conflicted heritage’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33(9), 2010, pp. 1600–1619 and O. Demetriou ‘The militarization of opulence: engendering conflict heritage’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 14(1), 2012, pp. 56–77. See also Brian Bielenberg and Costas M. Constantinou (eds), Empowerment through Language Revival: Current Efforts and Recommendations for Cypriot Maronite Arabic, PRIO Cyprus Centre, Nicosia, 2010 and the documentary of Costas M. Constantinou and Giorgos K. Skordis, The Third Motherland, Cyprus, 2011. Further relevant work can also be found on the CRIC project website < http://www.cric.arch.cam.ac.uk/index.php>, which documents the work carried out for the EU-funded project ‘CRIC—Identity and Conflict: Cultural Heritage and the Reconstruction of Identities after Conflict’, out of which the conference in which the papers collected here were presented sprang.

 [2] No one really knows why Turkish Cypriots opened the checkpoints. However, the former Prime Minister of Greece, Costas Simitis speculated that, this was the result of their ‘two-pronged plan of securing Cyprus’ entry into the European Union and securing acceptance of Turkey's candidacy to participate in the EU', < http://www.greekembassy.org/Embassy/content/en/Article.aspx?office = 2&folder = 342&article = 11414>. Apart from external pressure coming via the EU, there was also increasing domestic opposition in this same period, as a growing number of Turkish Cypriots began to oppose what they saw as their leadership's intransigence in negotiations that would have led to a federal state within the EU. Additionally, in the 1990s, Greek-Cypriot refugees had begun bringing cases against Turkey in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) demanding access to their properties in the island's north, and the fact that these cases were piling up might have played a role as well. Following the opening, the Turkish side established a commission to deal with all the affected properties in the north by creating a local remedy that was not there before. Before the establishment of the latter local commission, Greek Cypriots had direct access to the ECHR without going through any local courts.

 [3] Official publications reflect this concern at the destruction of heritage, which becomes defined in an exclusivist ethno-communal sense, and documented in a rather propagandist way: see, for example, < http://www.mcw.gov.cy/mcw/DA/DA.nsf/All/5C63072411078AB9C22572750055D67D > for Greek-Cypriot heritage in the north and for the Turkish-Cypriot heritage in the south see: Presidency Office of TRNC, Destroyed Turkish Cypriot Villages in South Cyprus, Lefkoşa, 2009.

 [4] Rebecca Bryant, Past in Pieces: Belonging in New Cyprus, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2010; E. Copeaux and C. Mauss-Copeaux, Taksim: Bölünmüş Kıbrıs, 1964–2005 [Taksim: Divided Cyprus, 1964–2005], İletişim, İstanbul, 2009.

 [5] For further reading of the return of Greek-Cypriot refugees, see Rebecca Bryant, op. cit.; and Lisa Dikomitis, Cyprus and its Places of Desire: Cultures of Displacement among Greek and Turkish Cypriot Refugees, I. B. Tauris Academic Studies, London, 2012.

 [6] Ali Dayıoğlu and Mete Hatay, ‘Cyprus’, in Jorgen S. Nielsen, Samim Akgönül and Ahmet Alibasic (eds), Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, Brill, Leiden, 2009, pp. 75–88.

 [7] For more on the Atatürk images, their prevalence and use in Turkey: Ayşe Gül Altınay, The Myth of the Military-Nation: Militarism, Gender, and Education in Turkey, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2006; Esra Özyürek, Nostalgia for the Modern: State Secularism and Everyday Politics in Turkey, Duke University Press, Durham, NC and London, 2006. For the Atatürk cult in Cyprus, see: Mehmet Adil, ‘Visibility 600 metres: reflections on the national monuments of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’, DCA thesis, Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong, 2007, < http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/78>.

 [8] Most of the churches were looted during and after the war. Although some of the icons were recovered from looters and put in ‘icon museums’ that were established by Turkish-Cypriot authorities, many also made their way to Europe and were sold in illegal antiquities markets. For more on this illicit trade, see Michael Jansen, War and Cultural Heritage, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 2005.

 [9] Rebecca Bryant, op. cit.; Lisa Dikomitis, op. cit.

[10] See, for example: EP (European Parliament), Declaration of the European Parliament on the Protection and Preservation of the Religious Heritage in the Northern Part of Cyprus, European Parliament, Strasbourg, 2006, < http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef = -//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2006-0335+0 + DOC+XML+V0//EN>.

[11] Ergül Ernur, ‘16 Yeni Cami için 13 Trilyon’ [13 trillions for new mosques], Kıbrıs, 7 May 2009.

[12] Of 16 mosques that have been built since 2008, only 4 of them were built in villages that were inhabited by Turkish settlers. Two others were built in mixed villages, while the rest were built in villages that are solely inhabited by Turkish Cypriots (Ergül Ernur, ‘16 Yeni Cami için 13 Trilyon’ [13 trillions for new mosques], Kıbrıs, 7 May 2009).

[13] < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrenia_ship>(accessed 11 October 2011).

[14] A. K. Phylactou et al. (eds), The Ancient Greek Sailing Ship of Kyrenia, Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture, Nicosia, 1994.

[15] J. R. Steffy, ‘The Kyrenia ship: an interim report on its hull construction’, American Journal of Archaeology, 89(1), 1985, pp. 71–101; pp. 71–72.

[16] As suggested in the Major Cypriot Encyclopedia [Mεγάλη Kυπριακή Eγκυκλoπαíδεια], Vol. 7, Philokypros, Nicosia, 1987, pp. 68–70.

[17] See, for example, < http://www.cypnet.co.uk/ncyprus/city/kyrenia/castle/shipwreck/index.html > and < http://EzineArticles.com/2612146>(accessed 11 October 2011).

[18] See, for example, < http://www.cypnet.co.uk/ncyprus/city/kyrenia/castle/shipwreck/index.html > and < http://EzineArticles.com/2612146>(accessed 11 October 2011)

[19] For example, Phylactou, op. cit., p. 35.

[20] See, for example, the story of its discovery and recovery in the documentary With Captain Three Sailors: The Ancient Ship of Kyrenia, < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = 5BDsQBJ7qc8>. In the last municipal elections for mayor of Kyrenia (this is for the Greek-Cypriot municipal authority that does not have control of the city but currently resides in the south), the son of legendary Andreas Kariolou, Glafkos Kariolou, won by a landslide over all other candidates, including the candidate supported by all major political parties representing more than 95 per cent of the electorate—explained as a recognition of his background as well as his involvement in the Kyrenia commons and sailing of the replica Kyrenia ship.

[21] See Enalia Odos [Eναλíα Oδóς], Kerynia Chrysocava Cultural Foundation, Nicosia, 2006, and various video clips of these events on youtube.com

[22] See Enalia Odos [Eναλíα Oδóς], Kerynia Chrysocava Cultural Foundation, Nicosia, 2006, and various video clips of these events on youtube.com, pp. 11–12.

[23] Phylactou, op. cit., pp. 107–109.

[24] < http://www.kyreniaship.org>(accessed 11 October 2011).

[25] J. E. Tunbridge and G. J. Ashworth, Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict, Wiley, Chichester, 1996.

[26] See C. M. Constantinou and O. P. Richmond, ‘The long mile of empire: power, legitimation and the UK bases in Cyprus’, Mediterranean Politics, 10(1), 2005, pp. 65–84.

[27] I am employing here Bourdieu's notion of ‘habitus’ (1977), which privileges positioning in the embodiment of experience—see P. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1977.

[28] Given the pre-existence of a car showroom in the area owned by the Colocasides family, the camp's name appears to reflect this industrial space designation.

[29] This interpretation draws on insights from earlier work in Greece, which explored the implications of changing national narratives in the experience of place—see O. Demetriou, ‘Streets not named: discursive dead-ends and the politics of orientation in Thrace’, Cultural Anthropology, 21(2), 2006, pp. 295–321.

[30] I am thinking of Gellner's proposition that nationalism pacifies class conflict, Hobsbawm's examples of national traditions like those of the USA and Germany oriented towards unification against enemies, Anderson's core image of dying for the homeland as the foundation of nationalism, and Billig's use of the Gulf War to exemplify ‘banal nationalism’. See E. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1983. E. J. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983. B. Anderson, Imagined Communities, Verso, London, 1991 [1983]. M. Billig, Banal Nationalism, Sage, London, 1995.

[31] See < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicosia_International_Airport > and < http://military-genealogy.forcesreunited.org.uk/history/unit.asp?unitID = 4103>.

[32] I use Augé's notion here, developed in tandem with a view of space-time relations becoming homogenized on an international scale. See M. Augé, Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, Verso, London, 1995. M. Augé, A Sense for the Other: The Timeliness and Relevance of Anthropology, Mestizo Spaces/Espaces Métissés, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 1998.

[33] I am grateful to Emily Shiantou for pointing out the connections with international airport architecture, which she further explores in E. Shiantou, ‘Nicosia International Airport: entrapped modernity’, MA thesis, Faculty of Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2011.

[34] < http://taxidiaris.blogspot.com/2008/01/nicosia-international-airport.html>.

[35] It should be mentioned that at that point the site was already under the control of Canadian UN troops who re-assumed control after the Turkish attack was thwarted.

[36] The four Tridents were flown by Cyprus Airways and were attacked by Turkish bombers on 22 July 1974. One was completely destroyed, another damaged beyond repair (the one still sitting on the side of the runway), a third damaged but repaired and re-operated by British Airways from 1977 to 1982 (the one exhibited in Duxford), and the fourth suffered minor damaged and joined the BA fleet until scrapping in 1980. See < http://www.airliners.net/photo/Cyprus-Airways/Hawker-Siddeley-HS-121/0153792/ > and < http://aviation.elettra.co.uk/flightline/profile.php?aircraft = trident2>.

[37] See, for example, < http://www.uncovered-cyprus.com/>, but also a critical perspective on cultural ‘branding’ of the site at < http://hblack.net/hblack/index.php?id = 87>. Other projects have included the exhibition of Cypriot artists' work in the room where the leaders of the two communities negotiate, which is housed in the renovated old terminal building. See also Shiantou (op. cit.) for a fuller study of such examples.