Hagia Sophia as a neo-Ottoman space? Memories, negotiations, and affective experiences of a conflictive landmark building
Landmarks buildings, such as monuments and museums are architectural expressions of power shaping historical spatial imaginations (Kaika and Thielen 2006). Recent debates in geography have mostly focused on landmark buildings’ attractivity and iconicity (Jencks 2006), undermining the role played by traces of past(s) in making them configurations of political orders and projections of urban futures. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and archival documentation on Hagia Sophia - Istanbul’s main landmark building - this article advocates for engaging with these urban spaces as complex “realms of memory” beyond their iconicity (Nora 1996). It also explores how overarching symbolic narratives are negotiated through everyday practices that directly involve these buildings’ materiality.
The conversion of churches into mosques in Turkey – and especially the 2020 conversion of Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque - has been framed as demonstrative of President Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism (Aykaç 2019). Accordingly, today authorities invest in Hagia Sophia as a spatial configuration of Turkey’s Ottoman past: its inauguration as a mosque was staged as a revival of the 1453 Ottoman conquest of Constantinople and imams publicly curse Turkey’s Republic's past. Even the materiality of the building is expected to transudate an Ottoman identity, from the Islamic carpet covering Christian mosaics to Sultan’s swords being exposed during prayers.
However, Hagia Sophia’s profile as an Ottoman symbol never translates linearly in everyday practices and memories. Tourists, worshippers, and shopkeepers constantly mix and alternate personal and official memories, multiplying narratives of Hagia Sophia’s past. They also connect historical events and everyday practices to revendicate the right to take care and attend this space. Performing and affectively experiencing Hagia Sophia beyond the frames provided by religious and political authorities, they make this iconic building ordinary.
Mots clés : realms of memory|everyday practices|landmark buildings|neo-Ottomanism|Hagia Sophia
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