Which fire? What victims? Contesting memories of trauma and triumph in contemporary Izmir
(2024) Third Annual Swedish Middle East and North Africa Network (SWEMENA) Conference- Abstract
- The 2022 centenary of the ‘liberation of Izmir’ saw no less than three municipally organised exhibitions thematising historic events long avoided in official memory: the Great Fire of 1922, and the ensuing Turkish-Greek population exchange. Incongruent with the tale of national triumph and unity, such disasters and displacements have been systematically repressed in Turkish official memory, brought to attention only in alternative memory art and activism. The traumatic demise of Ottoman, multi-ethnic Smyrna’s was overwritten with the triumphant birth of Turkish, modern Izmir. Covering the ashes with forgetting as much as cement, the city literally paved the way for the Republic.
All the more conspicuous was the sudden engagement... (More) - The 2022 centenary of the ‘liberation of Izmir’ saw no less than three municipally organised exhibitions thematising historic events long avoided in official memory: the Great Fire of 1922, and the ensuing Turkish-Greek population exchange. Incongruent with the tale of national triumph and unity, such disasters and displacements have been systematically repressed in Turkish official memory, brought to attention only in alternative memory art and activism. The traumatic demise of Ottoman, multi-ethnic Smyrna’s was overwritten with the triumphant birth of Turkish, modern Izmir. Covering the ashes with forgetting as much as cement, the city literally paved the way for the Republic.
All the more conspicuous was the sudden engagement with the fire during the 2022 centenary, spanning over an ideologically polarised and multidirectional memory field. On the one extreme, subversive memory interventions aspired to identify suppressed spaces/voices below the physical/discursive surface of modern Izmir, in recognition of humanitarian trauma beyond nationalising narratives and borders. On the other extreme, loyalist exponents of triumphant republicanism largely affirmed official memory tropes. Purportedly engaging with the tragedy of Smyrna, victimhood was reserved for the (proto)Turkish subjects, while the Greek army was narrated as responsible for a systematic policy of arson across the region. Hence hegemonic amnesia was bartered for selective and polarised memory work, predicated on re-narration, revisionism, meta-narrative manipulation, and a penchant for affective registers.
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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/7340e701-0c9b-49b5-84aa-3b52f7f8790b
- author
- Janson, Torsten LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2024
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- published
- subject
- conference name
- Third Annual Swedish Middle East and North Africa Network (SWEMENA) Conference
- conference location
- Lund, Sweden
- conference dates
- 2024-08-22 - 2024-08-23
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 7340e701-0c9b-49b5-84aa-3b52f7f8790b
- date added to LUP
- 2025-12-09 16:25:42
- date last changed
- 2025-12-11 16:55:15
@misc{7340e701-0c9b-49b5-84aa-3b52f7f8790b,
abstract = {{The 2022 centenary of the ‘liberation of Izmir’ saw no less than three municipally organised exhibitions thematising historic events long avoided in official memory: the Great Fire of 1922, and the ensuing Turkish-Greek population exchange. Incongruent with the tale of national triumph and unity, such disasters and displacements have been systematically repressed in Turkish official memory, brought to attention only in alternative memory art and activism. The traumatic demise of Ottoman, multi-ethnic Smyrna’s was overwritten with the triumphant birth of Turkish, modern Izmir. Covering the ashes with forgetting as much as cement, the city literally paved the way for the Republic. <br/><br/>All the more conspicuous was the sudden engagement with the fire during the 2022 centenary, spanning over an ideologically polarised and multidirectional memory field. On the one extreme, subversive memory interventions aspired to identify suppressed spaces/voices below the physical/discursive surface of modern Izmir, in recognition of humanitarian trauma beyond nationalising narratives and borders. On the other extreme, loyalist exponents of triumphant republicanism largely affirmed official memory tropes. Purportedly engaging with the tragedy of Smyrna, victimhood was reserved for the (proto)Turkish subjects, while the Greek army was narrated as responsible for a systematic policy of arson across the region. Hence hegemonic amnesia was bartered for selective and polarised memory work, predicated on re-narration, revisionism, meta-narrative manipulation, and a penchant for affective registers. <br/>}},
author = {{Janson, Torsten}},
language = {{eng}},
title = {{Which fire? What victims? Contesting memories of trauma and triumph in contemporary Izmir}},
year = {{2024}},
}