Mittwoch, 08. Januar 2025, 17:00 - 18:30 iCal

Ringvorlesung Turkologie Wintersemester 2024/25

Cultural Heritage in the Middle East and Central Asia: Conservation and Destruction

October 9th, 2024 - January 22th, 2025, 5PM - 6:30PM

Institut für Orientalistik, Hörsaal
Spitalgasse 2, Hof 4.1 (Campus Universität Wien), A-1090 Wien

Hybrider Event (an einem physischen Ort und online)


Envisioning ancientness: A closer look at cultural heritage discourses in early Republican Turkey

Ayşe Dilsiz Hartmuth (University of Vienna)

Abstract

Following the downfall of the Ottoman Empire, the republic that inherited a large part of its territory was faced with the vast challenge of establishing a historical narrative of Turkish nationhood. In this process, especially after the 1930s, emphasis was placed on the archeological heritage of Anatolia, advancing the Hittites as the modern nation’s ancestors. Accompanied by scientific research and documentation, this project was to support the territorial claims of Turkey on Anatolia, while placing the Ottoman past at a safe distance.

This presentation will propose a critical approach to the analysis of Early republican Turkey’s cultural heritage discourses. With the end of the Ottoman Empire and the introduction of cultural and political reforms, institutions of the state worked simultaneously to construct and disseminate a new historical narrative that would give the citizens a new sense of unity and propose a meaningful association with the material culture of Anatolia. Focusing on newly established as well as transformed institutions (such as the People’s Houses, Turkish Historical Foundation, and Directorate General of Foundations) and the textual material they produced during the 1930s and 1940s, I will inquire about the dissemination of this narrative to the public.

Bio

Ayşe Dilsiz Hartmuth studied Near Eastern Archaeology at Ege University, Izmir, and Anatolian Civilizations and Cultural Heritage Management at Koc University, Istanbul. She has worked as a pre-doctoral assistant at the Department of Near Eastern Studies of the University of Vienna, where she is also in the final stages of her dissertation project on cultural heritage politics in Early Republican Turkey. Her research interests include critical heritage studies, history of archaeology, and cultural politics in modern Turkey.

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Veranstalter

Institut für Orientalistik


Kontakt

Ayse Dilsiz Hartmuth
Institut für Orientalistik
+43-1-4277-43405
ayse.dilsiz.hartmuth@univie.ac.at