Armenian religious architecture in the late 19th early 20th century Kayseri: spatial and cultural cleansing

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1606728 (Table of Contents)

This thesis is a study of the Ottoman Armenian religious architectural heritage in Kayseri and surrounding villages, with a particular focus on the destruction process that interested the Armenian churches and monasteries in the region. This study attempts to reconstruct the Armenian presence in the city center and the villages from midnineteenth century until 1915, through demographic make-up and main changes in the Armenian population of Kayseri. An investigation of the Armenian churches and monasteries built/rebuilt after the 1835 earthquake and the current conditions have been conducted through the creation of a catalogue. The thesis argues that the Armenian religious architecture of Kayseri and surroundings was targeted of spatial and cultural cleansing, as the removal or neglect process led to the vanishing/transformation of the majority of the analyzed architectural examples, including space-change and the end of the local Armenian culture.