Surviving Ruins And Stories Of Smyrna/İzmir:|bCentennial Memories Of The Great Fire Of 1922

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b3422561

This thesis analyzes the stories and narratives of İzmir-based counter-memory works regarding the Great Fire of Smyrna/İzmir in the two decades leading to its centennial in 2022. Following its near absence in the official historiography as well as its silencing in social memory within the context of the nation building process in Turkey, I argue that these recent counter-memory works constitute a collective effort for challenging the multiple layers of silencing. While doing so, these memorializations contribute to a common ground for coming to terms with the violent past of the city and seeking potentials of a collective mourning for the unmourned loss of Smyrna -with the catastrophic destruction of its multicultural population. As the activists, artists, and locals make use of the surviving ruins within the former fire zone (the former Greek, Armenian, and Frenk quarters of the city) and seek surviving stories where pre-1922 traces are now-defunct as reference points for their counter-memory works, I analyze their interactions with these survivors and with each other.