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Thorsten Kruse, Hubert Faustmann, Sabine Rogge (eds.), When the Cemetery Becomes Political: Dealing with the Religious Heritage in Multi-Ethnic Regions. Conferences in Münster (24–25 March 2017) and Nicosia (16 March 2018 and 1 November 2019)

Anastasia Yiangou
p. 349-351
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Thorsten Kruse, Hubert Faustmann, Sabine Rogge (eds.), When the Cemetery Becomes Political: Dealing with the Religious Heritage in Multi-Ethnic Regions. Conferences in Münster (24–25 March 2017) and Nicosia (16 March 2018 and 1 November 2019), Schriften des Instituts für Interdisciplinäre Zypern-Studien 14. Waxmann, Münster & New York, 2020. 226 pp. – ISBN 978‑3‑8309‑4265‑8.

Texte intégral

1When the Cemetery Becomes Political, edited by Thorsten Kruse, Hubert Faustmann and Sabine Rogge is the outcome of a series of conferences that took place in Münster and Nicosia between 2017 and 2019. All conferences focused on how religious heritage is dealt with in multi-ethnic regions. This edited volume is a welcome contribution in existing bibliography as it deals with a most interesting yet challenging issue. Scholars from various countries and backgrounds explore the complicated interaction between religion and politics and shed light in contemporary sensitive issues in certain troubled geographic areas. Case studies include Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Greece and Lebanon.

2Section I focuses on Bosnia and Herzegovina. Željana Tunić elaborates on the different mea­nings bones can attain in post-conflict societies with particular emphasis on the Srebrenica massacre. Tunić underlines how focusing on “unidentified and unidentifiable human remains makes the question of collective responsibility more extreme” (p. 20).

3Section II focuses on the experience of Cyprus. This part begins with Theodosios Tsivolas’ exploration of the major legal issues arising from the current status of the religious heritage of Cyprus. The reports of international organizations are central to his analysis. As Tsivolas underlines, Cyprus’ religious heritage comprises a variety of tangible and intangible elements, rooted in the religious traditions of the island thus forming a distinctive cultural property. The author further explores the nexus between the legal status of such heritage vis‑à‑vis its current situation. In doing so, he points out that while systematic destruction of religious sites in the occupied part of Cyprus has been described as “cultural genocide” (p. 31), the gra­vest threat to Cypriot religious inheritance has been theft and pillage committed by individuals.

4Thorsten Kruse provides an overview of how international organizations received the fate of the religious heritage in the northern part of Cyprus, after 1974. The analysis begins with a discussion on the UNESCO report of 1975-1976, focusing on the works of Canadian expert Jacques Dalibard, who acted as Adviser for the Cultural Heritage of Cyprus. The author demonstrates how UNESCO was reluctant in becoming too involved in the Cyprus question as exemplified by unilateral changes made in Dalibard’s report, which criticized Turkey’s role in the destruction of cultural heritage in Cyprus. The chapter further comments, inter alia, on the Council of Europe reports (1989 and 2002) and the United Nations Human Rights Council reports (2012 and 2016). In general, as the chapter demonstrates, reports prepared by international organizations – until at least 2003 – adopted a more diplomatic language. However, following the opening of crossing points in 2003 the immense extent of destruction of the religious sites in the occupied areas was confirmed. The author concludes by proposing measures to be taken which would contribute in altering the existing situation.

5Petros Savvides explores the question of the Islamisation of the northern part of Cyprus, occupied by Turkey since 1974. The “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” has since its declaration in 1983 remained internationally unrecognized and has been declared legally invalid by the United Nations. Traditionally, the Turkish Cypriot community is understood to be one of the most secular in the Islamic world. Thus, the chapter initially offers a historical analysis of Turkish Cypriot secularism exploring possible reasons for such a phenomenon. The author then turns his attention to the cultural cleansing of the occupied areas following 1974. Indeed, the extensive and systematic effort to erase the predominant Greek Cypriot and Christian Orthodox cultural identity from the occupied part of Cyprus came hand in hand, as the author argues, with a process of Turkification and Islamisation of the occupied areas. The chapter then discusses this process while demonstrating Turkey’s increased involvement in the religious affairs of the occupied areas, beginning in the late 1990s and accelerating in recent years. This understandably had deeper implications not only on developments concer­ning the Turkish Cypriot community but also on Turkey’s policy regarding the Cyprus Problem.

6Lisa Dikomitis’ and Vassos Argyrou’s chapter focuses on the field of refugee studies building on existing research of both researchers. The chapter adopts an anthropological approach in investigating the politics of the restoration of churches and cemeteries in villages of the occupied part of Cyprus. The authors focus specifically on the case of the village Larnaka of Lapithos. In doing so, they show how, since 2003, Greek Cypriots attempted to restore cemeteries in the occupied areas – a political act, they argue, with strong symbolism of reclaiming their village.

7Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert and Alexandra Bounia’s work explores the politics surrounding the use of icon museums in the occupied part of Cyprus. In doing so, the chapter investigates the way a group of female Orthodox Christian visitors, namely the Women of St Barnabas use one of these icon museums as a religious rather than a secular place.

8Section III deals with Greece. The study case here is the Jewish community of Thessaloniki. More specifically, Leon Saltiel gives a detailed analysis of events surrounding the destruction of Thessaloniki’s Jewish cemetery – the largest Jewish one in Europe – in late 1942. Saltiel shows how the Jewish community had long felt a separate element in the city and how the German occupation in reality only “accelerated developments that had been in motion for decades but [were] hidden just below the surface” (p. 180). Shockingly, the destroyed cemetery’s tombstones, we learn, were extensively used as building material in order to build or repair many public and private buildings in the town, including churches. The chapter ends with a more optimistic note with reference to a monument for the destroyed Jewish cemetery which was inaugurated in 2014; testimony of the fact that the city is gradually coming to terms with its own history.

9Section IV deals with Lebanon, a territory with a long history of religious diversity. Elie Al Hindy revisits the meaning of democracy and tries to apply its principles in multi-religious societies, such as Lebanon. In doing so, the author attempts to demonstrate how a “positive correlation between the recognition of religious plurality… can have a positive impact on conflict resolution and peacebuilding” (p. 187). Ziad Fahed then explores lessons from and for Lebanon, with emphasis on the role of religions and religious leaders in peace building in time of war. In the final chapter of this section, Dima de Clerck discusses the place of the dead in southern Mount Lebanon, a place which witnessed severe conflicts between the Druze and Christian communities. The chapter investigates ‘the place’ the Christian victims have taken up since wartime. In doing so, the author examines, inter alia, the interactions between the living through their relationship with the dead.

10All in all, the book offers useful insights to an important yet unexplored issue. As such this work contributes to our understanding of a recurrent question revolving around religious heritage in multi-ethnic territories. The book is therefore highly recommended for anyone wishing to delve deeper in the complicated reality revolving around the relation between religion and politics in the western and southern parts of the Balkan Peninsula as well as in the Eastern Mediterranean.

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Anastasia Yiangou, « Thorsten Kruse, Hubert Faustmann, Sabine Rogge (eds.), When the Cemetery Becomes Political: Dealing with the Religious Heritage in Multi-Ethnic Regions. Conferences in Münster (24–25 March 2017) and Nicosia (16 March 2018 and 1 November 2019) »Cahiers du Centre d’Études Chypriotes, 51 | 2021, 349-351.

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Anastasia Yiangou, « Thorsten Kruse, Hubert Faustmann, Sabine Rogge (eds.), When the Cemetery Becomes Political: Dealing with the Religious Heritage in Multi-Ethnic Regions. Conferences in Münster (24–25 March 2017) and Nicosia (16 March 2018 and 1 November 2019) »Cahiers du Centre d’Études Chypriotes [En ligne], 51 | 2021, mis en ligne le 01 juillet 2022, consulté le 21 juin 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/cchyp/989 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/cchyp.989

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Anastasia Yiangou

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