National(ist) Legacies: Violence, Place, and Memory in Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

In the post-1815 era, a host of national awakenings emerged and advanced throughout Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean. In many of the places affected by this continental Zeitgeist, violent victories and tragedies produced sites of national memory and memorial. These sites, over time and amid continued conflict, became defined by competing historical signification based on nationalist narratives. There is no one story of memory (and its companion: forgetting) in the regions under this panel’s review. However, there are certain themes that can be identified that constitute, we argue, profitable avenues of analysis, including: partisan commemoration strategies; geography-specific considerations; human migration patterns; and above all the specific historical context that underlies each memorial site’s origin and present status. By offering case studies of national(ist) sites of memory in Greece, the Balkans, Turkey, and elsewhere, this roundtable offers insights on how scholars can more effectively compare memory-making across the regions under review.

Sub Unit

• History: 1800-1900

Chair

• Gregory Lynn Bruess, U of Northern Iowa

Roundtable Speakers

• Lucien J Frary, Rider U

• John Athanasios Mazis, Hamline U

• Leslie Rogne Schumacher, Harvard U

• Yevhen Yashchuk, U of Oxford (UK)