Suppressing Heritage. The example of Thrace

The study "Suppressing Heritage. The Historical Power of In-Between Spaces. The Example of Thrace" focuses on the function of historical heritage as agent of social change and development in South-Eastern European urban contexts, as power which links spaces, periods and people on the one hand, or else blocks these interrelations on the other hand. In order to analyze this phenomenon the region of Thrace understood as conglomeration of `in- between spaces` and both geographically and culturally located between the cities of Saloniki (situated in Macedonia) and Istanbul (as the most eastern extension of Thrace) will provide an enormous pool of important information, which has been ignored by the international research so far. For the first time ever, historical heritage forms a central term for a research project which aims at uncovering ambiguous identities and syncretisms, briefly the argumentation regarding transnational traditions in South-Eastern European contexts. This is new in so far as international research is still trapped in a state-national perspective on the history of Europe, which is far more relevant to the South-Eastern European internal Greek, Turkish, Bulgarian etc. discourse. The proposed study will focus on Western and Eastern Thrace only, namely on Xanthi in the prefecture of Xanthi, Komotini in the prefecture of Rhodopi, Alexandroupoli in the prefecture of Evrou and towns along the Evros/Meriç valley (Ellinochori, Didimoteichon) as well as in Eastern Thrace Edirne/Adrianoupoli, Kirklareli, Tekirdag and (optional) Muhacirköy. The particularities of Thracian towns are caused by fundamental, demographic changes in the course of the 20th century, namely the population exchange in 1923, waves of expulsion, recent migration of Rossopontioi from former USSR after the upheavals of 1989/91, and of mostly Muslim working migrants from the Balkans. The towns under study have in common a variety of cultural features preferably in manifestations of historical heritage, so that especially regarding both their demographic and monumental/architectural structure, will provide the researcher with information which will help to outline the function of historical heritage in the present social urban contexts as both as a linking and a blocking power regarding the inherent dynamism between spaces, periods and people. The Thracian in-between spaces and the central spaces Istanbul and Saloniki are linked not only through their historical power, in particular by their centralisms which have evolved naturally since Roman Times and which enable them to preserve a culturally and politically highly inherent dynamism and exert an influence on economic and political state-developments. These spaces are also linked through their "habitus" which characterizes the Thracian towns as well as Saloniki and Istanbul as "places of absences", as "virtual ghost towns" due to their common destiny (excorporation from a transnational Empire, incorporation into nation-states). Due to the fact that the projected study claims to cope with the demands of a postdoctoral thesis (Habilitation), the three particular case studies (Istanbul, Saloniki, Thrace) will be brought together within a theoretical frame directed to develop approaches to a theory of historical heritage in transnational (preferably South-Eastern European) contexts. Methodologically the study will use combined approaches from urban (space-) sociology, symbolism and regionalism research as well as historical comparatistics and transnationalism approaches.