southeastern europe

The protests that spread from the relatively small and rather underused Gezi park in Istanbul to a host of cities and towns throughout Turkey are not likely to overthrow the AKP government. As I was pointing out in another note , the demonstrations had a dual effect. On the one hand they were an indictment of the the arrogance and contempt for dissenting opinion displayed by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and an expression of increasing unease at the way the party has been introducing issues of public morality in the political agenda as new alcohol regulations and the Ankara Metro protests indicate. And, it is becoming increasingly clear that they constituted a condemnation of the alliance of the AKP with particular corporate elites that seem to benefit from the capitalist development model the party has promoted. On the other hand, they inadvertently exposed the irrelevance and lack of vision of the opposition parties. The protests are likely to fizzle out, the AKP will probably stay on ...

This new book published by Palgrave contains a chapter co-authored by me and & U.Özkırımlı entitled 'Colonizing' the Past: History and Memory in Greece and Turkey Nations and their Histories Constructions and Representations Edited by Susana Carvalho and François Gemenne Palgrave Macmillan Nations and their Histories highlights the importance of the past and its uses in the formation of modern nations and national identities. It looks at the construction of different national historiographies as well as present representations of the past in the politic...

Macedonia square in central Skopje has been at the centre of disputes over the planned construction of a church. But, as it has recently been revealed, the municipal authority of Skopje has even more ambitious plans over the city's central public space. As the daily Dnevnik has revealed, no expense has been spared in the city's intervention to give character to the square; Fonderia Artistica Ferdinando Marinelli, located in Florence , Italy , has been secretly hired to make statues of figures that are central in Macedonian national narrative. Apart from a monumental statue of Alexander the Great riding his horse Bucephalus which, together with its 10 metre high pedestal will reach 22 metres, statues of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, and of Czar Samuil as well as a host of Macedonian revolutionaries and politicians are planned to be positioned in the square. This ‘excess’ of history in one public space is something that begs closer investigation. It certainly constitute...