Separating the Spaces of the Dead and the Living: Armenian Cemeteries in Nineteenth Century Istanbul

Date: April 25, 2023 – Tuesday

Time: 13:00-15:00

Place: santralistanbul Campus, E6-101

The series of ‘HISTORY TALKS’ are organized by İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities Department of History.

Speaker: Masayuki Ueno, Osaka Metropolitan University

In the nineteenth century, the greater Istanbul experienced significant urban expansion and population growth, which necessitated the improvement of the urban environment. One of the problems that people found it necessary to address was the proximity of the residential area to large cemeteries that were originally located on the periphery of the city. While local residents thought that building an outer wall around these cemeteries would be the solution, the Ottoman government, which was pushing for urban reform, preferred a more drastic approach: the relocation of the cemeteries to more peripheral areas. The treatment of non-Muslim cemeteries was controversial as they were managed by their own religious authorities. This talk focuses on the cases of Armenian cemeteries in Kadıköy, Beşiktaş, and Beyoğlu, and examines the negotiations between the Ottoman government and the Armenian community over the closure and relocation of their cemeteries. These negotiations provide clues about the relationship between the state and non-Muslim groups in Istanbul’s multi-religious society in the nineteenth century.