This edited volume of interdisciplinary essays considers the aspects of nation, identity, and collective experience in the notoriously divided island of Cyprus. The contributors examine the role of international politics particularly the involvement of Greece and Turkey and examine the changing relationship between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities since 1955. The book challenges prevailing assumptions about political and cultural identity in Cyprus and theorizes on the prospects for mobilizing more multi-dimensional and workable formations of community on Cyprus. The result is a tightly conceived volume, divided into sections of national identity, political possibilities, the location of culture, and social and psychological perspectives.
Cyprus, spring 1972. Tensions are rising between the Greek South and the Turkish North. Within two years, the country will become divided. It is at this distinctive time in history British travel writer Colin Thubron embarks on a 600 mile trek across the country. Moving from Greek villages to Turkish towns, the author of Shadow of the Silk Road and Night of Fire provides a profound look into the people of Cyprus – from Orthodox monks to wedding parties to peasant families – against the landscape of a beautiful Mediterranean island on the eve of chaos and tragedy. A remarkable quest rich in literature, classics and architecture, Journey Into Cyprus ingeniously intertwines the history and politics of Cyprus and its mythical past with the tumultuous present – from the master of travel books and writing, Colin Thubron. ‘An accomplished linguist and historian, his passionate concern for antiquity in all its aspects - mythological, architectural, conceptual - lends weight and warmth to every chapter’ Financial Times
On April 23, 2003, to the surprise of much of the world, the ceasefire line that divides Cyprus opened. The line had partitioned the island since 1974, and so international media heralded the opening of the checkpoints as a historic event that echoed the fall of the Berlin Wall. As in the moment of the Wall's collapse, cameras captured the rush of Cypriots across the border to visit homes unwillingly abandoned three decades earlier. It was a euphoric moment, and one that led to expectations of reunification. But within a year Greek Cypriots overwhelmingly rejected at referendum a United Nations plan to reunite the island, despite their Turkish compatriots' support for the plan. In The Past in Pieces, anthropologist Rebecca Bryant explores why the momentous event of the opening has not led Cyprus any closer to reunification, and indeed in many ways has driven the two communities of the island further apart. This chronicle of the "new Cyprus" tells the story of the opening through the voices and lives of the people of one town that has experienced conflict. Over the course of two years, Bryant studied a formerly mixed town in northern Cyprus in order to understand both experiences of life together before conflict and the ways in which the dissolution of that shared life is remembered today. Tales of violation and loss return from the past to shape meanings of the opening in daily life, redefining the ways in which Cypriots describe their own senses of belonging and expectations of the political future. By examining the ways the past is rewritten in the present, Bryant shows how even a momentous opening may lead not to reconciliation but instead to the discovery of new borders that may, in fact, be the real ones.
Looks at the Turkish territory of Northern Cyprus, a self-defined state, which is actually imaginary (because it is only recognized by Turkey). This title examines the sense of haunted property and objects lost and gained in the partition, along with people's relation to the fictive remapping of places and history by this new state.
For nearly 60 years, the tiny Mediterranean nation of Cyprus has taken a disproportionate share of the international spotlight. In The Cyprus Problem, James Ker-Lindsay--recently appointed as expert advisor to the UN Secretary-General's Special Advisor on Cyprus--offers an incisive, even-handed account of the conflict. Ker-Lindsay covers all aspects of the Cyprus problem, placing it in historical context, addressing the situation as it now stands, and looking toward its possible resolution.
"The book describes how the Greek fixation with Enosis--union with Greece--led to a one-sided war against the Turks and the brutal massacres of their men, women and children."--Provided by publisher.
In Bitter Lemons, Durrell tells the perceptive, often humorous, story of his experiences on Cyprus between 1953 and 1956-first as a visitor, then as a householder and teacher, and finally as Press Advisor to a government coping with armed rebellion. Here are unforgettable pictures of the sunlit villages and people, the ancient buildings, mountains and sea-and the somber political tragedy that finally engulfed the island.
