Inventing Heritage : The Politics of Medievalism

Medieval monuments and memorials are never simply remnants of the past. Across the world, they are continually destroyed, restored, reinvented, and mobilized in the service of contemporary politics. Inventing Heritage stages a debate about medievalism and Byzantinism as global political phenomena, examining how cultural heritage becomes a site of conflict, political domination, and public memory. The essays in this volume critically assess the management, mismanagement, and appropriation of heritage through case studies from the Balkans, Turkey, Spain, the United States, Peru, and Japan. Contributors explore how medieval monuments—old and new, material and narrative, real and (re)imagined—are mobilized to convey political meaning in modern contexts. The essays examine the destruction, protection, and reinvention of a range of cultural sites as well as the ways in which education, historiography, media, and storytelling shape competing claims to the past. Particular attention is given to the Balkans, where the destruction of monuments during the wars of the 1990s and ongoing struggles over cultural landscapes reveal how heritage becomes entangled with economic policies, anti-colonial and national discourses, and global heritage institutions. Bringing together scholars from multiple disciplines and regions, Inventing Heritage offers a framework for understanding the politics of medieval heritage and the contested meanings of public space. It will appeal to specialists in medieval and Byzantine studies, as well as readers concerned with the global politics of heritage and memory. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume are Natsuko Akagawa, Jovana Andelkovic, Güldem Baykal Büyüksaraç, Roland Betancourt, Neven Budak, Koray Durak, Filip Ejdus, Helen Fortescue-Poole, Rachel Goshgarian, Višnja Kisic, Milena Methodieva, Luis Muro Ynoñán, Elena Paulino Montero, Ana Radakovic, Milena Repajic, Marko Šuica, Hakan Tarhan, and Gustav Wollentz.