Descripción

Paperback. 4to. (30 x 25 cm). In English. Color and b/w ills. [xvi], 231 p. In this study, Heath Lowry takes the reader on a series of fascinating journeys through the former Ottoman territories which today comprise northern Greece. Part travelogue and part history of a once key part of the discovery of destroyed and/or long forgotten Ottomans monuments, in combination with a detailed examination of the current status of those which survive today. Lowry approaches his subject by following the footsteps of the early 20th century British archeologist, F. W. Hasluck, who was the first scholar to examine the manner in which one time pagan sacred spaces in Anatolia and the Balkans had first been subsumed as Christian sites, and then in turn converted into Muslim sacred spaces. The question Lowry sets out to answer is: what happened to the Muslim sacred spaces in northern Greece following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War? His account traces the manner in which a surprisingly large number of such sites were subsequently converted (or reconverted as the case may be) into Christian sacred spaces. Running the gamut from major works of Ottoman architecture, such as the previously unstudied 14th century mosque of Yildirim Bayezid in Drama, to the mosque of the Ottoman 3rd Army Headquarters in Thessaloniki (Selanik), both of which today are Orthodox Churches, he traces the fate of not only mosques, but tombs, and even subjects as varied as tree cults and totem stones. This work, which reflects the author's travels in northern Greece throughout the past five years, is a must-read companion piece to his earlier: The Shaping of the Ottoman Balkans. Together these two works, which Bahçesehir University is proud to have published as parts of its Tenth Anniversary Commemorations, mark a major contribution to our knowledge of both the long neglected Ottoman architectural legacy in Greece and to the subsequent subsumption of many Muslim sacred spaces.