The Sustainability of an Urban Ritual in the Collective Memory: Bergama Kermesi

Ülkü İnceköse

doi:10.3390/su11092684

Abstract

Bergama Festival, locally known as Bergama Kermesi, is an annual festival which dates back to 22 May 1937 in the city. It came into existence as a result of Atatürk’s intention to introduce this, an extraordinary town with its historical and cultural properties, and promote it internationally. The Festival is an important element in the collective memory of the city. Initially, it was a civic event, a device in the formation process of the Turkish Republic. However, now, it is a civil event for national and international representatives, and a festival that allows locals and guests from different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds to mix freely and equally for a certain period. In the course of the Festival, the public buildings and the open spaces of the town become places of activity and entertainment. Parks, stadiums, the town square, and streets function as spaces for a variety of activities. Looking back at its 81-year history, one can notice some important changes in the Festival’s cultural and social practices, from an earlier state-dominated character into the current more publicly oriented one. This article studies the change of Bergama Festival as an ‘invented tradition’ into an element of the collective memory in town from the perspective of different public affairs that it introduces. In this regard, the article will also show how an urban ritual can maintain its sustainability by keeping itself fresh in the social life.

Highlights

Introduction and Theoretical BackgroundFestivals are generally defined by their pleasurable and public characteristics, and they are discussed from historical, cultural, social and political perspectives
This paper considers Bergama Kermesi as an ‘invented tradition’ and investigates the process of formalization, ritualization and re-forming since 1937 until today, through analyzing the relationship between festival spaces and social practices
This research is based on a theoretical framework which draws on the concepts of ‘invented tradition’ and ‘collective memory’

Summary

Introduction

Festivals are generally defined by their pleasurable and public characteristics, and they are discussed from historical, cultural, social and political perspectives. Ekman and Geertz embody festivals as social events, and both describe festivals in terms of their relationship with the identity of people or citizens [5,6]. All these explanations or definitions confirm that a festival is a ‘socially sustaining device’ [1] Derrett investigates how cultural festivals develop and reflect a community’s sense of place through four festivals in the Northern rivers region of NSW [8]. Chen and Tao assert that the landscapes of the Qiqiao festival memory are important in forming the identity of Zhucun City [9]

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