Ethnography of the Madımak massacre commemorations in Sivas: changing narratives, collective identities, and fragmentation

Abstract

This article offers an analysis of the commemorations of the Mad & imathmak Hotel massacre in Sivas in 1993. In the first part, the article reconstructs the commemorations of the period 1994-2008. In this phase, the commemorations organised mainly by secular and left-wing collective actors had a spatially fragmented character, dispersed between Ankara, Istanbul, and Sivas, but produced a homogeneous narrative that reclassified the event as an attack on the republic and its values by religious-reactionary forces, effectively marginalising the Alevi references. In the central part, the article analyses the period from 2008 to today in which it is the 'Turkish' and European Alevi associations that have assumed the monopoly of commemorations. This part also includes an ethnography of the commemorations, based on participant observation from 2013 to 2024, which allows us to observe first of all the central role of Alevi organisations in transforming those of Sivas into the main commemorations of the massacre, marginalising those of Ankara and Istanbul. Alevi organisations then transformed the genre of commemorations, leading to their 'Alevisation,' firstly through the extension of the commemoration time and the inclusion of Alevi spaces. The 'Alevisation' includes the transformation of the narrative produced by the commemorative performance through a set of elements-banners, slogans, speeches, music-reclassifying the event as yet another massacre that affected the Alevis. Commemorations, therefore, become one of the main occasions for the Alevi movement to stage and reproduce the constituent elements of its identity, transmit them across generations, as well as give voice to the movement's claims. Subsequently the article shows how the commemorations in Sivas over time have taken on a plural and fragmented character. In particular, the transformation by the state of the Mad & imathmak Hotel into a cultural centre in 2011, contested by the Alevis, was a crucial turning point. From then on, an official commemoration was held annually at the cultural centre. This commemoration offered a narrative of the event, similar to the one incorporated into the memorial corner inside the cultural centre, which avoids reclassifying the event as a massacre, excludes Alevi references and aims to absolve the city of Sivas from the stigma of being co-responsible for the event. However, in the final part the article suggests that this memorialisation of the massacre in Sivas urban space is the result of a process of negotiation, which does not have a fixed character but is in constant transformation.