ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of urban heritage in memory-making in the Greek Cypriot (southern) segment of Nicosia’s old town. Conceiving of heritage as a mnemonic device, it analyses how the legacy of the Greek Cypriot past is materialised in various types of built form and public space in South Nicosia, including the borderland, street names, political memorials and museums. The chapter shows how such ‘visualities’ of urban heritage sustain a version of Greek Cypriot national identity that is based on trauma from the conflict and sustained by the narrative of the deprivation of liberty and the loss of land due to the division. Within this framework, such urban heritage constitutes mutually exclusive forms of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and generates conflicting perceptions of the past and diverse interpretations of the present which affirm the ongoing conflict and division.
