Monument Building in the urban centre of Nicosia, 1960-2020: An overview.

Historical narrative, memory, and identity formation are strongly linked to the decisions taken behind the erection of a monument 
in a public space. This is especially true in places with a difficult past. Cyprus makes an interesting and, to some extent, unique 
case of a place which, despite its small size, has experienced for decades monument building serving two parallel historical narratives, and two distinct national orientations.

Following up on previous works related to monument building in Cyprus, this project comes to document monuments, museums, 
and cultural centres erected or operated across the divide between 1960 and 2020 and to what extent their emergence is related to or affected by certain key events i.e. the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960; the intercommunal strife in 1963-1964; the 1974 war; the introduction of the Nicosia Master Plan in 1979; the unilateral proclamation of a new regime in the Turkish Cypriot community in 1983; the introduction of a new law that allowed the employment of third country workers in Cyprus in 1991; the opening of the crossings in 2003; the entry of the Republic of Cyprus into the European Union; the economic crisis of 2013 and the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020. These are significant political and socio-economic events that have marked the recent history of Cyprus and affected the course of the island across the divide, although not equally for the two communities. Our aim was to examine whether the type and intensity of monument and museum building can be related to these events and whether these events are reflected in these monuments.

*This project has received funding from the Research and Promotion Foundation's, RESTART <<Excellence Hubs (Bridge Programmes)>> and Pillar IV-Bridge Programmes, RIF Proposal No: EXCELLENCE/0421/0566.