Two Tales of a City
Adrianople/Edirne
abstract
The paper is a diachronic analysis of place-making stories involving the foundation narratives of the same physical space: imperial Roman and Byzantine Adrianople and Ottoman Edirne. It draws attention on the varying ways different cultural groups from the same city construe the meaning of a place in contesting it and on the social and political processes whereby a relationship to a place is established, reproduced and transformed. It attempts to explore the production of difference within common, shared, and connected spaces. Numerous studies have considered the urban transformation of Byzantine Adrianople into Ottoman Edirne, but the examination here is the first to analyse perceptions of the city as told through the founding stories by cultural groups that have shared the space.
Keywords: Ottomans • Cities • Geography • Hadrian • Imperial Roman Period • Orestes • Health • Placemaking • Foundation Stories • Healthscape • Space • Imperial Roman period • Foundation stories • Edirne • Adrianople • Byzantium