The starting point of this thesis is the radicalization of the long-lived Greek- Cypriot movement for termination of the British colonial rule and union - enosis - of Cyprus with Greece, which is identified with the opening of a militant campaign by the armed organisation EOKA (The National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) in April 1955. Consequently, this work takes full account of EOKA's evolution since the embryonic stage of its planning in the early 1950s, until the cessation of its functioning following the end of the rebellion with the signing of the Zurich and London Agreements in February 1959. Crucial to the thesis are the political roots of EOKA in both Athens and Cyprus and the designation of Colonel George Grivas to prepare and lead the physical insurgency in the island. Furthermore, the genesis and character of the armed movement's political desiderata are explored, such as its singularity in comparison to other anti-colonial movements and the reasons behind the eventual acceptance of an independent Cyprus by EOKA's leadership. A key preoccupation of this analysis is EOKA's strategic rationale, focusing upon the organisation's decision to subordinate the military criterion to the political plane, thereby maximising flexibility in its tactics with a continual switching from irregular warfare to political agitation, passive resistance and calculated abstentions from action, while the principal aim remained constant. EOKA's dilemmas in its effort to obtain arms and related equipment are constantly revealed, including the evasion of British anti-smuggling measures. The thesis necessarily explores EOKA's initiatives to solve the problems of supply by turning to various channels of importation from abroad and achieving self-sufficiency by producing its own sophisticated sabotage devices. Over and above such material and practical issues, this research charts the creation and evolution of EOKA's diverse structure, contributing to the gradual transition from a purely static armed organisation into a complex movement able to exploit an increasing popular base and therefore undermine British rule at its weakest point. Finally, in presenting the first fully-researched account of EOKA as an insurgent organisation, explaining its remarkable efficiency and survival, the analysis reconstructs the challenges presented throughout by communications, intelligence and counter-intelligence, and the absolute imperative of the prevention of infiltration of the organisation by hostile elements.

Since the inception of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in 1983, the TRNC government has attempted to construct and promote a collective national identity through various means, including but not limited to heritage projects, new place names, and the standardization of history textbooks used in public education. The TRNC government placed emphasis on ‘Turkishness’ in order to form a single and unified culture that had continuity with past historical ties to Turkey. Over time and in response to various external and internal political, economic, cultural and social events, the TRNC government’s construction of a collective national identity has been continuously redefined and reshaped to promote a more ‘Cypriot’ past, distancing itself from past historical ties to Turkey. Turkish Cypriots, however, do not merely absorb the official constructions of national identity; they negotiate and construct their own more nuanced understanding of that identity. How do Turkish Cypriots negotiate understandings of ‘Turkishness’? Through ethnographic field research in the TRNC and secondary sources this dissertation illustrates the ways in which national identity is constructed by Turkish Cypriots, negotiated with state constructions of national identity, and reproduced through everyday practices. Through these constructions and negotiations, Turkish Cypriots fluctuate between rejecting Turkey as an outside oppressor and excluding people from Turkey as other’, to accepting Turkey as the ‘Motherland’ and including people from Turkey as part of their national community This dissertation highlights the fabricated nature of ‘Turkishness’ and disentangles the ways in which understandings of ‘Turkishness’ are negotiated and reproduced by Turkish Cypriots. This dissertation posits that Turkish Cypriots are not shifting between Turkish nationalism and Cypriot nationalism, but rather these everyday negotiations of ‘Turkishness’ by Turkish Cypriots produce a distinct Turkish Cypriot demotic nationalism from ‘below’.

Based on the records of the proceedings of the sharia court ($er'iye sicilleri)this study contributes to the understanding of the legal status of the non-Muslims (zimmis) in Ottoman Cyprus at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Having introduced the sources and determined their limitations, which defined the topic under discussion, the sicils are studied for their diplomatic properties. Then, a brief evaluation of the administrative and political circumstances under which the zimmi and Muslim population of the island lived is made. An analysis of nearly 2,000 recorded cases indicates that the Church of Cyprus was not as influential in the administration of the island in general in this period as has sometimes been thought. Its role was confined to the distribution of non-Muslims' tax burden and gathering these taxes and dues, and representation of the zimmis in official matters. Furthermore, the jurisdiction of the Church appears to have been less significant than was anticipated and the cadi's court held a central position in the life not only of the Muslims, but also the zimmis, who brought before him all matters including personal law and matrimonial law, theoretically under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus. Analysis shows that 40% of all recorded cases involved at least one non-Muslim. This represents the highest figure so far obtained for the zimmi communities anywhere in the Ottoman Empire. It was obvious that in general the zimmis had recourse to the cadi's court on a voluntary basis, and when they did so, they were subject to Islamic law in all aspects. With regard to Muslim-Christian relations in Cyprus, a very different picture has thus emerged from that portrayed by the travellers and historians in this period. The records show that the cadi upheld their rights against Muslims and notable officials rather than the contrary. The conclusion is that the general decline observed in the late eighteenth century in the legal status of zimmis in the Ottoman empire was not yet very noticeable in Cyprus during the period studied.

The outbreak of the October Revolt in 1931 provided the government in Cyprus with an ideal opportunity to act against its political opponents and repress political activity in the island. But the authoritarian regime failed to dampen the growing political ferment in Cyprus, which would ultimately make British colonial rule unsustainable. This thesis seeks to explore the politicization of Cypriot society and to interpret the discourses and dynamics of the emerging political spaces. In particular, it focuses on three key themes in the making of contemporary Cyprus: first, the confrontation between secular and confessional politics and the consolidation of nationalism in the Greek-Cypriot community; second, the processes through which nationalist politics eventually prevailed within the Turkish-Cypriot community, at the expense of the traditional, pro-British elite; and thirdly, the emergence and consolidation of a ‘Left’ political space, dominated by the labour movement and AKEL. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s the Orthodox Church sought to claim an ethnarchic leadership over the Greek-Cypriot community, promoting a nationalist politics, bonded by the claim to enosis, or union of Cyprus with Greece. The confessional politics of the community, however, came to be challenged by the gradual formation of a broad secular political space, marked by the foundation of AKEL in 1941. The social and political programme put forward by the party gained great appeal among the Greek-Cypriot population, redefining the politics of the community. However, AKEL employed the increasingly hegemonic nationalist discourse and eventually adopted enosist politics. By 1950 ethnarchic enosist politics had prevailed within the community, demonstrating the state’s failure to gain Greek-Cypriots’ loyalty. By contrast, the Muslim traditional pro-British elite lagged behind the rising nationalist politics advocated by a modernist secular Kemalist political force. Despite the Government’s attempts to control its appeal, the modernizing leadership had prevailed within the Turkish-Cypriot community by the end of the Second World War. The new leadership called constantly for communal autonomy and for Cyprus’ restoration to Turkey if Britain left the island, while its cooperation with the Government would be dependent on the political conjunctures throughout the rest of colonial rule. Faced with the increasingly radical Greek-Cypriot nationalism, the Turkish-Cypriot community was gradually nationalized, as demonstrated at the end of the 1940s. Nevertheless, some bi-communal cooperation materialized at the grassroots level: throughout the period under scrutiny Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots participated in common labour mobilizations. Despite the Government’s legal and administrative precautions and the use of repressive measures, the trade unions, supported by the parties of the Left, managed to organize a mass labour movement appealing to broad sections of Cypriot society across ethnic and religious boundaries. However, the adoption of the enosist politics by AKEL and the hardening of the nationalist politics of both the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot leaderships led to an increasing polarization of Cypriot society on ethnic lines, a process which the labour movement proved unable to avert. By 1950, nationalist politics had prevailed within both communities, leading to the consolidation of the ethnic division of Cypriot society in the following years.

This dissertation is a study of the lay nobility in Cyprus during the first two centuries of Lusignan rule . The first part begins with a chapter in which the term "feudal nobility" is defined with reference to Cyprus and then proceeds to give an account of the history of the nobility and of the nobility's contribution to the changing fortunes of the island. Two themes in particular are developed: the rise of the house of Ibelia in the thirteenth century and their dominance of noble society which extended into the fourteenth , and the tensions within the ruling class during and after the wars of Peter I and the Genoese invasion of the 1370's. In part 2 the obligations and benefits arising from the feudal bond and the way in which the nobility co-operated with the crown are described . Attention is drawn to the continuation into the fourteenth century of the twelfth-century feudal institutions and to the normally good relations between crown and vassals. The dissertation ends with an examination of the vassals' exploitation of their fiefs.

Offering a social approach to landscape through the systematic study of communication routes, this study redresses the balance between previous social, historical and data driven archaeological studies of roads, paths and communication routes, while providing landscape survey projects with the techniques through which to address social interaction on a regional scale. Research on roads, paths and communication routes completed over the past 50 years focuses on the technology of road building, descriptive historical accounts of roads, and anthropological investigations that focus mainly on the role of communication routes in movement, memory and landscape. Unlike these previous studies, this research addresses communication routes as socially embedded material culture. Since the 1970s many archaeologists working in the Mediterranean have employed regional survey techniques in order to investigate broader patterns of human activity in the landscape. Communication routes are notoriously absent from these survey projects. Interaction is instead extrapolated from topographical information and sherd densities. In the current climate of landscape archaeology where interdisciplinary regional survey projects employ ever more complex and insightful GIS systems in the attempt to understand social landscapes, the absence of communication data appears glaringly obvious. Within this thesis I argue that the importance of roads and paths goes beyond the places they may or may not connect or intersect. Instead, roads and paths are products of daily practices that reaffirm, redefine and reproduce social and cultural relations. Through the intensive survey of communication routes in three distinct regions in Cyprus, (North Palekhori, Mandres and the Akamas Peninsula Survey Zones), I gained a greater understanding of the interplay between human activity, expressions of identity, land use and settlement from the Roman to the British Colonial period. iii Although the morphology and structural features of roads, paths and communication routes vary between these survey zones the underlying themes involved in the construction, maintenance and use of communication routes cut across geography and time. This thesis pushes the boundaries of landscape archaeology and survey methodologies to address: human-land relations, traditions of road and path building, the role of roads and paths in the negotiation of power and the entwined nature of communication routes and perceptions of landscape.

No description available.

The origins of Early Iron Age polity in south-east Cyprus have traditionally been attributed to the formal imposition of Phoenician dominion over Kition in 707 BC. It is proposed that this paradigm fails adequately to acknowledge local agency in the preceding development of relations with Canaan and the Nile Delta from c.1650 BC onwards. Longue durée trends in settlement and societal development suggest that Late Bronze Age communities became pre-adapted to incorporation into wider Levantine spheres of interaction through participation in 'orientalizing' exchange. An emphasis is placed upon the significance of bulk commodity industry as a catalyst for social innovation, including the adoption of urbanism, concurrent with secondary state formation. Three case studies examine the development of regional settlement landscapes within the environs of Ayios Sozomenos, Pyla, and Hala Sultan Tekke. Discussion chiefly incorporates the results of new fieldwork conducted by the author [2007-2009] at the site of Pyla-Kokkinokremos. This involved pedestrian, geophysical and remote sensing survey combined with trial excavation. Several previously unknown archaeological features were identified, providing significant new information concerning the character and intramural composition of this important maritime centre. These findings complement those of previous missions, and reflect an established community rooted in its surroundings. A dominant trend of continuity in settlement and societal development, most clearly apparent through successive episodes of synoecism, is proposed for south-east Cyprus as a whole across the Bronze-to-Iron Age transition. Changes in occupation throughout the eastern Mediterranean at this time have conventionally been attributed to successive waves of migration and colonisation. This thesis constitutes an attempt at a pre-colonial narrative for Phoenician Cyprus, and by extension a conceptual framework to structure investigation of Levantine diaspora communities elsewhere in the Mediterranean.

Prehistoric figurines have long proven evocative objects, and those of Bronze Age Cyprus have captivated researchers for more than a century. Much of this attention, however, has focussed on appraising the aesthetic characteristics, particularly of human figurines and using them to ascribe names to Bronze Age Cypriot deities. Most studies ignore animal figurines and less visually appealing, fragmentary or schematic examples; socially-situated analyses have also been particularly rare. However, the potential of these enigmatic objects to illuminate the society which made and used them has not gone unnoticed by archaeologists and calls have been made for a comprehensive, contextual investigation. This thesis undertook to provide such a study, aiming not only to interpret the function and significance of the figurines themselves but to consider the implications of these interpretations for the nature of the Bronze Age Cypriot society. The project has collated a detailed database of all 1790 known figurines from this period, including representations of humans, animals and inanimate objects, depicted as independent figurines, figurative vessels and vessels decorated with miniature figurines. These are predominantly ceramic but those few stone and metal variations of established ceramic categories have also been included. This varied material has been organised into a transparent, comprehensive typology and subjected to rigorous iconographical and contextual analyses. The interpretations to which these analyses have led have been informed by a diverse theoretical basis drawn from art-history, philosophy and archaeology, and situated on a firm understanding of the socio-cultural context of Bronze Age Cyprus. Investigations into the symbolic connotations and practical use of each figurine type have proven fruitful. Significant new findings include the hitherto unrecognised importance of textile imagery in the Early-Middle Bronze Age, evidence for the ritual breakage of Plank Figurines and a complex interplay of homogenisation and variation within the Late Cypriot figurine record. Finally, diachronic transformations in the forms, meanings and usage of figurines have been carefully evaluated to consider their implications for the changing socio-cultural landscape of Cyprus throughout the Bronze Age. Alterations in the criteria chosen to display group identity, a combination of continuity and change in ritual practices and sustained, close contacts with a wide sphere of external communities are just some of the trends and issues which figurines have been able to elucidate. Principally, this study demonstrates that nuanced, systematic investigation of this rich body of figurines holds significant potential to inform interpretations not only of the figurines themselves but also of their dynamic and complex Bronze Age Cypriot context.

In Cyprus that experienced British imperial rule from 1878 until 1960, Greek and Turkish nationalism developed at different historical periods and at different paces. Relations between Turkish Cypriots and the British on the one hand, and Greek Cypriots and the British on the other, were asymmetrical. During the colonial era in Cyprus, the Muslim community had undergone an enormous change in terms of national/ethnic identity and class characteristics. Turkish Cypriot nationalism developed belatedly as a militant nationalist and anti-Enosis movement. Against this background this thesis explores the relationship between the emergence of the Turkish national identity and the British colonial rule because the latter set out the international, political, social and ideological context wherein the Turkish national identity was shaped. In particular this thesis focusing on the period between the two World Wars (1923-1939) when the transformation of the Muslims of Cyprus into Turkish Cypriots occurred, examines the extent to which the British rule affected the process of development of Turkish nationalism on Cyprus. This thesis discusses educational and administrative policies implemented by the British rule that had an impact on the politics of the Muslim community of Cyprus. The development of Turkish Cypriot national identity is also placed in the broader international context of the Eastern Mediterranean, with due attention being paid to the role of both Turkey and Italy. The impact of the Kemalist reforms on Cyprus and the resultant division of Turkish Cypriots into two conflicting groups of Kemalists and traditionalists is presented, and British fears of Italian expansionism under Mussolini are also examined. The final conclusion is that while a Turkish Cypriot identity would inevitably have developed, the divisive way it developed was a result of the imperial policies the British rule implemented during the period in question.