Abstract

Besides their undoubted aesthetic value, monuments possess an ideological function. They are meaningful forms built to commemorate significant deeds or events or to celebrate individuals who are prominent within a community. Monuments become essential for the articulation of cultural identity and memory, through which political powers and intellectual élites seek legitimation and support. As historical objects operating in fluid and transformative cultural environments, their significance is constantly renegotiated to suit new ideological agendas. Rhetoric, and in particular rhetorical descriptions or ekphraseis, may offer insights into the way in which monuments have been seen and communicated over the course of time. While representing selective verbal–visual narratives, these texts can convey specific conceptions of the monuments and encourage interpretations that are distant from the original intentions of those who had them installed. On this premise, this paper proposes a more comprehensive interpretive framework for the analysis of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, a Byzantine monument recently brought to international attention by the Turkish government’s decision to change back its status from museum to mosque. This framework resorts to rhetoric and its unique capacity to unveil, across time and space, how the monument has been perceived, expressed, appropriated, reframed, and negotiated by people as an indivisible component of their culture.

摘要

除了毫无疑问的美学价值外，纪念碑还具有意识形态功能。它们是有意义的形式，旨在纪念重要的事迹或事件，或庆祝社区中的杰出人物。纪念碑对于表达文化身份和记忆至关重要，政治权力和知识精英通过它寻求合法性和支持。作为在流动和变革的文化环境中运作的历史物品，它们的意义不断被重新协商以适应新的意识形态议程。修辞，特别是修辞描述或ekphraseis, 可能会提供对随着时间的推移人们看到和交流纪念碑的方式的见解。在代表选择性的口头-视觉叙事的同时，这些文本可以传达纪念碑的特定概念，并鼓励与安装它们的人的初衷相去甚远的解释。在此前提下，本文提出了一个更全面的解释框架来分析伊斯坦布尔的圣索菲亚大教堂，这是一座最近因土耳其政府决定将其地位从博物馆改回清真寺而引起国际关注的拜占庭纪念碑。该框架借助修辞及其独特的能力，跨越时间和空间，揭示人们如何将纪念碑作为其文化不可分割的组成部分来感知、表达、挪用、重构和协商。