SOCIAL, CULTURAL AND SPATIAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF CONDOLENCE HOUSE(S) IN THE CONTEXT OF MIGRATION AND URBANIZATION–CASE STUDY OF THE CITY OF DIYARBAKIR

GÖÇ VE KENT(Lİ)LEŞME BAĞLAMINDA TAZİYE EV(LER)İNİN TOPLUMSAL, KÜLTÜREL VE MEKÂNSAL DÖNÜŞÜMLERİ―DİYARBAKIR KENT ÖRNEĞİ

Abstract

Diyarbakır has a traditional city character together with its economic, cultural and social structure creating awareness among the cities of the Southeastern Anatolian region. Being exposed to an involuntary rural migration due to regional problems, the city hosts new spatial transformations coming into existence in the appearance of religious, cultural and social values forming the social system. Embodying in with the impulse of rural migration in the plane of urban layers, “condolence houses” have been patterns of traditional life retaking shape. Condolence houses have been the reference points of also urban life, which reveal the relationships of social layers at group level in spatial formation, in terms of people coming together around a humanitarian pain shared. Transforming to an absolute reality in the world of human being, “death” points out an inevitable result in the creation of every living creature. Hinted with various meanings in the context of divine religions and other beliefs, “death” emphasizes the beginning of a life imagined in the eternal or next world rather than the reality of extinction. Shaping the cultural arrangement of social life, values make room for rituals and traditions shared in the memory of people tectonically in relation to the reality of death. Death and condolence, to which a religious meaning is attributed in the imagination of a cultural and psychological fact, contribute people to come together and share their pains Affecting the demographic structure of the problematic regions’ (Eastern and Southeastern) cities in the cyclical edge of the time, involuntary rural emigration has given way to the struggle of being able to shelter and hold on to life in the urban space in a density reaching hundreds of thousands in number. Together with this process, the new city images (condolence houses) opening door to spiritual values shared in the urban space arrangement in the social and cultural context have taken on an important dimension even more on human affairs after emigration. Alliance in the suffering showing a will of transformation rapidly in the social plane of the region’s cities and cultural and socioeconomical structure have made the condolence houses transforming into a subject in the urban space in the emphasis of common values distinct in the social memory. Enveloping the death suffering with religious rituals in an implicit manner within spatial patterns with symbols expressing inherently in the social and cultural plane and putting it in the sharing in the common memory, condolence houses represent the moment left by a life being dead and buried behind and the sentimental value shared of emotional suffering. Although the “condolence house” location being symbolized in the context of condolence/mourning fact to which new meanings are attributed within urban life is a variable to be constructed / created for an architect, it is a fact that is determining the social structure, affairs and common ground or enabling social colors to be expressed over an architectural location for educationist, anthropologist and archeologist. The importance of the perception of moral alliance, death, condolence, mourning and being together in the daily life becoming even more distinct after involuntary emigration and expressing the strong connections among the region’s people has become even more distinct in the urban system taking form again. The emigration having gained momentum towards the region’s cities like Diyarbakır and rural culture having appeared over a social group identity by aggregating thereafter in the masses of rural areas have rearranged the lifestyle and spatial use of condolence house forming the existing urban identity over different codes according to themselves. Having reprimanded condoling in coffeehouses previously due to the fact that the demographic structure of cities incurred change together with emigration, the society tended towards “condolence houses” as a solution when they moved to narrow and gardenless locations. It is seen that condolence / mourning house location which was brought out by population density based on emigration in the generality of the region came into existence in order to meet the performance of a social duty believed to be religious, not with a religious ground. In this context, new mourning house understanding appearing within urban life remains too far away from a new or different interpretation brought by it to religion. Together with domestic involuntary migration in the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolian Regions, it is seen that different orientations have arisen in envision of location with public and religious content in the urbanization processes, social and cultural plane. Being symbolized in the images of city/ies and taking shape in new orientations, “condolence houses” have ensured an imagination of socialization in sharing the sufferings and division of a more organized spatial structure in human relations. The quests of spatial settlement tried to be arranged in spontaneously developing area(s) in the perimeters of the region’s cities and subsided regions by coming from rural areas and attribution of meaning to the location representing the moral suffering have become distinct. In this context, the understanding of traditional condolence / mourning coming into existence together with the socialization dynamics directed sharing the sentimental values / sufferings as a tendency of giving identity to the reshaped texture of the urban life. The new tendencies created in urban life by loneliness, feeling of depression and togetherness of big families falling apart brought out by forced emigration in the spiritual world of victims of emigration or those defeated by emigration have been able to unite the feeling of people being exposed to same destiny around one point in sharing the “mourning” appearing over death determining the inevitable end of human life. Having appeared in 1980s and having reache

Özet

Diyarbakır, Güneydoğu Anadolu bölge kentleri arasında farkındalık yaratan iktisadi, kültürel ve toplumsal yapısıyla birlikte geleneksel bir kent karakterine sahiptir. Bölgesel sorunlar nedeniyle iradi olmayan kırsal bir göçe maruz kalan kent, toplumsal dizgeyi oluşturan dinsel, kültürel ve sosyal değerlerin tezahüründe ortaya çıkan yeni mekânsal dönüşümlere ev sahipliği yapmaktadır. Kentsel katmanların düzleminde kırsal göçün itkisiyle dışa vuran "taziye evleri", geleneksel yaşamın yeniden biçim alan örüntüleri olmuştur. Taziye evleri, bölüşülen insani bir acının etrafında bir araya gelen insanların; mekânsal biçimlenmede toplumsal katmanların grupsal düzeydeki ilişkilerini ortaya koyan ve aynı zamanda da kentsel yaşamın birer nirengi noktaları olmuşlardır Beşeri bir varlık olan insanın dünyasında mutlak bir gerçeğe dönüşen "ölüm", her canlının fıtratında kaçınılmaz bir sonucu işaret etmektedir. Semavi dinler ile diğer inançların bağlamında farklı anlamlar atfedilen "ölüm", yok olmanın gerçeğinden öte; bengi ya da öteki dünyada tahayyül edilen bir yaşamın başlangıcına vurgu yapmaktadır. Toplumsal hayatın kültürel dizgesine yön veren değerler, tektonik olarak insanların hafızasında ölüm gerçeğine dair paylaşılan ritüellere ve geleneklere yer açar. Kültürel ve psikolojik bir olgunun tasavvurunda dinsel bir anlam yüklenen ölüm ve taziye, insanların bir araya gelmesine ve acılarının paylaşılmasına veçhe olur.