Adakale and its People: History and Memory on the Danube

Abstract

Adakale used to be an island on the Danube, located at the border meeting point between the Ottoman Empire, Habsburg Empire, and Romanian Principalities, but was submerged in 1970 following the construction of the Iron Gates Dam by Romania and Yugoslavia. As a result of its protection that has varied over time, Adakale served as a political, military and cultural border and a crossroads of diverse cultures. Due to its unique character, as an Ottoman, later Turkish, enclave island on the Danube, and its strategic location between competing powers, Adakale is the focus of an important archival collection, produced both on the island itself and at the main political centers in its neighbourhood. The island has also been an inexhaustible and continuous source of inspiration for academic research and cultural projects. An urge to “rescue” Adakale and keep it “alive”, through photograph collections, postcards, paintings, objects and oral memories of those who lived there or just visited, has created an invaluable – yet methodological complex – archive. This presentation will focus on the history and collective memory of the island’s former inhabitants, an ongoing research project that in

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