Разрушеният манастир „Свети Яни“ в Ахтопол – разделно място на паметта
The demolished monastery “St. Yani” in Ahtopol – a dividing place of memory

Summary/Abstract: The text is dedicated to a common religious place that no longer exists, “St. Ioannnis Prodromos” monastery in Ahtopol, also known as “St. Yani”. It was founded in the 12th c. by the local Greeks. It used to shine with its splendor and richness but went into a decline in 1914 when many Greeks were deported from Bulgaria. In 1947 it became a military base. The priceless icons and other valuable objects were destroyed and thrown into the sea. In order to understand the space and its spots as places of the ritual social memory, the text is an investigation of the ruined cloister as a center of different, in some way fighting, social memories between the self-identifying as Greeks and the self-defining as Bulgarians in the town. The problems related to the dependencies and the relations between memory and remembrance, power and memory, identity and sacred places of memory, have been analyzed.

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