Monument

Sivas martyrs

Erection date: 1997

Inscription

These trees were donated and planted by members of Kurdish and Turkish (Alevi) communities in Hackney to commemorate the thirty five martyrs burned alive in Sivas (Madimak) Turkey, on July 2nd, 1993.

{The top surfaces of the monument carry photographs of named individuals. Exposure to the sun has caused some of the photographs and names to degrade.}

This area has a large Turkish community.

From Architectural Memorialization at Turkey’s › Witness Sites ‹: The Case of the Madimak Hotel by Eray Çaylı (accessed in 2021, but 2023: a dead link): "There are various elements of the built environment where this martyrology can be traced. Foremost among these is a group of › Sivas martyrs memorials dedicated to individual Alevi victims of the Sivas Massacre, and built by associations in the respective village from which each victim hails. Also among these elements is an example from outside Turkey: the London memorial to the Sivas Massacre. Situated in Stoke Newington Common in the Borough of Hackney, which also hosts a significant Alevi population, this memorial was built in 1997 but fell into neglect for many years only to be discovered in September 2011. Upon their discovery, directors of the London Alevi Cultural Centre immediately reinaugurated the memorial under the new name › The Memorial to Pir Sultan Abdal {poet executed c. 1560} and the Sivas Martyrs ‹. It is not only this new name which bears the lineage of martyrs and incorporates the massacre victims into that lineage, but also the London Alevi Cultural Centre’s proposed extensions to the memorial, which include a sculpture depicting Pir Sultan, the prominent figure of Alevi martyrology."