Warfare, Oral Tradition, and Tourism: Valorization of the Folk Narratives About the Gallipoli Campaign

Introduction

Tourism is generally considered a phenomenon that needs peace to thrive (Butler & Suntikul, 2013). However, as Smith (1998) remarked, war sites as touristic destinations that extend tourism beyond a calm and peaceful leisure activity possibly comprise the world’s greatest single category of tourist attractions. Battlefield tourism is mostly considered within the concept of dark tourism, invented and defined by Foley and Lennon (1996) as the presentation and consumption of elements of death and destruction that have been made real and commercialized. People have been drawn to sights, attractions, or events associated with death, suffering, violence, or calamity since ancient times (Stone, 2005). Dark tourism, which is also considered a product of postmodernity, has reintroduced the reality of death into contemporary society, which has been downplayed by being confined between hospitals, morgues, and graves, by making it the object of touristic experience (Stone & Sharpley, 2008). Besides, the attractiveness of death sites and other manifestations of tragedy and brutality studies on dark tourism focus also on the aftermath of war and conflict (Butler & Suntikul, 2013).

Turning battlefield visits into planned and organized touristic events took place at the beginning of the twentieth century. Travel to renowned battlefields became an important commercial activity for tourism, especially at the outbreak of the Great War, which is considered one of the greatest disasters in human history. Immediately after World War I, a few travel agents organized tours for an increasing number of European travelers and, as a result, the fundamental characteristics of battlefield tourism emerged. Interest in battlefield tourism increased further after World War II. Tourists visited battlefields not only to remember relatives who had fought in one area and lost their lives, or to organize various commemorative events, but also to better understand human conditions, cultural responses to pain and grief, and turning points in global and national history and politics. In this process, the forms, and dimensions of war-related tourism activities were dramatically diversified, and historical battlefields swiftly became one of the world’s most intensive tourist destinations.

Famous battlefields such as Waterloo, Gettysburg, Gallipoli Peninsula, Pearl Harbor, and Normandy are regarded and experienced as both cultural heritage and memory sites. Stone and Sharpley (2008) pointed out that sites associated with war and atrocities have long been viewed in the broader context of heritage tourism while Misztal (2003) argued that battlefield tourism allows for creating cultural memory sites that institutionalize memory through cultural mediators such as memorial ceremonies, monuments, and museums. As Hunt (2010) stated the battlefields are examples of how there is a development from memory (personal and collective) to history to heritage, which is where events in the relatively distant past become fixed and unchangeable according to the ideas of the present. Battlefields, as sites of collective trauma, discussed also within the concepts of difficult heritage or difficult past, is the focus of cultural memory and heritage activity. By visiting these locations, tourists might feel as if they have connected to these traumatic occurrences and, as a result, have received a sense of authenticity (Sturken, 2007).

Integrating the war into regional tourism primarily depends on the geography of war traces, which is dictated not only by the extension of the battlefront but also by the geography of war traces in establishing a heritage (Hertzog, 2012). Thus, the major attractions offered in battlefield tourism are geographical, and tangible elements of the war legacy. The spatial and built elements left over from wars such as the castles, walls, mausoleums, cemeteries, army roads and routes, headquarters, trenches, arsenals, hospitals, seaports, factories producing war equipment, areas declared national parks and military or war museums, and military or war museums, are among the main attractions in battlefield tourism. Tangible dimension of war heritage; a) bears the physical traces of a war that took place on a certain date, b) includes spatial attractions such as trenches, fronts, headquarters, hospitals, c) is protected in various ways because of their historical-cultural importance, d) continues to have traumatic effects on societies, e) experienced as a collective memory, national identity, and consciousness sites and f) contributes to tourism through recreations, restorations, and interpretations (Hall & Basarin, 2009).