The Circulation of Memory: Bahaettin Rahmi Bediz’s Postcards of Crete 1897–1909

abstract:This article discusses the postcard repertoire of Bahaettin Rahmi Bediz (1875–1951), a Cretan-Turkish photographer working in Candia, Crete. The article contends that Bahaettin’s work as a local photographer should be examined through what Michèle Hannoosh calls a “Mediterranean context.” This approach evaluates early photographic practices and visual representations alongside the varied networks of political and cultural subjectivities within a rapidly shifting Mediterranean region during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By analyzing Bahaettin’s work through the lens of a Mediterranean context, one can read Bahaettin’s affective voice within his images, as he documents radical political changes on the island.