From the call to prayer to the silences of the museum

Thessaloniki’s auditory landscape changed dramatically after 1912, once the voices of the muezzin disappeared and the sound of cars and other modern technology increased. Sound and hearing are powerful in shaping social, class, and national identities. The mass arrival of refugees after 1922 did not mean homogenization and ‘Hellenization’ of the acoustic landscape. Rather, the new arrivals strengthened auditory polymorphism, since the new arrivals brought with them their own customs and languages, such as Pontic and Turkish.