House of Culture of Bilasuvar IDP settlement Marriage, Political Legitimation and Forced Displacement

The presented article explores how the symbolic and material meanings of a House of Culture — a Soviet institution originally designed for ideological propaganda—were transformed into a site of political legitimation and memory production among Azerbaijani internally displaced persons (IDPs) after the Karabakh war. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Bilasuvar IDP settlement in southern Azerbaijan (2022), the author employs Henri Lefebvre’s (1991) concept of the social production of space to conceptualize the House of Culture as a spatial triad combining physical structure, representational symbols, and lived experience. Through this lens, the building emerges not as an inert architectural form but as a dynamic arena where state power, national memory, and everyday life intersect. The fieldwork reveals that Bilasuvar’s cultural center, though newly built and not of Soviet origin, mirrors the ideological con156tinuity of Soviet cultural institutions. Inside, photos of martyrs, quotes by President Ilham Aliyev, and exhibits devoted to Heydar Aliyev and the Karabakh war construct a narrative linking IDP suffering with presidential benevolence. Oral accounts describe how Heydar and Ilham Aliyev’s visits to IDP weddings and housing inaugurations became performative rituals of care, closeness, and legitimation. Interpreting these events through Clifford Geertz’s (1980) theory of political symbolism and Michael Herzfeld’s (2005) notion of cultural intimacy, the article argues that such ceremonies function as performative acts of political legitimation—where everyday gestures like dance or gift-giving symbolically fuse personal intimacy and national belonging. Ultimately, the Bilasuvar House of Culture is read as a spatial condensation of memory, displacement, and power, materializing the omnipresence of the state in IDPs’ everyday lives.