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The role of the Medinas in the reconstruction of Algerian culture and identity

The survival of almost all of Algeria's medinas, kasbahs and ksours was fraught with danger, not only because the French conquest had all too often reduced this historic built heritage to ashes, but also owing to the brutal deculturation of the long colonial period. In the light of these conditions, so very different to those prevailing in neighbouring Morocco and Tunisia, the present article seeks to explore the factors contributing to the redynamisation of culture and identity. We are concerned here with the reappropriation/ reaffirmation of cultural heritage and the appearance of the first modern elites, very often from the very debris of the medinas, lethargic and marginalised, as the numerous examples demonstrate Nedroma, Tlemcen, Mazouan and Cherchell, the Kasbah of Algiers, Medea, Blida and Bou Saada, Constantine and Biskra. My approach is therefore to shed light on what I can only consider a miraculous process, slowly and patiently following the emergence of modern Algeria from the end of the nineteenth century. This approach is based essentially on first-hand documentation, the result of much research over the last three decades. In the case of Algeria, the role played by the pre-colonial urban structure is certainly to be qualified as exceptional, mainly because of the perilous, even disastrous conditions resulting from direct colonial aggression against the architectural heritage and the people of the cities, and the survival of the