Performance and subversion under the Colonels’ gaze: changing notions of identity in the different editions of Dido Sotiriou's Οι νɛκροί πɛριμένουν

Abstract

This article examines the different editions of Dido Sotiriou's first novel Οι νɛκροί πɛριμένουν, whose first edition was published in 1959 and the definitive edition, one hundred pages shorter, in 1971, when the military junta ruled Greece and strict censorship was being exercised. The first edition depicts details of the resistance movement against the Axis powers, whereas this has been cut from the definitive edition, which ends just as Greece enters the war against Italy. It will be argued that the revisions, on the one hand, address criticisms of the first edition, in an attempt to improve the novel. On the other hand, the omission of descriptions of resistance against a tyrant (something the colonels resented, for fear of comparisons being drawn to their regime) and the shifting depiction of identities of two main characters, from one that is stable (1959 edition) to one that is subtly performative (1971 edition), also inform discussions of censorship and identity during the years of the military regime.