‘Remembering’ the Early 1940s Greek Famine: Fiction and Collective Memory, 1950–2019

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The memory of the early-1940s Greek famine has rarely been researched. A narrative attributing full responsibility to the Axis occupying forces, mostly Germans, and focusing almost exclusively on the 1941–2 ordeal of Athens was shaped by 1950. This became the official collective (cultural) memory and remained largely unchanged until the early twenty-first century. The financial crisis that Greece experienced since 2009 further enhanced this memory, bringing the focus exclusively on the German responsibility. This article interrogates the adult fiction works that dealt with this famine in the period 1950–2019, exploring whether these reflect the official collective memory and its changes. Furthermore, it explores how fiction has dealt with two aspects of the famine that are not included in the official collective memory: the black market and famine prostitution. The selected fiction works are utilised as ‘archives’ of the collective memory that prevailed at the time of their writing.