Greek Civil War Research Articles

Shaping Identities: The Cypriot Left and the Communist Party of Greece in the 1940s

AbstractThis paper seeks to reveal the many ways in which the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) influenced the Cypriot Left (AKEL) during the 1940s. The analysis centres on the main political events of the decade and details the reaction of AKEL, especially as it was reporting to the KKE. Attention then switches to AKEL's ideology and tactics and how these were developed during and because of the Greek civil war. What this paper brings to the discussion is that the advice and control given by the KKE to AKEL – and at the same time the Cold War, which was a playing field on which a political party had to choose a side – were the main factors that formed the identity and ideological framework practiced for decades by AKEL.

The Greek Diaspora of Melbourne, Australia through the Eyes of the Second Generation Greek Australian

form in the 1950s with migration to Australia in the years following the Second World War and the Greek Civil War. The elders of this community, in particular, have tried to ensure that their culture and traditions are kept alive and are handed down from generation to generation. The long history and cultural richness of the Greek tradition is a great source of pride to its members, and this is a key characteristic of the Greek community of Australia. Young and old Greek Australians speak of their country of origin with great pride and passion, as it remains central to their perception of nationality and ethnicity. This importance placed on the retention of the language and culture of their nation of origin means that cultural transmission across generations is of great significance to the community and can provide valuable insight into their interpretation of their own experiences. This paper will present findings from a three generation study about health beliefs and practices of women in the Melbourne Greek community. The experience of granddaughters, who represent the second Australian generation, and how they see their grandmothers’ experience as migrants to Australia will be discussed. The impact of the Diaspora phenomenon and the creation of a Greek community in Melbourne will be considered in the context of health, memory, religion, Greek culture, food, and personal and group identity.

Country failure and social grievances in the Greek Civil War 1946–1949: An economic approach

The Civil War that took place in Greece between the Communist Party and the Centre-Right Government during 1946–1949 is examined from a political economy perspective. The cost of the conflict is measured as output forgone relative to what it would have prevailed had Greece followed a post-war recovery similar to that of other nations in Western Europe. A two-stage approach compares Nazi-occupied countries with neutral ones to assess the cost inflicted by Second World War, and then compares Greece with the former to estimate the impact of the civil conflict. A regional analysis finds that the political discontent was mainly shaped by pre-war socio-economic grievances, rather than being affected by contemporaneous deprivation or driven by class structure as hardliners of both sides preferred to present in pushing for an all-out confrontation. The failure to settle political rivalries and thus prevent the conflict is also discussed.

Conflict dynamics and costs in the Greek Civil War 1946–1949

Using a new set of data from Greek Army sources, US military archives, and Communist Party documents, the paper provides a quantitative analysis of the armed confrontation that took place in Greece during 1946–1949. A dynamic Lotka–Volterra model is estimated, pointing to the existence of a conflict trap that explains the prolongation of the civil war and its dire consequences for the country. A regional analysis finds that the mobilization of guerrilla forces was crucially affected by morphology and the local persecutions of political rivals. Using neoclassical growth-accounting, the economic cost of the conflict is estimated to surpass an annual GDP, in line with similar findings in contemporary civil wars. The same framework is employed to assess the outcome in counterfactual situations discussed in this paper.

Nowhere All at Once by Grace Bauer

72 WLT JANUARY/ FEBRUARY 2015 similes: “The mulâtresse is yellow like okra blossoms.” Assimilating qualities of Danticat and Alvarez, Ulysse paints a variegated literary tableau, more sociological than psychological or historical, that translates into fiction the reality, as well as the fragility and vivacity, of life for young Haitian American women of few means. Robert H. McCormick Jr. Franklin University Switzerland Alkē Zei. Me molivi Faber noumero dyo. Athens. Metaichmio. 2013. isbn 9789605661908 To aficionados of children’s fiction, Alkē Zei has long been a familiar name. His awardwinning and much-translated novels and story collections are renowned for their engaging grace, vividness, and direct, usually autobiographical engagement with the history of Greece, turning Zei’s fiction into a true docere et delectare feat. The same qualities characterize the eighty-nine-year-old author’s previous attempt at adult fiction, the semiautobiographical 2011 hit I arravoniastikia tou Achillea (Achilles’ fiancée), based on Zei’s own tumultuous sojourn to find her exiled husband during Greece’s civil war years. It comes, then, as a natural evolutionary step that her latest best-seller, Me molivi Faber noumero dyo (With a number two Faber pencil), would combine all her prior authorial elements of excellence in being a purely autobiographical novel about Zei’s childhood and her gradual formation, through trial and error, into an author and an activist of the Greek Communist Party. It is, at the same time, by the author’s admission at the end, a kind of true fairy tale her grandchildren never tire of asking her to tell them. History is dramatically present here as well, starting with the death of her great-uncle during World War I, culminating in the atrocities of the Nazi occupation of Greece during World War II, and fading to black with the Greek civil war, right into the plot of I arravoniastikia tou Achillea. Still, the terrors of history are mitigated by the emotionally rich history of the quotidian that Zei convincingly recreates through her child- and teen-self’s picaresque vision: her interactions with her large family and her inspired teachers; her many friendships and acquaintances with persons whom the Greek reader immediately recognizes as key figures of the Greek intelligentsia, belles lettres, and beaux arts (admittedly the largest part of the book); her adventurous love affair with and marriage to playwright Yiorgos Sevastikoglou (right in the middle of the Nazi occupation ); the role of the Zei women and their friends in the leftist resistance against the Nazis; the hopes and dreams of the war generations for world peace, creative freedom , and the power of art. Art is in fact revealed as the primum mobile of this portrait of the artist as a young girl. Or, as Zei’s octogenarian voice concludes at the end of the novel, it is all about the fairy-tale transformation of “the Little Silly Goosie [Zei’s childhood nickname ] who had wanted to be an author since she was ten, and got started by writing letters for the little maids in her block of flats to their lovers with a number two Faber pencil, on the marble-top kitchen table.” Christina Dokou National and Kapodistrian University of Athens verse Grace Bauer. Nowhere All at Once. Nacogdoches, Texas. Stephen F. Austin University Press. 2014. isbn 9781622880416 Grace Bauer, in her newest collection (fortynine poems in four numbered parts), anticipates old age, ill health, and mortality. She has published three full-length collections previously as well as several chapbooks. Having moved from state to state, she now lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, but doesn’t like the lack of changes in the small city and wishes to escape reality. Her dream world matters most, and through her writing she is able “to recover from this world.” Many of her poems are formal, as in “Great Plains Prayer” (corn, Omaha steaks, Czech culture, tornadoes), “Slacker’s Prayer” (praising “the blizzard for a day at home”), “Blue Monday Prayer” (wasting time on “mundane” work vs. no time for “good works”), “Unrepentant Prayer” (her “last confession was ten poems ago”), or “Mood Swing Prayer” (menopause—“grant me shorter hot flashes”). She is both serious and satirical here, reminiscent of her...

Me molivi Faber noumero dyo by Alk Zei

72 WLT JANUARY/ FEBRUARY 2015 similes: “The mulâtresse is yellow like okra blossoms.” Assimilating qualities of Danticat and Alvarez, Ulysse paints a variegated literary tableau, more sociological than psychological or historical, that translates into fiction the reality, as well as the fragility and vivacity, of life for young Haitian American women of few means. Robert H. McCormick Jr. Franklin University Switzerland Alkē Zei. Me molivi Faber noumero dyo. Athens. Metaichmio. 2013. isbn 9789605661908 To aficionados of children’s fiction, Alkē Zei has long been a familiar name. His awardwinning and much-translated novels and story collections are renowned for their engaging grace, vividness, and direct, usually autobiographical engagement with the history of Greece, turning Zei’s fiction into a true docere et delectare feat. The same qualities characterize the eighty-nine-year-old author’s previous attempt at adult fiction, the semiautobiographical 2011 hit I arravoniastikia tou Achillea (Achilles’ fiancée), based on Zei’s own tumultuous sojourn to find her exiled husband during Greece’s civil war years. It comes, then, as a natural evolutionary step that her latest best-seller, Me molivi Faber noumero dyo (With a number two Faber pencil), would combine all her prior authorial elements of excellence in being a purely autobiographical novel about Zei’s childhood and her gradual formation, through trial and error, into an author and an activist of the Greek Communist Party. It is, at the same time, by the author’s admission at the end, a kind of true fairy tale her grandchildren never tire of asking her to tell them. History is dramatically present here as well, starting with the death of her great-uncle during World War I, culminating in the atrocities of the Nazi occupation of Greece during World War II, and fading to black with the Greek civil war, right into the plot of I arravoniastikia tou Achillea. Still, the terrors of history are mitigated by the emotionally rich history of the quotidian that Zei convincingly recreates through her child- and teen-self’s picaresque vision: her interactions with her large family and her inspired teachers; her many friendships and acquaintances with persons whom the Greek reader immediately recognizes as key figures of the Greek intelligentsia, belles lettres, and beaux arts (admittedly the largest part of the book); her adventurous love affair with and marriage to playwright Yiorgos Sevastikoglou (right in the middle of the Nazi occupation ); the role of the Zei women and their friends in the leftist resistance against the Nazis; the hopes and dreams of the war generations for world peace, creative freedom , and the power of art. Art is in fact revealed as the primum mobile of this portrait of the artist as a young girl. Or, as Zei’s octogenarian voice concludes at the end of the novel, it is all about the fairy-tale transformation of “the Little Silly Goosie [Zei’s childhood nickname ] who had wanted to be an author since she was ten, and got started by writing letters for the little maids in her block of flats to their lovers with a number two Faber pencil, on the marble-top kitchen table.” Christina Dokou National and Kapodistrian University of Athens verse Grace Bauer. Nowhere All at Once. Nacogdoches, Texas. Stephen F. Austin University Press. 2014. isbn 9781622880416 Grace Bauer, in her newest collection (fortynine poems in four numbered parts), anticipates old age, ill health, and mortality. She has published three full-length collections previously as well as several chapbooks. Having moved from state to state, she now lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, but doesn’t like the lack of changes in the small city and wishes to escape reality. Her dream world matters most, and through her writing she is able “to recover from this world.” Many of her poems are formal, as in “Great Plains Prayer” (corn, Omaha steaks, Czech culture, tornadoes), “Slacker’s Prayer” (praising “the blizzard for a day at home”), “Blue Monday Prayer” (wasting time on “mundane” work vs. no time for “good works”), “Unrepentant Prayer” (her “last confession was ten poems ago”), or “Mood Swing Prayer” (menopause—“grant me shorter hot flashes”). She is both serious and satirical here, reminiscent of her...

International Aid to Southern Europe in the Early Postwar Period

After World War II, Greece and Italy experienced a Left-Right political polarization and a repetition of earlier patterns of political patronage. Both countries received international aid, including emergency relief, interim loans, and Marshall Plan funds. By the beginning of the 1950s, Italy had progressed from stabilization to reconstruction and then to development, while Greece progressed belatedly with reconstruction and did not achieve stabilization until after the end of the Marshall Plan. The different outcomes are explained by institutional legacies and historical conjunctures, such as the disastrous Greek Civil War; the tradition of developmental Italian state agencies, such as prewar Italy’s Instituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), a state-controlled conglomerate, which Greece lacked; government instability, which prior to 1950 had tormented Greece more than Italy; distrust from the Greek middle and upper classes of the political and administrative elites; and the prevalence of an economic culture fostering industrialization in Italy, which emerged only belatedly in Greece.

To Kill a Human Being: Camus and Capital Punishment

“To Kill A Human Being” investigates Albert Camus’s commitment and contribution to the fight against capital punishment. Until recently, the extent, consistency, and multiple facets (literary, philosophical, and political) of this activism were underestimated—and, in some cases, unknown. This essay reconstructs the key phases of the Nobel laureate’s abolitionist itinerary, examines both his personal motivations and the ethical reasoning on which he relied, and presents a multifold corpus and archival findings testifying to his official and unofficial defense of men condemned to death in France, French Algeria, and abroad in contexts as varied as Franco’s dictatorship, WWII and the purges that marked the Libération in France, the Greek Civil War, the repression perpetrated in Eastern Europe under the aegis of Stalinism, and the Algerian War of Independence. Reconsidering the depth and breadth of Camus’s abolitionism allows for a reassessment of the claim that the writer adopted an abstentionist stance during the Algerian conflict. At the same time, this examination enables us to hone our knowledge of the history of twentieth-century abolitionist thought and to appreciate the impact of a major critical reflection on the conception and implementation (or interruption) of lethal justice.]

Der griechische Bürgerkrieg 1946 bis 1949. Ereignisse und Erinnerungen / The Greek Civil War 1946 to 1949. Facts and Memories

Abstract This article is dealing with an important chapter in the history of Greece that has hitherto received very little attention by the German research community: the Greek civil war from 1947 to 1949, whose consequences left their mark on the Greek society for a long time. The topic has to be addressed through its classification in two contexts. First in a historical context that comprises the past history and foremost the conflicts without which the armed struggle probably would not have erupted. This also includes the posthistory and the dealings with the civil war in the memory culture and politics of history, from the 1950s to the present time. A comparison with a, in some respects, similar development concerning the Spanish civil war further examines the Greek example. The second context is a theoretical one. Although research rather tends to neglect civil wars vis-a-vis wars between states, there numerous approaches to the topic of civil wars, some of which are dealt with in this article. The summary examines to which degree they apply in the case of Greece.

Waiting for democracy: Political crisis and the discursive (re)invention of the ‘national enemy’ in times of ‘Grecovery’

This article seeks to identify the polarising rhetoric adopted by Greek mainstream political parties during the era of ‘Grecovery’. The article focuses on the war of words between New Democracy, the leading party of the coalition government, and Syriza, the main opposition party on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the murder of a 15-year-old schoolboy, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, by a police officer and the subsequent riots of December 2008 and the authorities’ closure of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT). It draws on the political statements of two political parties – New Democracy and Syriza – and emphasises direct reference to the Greek civil war (1946–1949) and parallelisms of the current political climate with the colonels’ dictatorship (1967–1974). In focusing on those obscure pages of Greek modern history, this article analyses the discursive construction of collective memories of two different political poles and examines how the Greek left and right wings legitimise and redefine their political identities through the prism of their divided past. Using the discursive strategies of the discourse historical approach (DHA), the article illustrates how the DHA can reveal silencing strategies that lead to the discursive construction of the distinction between ‘Us’ – ‘democratic patriots’ and ‘Them’ – ‘enemies of the Greek nation’. Finally, recontextualisation in political rhetoric is highlighted as one of the ways of (re)constructing the tension and dichotomy between leftists and rightists. A systematic and explicit discourse analytic methodology of political rhetoric, that is based on history and (re)shapes collective memories, leads to an interdisciplinary approach that brings together and connects political rhetoric, argumentation and critical discourse analysis.

The Defeated of the Greek Civil War: From Fighters to Political Refugees in the Cold War

In the fall of 1949, after the end of the Greek Civil War, the bulk of the defeated Greek Communist (KKE) fighters were covertly transported from Albania to Soviet Uzbekistan. This article addresses the covert relocation project, organized by the Soviet Communist Party, and the social engineering program intended to create a prototype Greek People’s Democracy in Tashkent. Drawing on Soviet and Greek Communist Party records, the article raises three major issues: first, the contingencies of postwar transition in the Balkans and the precarious status of the Albanian regime; second, the international Communist response to the military defeat of the KKE in 1949 and the competing visions of the Greek, Soviet, and Albanian parties regarding the future of the Democratic Army of Greece (DAG); third, the intentions of the KKE to establish military bases in Albania and the party’s ensuing effort to transform the agrarian fighters of the DAG into revolutionary cadres for a future victorious repatriation in Greece. Drawing these elements together, the article elucidates the relocation operation of 1949, positions the Greek political refugee experience within the postwar “battle of refugees,” and challenges the widespread historiographical assumption that the KKE immediately abandoned the prospect of a renewed armed confrontation.

Defining the people and its music: the left press debates on rebetiko during the Greek civil war and its aftermath (1946-1961)

Cet article examine les débats sur la musique populaire grecque parus dans la presse de gauche de 1946 à 1961. Au moment du conflit interne et pendant la période qui l’a suivi, les intellectuels de gauche se penchent sur les expressions du peuple en essayant d’y trouver résistance et héroïsme, d’établir la persistance des luttes et de montrer la continuité de la répression. À plusieurs reprises, la musique populaire se trouve au centre des débats et divise l’opinion. À travers l’analyse des archives de presse, cet article revisite ces débats où, au-delà de la question « quelle est la musique populaire ? », les divisions internes du mouvement de gauche apparaissent, des ruptures et des continuités dans l’histoire musicale grecque sont construites, des identifications et des assignations sont opérées, mais surtout se dessinent les contours de la catégorie « peuple ».

Children of the Greek Civil War: Refugees and the Politics of Memory by Loring M. Danforth and Riki van Boeschoten

Children of the Greek Civil War: Refugees and the Politics of Memory by Loring M. Danforth and Riki van Boeschoten

Re-imagining Homeland in the Aftermath of the Greek Civil War (1946–1949): Children’s Magazines

The children’s/youth magazines published in the wake of the Greek Civil War (1946–1949) pose questions with regard to the notion of homeland as part of identity and subjectivity. The paper analyzes material from two such magazines: Αετόπουλα ( Eaglets ), published outside Greece (1949–1953) after the expatriation of communists at the end of the Civil War and intended for “the little emigrant Greeks,” and Παιδόπολη ( Childtown ) (later to be renamed Το Σπίτι του Παιδιού, The Child’s Home ) (1950–1969), published in Greece but addressing the residents of Childtowns, special institutions set up by the Queen of Greece, so as to preserve the “Right” Greekness. The analysis points out that in Eaglets , the cultivation of a new collective consciousness, internalization of communist tenets, and admiration of the Soviet Union and communist leaders were formative features of the notion of homeland. By contrast, in Childtown , homeland was constructed as an agricultural nation-state, where future citizens would ideally work towards reconstruction and pay tribute to religion, family, and the king. Yet together the two magazines enacted a change in the conception of the place of rural children, who were formerly working hands within the context of the family and became social capital in the service of an overarching institution of the party and the state.

Children of the Greek Civil War: Refugees and the Politics of Memory by Loring M. Danforth, Riki Van Boeschoten (review)

Children of the Greek Civil War: Refugees and the Politics of Memory by Loring M. Danforth, Riki Van Boeschoten (review)

Rebecca Bryant and Yiannis Papadakis, eds, Cyprus and the Politics of Memory: History, Community and Conflict; Loring Danforth and Riki Van Boeschoten, Children of the Greek Civil War: Refugees and the Politics of Memory

Rebecca Bryant and Yiannis Papadakis, eds, <i>Cyprus and the Politics of Memory: History, Community and Conflict</i>; Loring Danforth and Riki Van Boeschoten, <i>Children of the Greek Civil War: Refugees and the Politics of Memory</i>

The Children Evacuated from Greece in 1948: To the Eastern-European Countries and Yugoslavia

During the Greek civil war (1946‑1949), on the basis of a special decision of the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece adopted in the name of “saving the children from the horrors of war”, around 28 000 Macedonian and Greek children were evacuated from the areas affected by military actions. Their originally planned short residence in the Eastern European countries lasted a whole decade as a direct consequence of the civil war, in which forces grouped around the Communist Party of Greece were defeated. Although new destinations – children’s homes and boarding schools in the involved countries – handled the necessary conditions for normal life, education and recreation, the desire of the Macedonian children and their parents was their permanent destinations to be in Yugoslavia respectively the People’s Republic of Macedonia, the largest center of Macedonian refugee population from Greece. Repatriation of children will be found in the center of the Cominform conflict and disrupted relations between the countries concerned with the issue of children. Therefore, their arrival in PRM or in the countries where were their parents, will be intensified in the middle of the fifth decade of last century, after the death of Stalin.

Loring Danforth and Riki Van Boeschoten, “Children of the Greek Civil War: Refugees and the Politics of Memory”, IOM, Skopje, 2012.

Loring Danforth and Riki Van Boeschoten, “Children of the Greek Civil War: Refugees and the Politics of Memory”, IOM, Skopje, 2012.

Theodoros Terzopoulos’s production of Heiner Müller’s Mauser: Metaphoric political theatre through space, body and dialogue

Abstract This article examines the metaphoric characteristics of Theodoros Terzopoulos’s production of Heiner Müller’s Mauser by analysing its metaphors of space, body and dialogue. It analyses how Greek director Terzopoulos transformed German political theatre rooted in Brechtian aesthetics into Greek political theatre rooted in Greek tragedy. In this adaptation, the director’s utilization of space and sets played an essential role in staging his artistic vision; the utilization of space not only closely restrained the actors’ performance but also defined the historical relations among Greek people in the theatre including the actors, narrators, audience members and their ancestors who were symbolically represented through portraits. To trace the process of this adaptation, this article, first, refers to Terzopoulos’s apprenticeship in the Berliner Ensemble and his relationship with Müller and analyses how these two artists influenced each other through their common interest in Greek tragedy. Next, it analyses how Terzopoulos adapted Müller’s Mauser based on an episode in Greek history, the Greek Civil War, and then recreated it visually through experimental sets and metaphoric movements as an extension of his major Greek tragedy productions. Signifying a microcosm of Greek society, the space and sets revealed veiled meanings one by one as the actors deconstructed the sets and the audience defined their position in the space by observing the change of sets. Terzopoulos’s production ultimately gives us an example of the way directors stage political theatre for spectators in their own time and place.

Transitions: Athanasios Koukopoulos [AθανάσιΟς κΟυκόπΟυλΟς], M.D. (1931-2013).

Athanasios Koukopoulos was born in Chaeronea, a village in the district of Boeotia in central Greece, on 23 November 1931 as the son of Konstantinos and Maria Koukopoulos. His father hoped that he would remain at home to manage the land they owned, but Athanasios preferred to study. His energetic and supportive mother fought for his education. At the end of World War II, following years of exposure to violence and privation, his family moved to Athens just before the Greek civil war of 1946 to 1949. In Athens, Koukopoulos continued his education while playing professional basketball with the prestigious Panatinaikos Sports Club of Athens, which later on presented him with the Golden Clover award. In 1951, he moved to Italy despite remaining hard feelings in Greece following the recent Greco-Italian war of 1940 to 1941 and the subsequent Balkan campaign of the Axis powers in World War II.