Greek Colonels Research Articles

Allende in Athens: The Political and Cultural Impact of the Chilean 1970s in Greece during the Colonels' Dictatorship and theMetapolitefsi(1970–1981)

This article discusses how Greeks perceived Salvador Allende's overthrow, Pinochet's military dictatorship, and US interventionism in Chile. By the end of Greece's dictatorship (1967–1974), left‐wing militants emotionally identified with the ‘Chilean tragedy’ through their own experiences of military authoritarianism. Indeed, the Greek Colonels' Junta amplified the 1973 Chilean coup's local impact. Subsequently, during the earlyMetapolitefsiperiod (1974–1981), a wide variety of Greek political, social, and cultural actors used the Chilean 1970s as a key reference in the crucial debates that ultimately redefined Greece's collective political and cultural identities.

Camus, the absurd Meursault, and Alexandros Panagouolis

Abstract: Un Uomo is a biography, with autobiographical elements, written by Oriana Fallaci in 1979 in which she retells her impossible love with Alexandros Panagoulis, hero and martyr of the resistance to the regime of the Greek colonels (1967‒1974). However, Alexandros Panagoulis is also an absurd character who chose rebellion to suicide, stretching life to the limit of death, thus reenacting the fate of Albert Camus’s most famous characters.

Oriana e i colonnelli: cultura di massa e dittatura greca nell’Italia degli anni Settanta

In 1979 Oriana Fallaci published Un uomo, an autobiographical novel in which she tells her love story with Alexandros Panagulis, hero of the resistance to the regime of the Greek colonels. The book has a resounding and lasting success with the public, thanks to the narrative, stylistic and ideological peculiarities widely illustrated by Vittorio Spinazzola, Giovanna Rosa and Bruno Pischedda. Beyond its literary prerogatives, the success of the work is also linked to the author’s ability to grasp a series of suggestions already floating on the various levels of the Italian collective imagination since the end of the Sixties, and to express them with formidable effectiveness. In addition to literature, in fact, music, cinema and TV had also drawn on and spread different material from the ambiguous fascination exercised by the Greek colonels on Italian public opinion.

Cultural Resistances in Post-Authoritarian Greece: Protesting the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus in 1974

The July 1974 invasion of Cyprus by Turkey caught the Greek Colonels (1967–74) off guard, as they proved entirely incapable of responding to the casus belli, partly provoked by their own actions. Greece remained technically in the state of military mobilisation for about four months and with the democratic transition well underway. This article catalogues the ways in which this conflict mobilised Greek civil society in unprecedented ways. Using oral testimonies, press clippings and three major documentaries of the time (Nikos Koundouros’ The Songs of Fire, Michael Cacoyannis’ Attila 74, and Nikos Kavoukidis’ Testimonials), the article dissects the cultural resistances against the war in one of the most traumatic moments in contemporary Greek history. It analyses the gigantic concerts that took place in the largest stadiums of Athens to protest the war, next to mass demonstrations and popular films protesting the invasion. It argues that these cultural events and artifacts re-enacted facets of the anti-Vietnam War movement and the respective countercultural scene in the US of the late 1960s. The article concludes that these modes of cultural and political resistance activated post-authoritarian Greek civil society, renegotiating the parameters of political participation and partly resetting the agenda of the country’s foreign policy following popular demand.

An Uneasy Triangle: Nicolae Ceaușescu, the Greek Colonels and the Greek Communists (1967-1974)

This article examines the rapprochement between Ceaușescu’s Romania and the dictatorship of the Greek Colonels (1967-1974). Specifically, the paradoxically positive attitude of Ceaușescu towards the Greek Junta is approached not only on a bilateral level but also through the lens of an emerging Balkan cooperation spirit and most importantly in relation to its reception by the Greek Communists. By focusing on this triangle this study demonstrates how ideological differences were at times at odds with Cold War realities. Based on Romanian archival material, the contextualization of this unseemly Balkan cross-bloc cooperation offers new insights and a better understanding of the uses of ideology and political expediency in the pursuit of authoritarian legitimacy in the South-Eastern European theatre of the Cold War.

Britain and the Greek Colonels: Accommodating the Junta in the Cold War by Alexandros Nafpliotis

Britain and the Greek Colonels: Accommodating the Junta in the Cold War by Alexandros Nafpliotis

Distrustful Neighborhood : Yugoslavia and Greek Colonels, 1967-1974

The article deals with a specific segment of the history of the Cold War in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean. The coup, organized in 1967 by rightwing officers, introduced Greece to the seven-year period of military dictatorship. The relations of the rigid, anti-Communist regime of Greek colonels with Yugoslavia and other Balkan communist neighbors were marked by the freezing down of political relations, by interrupting or by its deterioration in many areas. New situation caused in relations between Athens and Belgrade Yugoslavia, among other problems, the radicalization of the differences connected with the Macedonian issue. By 1974, the government in Belgrade had distanced itself from direct political relations on the highest level, supporting the Greek opposition in the country and abroad. On the other hand, Yugoslav authorities firmly refused any support for direct violent and propaganda action against Greece from Yugoslav territory. Support to the government of the Cypriot archbishop Makarios was also one of the points of sharp disagreement with the regime in Athens. Overthrowing of the colonel‘s regime after the protests of students and workers and the loss of support in the military circles was welcomed in Yugoslavia with enthusiasm and relief as an announcement of a normalization of relations.

Not seven, but eleven? European crises or “new normal”?

Not seven, but eleven? European crises or “new normal”?

"A gift from God": Anglo-Greek relations during the dictatorship of the Greek colonels

The focus of this article is an analysis of the Greek junta’s relations with the Wilson and Heath governments in the United Kingdom from 1967 to 1974. Emphasis is placed on diplomatic relations between the two traditional allies. The reactions of the military leaders of the regime in Athens and its representatives in Britain to policies pursued by London towards the establishment, consolidation and eventual demise of the colonels’ dictatorship are presented through the examination (for the first time) of official documents from both the UK and Greece. It is argued that the Greek military regime struggled to cultivate relations with Britain primarily for reasons of domestic and international prestige. Whereas Whitehall pursued a policy of “good working relations” with the junta in order to promote British interests vis-à-vis NATO, Cyprus and trade, the leadership in Athens was solely interested in using British support to gain legitimacy internationally and domestically.

Review of Alexandros Nafpliotis's Britain and the Greek Colonels: Accommodating the Junta in the Cold War

<p>Review of Alexandros Nafpliotis, <em>Britain and the Greek Colonels: Accommodating the Junta in the Cold War. </em>London: IB Tauris, 2013. 307 pp.</p>

The Wilson Government’s Responses to ‘The Rape of Greek Democracy’

This article is a contribution to the analysis of the era of the Greek Colonels, whose military regime ruled Greece between 1967 and 1974. In particular, it seeks to examine one of its less explored aspects, namely the British authorities’ reactions to the news of the coup. It aims to expose underutilized archival evidence proving that the British government, despite its undisputed dislike of the regime’s dictatorial features, did little to avert the consolidation of the regime’s grasp of power during its early, formative stage. In short, it attempts to offer a coherent narrative about the British responses to the unconstitutional establishment of the Greek Colonels’ regime, while accounting for the factors which led them to adopting their stance.

Favouritism in NATO's Southeastern flank: The case of the Greek Colonels, 1967–74

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effect of the Cold War era on a historic event with serious consequences for Greece, namely the Greek Colonels' regime, which lasted between April 1967 and July 1974. Greece, due to its strategic position, served as guarantor of stability in NATO's southeastern flank, a benefit that the alliance considered indispensable to its strength, therefore impossible to compromise. In the light of this consideration, NATO tolerated, to put it mildly, the dictatorial, albeit pro-NATO regime that the Greek Colonels imposed on Greece on 21 April 1967. This paper will attempt to account for NATO's reactions to the Greek regime and the factors dictating them – a small, albeit indicative, peripheral segment of the puzzle of the global antagonism between the West and the East during the Cold War era.

Greek response to the Cyprus invasion

The contemporary history of three countries was marked on July 1974 when the Greek colonels overthrew the legitimate government of Cyprus, Turkey invaded the island to preserve her interests and Greece returned to democracy, but withdrew from NATO. The apathy of her allies was a bitter experience for Greece, considering that the government in Athens was struggling to cope with the consequences of the invasion and Turkey's aggression, as well as with the diplomatic isolation caused by the seven-year dictatorial rule. This paper examines the response of the Greek government and makes particular reference to Karamanlis's archives and Greek parliamentary proceedings. The purpose of the present study is to explore whether Greece was genuinely committed to the settlement of the Cyprus issue and failed due to lack of support or simply ignored the appeals of the Cypriot people and pursued more vital foreign policy objectives, thus contributing to the partition of the island.

Facing the Colonels: How the British Government Dealt with the Military Coup in Greece in April 1967

AbstractThis article defines and explains British foreign policy towards the Greek colonels immediately after the military takeover of 21 April 1967 in Greece. More particularly, the article questions Britain's knowledge of the colonels’ coup, examines the influence of other countries in the formation of British policy towards the military dictatorship in Greece, and concludes that, as soon as the British realized that the colonels were firmly in control, they decided to enter into a working yet frayed relationship with the regime in order to influence it over the issues that were most vital for their national interests.

The Foreign Factor and the Greek Colonels’ Coming to Power on 21 April 1967

This paper is offered as a contribution to the analysis of one of the most significant episodes in Greece’s modern history, namely the Colonels’ Coup. The unexplored aspect on which it intends to throw light involves the examination of the widespread hypotheses regarding foreign complicity in the coming to power of the Greek Colonels. It seeks to account for the extent to which foreign powers had any foreknowledge of the coup, and also aspires to investigate the possibility of foreign involvement in the coup’s implementation.

Portrait of a Greek Imagination: An Ethnographic Biography of Andreas Nenedakis

Portrait of Greek Imagination: An Ethnographic Biography of Andreas Nenedakis. MICHAEL HERZFELD. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 1997; 333 pp. The dialogue between literature and ethnography is developed in innovative ways in this scholarly and imaginative text. The anthropologist has known the other author throughout his own fieldwork in Crete and is given unique opportunity to link the work of an indigenous intellectual and novelist with the concerns of anthropology. There is familiar critique by specialists in literature that readers must not make easy connections, if any, between biography, autobiography, and the imaginative final literary text; such mixed genres are firmly labelled nonfiction. Yet even the most pedestrian ethnographer accepts that something happens of another order in the transformation of lived experience through the novelist's creative act. However, anthropologists should be free to unravel the culturally and historically specific in creative literary process and production. This is fair exchange with textual critics who have pointed to the literary strategies embedded in apparently objective scientific monographs. Herzfeld does not simplistically reduce literary texts to biographical events, as if the latter were sufficient and causal explanations for their reappearance in fiction. We are shown how certain lived experiences, whether banal or melodramatic, are selected by Nenedakis and written in compelling guises. Their reappearance can strengthen their historical and cultural authenticity. Herzfeld subtly links individual event and autobiographical experience with the wider context. That context may be family, village, mountain sheep herders, Crete, Greece, or beyond. The analysis swings between appreciating the individual as relatively autonomous agent and one who acts within and against structure. By following the individual's unique narrative and specific experience, Herzfeld exposes the constraints in standard monographs which have traditionally emphasised norms and patterns within which it was presumed all individuals conformed. Instead, through the biographical details of both Nenedakis and his parents, Herzfeld convinces the reader how individuals can simultaneously rebel and create within long established cultural and historical contexts. Some individuals are traced in Nendakis' autobiographical conversations with Herzfeld, then rediscovered in various forms in his fiction or historicised account. The rigid divisions between fact and fiction; science and literature; ethnography and novel are stretched to the breaking point The range of Nenedakis' work is impressive; none of it translated into English. It is to be hoped that translations will now follow. The anthropologist is in privileged position to engage with an indigenous novelist and intellectual. Cretan born, the novelist has also lived in many places. Herzfeld convincingly offers the ethnographic biography; a hybrid and uncertain genre, as way to researching transnational intellectual communities. Nenedakis fought in El Alamein, was imprisoned and condemned to death as communist. Later faced with the colonels' coup, he chose exile in Sweden and then poverty in Paris. He has lived subsequent years in Athens, while maintaining links with his original home. All these experiences are drawn upon in novels or semi-fictionalised texts. He wrote the first account of life under the Greek colonels. He also edited and reinterpreted the work of Rethemniot poet, Bounialis, affirming indigenous authenticity through local linguistic nuances. …

The rise and fall of the Greek Colonels

The rise and fall of the Greek Colonels

The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels

The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels

Dictatorship and development in Pacific Asia: wider implications

What is the difference between Pinochet of Chile and Park of Korea? The similarities are that they are both generals, that they are both dictators, that both seized power in military coups, that both projected themselves as national saviours, resolved to save their respective countries from the state of political anarchy and economic chaos into which they had fallen. One difference is that while, at the time of writing, Pinochet is alive, Park was assassinated five years ago. A more important difference is that whereas Park succeeded, to date Pinochet has lamentably failed. South Korea became something of a Wunderkind of economic development; Chile wallows depressingly in its rich natural resources. Taking into consideration the similarities between Pinochet and Park, they are by no means exceptional in the contemporary international environment. Most countries are ruled by dictators, often generals, sometimes lower ranks, who have generally come to power by the barrel of a gun, rather than the ballot box. As a general proposition, it can be suggested that dictatorship has not been particularly conducive to development. Spanish economic development occurred more in spite of than because of General Franco,1 the Greek colonels of the late 1960s made- a mess of things (even if the mess remains), and General Jaruzelski of Poland is faring no better, while in most countries of Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, where various shapes and sizes of military dictatorships rule or have ruled until recently, the situation is desperate. In a number of Asian countries, notably Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Kampuchea and Laos, the panorama is equally bleak. In others, by contrast, development trends have either been impressive or at least provide more than a glimmer of hope. Is there an 'Asian case' in the relationship between dictatorship and development?

Liberalization by Omission: Argentina After the War

THE MALVINAS WAR HAS BEEN FOR ARGENTINA WHAT CYPRUS was for the Greek colonels. Unfortunately we lack a Karamanlis, and the Junta regime has lost the six years it has been in office without developing a political project of its own. In this sense, our situation is very different from that of Brazil, where the ruling military have had time to ‘open up’ the political system gradually.To understand the mind of the Argentine armed forces one has to realize that they felt disappointed by the Martinez de Hoz administration (1976–81). Actually, this is putting it mildly. They felt betrayed: it is as though the Argentine economy had been bombed for the past six years. A familiar experience? Possibly, but unlike some European countries, we lack the institutional mechanisms. Besides, the Argentine military felt that while they did their part in stopping the guerrillas, the specialists they put in charge of economic matters did not do their job. The team of economists, headed by José Martínez de Hoz, was a local version of ‘Chicago boys’, backed by international finance and its world economic pundits. A contorted version of ‘liberalism’ invaded our beaches, giving us nineternth-century laissez faire plus a foolish overvaluation of the peso which made Buenos Aires the costliest city in the world, and rendered competition against imports impossible. Quite a few people thought this was necessary because, as the widely displayed sticker on our cars has it, ‘to reduce the state is to strengthen the nation’. The idea is that Argentina would finally be a real part of the Western Christian world and, inspired by European and North American examples, would throw away protectionism and all its trappings, never to look at it again.