Greek Cypriot Community Research Articles

Two Wars in the Order of Time: Cyprus, 1974, Ukraine, 2022

Two cases are studied, the first being the invasion of Cyprus by Turkey in 1974, when the Greek-Cypriot community wanted to integrate the island into mainland Greece, threatening the rise of Turkish Cypriots. The government of Turkey invaded the island, conquering a portion of the territory for its supporters, believing to resolve the issue culminating in decades of conflict between their communities whose past dreams do not coincide with the present. The second event is Vladimir Putin's Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, motivated by the irreversible process of the dissolution of the former USSR and the attraction of Ukrainians to the western orbit. From a notion of the strangeness of contemporaneity, anchored in a glorious but unattainable past, events that erupt in contemporaneity are simultaneously current and anachronistic. Based on a premise of the past and defending ethnic Russians, Putin recovers the fantasy of a Russian empire encompassing tsarist, communist, and orthodox religions from the past. In Cyprus, Greek and Turkish Cypriots dreamed of integration into the motherland, but in both cases, contemporary and ancient irruption possess the unbeatable force of a cosmic event.

Neither Eastern nor Western: Patterns of independence and interdependence in Mediterranean societies.

Social science research has highlighted "honor" as a central value driving social behavior in Mediterranean societies, which requires individuals to develop and protect a sense of their personal self-worth and their social reputation, through assertiveness, competitiveness, and retaliation in the face of threats. We predicted that members of Mediterranean societies may exhibit a distinctive combination of independent and interdependent social orientation, self-construal, and cognitive style, compared to more commonly studied East Asian and Anglo-Western cultural groups. We compared participants from eight Mediterranean societies (Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus [Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities], Lebanon, Egypt) to participants from East Asian (Korea, Japan) and Anglo-Western (the United Kingdom, the United States) societies, using six implicit social orientation indicators, an eight-dimensional self-construal scale, and four cognitive style indicators. Compared with both East Asian and Anglo-Western samples, samples from Mediterranean societies distinctively emphasized several forms of independence (relative intensity of disengaging [vs. engaging] emotions, happiness based on disengaging [vs. engaging] emotions, dispositional [vs. situational] attribution style, self-construal as different from others, self-directed, self-reliant, self-expressive, and consistent) and interdependence (closeness to in-group [vs. out-group] members, self-construal as connected and committed to close others). Our findings extend previous insights into patterns of cultural orientation beyond commonly examined East-West comparisons to an understudied world region. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Psychopathic Traits and Parental Practices in Greek-Cypriot Community and Dutch Clinical Referred Samples.

Parental practices are associated with psychopathic traits across several developmental stages. However, the majority of available studies focused mainly on the affective dimension of psychopathy, namely callous-unemotional traits, disregarding the grandiose-deceitful and impulsivity-need for stimulation dimensions. The current study examines the distinct associations between all three dimensions with parental practices (parental involvement, poor monitoring, inconsistent discipline, and corporal punishment) after considering the effect of conduct problems (CPs) and sex in a Greek-Cypriot primary school sample (N = 792, Mage = 6.93, SD = 0.72) and a Dutch clinical-referred sample (N = 217, Mage = 9.55, SD = 1.79) of children. In the community sample, hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that parents of children with high levels of callous-unemotional traits were more likely to engage in inconsistent discipline but less in positive parental practices. In contrast, high levels of impulsivity-need for stimulation were related to inconsistent discipline. In the clinical sample, callous-unemotional traits were associated with less parental involvement and grandiose-deceitful dimension with high levels of inconsistent discipline. These findings suggest that the three psychopathy dimensions have unique relations with parental practices above and beyond CPs, proposing that parental practices may be influenced more strongly by psychopathic traits than by antisocial behavior.

Railways as Common Cultural Heritage: Cyprus Government Railway

ABSTRACT Cyprus Government Railway (CGR), which operated between 1905-1951 was constructed during the British Colonial period. Railway heritage is important, since it is part of the common cultural heritage of both Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities living on the island. However, division of the island is a challenge to the conservation of the railway heritage. Unfortunately, little effort has been made by the two communities to document, preserve and reuse railway heritage buildings and related structures. The main goal of the paper is to raise the awareness of the railway heritage in Cyprus and to propose strategies to use this common heritage as a tool for reconciliation in a divided island. The method of the study included archive survey conducted to identify original railway buildings and structures. Secondly, field studies were completed in order to record the present day condition of the railway heritage. Lastly, a vision for the future of the shared heritage has been put forward for inter-communal benefit. CGR is a shared heritage of the both the communities. Due to its potential to contribute to the reconciliation of the society, conservation of the railway heritage is crucial in terms of transferring the culture to the next generations.

Measuring social phobia symptoms in a community sample of adolescents: An examination of the psychometric properties of the SPAI-23.

A number of studies to date examine dimensions of social phobia and anxiety in adolescents. A variety of tools has been developed, along with their abbreviated versions, that are used to assess Social Anxiety (SA) but little research has been devoted to the types of fears they each assess. Due to differences in the content of the multitude of instruments, different aspects of SA are addressed and this leads to confusion when the relationship between SA and other constructs is being investigated. The aim of the present study was to examine the psychometric properties of the abbreviated Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory SPAI-23 in Greek-Cypriot community adolescents and describe dimensions of social fears at that age. Seven hundred twenty-one adolescent students from Cyprus, (Mean Age: 15.5, Range: 13-19, SD: 1.12, 64% female) participated in the study. Participants completed, among others, an abbreviated version of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI-23). Exploratory Factor Analysis on the SPAI-23 revealed a quite similar structure to the original questionnaire (SPAI). Three Social Phobia factors, describing distinct socially fearful situations, were identified (Performance, Interaction, and Presence in a social context) and one Agoraphobia factor after the evaluation of alternative solutions. Findings were verified by means of Confirmatory Factor Analysis, testing alternative models. Overall, findings were in line with recent evidence on youth samples, and contribute to significant insights towards more sophisticated and personalized assessments.

When the Cemetery Becomes Political: Dealing with the Religious Heritage in Multi-Ethnic Regions

When the Cemetery Becomes Political: Dealing with the Religious Heritage in Multi-Ethnic Regions

Tweet for peace: Twitter as a medium for developing a peace discourse in the hands of the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot leaders

PurposeThe article examines how the two Cypriot leaders – the Greek-Cypriot community leader Nicos Anastasiades and the Turkish-Cypriot community leader Mustafa Akinci – have used their Twitter accounts during the period leading to the intensification of the Cyprus peace process between 30 April 2015 and 31 October 2016.Design/methodology/approachThis article presents, using descriptive analysis and thematic analysis, how the two leaders have used Twitter in the negotiations' period.FindingsThe analysis shows that the leaders, during the time frame examined, developed both pro-peace discourses around the Cyprus problem and para-social and vicarious intergroup contact that contributed in what Hogg (2015) defines an intergroup relational identity that is an effective form of “bridging” leadership across communities.Originality/valueThe article argues that Twitter is a tool that, in the hands of political leaders in segregated public spheres caused by yet unresolved ethnic conflicts, can become a useful tool for constructing both a positive meaning around issues concerning the rival sides and transforming opposing social identities in the formation of an “extended sense of self that includes the collaboration partner” (Hogg, 2015, p. 191).Peer reviewThe peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-03-2022-0161

Two Wars in the Order of Time: Cyprus, 1974, Ukraine, 2022

Two cases are studied, the first being the invasion of Cyprus by Turkiye in 1974, when the Greek-Cypriot community wanted to integrate the island into mainland Greece, threatening the rise of Turkish Cypriots. The government of Turkiye invaded the island, conquering a portion of the territory for its supporters, believing to resolve the issue culminating in decades of conflict between their communities whose past dreams do not coincide with the present. The second event is Vladimir Putin’s Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, motivated by the irreversible process of the dissolution of the former USSR and the attraction of Ukrainians to the western orbit. From a notion of the strangeness of contemporaneity, anchored in a glorious but unattainable past, events that erupt in contemporaneity are simultaneously current and anachronistic Based on a premise of the past and defending ethnic Russians, Putin recovers the fantasy of a Russian empire encompassing tsarist, communist, and orthodox religion from the past. In Cyprus, Greek and Turkish Cypriots dreamed of integration into the respective motherland, but in both cases, contemporary and historic irruption of the past possess the unbeatable force of a cosmic event.

For Whom the Bell Tolls? Towards a Flexible Concept of Authenticity for Religious Heritage Buildings in Political Conflict Zones – Case of Northern Cyprus

ABSTRACT This article discusses the possibility of developing an understanding of the concept of authenticity through the understanding of authenticity in architectural terms, specifically religious heritage buildings in areas of political conflict. Although authenticity has been a continuous subject of debate in the field of heritage studies, however, we argue that difficulties in coming to terms with its application in areas of conflict are still persistent. The study uses the case study of the Agios Synesios Church in North Cyprus, built around the Twelfth century, and is still in use by the Greek Cypriot minorities who continued to live on the island following its division in 1974 and the forced displacement of both Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities to either part of the island. Based on observation of the church and its surrounding context, the research shows that coming to terms with authenticity is problematic for the church since the prolongation of the Greek Cypriot way of life has been compromised due to political fluctuations. The argument suggests that once the authenticity of a religious building is assessed as a heritage asset, a flexible concept of authenticity is essential to consider in areas of political conflicts especially when its original context no longer exists.

The bewildered peasant: family, migration and murder in the Greek Cypriot community in London

Abstract Greek Cypriots became a key feature of early post-Second World War London. This article focuses on the case of the penultimate woman hanged in Britain, Styllou Christofi, who was executed in December 1954 for the murder of her German-born daughter-in-law, Hella. It outlines the emergence of the Cypriot community in London, tackles the image of the Cypriot in the British imperial imagination and investigates the hostility that this new community faced in Britain. The article investigates the nature of family in Cyprus and London and questions why Cypriots have received so little attention from historians, despite their numbers.

The Polarization of Political Conflict in the Greek Cypriot Community in the 1940s–1950s: A Fight for Hegemony

The article examines the polarization of internal politics between Left and Right in the Greek Cypriot community in the 1940s and 1950s. By analyzing the ideological and political conflicts of this period it detects the mechanisms through which political polarization and radicalization increased. The emphasis on internal politics factors aims, inter alia, to stimulate critical thinking in political analysis that goes beyond the mere displacement of responsibilities and sources of bad luck in external actors and scrutinize the choices of national actors. The analysis of internal dynamics within the Greek Cypriot community can contribute to a (partial) deconstruction of the dominant narrative of this period which glorifies the nationalist Right via the EOKA armed struggle. The argument presented here is that political polarization and radicalization were instrumentally utilized by the Greek Cypriot nationalist Right to serve the purposes of internal dominance and hegemony in anticipation of the end of colonialism.

Civil Society in Peace Referendums: Inclusion and Campaign Mobilization in Northern Ireland and Cyprus

This article asks whether civil society’s inclusion/exclusion in peace negotiations shapes their involvement in peace agreement referendum campaigns. It seeks to answer this question through a qualitative comparative analysis of the Northern Irish Good Friday Agreement and Cypriot Annan Plan experiences. It finds that civil society’s push for inclusion in Northern Ireland and in the Turkish Cypriot community was followed by their greater mobilization in the referendum that strengthened the overall “yes” campaign, while this did not take place in the Greek Cypriot community. Drawing on the literature on European integration referendums, it argues that peace referendums need to be preceded by inclusive negotiations.

Nationalism and Reconciliation in Cypriot Documentary Film, 1976–1987

This article examines the production of documentary films about the Cyprus conflict produced between the late 1970 and late 1980s. Two films have been selected for analysis: Cyprus: The Other Reality (1976, dir. Lambros Papadimitrakis and Thekla Kittou), an anti-nationalist documentary produced in the immediate aftermath of the Turkish incursion of the island, and A Detail in Cyprus (1987, dir. Panicos Chrysanthou), which looks back at the social effects of the incursion and the estrangement of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities. Based on original interviews with their directors, this article gives an account of the production histories of the two documentaries and looks at their means through which they were distributed to the public. The article also examines the ways in which these two films represent the Cyprus conflict, in particular their engagement with the prevailing nationalist ideologies at work in both Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities and the alternate concept of Cypriocentrism. Finally, this article examines the ways in which both films were politically suppressed following their release within the Republic of Cyprus.

Reducing the gap: government efforts to advance girls’ education in colonial Cyprus, 1878-1960

As was the case in many countries around the world, in Cyprus, up until the first decades of the 20th century, universal – and surely compulsory – education was not a given right but, rather, a privilege. When the British arrived on the island, in 1878, the illiteracy rate exceeded 75 percent while, among the female population, the percentage was a shocking 97.5 percent. During British rule, girls and women were to benefit significantly from the Government’s education decisions; these decisions reduced the gap between boys’ and girls’ school attendance, a tendency that continued after the island’s independence. This paper focuses mostly on the Greek-Cypriot community, although frequent references to the Turkish-Cypriot and other communities are made throughout the text; the entire subject is approached mainly from a historical, rather than an educational, perspective.

The UK’s shifting diasporic landscape: negotiating ethnolinguistic heterogeneity in Greek complementary schools post-2010

AbstractAn estimated 65,000 Greek citizens migrated to the UK in 2010–2016, many of whom with the prospects of long-term settlement and with a view to provide better socioeconomic and educational opportunities to their children. Their arrival was felt across many sections of life both within and beyond the country’s pre-existing Greek-speaking communities. In this article, I present findings on how the arrival of Greek pupils, parents and qualified teachers diversified Greek complementary schools, which were previously run primarily by and for the Greek Cypriot community, and on the critical role language played in the process. Drawing on data from a set of semi-structured interviews with teachers and placing my investigation against the historical backdrop of migration from Greece and Cyprus to the UK, I show how teachers portrayed post-2010 migration as a much needed, albeit not always welcome, boost in ethnocultural vitality; how it helped to perpetuate the hierarchisation of standardised and non-standardised varieties of Greek and the stigmatisation of the multilingual and multidialectal repertoires of people with a Greek Cypriot background; and, how it put a strain on the ties that have historically brought the Greek and Greek Cypriot communities together in the context of the UK diaspora.

Heritage, Reconciliation and Cross-Border Cooperation in Cyprus

Cultural heritage in Cyprus has been a contentious issue throughout the island’s tumultuous history. The official partition of the island in 1974, after years of conflict between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, has resulted in the destruction and neglect of heritage sites on both sides of the Cypriot ‘border’. However, in recent years there has been an increase in organisations that aim to use heritage as a tool to unite both communities. This contribution examines the work of one such organisation, the Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage in Cyprus (TCCH).

The talks on the Cyprus problem at Crans-Montana, Switzerland (28.06 – 07.07.17) and the Greek-Cypriot Press: The views of newspapers Alithia, Politis and Haravgi

This paper focuses on the period of negotiations between the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot community at Crans-Montana, Switzerland, from 28 June to 7 July 2017. It looks into the views of the three leading Greek-Cypriot newspapers of that period and aims to present the positions of each newspaper about the negotiations on the Cyprus problem, at political level. Articles from three newspapers (Alithia, Politis and Haravgi) were studied, with an emphasis on political coverage regarding the negotiations. For the Crans-Montana negotiations on the Cyprus problem, the agenda setting approach was used, according to which, an event becomes an important from a journalist’s perspective, not only because it is unexpected and/ or dramatic, but also because it attracts a great deal of public attention and the significance of the event itself may, for example, lead to intense public judgment, tension or concerns. The research questions of the paper were shaped as follows: Τo what extent were the newspapers in favour of a solution to the problem? Did they have a conflicting or reconciling tone? To what extent did the style and tone of the news items regarding the talks vary depending on the newspaper? To what extent did the news items focus on persons taking part in the talks and the topics of the talks? Were the articles signed or not? Findings suggest that the Greek Cypriot press during the negotiations have faith that the Cyprus issue can be resolved through the talks. The overarching aim is to understand the efforts made to solve the Cyprus problem through the negotiations in Switzerland and to examine the positions of the Cypriot press regarding this thorny and crucial issue, over which the Republic of Cyprus has been agonising for more than forty years.

CONFLICT, COMMUNITY AND THE ‘NATIONAL’ AUDIENCE: REMEMBERING TURKISH CYPRIOT CINEMAGOING IN 1950s NICOSIA

Drawing on oral history interviews, contemporary newspaper sources and the archives of the British colonial administration, this article examines the experiences of the Turkish Cypriot cinema audience in Nicosia, the capital city of Cyprus, during the 1950s. This period was marked by rising anti-colonial and intercommunal conflict, but film exhibition nevertheless flourished and the cinema played a substantial role in the social, economic and political lives of many Turkish Cypriots. Memories of cinemagoing in Nicosia are marked by the experience of British colonial power, but they also reflect commercial interactions with the city’s more dominant Greek Cypriot community. The encounter with Turkish culture through the viewing of films imported from Turkey also contributed to the development of nationalist political aspirations. As Nicosia’s Turkish and Greek communities became increasingly polarised, cinemagoing experiences were influenced more and more by external political events. Nevertheless, the cinema of the 1950s is remembered as a communal, egalitarian and romantic space which provided the means to escape from everyday tensions.

Rehearsing National Identity within Cultural Festivals of the Republic of Cyprus

ABSTRACT The article discusses cultural festivals organised in the Republic of Cyprus (RoC) and their ideological implications on the national identity of Greek-Cypriots from Independence (1960) until the country’s accession in the European Union (2004). Debates and conflicts about national identity in the two ethnic communities coincide with the need for intensifying the relevance between the festivals’ artistic content and the concepts of nation, origin and identity on the island. Local cultural festivals functioned as a means of projecting national messages and symbolism, according to the identity bi-pole, Hellenocentric and Cypriotcentric, prevalent in Greek-Cypriot community. Later, in the 1990s, political changes inaugurated a need for the emergence of Eurocentrism with respect to the Greek-Cypriots’ cultural identity, this led to a significant increase of European artistic product via hosting of arts festivals. Despite the domination of ethnocentric approaches in the local cultural management model, the participation of other stakeholders – besides the state – contributed to the consolidation of the Eurocentric identity. This development had also strengthened the cosmopolitan ambiance, altered the repertoire of local festivals and differentiated the role and importance of artistic creation in society.

Femicide in Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities in Cyprus: A pilot study

PurposeThe aim of this article is to discuss a pilot study on femicide in Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities in Cyprus. MethodsA quantitative methodology was used to gather data from the police between 2010 and 2016 for the Greek-Cypriot community on women and girls who have been killed and where the perpetrator charged, alleged or convicted is a man. Also, qualitative methodology was used, gathering media reports for both communities between 2010 and 2017. ResultsTwenty-eight and twelve femicide cases were identified in the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities respectively. Most of the victims were killed by their husbands or boyfriends often at their home. It seems that masculine viewpoint was dominant in the media representations of these cases. ConclusionsFemicide prevention is in its early stages in Cyprus. It seems that a preventative and interventional strategy is needed to reduce the number of women killed by men.