This article explores the ways in which the memory of the 1940s is perceived and represented in the Athenian public space. It examines the monuments erected in Peristeri (Athens) from the end of the Second World War to the present day. Thematic, iconographic and stylistic references, as well as the political and ideological connotations of the monuments under examination, are also discussed. Finally, this article investigates the intersection of public history with the politics of memory for World War II and the National Resistance, as they are traced in the public space of Peristeri.

Modern historical research does not approach space statically, but rather as a method of analyzing social relations. This paper focuses on the urban space in Piraeus, particularly the transformations that occurred in a central area of the port, namely the premises of the former Old Town Hall (“The Clock”) and the former Central Market. During the Junta period (1967-1974) and Mayor Aristeides Stefanou Skylitsis’s term of office, the aforementioned buildings were demolished, a square was constructed in the location of the old Town Hall, and a multistory mall was erected in the place of the old Market. The study posits that the transformation of this central location serves as an expression of the underlying ideology of regeneration, development and modernization adopted by the Junta regime, all of which were requisites consistently proclaimed throughout post-WWII Greek history. Exploring the formal discourse as articulated in the official records of the city council, as well as the informal speech of inhabitants, the article concludes that the authoritarianism of the regime contributed significantly to the violent transformation of this specific space, resulting in the replacement of the old landmark of the Town Hall with another, symbolically prominent structure in the local skyline.

The present article focuses on the daily life of the Greek capital during the six-month period of the military confrontation with the Italians. Through his lines, the anxiety of the residents about the operational developments on the Albanian front, the fear of the imminent air bombardments, as well as the content of the uncontrolled rumors that had overwhelmed Athens, are revealed. An important part of it is occupied by the dire need to comply with anti-aircraft protection measures, but also the catalytic role that the presence of the RAF played in order to strengthen vulnerable urban psychology. The level of nutritional self-sufficiency, the constant monitoring of external military and political developments, combined with the effort to increase the popularity of Ioannis Metaxas and his government, complete the picture of Athenian daily life during the Greco-Italian war. 

Using the archives of the nationalist magazine Davlos, this article attempts to trace the beginnings of a completely new revision of the traditional tripartite scheme of national history, one that is grafting elements of ancient Greek mythology, but also of paradoxology. It argues, by introducing the concept of mystical nationalism as an analytical tool, that an attempt to integrate a timeless and forever lost national prehistory, with claims that the nation originates from a supernatural genus of gods, can be traced in the narratives of the journal. In this new hellenic chronotope, Greece is presented through the pages of Davlos as a global imperialist power, which, after spreading the Greek language all over the planet and influencing all the cultures known to mankind, gradually degenerated over the millennia into the present form of a Greek-Christian state. In Davlos' articles, science, academic history, and archaeology seem to conspire to conceal “true” events that took place thousands of years ago or “lost” technology from an ante-diluvian Greek supernatural civilization. In the meantime, such entities like “Communism” or the “Jews” are presented in many articles as arch enemies of the Greek nation. The magazine also hosted the views of controversial anthropologist Aris Poulianos, who argued that Greece was the cradle of the entire human species, ultimately aiming to prove the indigenous origins of the Greek nation, by binding it with the land, literally since the dawn of humanity. Finally, by placing these narratives within the ethno-romantic tendencies of the early post-dictatorship period, traces of a new historical culture can be identified – one that would undergo multiple transformations and eventually intersect even with New Age movement and even ufology.

As a result of ten years of military occupation, Italy, through the Treaty of Lausanne on July 24, 1923, annexed the strategically important Dodecanese islands. The exploitation of the islands by Italian political planners was complex and strongly referred to the islands’ historical past. This was presented as a legitimizing factor for the retention of the islands, as well as for Italy’s political influence and expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean. The goal of this article is to explore the relationship between the plans and actions of the local Italian administration and the broader political agenda of Italy, focusing on how the local Italian administration, under Governor Mario Lago (1922-1936), understood its mission and subsequently utilized and promoted the historical heritage and culture of the Dodecanese, primarily through tourism, in order to strengthen the islands’ economy and, above all, to enhance the influence and to promote the beneficial colonial policies of “revived” Fascist Italy.

This paper deals with the political life and activities of the German-educated lawyer Ioannis Passadakis (1890-1953), one of the most prominent Nazi collaborators in Crete, who served as Prefect of Heraklion (July 1941-January 1943) and General Governor of Crete (January 1943-September 1944). Passadakis started his political career as a member of the Liberal Party and was elected a deputy of Heraklion in 1936 but distanced himself from party politics after the coup of August 4, 1936, and became a sympathizer of the Metaxas Regime. He became Prefect of Heraklion shortly after the capture of Crete by the Germans, in July 1941, and chose to serve them with fervor, discouraging resistance and asking the population to collaborate with the German military authorities. He was rewarded by being appointed General Governor of Crete, a position from which he gave fiery speeches against the Allies, suggested ways of indoctrinating or “enlightening” the population and supported Germany and the “New Order” it meant to impose on Europe in every possible way. After the war, Passadakis was put to trial and convicted for collaboration with the Germans, along with 29 other ministers and prime ministers that had served during the Occupation. Passadakis claimed he was not pro-German or a Nazi collaborator, but a patriot that had served the national interests and had contributed to protecting Greece from the “Red Threat”. This paper explores the available sources, aiming to prove that Passadakis was not only an anti-communist, as he claimed, but a self-insterested Nazi collaborator, committed to Germany’s policies, war goals and final victory almost as much as the Germans, as accused and can be proven by numerous of his announcements, orders and speeches.

The National Schism continued into the Interwar period. The conflicts between the two factions, with some periods of de-escalation, persisted into the early years of the 1930s. This study examines the appeals of three mayors from major cities –two from Thessaloniki and one from Chania– submitted to the Council of State. The appeals were made against penalties imposed by the central administration for various reasons. It investigates the political causes behind the imposition of these penalties and examines how the newly established Supreme Administrative Court handled the cases from a legal standpoint. The court applied legislation that had been produced in a different historical context and was intended to serve other purposes. Given this, the study aims to shed light on an unknown aspect of the political landscape of the Interwar period: the Supreme Administrative Court, an institution that emerged during the same era. This study is the result of my research in the Archive of the Council of State, conducted as part of my ongoing doctoral dissertation titled “The Council of State, 1929-1935: Political, Social, and Economic Aspects of Interwar Greece” at the University of Crete.

The article focuses on the first fifteen years of the Metapolitefsi period (1974-1989) and is structured in three sections. First, it examines the emergence of political and social formations and the divisions that were formed around the issue of democratization. It also outlines the steps taken to overcome the post-Civil War exclusions. Finally, it focuses on how the management of historical memory influenced and fed the social and political cleavages within the Greek social formation.

  The following article deals with the case of the unknown concentration camp operated by the Italian occupation forces in the region of Katouna, Aetolia-Acarnania. In this camp, prisoners of war from the Greek army, as well as communist political prisoners transferred there from the Akronauplia prison, were detained. The article analyzes the history of their imprisonment, as well as aspects of the organization of the political prisoners' lives, and forms of resistance, during the time they remained in this camp.  

  After the end of World War II, Greek state vigorously resumed its efforts to influence social morality by implementing strict police measures to address a thorny issue, that of prostitution. Prostitution, which was considered by the state reformers a result of a social decay during the occupation period, was also deemed primarily responsible for the spread of venereal diseases and sexual immorality. Therefore, for a nation that had just emerged deeply wounded from the war and was in the midst of social and political turmoil, the issue of prostitution re-emerged as a threat to the very existence of the Greek state, and its eradication became a matter of national importance. This article focuses on the social dimensions of prostitution and the state control policies in the post-war Greek state, with an emphasis on Thessaloniki.   Following the end of the bloodstained Civil War (1946-1949), the Greek post-war society tried to follow the footsteps of the developed West. Thus, brothels and disreputable neighborhoods in urban centers no longer had any place in a modern city. However, the closure of brothels in post-war Thessaloniki caused several problems for which the state was completely unprepared. It quickly became apparent that it was not feasible to eradicate prostitution, especially through police measures. The notorious red-light districts of Thessaloniki, Bara and Vardaris, could not magically disappear with the implementation of the legislative provisions of Law 3032/22. In the decades that followed, these neighborhoods, despite gentrification efforts, continued to provide sexual services to city visitors, soldiers, and the local clientele.  

The present article explores spaces linked directly with torture during the period of the Colonels' Regime in Athens and Thessaloniki. At the epicenter of this short study are some of the major torture loci during the Junta; buildings at the heart of major metropolitan centers whose history nonetheless remains a well-concealed guilty secret even to this day. Specifically, we examine Athens’ General Security Police on Bouboulinas, 18 Str., Athens, the two buildings of Security Police at Valaoritou and Vardaris districts as well as the Transportation Police Department at Thessaloniki. Why have these specific locations been selected? Because these are locations where the traces of the age in question have been either destroyed in full or totally integrated into the contemporary urban tissue, maintaining today a different identity; in both cases the result is the obliteration of memory until we reach the final stage: forgetting. How is the collective memory of the tortures being formed? What is the spatial imprint of that memory? What are the traits of the memories of a dark historical period? How do we cope with the events of this period and how are these events integrated into the collective memory after the 1974 regime change? How did the society deal with these difficult and delicate issues after 1974? These are the core questions on which the contents of the following article are based.

This article focuses on Greek Parliamentary Elections of 1977 impact on Greek social and political life afterwards. Historicizing the electoral fact, the present article approaches the elections in an analytical scheme which associates space of experience and horizon of expectations with the social struggle for democratization after Metapoliteusi. Moreover, the article refers to social protests during democratic institutional transition explaining the experience of social movements connection with mass-based party strategy adopted by left parties. Analyzing the elections and its results, the document elucidates the struggle for the democratization of social life to electoral claim.  

In the 1980s, PASOK implemented a social democratic model of governance, aiming to establish a state based on social justice, human rights and gender equality. PASOK's policy was largely focused on the emergence and empowerment of a new female identity based on equality and independence. This article examines the way in which these changes were promoted through television, which in the 80s was undoubtedly the protagonist of information, entertainment, but also managed to transform gender perceptions.  

  This article approaches the ritualization mechanisms of the local community of Eptachori of Kastoria during the relocation to Pentalofos Kozanis during the period of the Greek Civil War. Through the mechanisms of ritualization that will be analyzed in more detail, the permanent connection of the residences with their birthplace was achieved when they were forced by the National Army to leave it in September 1947.  

This article examines the image of the “German” at the beginning of the Third Greek Republic through the Greek press. We look for continuities or intersections, convergences and divergences between the major newspapers of the period 1974-1989, using Critical Discourse Analysis as a methodological tool and focusing on the so-called Dark Anniversaries, i.e. key dates of the Second World War for Greece. The research has shown that there is a clear differentiation between the Hitler's Germany and the Federal Republic of Germany, which was due to the multifaceted assistance given to Greece by the Federal Republic of Germany and the spirit of consensus that prevailed, without, of course, implying that there is debate about forgetting the past.

The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze the different phases of the Greek party system, as well as the dominant characteristics of each phase from 1974 to 2024. Although the emphasis is placed on the nature of party competition, references are also made to other elements that are directly or indirectly related to party competition, or may even be its consequences (e.g., the state of public opinion or the quality of democracy). The transition from strong bipartisanship to extreme and polarized multipartyism, and then to fragile bipartisanship, leading to the current situation of a dominant party, is related to developments that have shaped not only the parties but also the entire political institutions of the Metapolitefsi period.

  What is the role of historians in critical times such as these? What is the function of anniversaries in the context of institutional management of a past? Through which memorial routes can the different pasts converse and how can they be parts of the constitution of a plural identity? The occasion for these questions was the holding of an international history conference in Lisbon by INTH (International Network for Theory of History), with the central theme of the “responsibility of historians” and the way we “make history”. The timing of the 50th anniversary of the Portuguese Transition to Democracy and the Restoration of Democracy in Greece was the trigger for the formulation of some thoughts and questions about the anniversary as a public memory, the use and role of symbols and monuments of the past in the present, while maintaining the thought that in order to reinterpret History, we have to reconsider the past from the viewpoint of our uncertain present.  

After the end of the Greek Civil War and especially during the Dictatorship, the memory of the dead soldiers was used ideologically by the state and the army. The victors of the Civil War imposed their own commemorative practices by establishing a series of public ceremonies in order to construct the collective memory that they desired. But since 1974 onwards, the ceremonies for the fallen soldiers were initially redesigned in order not to match the previous regime. The purpose of this article is to examine the process of reorganizing the public ceremonies, which for the sake of national reconciliation, were finally forgotten or marginalised.

Pre-election rallies and the “battle” of the poster, as means of mass communication, were mobilized in the context of party competition by both political factions and their friendly press in post-political Greece. This article examines in particular how the specific “visual wars”, which were fighting by the party armies exacerbated the political polarization in the national elections in 1981. Furthermore, it aspires to explain how the participation of ordinary people in the mass meetings and the poster war also reflects the political culture of the time.  

The fifty years since the fall of the dictatorship present an opportunity to attempt writing a 'history of the present.' The article discusses four issues that I consider important for the critical re-examination of the historical period from 1974 to 2024. The first issue concerns the starting point of this historical period, specifically the 'moment' of 1974, and the exploration of the relationship between rupture and continuity. The second concerns the 1980s and the country's governance by PASOK, which represented a paradigm shift in the exercise of power. The third issue relates to the 'unknown' decade of the 1990s, during which some significant changes began to emerge, which were completed in the following decades. Finally, I discuss Metapolitefsi (post-1974 period) in the public discourse during the years of the recent economic crisis and the attempt to negatively reinterpret the changes that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s.

This article examines the case of Mitsos Partsalidis’s funeral, a former member of the Communist Party of Greece (abbr. KKE) and one of the main figures of the Greek Civil War.  After the end of World War II, and especially after the fall of the Greek Junta in 1974, one of the major issues that emerged in the public sphere was the struggle for the official recognition of the National Resistance during the German Occupation of 1941-1944. The heated debate regarding this matter created alliances that would seem unlike in the past decades. Partsalidis's funeral, in 1980, became an emblematic event of this phenomenon, mainly because of the eulogy delivered by Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, a prominent conservative politician and protagonist of the events that led to the Civil War. This characteristic moment helps us to analyse the different perspectives of Partsalidis, Kanellopoulos, and the organization “Movement, United National Resistance 1941-1944”, three major actors of the struggle for recognition, whose views were highlighted during and after the funeral. By examining their views we will try to underline their similarities and key differences, focusing on how a traumatic past was confronted and how it functioned in such a way that promoted the long-awaited recognition, a demand that was perceived as a crucial step towards the “national reconciliation”.

With the end of the Greek Civil war, a large part of the political refugees who will find themselves outside the borders, will settle in the People’ s Republic of Macedonia. The vast majority of them were (Slav) Macedonians who will completely excluded from the institutional rehabilitation of the “Greek-Born” (Ellines to Genos), political refugees, accepting their refugee status as an exile.

This article examines a project that was applied by the Greek Government, during the Greek Civil War in order to strike the opponent forces of Democratic Army of Greece (DSE). According to this specific project, villages which were located near mountainous territories, had to be depopulated and their population to be transferred to safety centres, which were controlled by the National Army of Greece (ES). In this way, the rebels of DSE would lose plenty of their advantages in the war. There would be detachment due to the loss of population, lack of the necessary food and goods but also far from the information networks. However, the most painful consequence of this policy was that DSE was diverged from the new rebels’ reserves, and with the time lapse the army was increasingly weakened. In order to introduce this project and how it took place, we chose to shed light in the example of Kilkis district. A region which includes two large mountains in its territory and presented remarkable action during the civil war for both opponent sides. We aimed to find and display separate case-studies and villages with different features so as to represent a global view of the facts which took place but most importantly to get into the logic of this policy that was experimented upon this population and led 700,000 people of the countryside to be forced to leave their houses and become refugees inside their state.

The paper discusses a significant aspect of the conflict at the level of local history. The onset and the intensification of the military clashes, between 1946-1949, led to a massive and extensive evacuation of the countryside from its population, which was directed to the closest or furthest safe urban centers. The article tries to address on five main issues: the scheme and the way in which the National Army evacuated the mountainous countryside of the prefecture of Trikala as well as the consequences of this policy, the way in which the local administration managed the internal refugees in terms of housing and care policies, the attempts of political control, but also the social contradistinctions that arose from the coexistence in the same society of impoverished internal refugees and prosperous natives.

The battle of Meligalas in September 1944 between ELAS and the local Security Battalion, and the acts of violence that followed are some of the bloodiest events that took place after the liberation of Greece from German occupation forces. This article examines the factors that led to this burst of violence and its extent. It is argued that the main factors were the violence perpetrated by the German occupation forces and the Security Battalions during the last year of the occupation, the need for revenge that it created, the continuous exposure to violence, and the antagonism between ELAS and the Security Battalions. The latter was promoted by the Germans and the British during the occupation and rose dramatically after the liberation, as both sides sought the elimination of their rivals and their prevalence.

The aim of this research is to examine the gendered dimension of the Greek Civil War through analyzing the experiences and choices of female fighters in the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE). The study addresses issues as female memory and lived experience; exploring first-hand accounts and impressions of the DSE female fighters during the CivilWar. Social and collective commonalities are examined, as well as changes in the gender relations and shifts in the women’s social roles. Politicization and motives for joining the DSE, gender relations during the Civil War, domestication in “hyperoria” after the end of the war, are also discussed. The primary sources of this research are twelve interviews conducted with women, who actively participated as armed fighters in the DSE during the Greek Civil War.

During the Greek Civil War, strong propaganda policy was developed in urban areas, aiming mobilization of the population around the dominant state ideology. In this context, the present article focuses on Thessaloniki, where city authorities placed special emphasis on the organization of public ceremonies and events, such as national celebrations, patriotic speeches and philanthropic activities, with symbolic significance, aimed at stimulating national sentiment.    

The aim of this document is the study of the children in Aitoloakarnanía, who as victims of the war conflicts, became subjects of political exploitation and accepted different aspects of welfare from the end of the Civil War till the decade of 1970. It is focused on the initiatives that were taken for the salvation of the children, as well as on the social welfare organizations and the charitable organizations. The most important of those organizations was the Paidopolis called “Τou Sotiros” in Agrinio. Afterwards, the charitable organization called “Foster Parents Plan” is presented to feature its work at the national level and its areas of action in the Greek state. The biggest part of this document is focused on the research and the processing of the folders of those who were admitted and those who were not in the “Foster Parents Plan” in Aitoloakarnanía between 1958 and 1968. Investigating those folders, the type of support, the ideological and political criteria of choosing the children are illustrated in relevance to the historical events of that period.

During the Axis Occupation, the municipality of Pella constituted an area of intense controversy and conflict between different groups and interests. As it was expected, the resistance against the occupier brought about retaliation from its German and Bulgarian allies. The existence of a disparate population that spoke different languages (Slavophones and Vlachophones) gave to the Bulgarian, Yugoslav and Italo-Romanian propaganda the opportunity to be put in action and try to proselytize. Moreover, the monopolization of the resistance by EAM-ELAS and the hidden supremacy of KKE led to the pursuit of the opposing resistance organization YVE-PAO, and, in general, of all those that were aligned with it. Even more, the cooperation of some Greeks with the Germans in weapon acquisition and their fight against EAM-ELAS increased the complexity of the situation. Unfortunately, these conflicts and fights were too bloody and divided the local community for many decades. The present study aims to record the dead people in the Municipality and to point out the complexity of the conflicts. There has been utilization of the registry offices of the Municipalities, records, books, oral and written testimonies, monuments and, generally, all available sources.

This paper examines the persecution of Greek non-combatants in the context of the Greko-Italian War. In this sense, the forced displacement of the Greek minority and Greek citizens living in significant and concrete areas of southern Albania is analyzed. In addition, the living conditions in detention centers in Albania and Italy are investigated. Based on new archival sources, the extent and characteristics of these persecutions are examined.

This text refers to the foreign prisoners in Thessaloniki and especially to the Yugoslavs, who were found as a labor force for two years from 1943 to 1944 in the camps of Harmankioi and Pavlos Melas in Thessaloniki and in the three camps - branches of Pavlos Melas, those of Lianokladi, Domokos and of Kaitsa, a subject of "virgin" research. More specifically, it talks about the work they undertook, the places and conditions under which they worked, the specialty, the number of workers at each construction site and the time required to complete each project. The research was based mainly on Yugoslav sources, which confirms the uniqueness of the subject, aiming to highlight and place it in the wider scientific debate around the 1940s.

This article examines cases of interpretation, german and non-german, before and during World War II. Interpreters and translators remain in the obscurity of historiography, as secondary actors when in fact they played an important role both on the battlefields and behind the scenes. In this context, an overview of their action is attempted. More in detail, an attempt is made to clarify their motivations, their selection criteria, the qualifications they had to have and, much more, their role at work when the war conditions suggested their necessity.The article aspires to contribute to a first assessment of the role of interpreters in war conditions that has not been studied in the greekbibliography so far.

The National Liberation Front (ΕΑΜ) takes over the administration of the district of Rhodope in the middle of September 1944, thus, filling the administrative gap left by the Bulgarian Occupation forces which depart after some time. Since the EAM takes charge, they start keeping records of the existing material such as cash and other goods and they seek solutions to tackle various problems such as the alimentation, the financial reconstruction, the restitution and enshrinement of institutions as well as the improvement of the local’s health levels. In the present article, there will be a brief presentation of the work of the EAM administration in the Prefecture of Rhodope between the middle of September until the end of March 1945, which was the time when the General Administration of Thrace takes charge, as is reported in the archival sources available in the General State Archives (GAK) in Komotini. The material emanates from the meeting’s proceedings of the Prefectural and Municipal Council which are included in the Archive of Rhodope Prefecture as well as the communal archives. Specifically, the author investigates the ways used by the EAM to encounter the social and financial problems as well as the continuities and discontinuities recorded during the transition period to the state authorities, in order to fill the bibliographical gap concerning the specific time period in the Rhodope area.

The occupation of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace by the Bulgarian troops during the Second World War inaugurated the implementation of a policy for the formation of a Bulgarian national community in this area. The policy of the Bulgarian occupation authorities resulted in the emergence of a number of people who naturalized as Bulgarian citizens during this period, obtaining the Bulgarian citizenship. The aim of this article is to approach this phenomenon which manifested on a mass level during this period in the Bulgarian occupation zone. With a case study of the city of Xanthi there will be an attempt to interpret the motives of these people and to approach the way in which this choice affected the relations within the local society, with those who retained Greek citizenship during this period.

Alexandroupolis was liberated from the Axis Occupation by the ELAS forces, the military wing of EAM (National Liberation Front), in September 1944. The EAM civil administration of the free region, away from the political, financial and cultural center of Greece, tried to face the alimentation problem, the seriously damaged political and social structures, the mass destruction of the transport and communication infrastructure, the lack of national currency and the restart of the greek educational system that ceased to exist under the Bulgarian Occupation. Despite the difficult conditions and the inexperience of the elected members of the Civil Council, the new radical administration model EAM attempted to apply started to function but stopped abruptly when political tensions escalated and the White Terror was launched against the leftish citizens leading to the outbreak of the Civil War.

Athenian revue, the theatrical genre that satirizes current social and political issues, was confronted with momentous historical events in the 1940s: the Greco-Italian war, the German Occupation of Greece, the December events and the Civil War offered a rich array of topics to playwrights. However, not all aspects of these topics could find their way to the stage because of the circumstances of the time, for example censorship restrictions during the Occupation, the one-sided treatment of the Civil War or the attempt to maintain equal distances. This paper presents the main thematic axes around which Greek playwrights structured their revues during the 1940s and the manner in which their thematic choices were treated by theatre critics of the time.