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.

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.

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. 

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.

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 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.

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.

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.