Kalliope Pavli, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Fellow
Panteion University, Faculty of Political Sciences and History
Research Centre for Modern History
Athens, Greece
On Colonialism and its legacy to the Greek scholars
at the era of Greek military campaign in Asia Minor
Postdoctoral Research
Abstract
The late 19th century is characterised by the sharpening of the struggle for colonies and by the intensification of the economic monopolies, following the expansion of the so-called Industrial Revolution in regions that provided raw materials and markets. Colonialism appeared as the "spirit of world" and doctrine of development, as it was propagated by the colonial “blockbuster” exhibitions; trade shows with antiquities and products from the colonies spiced up by the popular “Human Zoos”, based on the anthropologists’ motto “to see is to know”. In such an imperialist and racist frame, the internal disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, of the most politically charged regions, facilitated the British, German and French capital to take over control in banks, navigation trade, mining, water supply, railways; goods whose their unequal distribution in colonies was the evidence of the capitalistic interests and their established colonial regulations.
The Greek ruling class supported the Europeans’ ambitions in the shape of the post-war world. Greek scholars were also certain that colonialism transfers civilization and wealth from the colonisers to the colonised areas, bringing up economic and educational development. Thus, the military campaign in Asia Minor hadn’t been simply a matter of historical (mis)conception based on the “since ever pure” and “solid” Greekness of Asia Minor and its “liberation”—even if the ethno-historical myths and the archaeological interpretations added a widely accepted gloss in the war. For a moment’s reflection was enough to convince that the Greek army walked on a land of multiple layers of history as it was pointed out in the treatise of Kalliope Pavli, “The excavations held by the Greek State in Asia Minor during the Greek military campaign of 1919-1922”; the Anatolian context before and after the immigration of the Greek tribes and the continuous populations movement that created a multi-ethnic environment. After all, the Greek upper class never hide, as show the primary sources, that their deepest aim was the Anatolian’s raw materials, praising the efforts of the Greek bankers and industrialists to increase through the war —and because of it— their profit. Besides the fact that Prince George, who served as a major general, explicitly addressed the campaign as “colonial”, the Greek maritime shipping was in its peak between the years 1919 and 1922 and the growth of the Greek banks had been quite remarkable: they loaned money to farmers and kings with high interest rates, and the Greek state as well, in order to continue the Greek-Turkish war in Asia.
Colonialism reflected a certain socio-economic development. This postdoctoral research aims, taking account of the reality of the late 19th-early 20th century, to present aspects of the late colonial era in relation to the Greek bourgeois class and their necessity to become more effective economically.
Gurhan Yellice, Ph.D.
Dokuz Eylul University
Ataturk Institute for Modern Turkish History
Buca, Izmir, Turkey.
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THE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TURKISH AND GREEK PERCEPTION TOWARDS THE US FOREIGN POLICY DURING THE CYPRUS CRISES OF 1964, 1967, 1974.
Postdoctoral Research
BACKROUND INFORMATION
In the summer of 1974 Greek Junta organized a coup against Makarios and overthrew the legitimate government of Cyprus. Thereon Turkey invaded the island to preserve her interests. Turkey and Greece came to the brink of war, they did not fight but at the end of the crises the island was divided in two parts. This de facto division continues today.
Cyprus first emerged as a foreign policy trouble for Turkey and Greece when Greek-Cypriots, under the leadership of Makarios, started the Enosis (union with Greece) movement against British rule in the mid-1950s. When Greece outspokenly declared her support in favor of Enosis and Turkey adopted the policy of partition, the parties came to the brink of war at the end of 1950s. The US concerning the tension between two NATO allies is against her own interests, intervened and first convinced the UK to recognize the independence of Cyprus then Turkey and Greece on declaration of an independent republic based on Turkish-Greek partnership and Turkish-Greek and British guarantorship. Following the proclamation of the Cyprus Republic, enmity between sides seemed to come to an end.
However the result which was in favor of the US, the UK, Turkey and Greece did not satisfy both the Greek and Turkish extremists, especially religious and political leader of the Greek-Cypriots Makarios excluded from the deal process. Uneasiness prevailed on both sides. At the end of 1963 Makarios ask for changes in the constitution in favor of Greek-Cypriots inter-communal clashes began. Cypriot Turks withdrew from the republic. When Turkey decided to intervene the island to with the claim protecting Turkish Cypriot rights the tension in between Turkey and Greece broke out again. This time US became actively involved the situation and warned Turkey not to intervene in a harsh manner and through Acheson revived the possibility of partition. Negations were held but it was to no avail. Both Turkey and Greece disturbed the US policy of restricting their movement and for not serving their national interests.
Eren Ozalay-Sanli
PhD in Political Science and International Relations
Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
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Personal blog: erenozalay.blogspot.com
Postdoctoral Research
The Interactive Discourse on Europe among Last Year High School Classrooms in Greece: An Ethnographic Study
Summary
This postdoctoral research project aims to capture a representative picture of the classroom discussion of history textbooks on modern history discuss in Greek high schools. The study stemmed from the doctoral dissertation of the researcher in which she analyzed how “Europe” was represented in the history textbooks of Turkey, Greece, Cyprus and Britain. Although textbooks remain a relevant field of research as they portray the state supported official discourse and national identity, they are a poor indicator of what is being relayed to the students in the classroom. Therefore, to understand the discourse on Europe in the previously examined cases, the researcher would like to embark on a field research starting with Greece. In the six months of field research, classrooms in Greek high schools will be visited and interviews with history teachers and students will be conducted and their relation to textbooks will be portrayed.
Post-doc researcher: Dr Alexandra Patrikiou
Academic Supervisor: Prof. Christina Koulouri
The Holocaust in the different Jewish communities of the Greek state (as indeed elsewhere) was affected by several local factors, including local agents and their role, the size of the community itself, the degree of their integration, which zone of occupation they belonged to and the different conducts of local authorities and elites. Even though the topic has recently received systematic academic attention, there are still many aspects of the phenomenon worth examining so as to understand it in a more holistic way. One of these aspects is the role of those agents that didn’t act decisively for the course of events, but may have contributed to the events being smoothly carried out. The regular publishing of anti-Semitic articles both in collaborationist newspapers and in censored ones constitutes a characteristic example of that kind of agents. The regularity of anti-Semitic articles appearing both in collaborationist and censored local Press and anti-Semitic discourse that ranged from a mild critical prejudice against the Jews to a full-blown racist discourse, is very likely to have contributed to paving the ground for the justification of local or nation-wide deportations to their audiences. On the other hand, such anti-Semitic discourse in the local press may have reflected and served already established anti-Semitic dispositions of local audiences. Focusing on the press newspapers and journals issued in the cities of Athens, Thessaloniki and Volos and the two largest cities of Crete, Chania and Herakleion, this research aims to provide valuable input on the role of the press in the promotion of anti-Semitism through an analysis of the ways anti-Semitic discourse was employed by the Greek press during the years of Axis occupation. What is also important is the objective that the Greek paradigm will allow us to test some of the current academic conclusions in Shoah history: like Jeffrey Herf’s important conclusion: whether (and how much) the Holocaust was indeed evident when it was actually being carried out, or David Bankier’s analysis of the German media, who concluded that the Nazi party used the technique of “imposed guesswork” or Jan Grabowski’s point of view that the German anti-Jewish propaganda in Poland scarcely changed its rhetoric, even after the annihilation of Polish Jewry in 1942-43. At the end of the research, apart from the publishing of papers in academic journals, an open access database of all relevant articles will have been created.
