The Axis Occupation and Civil War: Changing Trends in Greek Historiography, 1941–2002
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343304041779 |
| Author | Giorgos Antoniou,Nikos Marantzidis |
| Date | 01 March 2004 |
| Published date | 01 March 2004 |
| Subject Matter | Journal Article |
223
Introduction
The first significant academic symposium on
the history of Greece in the 1940s took place
under the title ‘A Nation in Crisis’ in 1978.
Indeed, after the Greek–Italian War in 1940
and the German invasion in 1941, Greece
was about to go through its worst crisis, at
least in the 20th century. The famine, the
reprisals, the holocaust of the Jewish popu-
lation and the internal conflict of the Greek
people were only some of consequences of
the harsh Axis occupation (1941–44) and
the civil war that followed (1946–49) –
events that resulted in hundreds of thou-
sands of deceased, displaced and homeless
people. The Communist defeat and the Cold
War established an intense anti-Communist
governance of the country until 1974, when
the seven-year-long right-wing dictatorship
collapsed. The legalization of the Com-
munist Party of Greece and the socialist
governance of the country for eight consec-
utive years (1981–89) marked the political
changeover of the so-called Metapolitefsi
period that followed the dictatorship,
© 2004 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 41, no. 2, 2004, pp. 223–231
Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi) www.sagepublications.com
DOI: 10.1177/0022343304041779 ISSN 0022-3433
The Axis Occupation and Civil War: Changing
Trends in Greek Historiography, 1941–2002*
NIKOS MARANTZIDIS
Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia
GIORGOS ANTONIOU
Department of History and Civilisation, European University Institute
This article examines the literature on the Greek Civil War and evaluates the changing trends on the
field. Based on over 1,800 entries, it reassesses and describes the qualitative characteristics of the litera-
ture, connecting the production with the political implications and conjunctions of the Cold War era,
Greek politics and the post-Cold War period. Scholarly research has mainly examined the international
and domestic level of political actions, mainly through a single point of view of political identities and
Cold War categorizations. The post-Cold War period allowed research to focus on marginalized issues
such as ethnic identities, gender, case studies and local histories. This new trend is based on a new set
of conceptual and methodological tools (e.g. oral history, gender studies and electoral studies) and com-
bines various disciplines far from dominant in the Greek 1940s scholarly literature (e.g. anthropology,
political science, etc.). Although this trend is still in progress, it shows the biases as well as the com-
plexity and ambiguity of the set of terms used previously. Finally, this new trend attempts with some
success to incorporate into the Greek case the findings of the international academic discussion on civil
wars and social movements.
* Two main bibliographic guides were used: Fleisher &
Bowman (1981) and Koulouris (2000). Detailed tables and
figures are presented in Antoniou & Marantzidis (forth-
coming). We would like to thank the peer reviewers
and the Editor of JPR for their valuable comments.
Correspondence: nikosm@uom.gr or giorgos.antoniou@
iue.it.
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