Greece From Junta To Crisis

Winner of the 2021 European Society of Modern Greek Studies Book Prize Shortlisted for the 2022 Runciman Award The recent economic crisis in Greece has triggered national self-reflection and prompted a re-examination of the political and cultural developments in the country since 1974. While many other books have investigated the politics and economics of this transition, this study turns its attention to the cultural aspects of post-dictatorship Greece. By problematizing the notion of modernization, it analyzes socio-cultural trends in the years between the fall of the junta and the economic crisis, highlighting the growing diversity and cultural ambivalence of Greek society. With its focus on issues such as identity, antiquity, religion, language, literature, media, cinema, youth, gender and sexuality, this study is one of the first to examine cultural trends in Greece over the last fifty years. Aiming for a more nuanced understanding of recent history, the study offers a fresh perspective on current problems.

"More than half a century after the imposition of the dictatorship of the Colonels in Greece, a number of questions related to its nature, development and demise remains understudied and feebly answered. One of the most interesting -yet understudied- incidents of the dictatorship is its ill-fated self-transformation attempt into some form of civilian rule in 1973: the so-called 'Markezinis experiment', after the politician who assumed the task of heading the transition government and lead to elections. The whole venture lasted a mere eight weeks, faced heavy opposition from both the opposition elites and the civil society and eventually collapsed by a military hard-liners' coup. The story of this failed attempt raises a series of questions: what was the nature of the dictatorship of the Colonels, and why did it take it six years to seek some form of civilianisation? Were the intentions of Papadopoulos and Markezinis sincere, and were the politicians of the opposition right to refuse to legitimise the 'experiment'? What was the Polytechnic students' uprising role in the demise of the 'experiment'? Was there an American reaction, and was it the main reason for the collapse of the transition, as Markezinis claimed? The book seeks to address the above questions, and argues that the failure of the 'Markezinis experiment' paved the way for the actual transition of 1974 as it happened. The research is supported by foreign (British and American) archival resources, as well as by private archives and personal interviews. The book concludes by briefly seeking to trace some potential alternative paths for the failed self- transformation attempt, and by accounting for the long-term consequences of the failure of the 'Markezinis experiment'."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

During the dictatorship of the Colonels in Greece, there was an attempt at self-transformation into some form of civilian rule in 1973: the so-called 'Markezinis experiment', named after the politician who assumed the task of heading the transition government and lead to elections. It lasted a mere eight weeks, faced heavy opposition from both the opposition elites and the civil society and eventually collapsed by a military hard-liners' coup. This book argues that the failure of the 'Markezinis experiment' paved the way for the actual transition of 1974 as it happened. Using British and American archival resources, as well as unique private archives and personal interviews, the book concludes by briefly seeking to trace some potential alternative paths for the failed self- transformation attempt, and by accounting for the long-term consequences of the failure of the 'Markezinis experiment'.

Since 2010 Greece has been experiencing the longest period of austerity and economic downturn in its recent history. Economic changes may be happening more rapidly and be more visible than the cultural effects of the crisis which are likely to take longer to become visible, however in recent times, both at home and abroad, the Greek arts scene has been discussed mainly in terms of the crisis. While there is no shortage of accounts of Greece's economic crisis by financial and political analysts, the cultural impact of austerity has yet to be properly addressed. This book analyses hitherto uncharted cultural aspects of the Greek economic crisis by exploring the connections between austerity and culture. Covering literary, artistic and visual representations of the crisis, it includes a range of chapters focusing on different aspects of the cultural politics of austerity such as the uses of history and archaeology, the brain drain and the Greek diaspora, Greek cinema, museums, music festivals, street art and literature as well as manifestations of how the crisis has led Greeks to rethink or question cultural discourses and conceptions of identity.

Depicts the 1967 Greek military coup and its aftermath as experienced by four family members--Sophie, a French literature student; her widowed mother, Eleni; Sophie's uncle Mihalis, an outspoken poet; and Sophie's younger sister, Anna.

In December 2008, the world watched as Greece plunged into-an unprecedented crisis, both social and economic, the effects of which would be felt around the world. In this new volume of essays edited and introduced by members of the Occupied London collective, over two dozen writers analyze the Greek uprising, contextualising the city and state from which it arose, exploring the waves of crisis that followed in its wake, and theorising the future of global revolt. Book jacket.

Transnational Patriotism in the Mediterranean investigates the long process of transition from a world of empires to a world of nation-states by narrating the biographies of a group of people who were born within empires but came of age surrounded by the emerging vocabulary of nationalism, much of which they themselves created. It is the story of a generation of intellectuals and political thinkers from the Ionian Islands who experienced the collapse of the Republic of Venice and the dissolution of the common cultural and political space of the Adriatic, and who contributed to the creation of Italian and Greek nationalisms. By uncovering this forgotten intellectual universe, Transnational Patriotism in the Mediterranean retrieves a world characterized by multiple cultural, intellectual, and political affiliations that have since been buried by the conventional narrative of the formation of nation-states. Transnational Patriotism in the Mediterranean rethinks the origins of Italian and Greek nationalisms and states, highlighting the intellectual connection between the Italian peninsula, Greece, and Russia, and reestablishing the lost link between the changing geopolitical contexts of western Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Balkans in the Age of Revolutions. It re-inscribes important intellectuals and political figures, considered "national fathers" of Italy and Greece (such as Ugo Foscolo, Dionysios Solomos, Ioannis Kapodistrias and Niccolò Tommaseo), into their regional and multicultural context, and shows how nations emerged from an intermingling, rather than a clash, of ideas concerning empire and liberalism, Enlightenment and religion, revolution and conservatism, and East and West.

A collection of blistering, darkly humorous stories that upend the idyllic image of the Greek holiday island. Seeking to escape the paralyzing effects of the Greek economic crisis, a group of Athenian friends move to an Aegean island in the hopes of starting over. Viewed with suspicion and disdain by the locals, they soon find themselves enmeshed in the same vicious cycle of money, power, and violence they thought they had left behind.