Greece 2021: Official and lay understandings of national identity

Abstract

Jubilees and national days are privileged opportunities
for (re)negotiating national identity
and its markers. They offer both to the
states and groups of citizens or minorities
within states, the opportunity to assure or
challenge accepted forms of identity. The Bicentennial
of the Greek Revolution, which is
the founding moment of modern Greek state,
was no exception to this. In this paper we present
a synopsis of the public discourses about
the meaning of the Bicentennial and the role
of the Committee 2021 which was assigned
to oversee the preparations and select projects
to include in the year-round celebration. We
then contrast those discourses to the ones
found in the Facebook posts reacting to the
proposal of the emblem of the Bicentennial.
We find that contrary to conventional wisdom,
it is the state and its institutions that
opted for a new identity narrative, while the
ordinary citizens who decided to express their
opinion were resisting such a novelt