Who is the Historian? The Formation of Modern Greek History and the Historical Community in the Short Twentieth Century
Published:
Jul 6, 2021
Keywords:
History of Historiography Modern Greek History
Abstract
The position of historian emerged as a distinct academic and professional field in Greece in the last quarter of the 20th century. In an attempt to explore this “delay” in comparison to Western European countries, this article offers an overview of the making of the field of modern Greek history during the twentieth century. Starting from the gradual acknowledgment of the autonomy of modern Greek history in relation to classical and Byzantine studies, the article traces its evolution and its close ties to political and social developments. The prevalence of historical positivism and philological principles, along with the dominance of the ideology of national continuity – the latter enriched through the postwar ideologies of national-mindedness and anticommunism – led to the persistence of the “historian-philologist” until 1974. The fall of the military dictatorship in 1974, which marked the end of the post-Greek Civil War era, was a catalyst for the flowering of modern Greek studies and the formation of a small but distinct community of historians, who regularly intervened in the public sphere.
Article Details
- How to Cite
-
Karamanolakis, V. (2021). Who is the Historian? The Formation of Modern Greek History and the Historical Community in the Short Twentieth Century. Historein, 19(2). https://doi.org/10.12681/historein.25282
- Section
- ARTICLES
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The copyright for articles in this journal is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use (with the exception of the non-granted right to make derivative works) with proper attribution for non-commercial uses (licence Creative Commons 4.0). EKT/NHRF retains the worldwide right to reproduce, display, distribute, and use articles published in Historein in all formats and media, either separately or as part of collective works for the full term of copyright. This includes but is not limited to the right to publish articles in an issue of the Journal, copy and distribute individual reprints of the articles, authorize reproduction of articles in their entirety in another EKT/NHRF publication, and authorize reproduction and distribution of articles or abstracts thereof by means of computerized retrieval systems.Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
References
“Greece Since the Second World War: On the Occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Truman Doctrine.” Special issue, Balkan Studies 8, no. 2 (1967).
“Οι ομιλίες του εορτασμού της εικοσαετίας 1971–1991” [The twentieth anniversary speeches]. Mnimon 14 (1992): 297–318.
Alivizatos, Nikos. Les institutions politiques de la Grèce à travers les crises, 1922–74. Paris: Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, 1979.
Argyropoulos, Roxane. Les intellectuels grecs à la recherche de Byzance (1860–1912). Athens: Institute for Neohellenic Research, 2001.
Avgeridis, Manos. “The Historicization of World War II in Greece after the Civil War: Looking Back on the Public Debate over a Lecture by British Historian C.M. Woodhouse.” In Perspectives on the Intersections of Politics, Activism and the Historical Profession, edited by Stefan Berger, 151–62. New York: Berghahn, 2019.
Balta, Evangelia. “Οι οθωμανικές σπουδές στην νεοελληνική ιστοριογραφία” [Ottoman Studies in modern Greek historiography]. In In Ιστοριογραφία της νεότερης και σύγχρονης Ελλάδας 1833–2002 [Historiography of modern and contemporary Greece (1833–2002)], vol. 1, edited by Paschalis M. Kitromilides and Triantafyllos E. Sklavenitis, 259–72. Athens: Institute of Neohellenic Research, 2004.
Beaton, Roderick, and David Ricks, eds. The Making of Modern Greece: Nationalism, Romanticism, and the Uses of the Past (1797–1896). Farnham: Ashgate, 2009.
Boer, Pim den. History as a Profession: The Study of History in France, 1818–1914. Translated by Arnold J. Pomerans. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Boubous, George D. “Η ελληνική κοινωνία στην πρώιμη μαρξιστική σκέψη: Γ. Σκληρός – Γ. Κορδάτος (1907–1930)” [Greek society in early Marxist thought: G. Skliros–G. Kordatos (1907–1930)] PhD diss., Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, 1996.
Close, David H. The Origins of the Greek Civil War. London: Routledge, 1995.
Damaskos, Dimitris, and Dimitris Plantzos, eds. A Singular Antiquity: Archaeology and Hellenic Identity in Twentieth-Century Greece. Athens: Benaki Museum, 2008.
Dimaras, Constantinos Th. Kωνσταντίνος Παπαρρηγόπουλος: H εποχή του – η ζωή του – το έργο του [Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos: His time–his life–his work]. Athens: National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation, 1986.
Dimaras, Constantinos Th. Σύμμικτα, Δ΄. Λόγια περί μεθόδου [Collective works, 4: Concerning methodology]. Vol. 1, 1931–1963. Texts chosen by Philippos Iliou, edited by Popi Polemi. Athens: Benaki Museum, 2013.
Dimaras, Constantinos Th., and Nikos Svoronos. Η μέθοδος της ιστορίας: Ιστοριογραφικά και αυτοβιογραφικά σχόλια. Συνεντεύξεις με τους Στέφανο Πεσμαζόγλου και Νίκο Αλιβιζάτο [Method of history: Historiographical and autobiographical comments. Interviews with Stefanos Pesmazoglou and Nikos Alivizatos]. Athens: Agra, 1995.
Gallant, Thomas W. Modern Greece: From the War of Independence to the Present. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016.
Gazi, Effi. “Μεταπλάσεις της ελληνικής εθνικής ιδεολογίας και ταυτότητας στη Μεταπολίτευση” [Transformation of the Greek national ideology and identity in the metapolitefsi]. In Μεταπολίτευση: Η Ελλάδα στο μεταίχμιο δύο αιώνων [Metapolitefsi: Greece between two centuries], edited by Manos Avgeridis, Effi Gazi and Kostis Kornetis, 246–60. Athens: Themelio, 2015.
Gazi, Effi. Scientific National History: The Greek Case in Comparative Perspective (1850–1920). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000.
Gooch, George P. History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century. London: Longmans, 1913.
Hassiotis, I.K. “Αναζητώντας τομές και βασικά χαρακτηριστικά στην ιστορία της Φιλοσοφικής Σχολής” [Searching for breakthroughs and basic features in the history of the School of Philosophy]. In Φιλοσοφική Σχολή Πανεπιστημίου Θεσσαλονίκης: Τα πρώτα 75 χρόνια [School of Philosophy of the University of Thessaloniki: The first 75 years], 15–27. Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 2000.
Iggers, Georg G., and Q. Edward Wang. A Global History of Modern Historiography. London: Routledge, 2013.
Iliou, Philippos. “Η έννοια του λαού στη νεοελληνική ιστοριογραφία: διάρκειες και τομές” [The concept of people in modern Greek historiography: Continuities and breaks]. In Ψηφίδες ιστορίας και πολιτικής του εικοστού αιώνα [Snippets of 20th-century history and politics], edited by Stratis Bournazos, Anna Mattheou and Popi Polemi, 215–21. Athens: Polis, 2007).
Karamanolakis, Vangelis. “Greece.” In Atlas of European Historiography: The Making of a Profession, 1800–2005, edited by Ilaria Porciani and Lutz Raphael, 108–10. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Karamanolakis, Vangelis. “Historians and the Trauma of the Past: The Destruction of Security Files in Greece (1989).” In The Engaged Historian: Perspectives on the Intersections of Politics, Activism and the Historical Profession, edited by Stefan Berger, 237–49. New York: Berghahn, 2019.
Karamanolakis, Vangelis. “The History of the University of Athens and its Contribution to the Formation of the National Past (1837–1974).” In Annali di Storia delle Universita Italiane 20, no. 2 (2016): 53–71.
Karamanolakis, Vangelis. “The University of Athens and Greek Antiquity (1837–1937).” In Re-Imagining the Past: Antiquity and Modern Greek Culture, edited by Dimitris Tziovas, 112–27. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Karamanolakis, Vangelis. “Ιστορία και ιδεολογία στη δεκαετία του ’60” [History and ideology in the 1960s]. In Η “σύντομη” δεκαετία του ’60: Θεσμικό πλαίσιο, κομματικές στρατηγικές, κοινωνικές συγκρούσεις, πολιτισμικές διεργασίες [The “short” decade of the 1960s: Institutional framework, party strategies, social conflicts, cultural processes], edited by Alkis Rigos, Seraphim Seferiades and Evanthis Hatzivassiliou, 84–94. Athens: Kastaniotis, 2008.
Karamanolakis, Vangelis. Ανεπιθύμητο παρελθόν: Οι φάκελοι κοινωνικών φρονημάτων στον 20ό αιώνα και η καταστροφή τους [Unwanted past. The social consciousness security files in the 20th century and their destruction]. Athens: Themelio, 2019.
Karamanolakis, Vangelis. Η συγκρότηση της ιστορικής επιστήμης και η διδασκαλία της ιστορίας στο Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών 1837–1932 [The formation of historical science and history teaching at the University of Athens (1837–1932)]. Athens: Historical Archive of Greek Youth, 2006.
Keylor, William R. Academy and Community: The Foundation of the French Historical Profession. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975.
Kiousopoulou, Tonia. “Οι βυζαντινές σπουδές στην Ελλάδα” [Byzantine studies in Greece]. In Από τη Χριστιανική συλλογή στο Βυζαντινό Μουσείο. Κατάλογος έκθεσης [From the Christian collection to the Byzantine Museum: Exhibition catalogue], edited by Olga Gratsiou and Anastasia Lazaridou, 25–36. Athens: Ministry of Culture, 2006.
Kitroeff, Alexander. “Continuity and Change in Contemporary Greek Historiography.” In Modern Greece: Nationalism and Nationality, edited by Martin Blinkhorn and Thanos Veremis, 143–72. Athens: Eliamep, 1990.
Kitromilides, Paschalis M. “On the Intellectual Content of Greek Nationalism: Paparrigopoulos, Byzantium and the Greek Idea.” In Byzantium and the Modern Greek Identity, edited by David Ricks and Paul Magdalino, 25–47. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.
Liakos, Antonis. “Modern Greek Historiography (1974–2000): The Era of Tradition from Dictatorship to Democracy.” In (Re)Writing History: Historiography in Southeast Europe after Socialism, edited by Ulf Brunnbauer, 351–78. Münster: Lit, 2004.
Liakos, Antonis. “The Construction of National Time: The Making of the Modern Greek Historical Imagination.” Mediterranean Historical Review 16, no. 1 (2001): 27–42.
Liakos, Antonis. “Το ζήτημα της ‘συνέχειας’ στη νεοελληνική ιστοριογραφία” [The “continuity” issue in modern Greek historiography]. In Ιστοριογραφία της νεότερης και σύγχρονης Ελλάδας 1833–2002 [Historiography of modern and contemporary Greece (1833–2002)], vol. 1, edited by Paschalis M. Kitromilides and Triantafyllos E. Sklavenitis, 53–65. Athens: Institute of Neohellenic Research, 2004.
Mackridge, Peter. Language and National Identity in Greece, 1766–1976. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Manitakis, Nicolas. “Struggling from Abroad: Greek Communist Activities in France during the Greek Civil War.” In The Greek Civil War: Essays on a Conflict of Exceptionalism and Silences, edited by Philip Carabott and Thanasis D. Sfikas, 101–102. London: Routledge, 2004.
Manitakis, Nicolas. “Από τα σχολεία στα ινστιτούτα. Οι γαλλικοί θεσμοί στην Ελλάδα: στηρίγματα της γαλλικής εκπαιδευτικής, πολιτιστικής και επιστημονικής διείσδυσης στην Ελλάδα, τέλος 19ου–πρώτο μισό 20ού αιώνα” [From schools to institutes. French institutions in Greece: Furthering the French educational, cultural and academic integration in Greece, late 19th–first half of the 20th century]. In Ο ελληνικός κόσμος ανάμεσα στην ανατολή και τη δύση, 1453–1981 [The Greek world between East and West, 1453–1981], vol. 2, edited by Asterios Argyriou, Konstantinos A. Dimadis and Anastasia Danai Lazaridou, 275–85. Athens: Ellinika Grammata, 1999.
Marchand, Suzanne L. Down from Olympus: Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750–1970. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
Margaritis, Giorgos. Iστορία του ελληνικού εμφυλίου πολέμου [History of the Greek Civil War]. Athens: Vivliorama, 2001.
Matthaiou, Anna, and Popi Polemi. Η εκδοτική περιπέτεια των Ελλήνων κομμουνιστών: Από το βουνό στην υπερορία [Greek communists’ publishing adventure: From the mountain to exile]. Athens: Vivliorama, 2003.
Matthaiou, Sophia. “Establishing the Discipline of Classical Philology in Nineteenth-century Greece.” The Historical Review/La Revue Historique 8 (2012): 117–48.
Mazower, Mark, ed. After the War was Over: Reconstructing the State, Family and the Law in Greece, 1943–1960. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Novick, Peter. That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Panagiotopoulos, Vassilis. “Η αριστερή ιστοριογραφία για την Ελληνική Επανάσταση” [The leftwing historiography on the Greek Revolution]. In Ιστοριογραφία της νεότερης και σύγχρονης Ελλάδας 1833–2002 [Historiography of modern and contemporary Greece (1833–2002)], vol. 1, edited by Paschalis M. Kitromilides and Triantafyllos E. Sklavenitis, 567–77. Athens: Institute of Neohellenic Research, 2004.
Panagiotopoulos, Vassilis. “Τα ‘ψέματα’ των φακέλων ως ιστορική αλήθεια” [Security files “lies” as a historical truth]. In Σύγχρονα αρχεία, φάκελοι και ιστορική έρευνα [Contemporary archives, files and historical research], 38–39. Athens: ΕΜΝΕ, 1991.
Papadia-Lala, Anastasia. “Η Βενετοκρατία στον ιστοριογραφικό λόγο: Αντιλήψεις και ερμηνευτικές προσεγγίσεις” [Venetian rule in historiographical discourse: Perspectives and interpretive approaches]. In Ιστοριογραφία της νεότερης και σύγχρονης Ελλάδας 1833–2002 [Historiography of modern and contemporary Greece (1833–2002)], vol. 2, edited by Paschalis M. Kitromilides and Triantafyllos E. Sklavenitis, 553–72. Athens: Institute of Neohellenic Research, 2004.
Politis, Alexis. “From Christian Roman Emperors to the Glorious Greek Ancestors.” In Byzantium and the Modern Greek Identity, edited by David Ricks and Paul Magdalino, 105–17. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.
Porciani, Ilaria, and Lutz Raphael, eds. Atlas of European Historiography: The Making of a Profession, 1800–2005. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Sakellariou, Michail V. Θέματα νέας ελληνικής ιστορίας [Topics of modern Greek history], vol. 1. Athens: Irodotos, 2011.
Sklavenitis, Triantafyllos E., ed. Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερυενών 1958–2008: Ίδρυση–πορεία–προοπτικές [National Hellenic Research Foundation: Establishment–trajectory–outlooks]. Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2008.
Soffer, Reba N. Discipline and Power: The University, History and the Making of an English Elite, 1870–1930. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.
Stavridi-Patrikiou, Rena. “Ο φόβος της ιστορίας” [The fear of history]. In 1949–1967: Η εκρηκτική εικοσαετία [1949–1967: The explosive 20 years], 67–77. Athens: Society for Modern Greek Culture and General Education, 2002.
Tziovas, Dimitris. “Reconfiguring the Past: Antiquity and Greekness.” In A Singular Antiquity: Archaeology and Hellenic Identity in Twentieth-Century Greece, edited by Dimitris Damaskos and Dimitris Plantzos, 287–98. Athens: Benaki Museum, 2008.
Tziovas, Dimitris. O μύθος της Γενιάς του ΄30: Νεωτερικότητα, ελληνικότητα και πολιτισμική ιδεολογία [The myth of the Generation of the ’30s: Modernity, Greekness and cultural ideology]. Athens: Polis, 2011.
Vacalopoulos, Apostolos. Ιστορία του Νέου Ελληνισμού [Modern Greek history], vol. 1. Thessaloniki: s.n., 1961.
Voglis, Polymeris. Becoming a Subject: Political Prisoners During the Greek Civil War. New York: Berghahn, 2002.
Xanthopoulou-Kyriakou, Artemi. “Ιστορικές σπουδές” [Historical Studies]. In Φιλοσοφική Σχολή Πανεπιστημίου Θεσσαλονίκης: Τα πρώτα 75 χρόνια [School of Philosophy of the University of Thessaloniki: The first 75 years], 77–94. Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 2000.
Zei, Eleftheria. “Η μελέτη του κοινωνικού από τη Γαλλία στην Ελλάδα στη Μεταπολίτευση: Κοινωνική Ιστορία ή Κοινωνιολογία;” [Studying the social from France to Greece in the metapolitefsi: Social history or sociology?]. In Συναντήσεις της ελληνικής με τη γαλλική ιστοριογραφία από τη Μεταπολίτευση έως σήμερα [Encounters of Greek and French historiography since the metapolitefsi], edited by Vangelis Karamanolakis, Maria Couroucli and Triantafyllos E. Sklavenitis, 201–10. Athens: École française d’Athènes, 2015.
Εκθεση Εικοσαετίας 1960–1980 [Twentieth anniversary exhibition, 1960–1980]. Athens: Centre for Neohellenic Research, 1980.
