This year the Department celebrated a new lecture series, the Dr. Dimitri and Irmgard Pallas Annual lecture in Modern Greek Studies. According to the donors, the purpose of the series is “to promote greater awareness of modern Greek history and its artistic, scientific,philosophical, ethical, political, and other contributions to civilization.” The inaugural Pallas Lecture was given in February 2003 by Stathis N. Kalyvas, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. After introductions by then Interim Dean Terrence McDonald and Dept. Chair Richard Janko, Kalyvas spoke to an audience of about a hundred people on “Violence and Civil War:  The 1940s in Greece Seen ‘From Below.’”

The following is a summary of the talk provided by Professor Kalyvas.

The Greek Civil War, like most civil wars, is studied predominantly, if not exclusively, from a top-down perspective. Its history is mainly one of leaders and ideologies in which ordinary people appear as monolithic groups consistently and uniformly supporting either of the two competing sides out of purely ideological beliefs.

Most interpretations divide the 1940s into two clear-cut periods which stand in sharp contrast to each other. The first period (1940-1945) is described as a time of quasi-universal mobilization against the occupation, during which the Greek people expressed their aspirations for a better and more progressive society. Unanimity, popular mobilization, and heroism are underlined; dissent and division are missing. In contrast, the second part of the decade (1945-1950) is described as dark and depressing. Popular aspirations are crushed, people are divided, triumph turns into tragedy.

Approaching the Greek Civil War from below by researching systematically events “on the ground” subverts this interpretation. For instance, the period of the occupation was not just one of resistance but also one of civil war, pitting neighbors against each other. Individual allegiances were not only determined by ideological preferences but also, by survival considerations and expectations regarding the outcome of the war. In turn, these considerations were mediated in crucial ways by geography. All sides used violence and coercion against the local population to deter defection and obtain collaboration. The resistance was not simply a popular movement but a quasi-state enjoying a monopoly of violence in large parts of the country. Conversely, collaboration with the occupiers was in many places widespread and collective; it was motivated by a variety of (often non-ideological) concerns and goals. Popular support could be as much the result of coercion as of sympathy. Identities were often an outcome rather than a precondition for the conflict. At the individual level, violence was often motivated by personal and local conflicts—sometimes bearing little relation to the overarching conflict.

In short, the approach from below opens up an entirely new research agenda and makes possible a fascinating synthesis about a period in Greek history which is simultaneously very close and very distant.