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The communist Balkans and the Greek leftist writers
Political Ideology and Images of the Other
Travel literature and the Balkan Regimes
Images of the Balkans
Sixth Lesson
Lecturer: Petros Marazopoulos
petrosmarazopoulos@gmail.com
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The historical context
• After the end of the Second World War, the period of socialism begins for the Balkan states
(1945-1990)
• The regimes: Enver Hoxha, Tito, Thodor Zhivkov and Nicolae Ceaușescu
• Balkan isolation- Minimizing contacts with Western civilization and of course with Greece
• The ‘iron curtain’ and a clear, dividing historical section with Europe
• Expanding the Balkan myth through Communism
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The communist regimes
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Communistic Regimes and the relative Western
perceptions
The Balkans disappeared from the Western consciousness during the Cold War and the
Iron Curtain cut southeastern Europe in two, separating Greece from its communist
neighbors. Albania became almost inaccessible.. Tito's Yugoslavia became the idol of the
American rulers and the New Left in Europe [...] Ceausescu's rule in Romania was better
known for its strong anti-Sovietism than for the intolerable oppression of the local
population. Thus Greece became the edge of the 'West', while the other Balkan states
became the less studied part of communist Eastern Europe.
Mark Mazower
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The Greek Word over the Balkan regimes- general
remarks
• The establishment of socialist regimes, the sealing of the borders and the consequent
isolationism, arouse the curiosity of both Greek writers and the Greek reading audience
• Consequences: 1.significant increase of texts that study and depict the Balkans 2. texts with
different viewpoints (political, social, economic…) 3. Literature and propaganda 4. Travel
literature
• Greek fictional production declines significantly (Elli Alexiou)
• The Greek prism of the Balkan states is completely differentiated (Ideology, politics and the
Other)
• The national discourse of the previous period is fundamentally altered, giving way to a purely
ideological and political writing.
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Trauma and memory: the lives of political refugees in
socialist countries
• Greek political refugees and the traumatic experience of the defeat in the Civil War
• Narrating an experience or remaining silent?.
• The trauma of the civil war and the denial to write about homeland
• Understanding a new world: α painful and contradictory experience.
• Trauma and memory
• A contradictory present- A political dream into practice and α ‘frustrating order’
• Elli Alexiou and the other Greek writers
• The novels of Elli Alexiou: homesickness, sense of isolation, feeling of gratitude, struggling to heal
psychological and physical wounds, integration, the loyalty to the communist party and its ideas, the
monotony of daily life
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Greek leftist and right writers- Contradictory discourses
regarding the Communist Balkans
• Travel literature, ideology, propaganda and political views
• The image of the other and the relationship with personal political ideologies
• A tendency to compare- Greece, Europe, Balkans
• Narrating the present from different political aspects and views
• Which are the main topics under discussion?
• The Greek culture and a clear dichotomy
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The Greek literary production about the Communist
Balkans
• Which are the main writers of the period under examination?
• Why are they writing about Balkans?
• To which audience are the authors addressing?
• The leftist writers, the defeat in the civil war and socialism as a different, hypothetical reality in Greece
• The right-wing and centrist writers and the ideological opposition to communism
• The positive constructions of the left-wing and ‘Homo Socialisticus’
• The extremely negative perceptions of the Balkan regimes
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• ‘After Communism, Balkans acquire a common historical destiny’ (Mark Mazower)
• Unifying the Balkans under ‘the umbrella of socialism’
• Greek writers put aside the national interests (Ideology prevails)
• The dominant literary genre of the period (travel impressions) and the reasons behind this selection
• Communism as a separating factor between Greece and the Balkans, but also between Balkans and Europe
• Isolationism and the creation of the ‘Communist, exotic Other’
• Greece’s path towards European integration
• Greece and the West in the modern Greek imaginary
• Greek writers of the period visibly distanced themselves from the Balkan myth
Communism, Greece, the idea of Europe and the Balkans
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The left-wing writers
• Resistance against the German occupation and exile
• They have visited the Balkan countries, they are communists- some have been hosted by Balkan
socialist regimes
• Anti-dictatorial attitude/ anti-Stalinist before
• Vassos Georgiou, Lambros Malamas , Themos Kornaros, George Sarras
• Positive representations, admiration about the system and propaganda
• Texts- hymns to communism (not mentioning cruelty/ extreme policing etc)
• Constructing the image of ideal political and social systems
• Ideology and Imagology
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Motifs and recurrent ideas
• Individual freedom, progress and the scientific sector
• Industrial sector and general education
• Homo Socialisticus- a new type of man, free of defects (morally and ethically)
• Praising the leaders
• The historically proven problems (tortures, persecutions, imprisonments, violations of freedoms) and the
narrations under examination
• Idealized states full of happy people, constantly aiming on progress
• The extremely positive depictions and some doubts
• Intellectual developments, ideal societies, organization and order, emphasis on culture, prosperity of
the societies, harmonius governance
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Motifs and recurrent ideas
• States that care about the citizens, social welfare, high medical standards
• Gender equality and the women's position in society
• Development of sports culture
• Freedom, no human rights violation, citizen-friendly police forces, high medical standards
• The social acceptance of the regimes
• Images of the ‘Homo Socialisticus’: happy, high standard of living, ,educated, morally shaped. pacifist,
lack of egoism
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Why do the Greek writers provide such images?
• Propaganda
• Ideological and political prisms: perceiving progress through socialism
• Which was the image that the regimes was showing to the foreigners?
• Comparing socialist Balkans with Greece
• The idea of Greek superiority and the Left-wing authors
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Themos Kornaros and the progress of Bulgaria
The village has nothing to envy comparing to a state [...] Boredom is a distant past
for the Bulgarian village, which today only complains because time passes
quickly.
What else is happiness?
And this happiness can be seen in the smiling faces, in the cheerful chatter, in the
passion for work. Their industry is moving forward. Great factories[...] Among
them, there is the factory restaurant. You get dizzy. You can't see the end of the
hall. Hundreds of tables with spotless tablecloths and flowers. Each person is
served alone, no crowding or running back and forth. I've never seen such order
in any of the countries I've been to. [...]
A whole floor of the factory library. Ten thousand bound volumes [...] I could not
see to the end the miracle of activity in today's Bulgaria.
Themos Kornaros, Οδός Προμηθέως, Αθήνα, Χρόνος, 1975
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Kostas Birkas- Defying ‘Western Propaganda’
For ten whole months I went back to Bucharest, and on so many other journeys within
Romania, completely alone, without anyone ever asking me for identification or asking
me who I am or who I am not. [...]
And I truly wondered where this Police and the 'secret surveillance of foreigners' by the
state of the famous 'iron curtain', which I had read so much about in the Greek press,
and so much noise and so much printing ink was spent outside.
And let the reader not think that I was being watched without understanding that.. For I
have some experience of this thing from the old and present years in our country''‘
Κώστας Μπίρκας, Ρουμανία, Αθήνα, Κέδρος, 1963
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Themos Kornaros: The woman’s position in the socialist
regimes and the definition of morality
But the liberation and participation of this woman in social and political life was accompanied by
a refinement her relationships with the man, but also with the creation of a new moral and
emotional life. […]
Thus in today's Romania I did not see men teasing and attacking women, at least in the way we are
familiar with. But neither did women shout insults at men and argue in the streets. [...] But neither is
there this wave of wild sexual hunger here, which is roaming the streets in Greece''
Θέμος Κορνάρος, Οδός Προμηθέως, Αθήνα, Χρόνος, 1975
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Vassos Georgiou: The life of Greek minority in Hoxha’s Albania
The first thing I must say is that in this friendly there is no discrimination against
the Greek minority. The Greek minority occupies an equal position in all
forms of production and organisation and in all levels of power. Moreover,
it is encouraged, not only to keep its language and traditions, but also to
strengthen its unique culture.
The vivid image you get when you enter the region [...] is that you are
dealing with free people and conscious producers, who talk to you
honestly and without fear about their present and past lives and who feel
what they truly are: equal Albanian citizens of a socialist country.
Βάσος Γεωργίου, Η Αλβανία σήμερα, Αθήνα, Σύγχρονη Εποχή,1981
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Πέτρος Μαραζόπουλος
petrosmarazopoulos@gmail.com
November 2024