Common Past—Conflicting Remembrance: the Different Policy of Memory on the Greek Civil War’s Soldiers
Common Past—Conflicting Remembrance: the Different Policy of Memory on the Greek Civil War’s Soldiers

Summary/Abstract: The inherently divisive nature of civil wars renders their remembrance particularly fraught, as their integration into a cohesive national narrative remains contested. In the Greek case, official memory was initially shaped by the victors, who promoted a policy of forgetting in an effort to facilitate national healing and political stability. This selective amnesia, however, further deepened the rift between victors and defeated. While the former institutionalized their memory through state ceremonies, military cemeteries and public commemorative ceremonies, the defeated were excluded from the collective memory landscape. Decades later, the Left responded with an assertive politics of remembrance. Marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), it transitioned from enforced silence to a phase of “super-memory” through the construction of monuments, the organization of public commemorations, and the reframing of the Civil War as a class-based popular struggle. This memorial resurgence did not focus on individual mourning but rather served to reinforce ideological narratives. The memory of the Civil War dead was thus instrumentalized by both camps. National Army soldiers were honored as patriotic heroes and their graves becoming sites of national valour. In contrast, DSE fighters were long denied burial rites and recognition, only later commemorated as symbols of resistance and class struggle. This paper examines how divergent political actors utilized the memory of their dead to shape conflicting narratives of the Civil War, revealing the broader struggle over historical legitimacy and national identity.

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