The Greek Gift
: Politics in a Cypriot Village
by Peter Loizos
Hardback (Published)
(April 2009)
ISBN: 9783447059725
6.65 x 9.45 inches
Price: $53.00
In stock
This volume presents the complete collection of the Treaties signed in Nicosia, Cyprus, on 16 August 1960, the day on which Cyprus became Independent.This study was one of the first to spell out how modern ideological politics affected a rural community in a post-colonial state. Cyprus, under British rule, had permitted the Greek and Turkish Cypriots only limited experience of democratic participation in national politics. The last five years of colonial rule in Cyprus [1955-1960] witnessed a major struggle by Greek Cypriots for “freedom” – by which they meant, a political Union with Greece, a goal which had obsessed them since the turn of the century, but which had alienated Turkish Cypriot nationalists.Independence in 1960 was soon disrupted by violent conflict between Greek and Turkish paramilitaries, and the retreat of many Turkish Cypriots into enclaves, both defensive and secessionist.The village described here, [later identified as Argaki, near Morphou in W. Cyprus,] had produced an active unit of anti-British guerillas, members of the underground organization EOKA, led by Col. George Grivas. It had acted as a hiding place for EOKA fighters dodging the British, men like Nikos Sampson, and Nikos Koshis. It was also a mixed village, with a large Greek majority, the subjects of this study, and a small Turkish minority. Twenty five miles from the capital, prospering from irrigated agriculture, the village found itself intensively caught up in the rivalries between Greek nationalist leaders. President Makarios, Interior Minister Polykarpos Yorgadjis, [later assassinated] Glavkos Clerides, [later President] Dr.Vassos Lyssarides, and Nikos Sampson [a “president” imposed by the Greek dictatorship] are all major actors on the national political stage, but they are also connected by ties of friendship and political patronage to their Argaki clients – the village political activists who have variously identified with these national figures, but find that when the big men start to quarrel, the effects are felt disturbingly at the village level. Men who might otherwise be helping each to prosperity and planning to see their children marry each other, find themselves at each others’ throats, and only the skillful diplomacy of the more far-sighted village leaders keeps the village from tragedy.While giving his lively first-hand account of a single village, Loizos is compelled to place the political processes he documents within the wider context of national and international politics. This book has been required reading for specialists on Cyprus, when they sought to understand how Greek-on-Greek political passions played out at the grass roots level. The Greek military dictatorship [1967-74] casts its shadow over these pages, recruiting young villagers to overthrow their elected President. Cold War rivalries between NATO and the USSR also play their part. The village cannot be isolated from decisions taken in Athens,m Ankara, Moscow, Washington and London, but could village activists really understand how high the stakes were in the games they were playing? The book ends shortly before the 1974 Greek coup against Makarios and subsequent invasion by Turkey, which turned these prospering villagers into refugees, the subjects of a subsequent study The Heart Grown Bitter.Peter Loizos book is one of the few classics of the Cyprus Problem studies.
- By (author) Peter Loizos
Other Titles in this Series
Eduard Schaubert 1804-1860
Der stadtebauliche Nachlass zur Planung der Stadte Athen und Piraus
Volume 11
Kaiserzeitliche Grabaltare Niedermakedoniens
Untersuchungen zur Sepulkralkultur einer Kunstlandschaft im Spannungsfeld zwischen Ost und West
Volume 15
Ein Wald von Statuen
Kolloquium zum 20-jahrigen Bestehen der Antikensaal-Galerie in Mannheim und zur Begrundung der Kurpfalzer Abguss-Sammlung vor 300 Jahren
Volume 62
Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte Griechenlands im 19. Jahrhundert
Von der Hinwendung zu Europa bis zu den ersten Olympischen Spielen der Neuzeit
Volume 16
Von Mainz nach Kreta im Winter 1942-43
Das Reisetagebuch des 'Kunstlersoldaten' Rudo Schwarz
Volume 66
Similar Books
Beyond Sovereign Courts
Agents and Practices in Early Modern Spanish and Habsburg Diplomacy
Volume 3
Aporien des Geschichtsunterrichts?
Suchbewegungen im Spannungsfeld zwischen Geschichtsdidaktik und Sonderpädagogik
Volume 40
Credit Default Swap-Aktivismus
Eine ökonomische Analyse und rechtliche Bewertung der Einflussnahme von Credit Default Swap-Investoren auf Unternehmen
Figuren des Relationalen
(Queer-)Feministische Perspektiven auf visuelle Kultur, Geschichte und Erinnerungsarbeit bei Walter Benjamin und Alexander Kluge
Volume 8
Indirekte Enteignung
Verfassungsunmittelbar gebotene Entschädigungspflicht im Spiegel des Mehrebenensystems
Katechetischer Text, oder Unterricht vom christlichen Lehrbegrif für Unstudirte
2 Auflagen: 1765–1772. Bibliothek der Neologie. Kritische Ausgabe in zehn Bänden. Band X
Sitten zwischen Moralphilosophie und Politischer Okonomie am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts
Mit einer zweisprachigen Edition von Ludwig Heinrich Jakobs Preisschrift Quelles sont les institutions les plus propres a fonder la morale d'un peuple
Wertebildung in der Schule
Struktur, Vermittlung, Entwicklungsdynamik - Herausforderungen und Ambivalenzen
A Companion to Political Leadership in Central and Eastern Europe after 1990
Democratization – Political Parties – Elections
Volume 3
Autocratic Rule in Antiquity
Proceedings of the 14th Melammu Workshop, Krakow, 46 October 2021
Volume 12
