Sixty Years After. Memory of Greek Civil War Refugees in Czechoslovakia, 1949-2009

Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of International Studies

The 60th anniversary of the end of the Greek Civil War is an opportunity to summarise and put into a contemporary socio-political context the causes that led to the subsequent Greek exodus. Based on Oral History, this project aims to examine the private strategies of refugees of the Greek Civil War who arrived in Czechoslovakia in the late 1940's and to identify their dominant narratives, focusing not only on historical aspects and personal experiences in the host country, but also on the shaping of a collective memory in the following generations with respect to that of their parents and grandparents. This will be based on the analysis of the testimonies of Greek and Slavomacedonian refugees from three generations - that of the first generation of civil war and political refugees as well as underage immigrants, subsequently that of the second and third generation already born in communist Czechoslovakia. (Team: Institute of International Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague, IMS, UK FSV - Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki, UOM - Civil Wars Study Group in Komotini)