The memory of political refugees as an implement of classification and formation of identity. A...

8/10/2019 The memory of political refugees as an implement of classification and formation of identity. A self-anthropologica

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Vassilis K. Dalkavoukis

Democtitus University of Thrace

Published in:

Studia Territorialia Supplementum(2010/1) [Acta Universitatis Carolinae - Prague]:

137-151.

The memory of political refugees as an implement of classification and

formation of identity.

A self-anthropological approach

The intention of an anthropologist -and especially by profession ethnographer, like in

my case- to be engaged with a historical event of the reek ivil Wars range, it is

not of course an implicit case. In the conscience of most people, even of my

colleagues, the Greek Civil War is a case of historians and especially of those who go

through research on precious archival material, which derives either from the official

archival records of the rivalry arrays (Archives of the Greek Communist Party and the

Greek Democratic ArmyArchive of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Relations and

Administration of Army History etc), or of the other communist parties/states of that

era (especially of the ex-Soviet Union), and even more of big Western Powers, which

got involved in this case by the one or other way. Whoever, in other words, are

captives of an understanding of history, which demands from the historian to be

objective, follow a positivist methodology and maximize the reliability of the

official archival material, especially of that which derives from top archives.

Finally, they give shape and suggest a historical top narration for everything

happened.

This procedure, although respectable and acceptable in all its parts, leaves

serious and important investigatory and disciplinary gaps. I do not refer as much to

the way of gathering theeverytime unique- archival material for which have already

been expressed reliable objections, as to the focus of historical investigatory glance on

issues of diplomacy, top policy and ideological orientationTo the focus, in other

words, on the central scene of facts. Our knowledge of this level is surely necessary

but not a capable circumstance also, to interpret a series of issues such as the daily life

at countryside and the cities during the period of the Civil War, the enrolment of

fighters to the Greek Democratic Army, the special viewpoint of collective subjects


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such as women or ethnically defined fighters (e.g. the Slavomacedonians-the Vlachs-

the Pontiacs etc), the extent of the participants ideological constitution, the impact of

propaganda, the local particularities, and others.

In order to get this out in larger clarity, the comprehension and the

interpretation of a such multilateral fact, as the Greek Civil War, demands an also

multilateral management, as much in width (that means in relation to the factual

material which must be accumulated), as in depth also (that means in relation to the

theoretical and methodological implements that is demanded to be used). In this

context it is clear that we need much more material that the one which the archives

can offer us and besides that, more many disciplinary perspectives than the ones

which the positivist history can offer us. The Greek Civil War as a total social

phenomenon, requires a total disciplinary outlook, demands in other words

interdisciplinarity.

This requirement did not only become well-defined during the last decade, but

it was moreover attempted to be covered, by the scientific community. It is exactly in

this framework that the etwork for the Study of ivil Warscan be honored for its

decisive distribution, as much by decentralizing (Liakos 2003) the disciplinary

glance from the central stake to the local and peripheral developments and from the

eponymous to the anonymous leading actors, as by its interdisciplinary set up, also: It

is exactly in this point that the anthropological approach finds its position, among

those of diplomacy, economy and social history, sociology, political science, oral

history, literary analysis, history of arts and cinema, psychology, etc.

The anthropological approach -and to be more accurate, the ethnography of

the Greek Civil War- in other words the focus on lived experience of the anonymous

leading actors and its reconstitution through the biographical narrations, demands the

elucidation of two basic disciplinary parameters, in order to be fully comprehensible,

We would turn a blind eye on them if we were to avoid them. More than that, this text

is largely being based to the second one. But lets take the facts in order.

The first epistemological presupposition is the one which had already been

posed, since the beginning of 20th

century in France, by the famous Annales Academy

and dominated later at least in those Universities which criticized positivism

(Passerini 1979, Popular Memory Group 1982, J. Vansina 1985, A. Thompson 1996):

In fact, there are at least two istories, the first one is what happened and the

second one is what we are writing about anything happened. Thus, having as given


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that the recomposition of whatever happened is always selective, forasmuch as the

historical narration is necessarily abstractive, selective, evaluative and ideologically

and socially defined, the famous requirement for objective historyis being proved

impossible. Marc Block, in order to stay only in one of the many examples of the

classical anymore historians of this tendency, emphasizes that there are people and

its them whohistory tries to seize (Block 1994 [1977]). But these are people who at

the same time, are trying to interpret themselves as subjects and objects of the same

procedure.

Thus, will we give up from objectivity This would be rather devastating, in

the extent that we are still being inspired by discipline and we cure it. We must admit,

however, that if objectivity resembles to the graph of an exaggeration which doesnt

coincide, that means it resembles to a utopia, the only response we can give to this

requirement, is that of multi- subjectivity Since there is not only one history for

whatever happened, lets hear or lets compose as many as possible, through different

perspectives of different subjects, with different positions at the scene, which interest

us to approach. inally, lets hear with the loud voices of big archives, also the

weak voices of those people who experienced decisions which didnt make, who

decided without knowing all the aspects, who acted in order to survive, or who

survived because the avoided to act. Those who, briefly, bear today a bottom-up

reflection of the Greek Civil War, objective -and we know this well (Vervenioti

2003)- but absolutely necessary among the other subjectivities, in order to

comprehend in a more integral way the scene of the past and to interpret their present

orientations.

In the context of this conversation for the acknowledgement of subjectivity,

the second epistemological assumption is also being classified, but narrower this time.

It considers ethnographic and anthropological research, itself. According to the

requirements of Cultural Critique (Marcus and Fisher 1986, Clifford and Marcus

1986), namely of one relatively recent stream of anthropological thought which

doubted the observers hegemony vis--vis the observed and his capability to

recompose the image of the observed in a realistic way into the e thnographic text,

the ethnographer -and in our case the ethnographer of the Civil War- owes to: a)

describe the circumstances under which the text was produced and the factors which

might affect them b) include his biographical elements which are related to the people

for whom he is about to write and c) describe his potential connections of himself to


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the society for which he is about to talk (Gefou Mdaianou 1999). Its about

particular obligations of the ethnographer which, as George Marcus observes (Marcus

1998: 88-89), consist of the famous reflexivity and so replace

the observers objective eye, which the ethnographer is supposed to carry

along with his personal ego ()[and] this signs by itself, detachment from the

durable acknowledgement of objectivity and of straight realism () So,

reflexivity means the introduction of a problematic for the dialogic and the co-

operative relations in the ethnographic text, namely about how the informants

and the ethnographer collectively construct a text .

Here exactly is the nodal point on which the present text was also based. As much as

concerns me, I am dealing as an ethnographer with the Greek Civil War, for at least

the last seven years, since the time I was still working on my Ph.D. thesis. However,

never until now, and although I have written already five texts (Dalkavoukis 2005,

2006a, 2006b, 2007, Dalkavoukis and Karamitsos 2007), which are, indirectly or

directly, adverted to this subject, I didntclarify the prerequisitions for their writing.

At least not by the inexorable way, that Cultural Critique demands. But as being said,

every thing comes on its time and I am particularly happy that this clarification is

being done with the opportunity of honoring the memory of an exceptional historian,

whom I had the glad to meet at close, of a young man, the loss of whom shocked us

all, Pavel Hradency.

Thus, my personal engagement with the Civil War, has two points of

departure. The first is disciplinary: My basic studies were in history and my

postgraduate specialization in Modern History. As so, the Civil War comes within my

interests, forasmuch signs huge circumstances that someone cannot ignore in the

Greek case, either studies historical phenomena before the 1s decade, or after it

The second point of departure is experiential: I am son of a fighter of the Greek

Democratic Army, who was injured during the Civil War, by frostbites in the

mountain of Murgana and who lived enough years in Hyperoria and more particular

in Tascend, as a political refugee. owever, I wasnt born there but in reece, ten

years after my fathers repatriation This combination of the disciplinary and the

experiential element, is in large extend responsible for my active engagement with the

Greek Civil War, from the standpoint of ethnography. I would rather say that having

the theoretical and the methodological remarks which were preceded as base, the

ethnography is probably the most suitable method for the satisfaction of both demands


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and of the experiential need to comprehend the terms which defined my life until

now, up to a grade. Also, of the disciplinary presuppositions, so this conversation can

have a broader result, socially acceptable, and prestigious, to the degree of feasibility.

Though, every search of this type is being achieved with the control of the

appropriate implements. The most appropriate in the case which I am trying to

present, is memory in its double version. I mean the memory of my father, as an

experiential memory of facts, and mine as memory which was made up in a second

level, mediated and filtered by the facts which followed the Civil War, but getting

heavier in any case, by the way in which the Civil War was confronted in Greece,

during the 1s and 1s decades and also redefined by the theoretical,

methodological and factual bibliographic additions of the last decades (Hawlbacks

1950, P. Thompson 1988, A. Thompson 1996, Benveniste and Paradellis 1999).

These two versions of ivil Wars memory and of the being political refugee

situation, are being incised in two points, which I owe to testify: The one concerns the

implicit transmission of experience from the one generation to the other, in the

familys context and especially of a family with different political postures during the

1s decade. The other concerns the systematic recording of my fathers life-

story as an informants, narrations which fed the texts I quoted before in combination

with those of other informants.

The memory though, doesnt stop to be an implement in the context of

ethnographic research, for the investigation of other, more complex questions, such as

identity. Consequently the request of this text is not other, than the way political

refugees identity is being formed through the memory of the Civil War and the

being political refugeesituation, especially in this particular context which is being

defined in relation to the three generations of political refugees, during the last years.

The fact that I am turning to witness these thoughts, as much in methodological as in

factual level, is because memory, in its double version as I quoted before, and, under

the special ethnographic circumstances I outlined, is capable -I think- to supply us,

with precious material in order to study the classification of the political refugees in

these three generations and also the way that their identity was shaped.

ut lets begin with some basic notes on the definition of political refugee

The term political refugee is a Greek convention which was used in order to

segregate the refugees of the Greek Civil War, from those who arrived in main Greece

from Asia Minor and other territories (e.g. Eastern Romylia), which werent included


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in the Greek State with a series of Treaties, top of which was the Treaty of Lausanne.

ccording to the international terminology, the term refugee has always a political

dimension, while especially for the anthropologists is not even necessary the

populations which are being characterized as refugees, to turnto another state and

so to cross national borders. We would say that the key-notion of the refugees

political definition is forced migration, by having the meaning that is attributed to

sociopolitical reasons and accompanied, by rule, by asylum request (Voutira and

HarellBond 1995).

In the case of the reek ivil War, the political dimension of beingrefugee

situation is apparent of course, as the forced migration of fighters was the only

solution after the defeat of the Greek Democratic Army, and the request of asylum,

implicit. However, as Pavel Hradency (2005) has shown us in large explicitness,

among the refugees of the Greek Civil War, were also people who were forced by the

Communist Party and the Greek Democratic Army. I am referring to sovereign

fascists- war captives, as they were being characterized formally. These were

soldiers of the Governmental Army, who followed losers in Hyperoria and were

repatriated in reece, during the 1s decade radency is clearly implying that

equivalent cases to this refugee category, or even more kidnapped citizens, should

probably exist in other communist countries also, except Czechoslovakia, where

refugees found shelter.

By keeping in our memory this, somehow particular, form of being political

refugee situation-and I am referring mainly to premature repatriation- lets now pass

to the issue of the political refugees classification in generations, before we end up to

frame of reference, in order to examine the case which troubles us. According to Th.

Michailidis (2006 and also in this volume), we can apply two kinds of criteria

considering the genealogy of political refugees. The objective ones (time and place)

and the subjective ones, which are the intensity of the experience and its recording

to memory, during the most determinative period of a peoples life , from the age of

fifteen until the age of twenty five. Having as base these criteria we could shape three

generations: The first one, which is being consisted of all those who were active

during the German Occupation and/or the Civil War and left Greece in 1949, the

second generation which includes whoever were younger than twelve years old in

1949 or were born in Hyperoria during the exile and finally the third generation which


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includes whoever came to Greece in a young age although they were born in

Hyperoria, or they were born after their parents repatriation

Having as base whatever has been said until now, a relatively steady

framework is being formed for the classification of political refugees and for the

affiliation of the -every time unique- personal memory, to a collective generative

frame since people remember as persons, but as M. Halbawcks (1950) has shown,

persons-members of a group. ut which is the affiliation of my fathers case and mine

also in this frame? Having as base temporal and local criteria, my father belongs to

the first generation, but his premature repatriation back from Tascend (1957),

disconnects him from the collective memory of his generation. Being based to the

locus and the time of my birth (Greece, 1967), I belong to the third generation,

something that creates a remarkable genealogical gap between me and my father, as

long as we belong to seriate generations. The problem caused by the classification,

becomes even more complex, if we also count that during the crucial age of my

personal memorys formation about the ivil War, every kind of conversation about

the urtain firstly in Greece, was almost or completely banned (during the 1s),

while later (during the 1s) the dominance of the left-wing narrative for the

German Occupation and the Civil War was explicit. By this remark, I mean that,

while my memory during the 1s decade is -based on the criteria of locus and

time- memory of second generation in Hyperoria and the memory during the 1s

decade, memory of third generation in Greece, these two decades are being mixed in

my case, as two collective frames of memory, which consider although, the same

person.

I think now, that after outlining the framework and its contradictions, has

come the moment to mention some examples. I am choosing two very characteristic

extracts derived from the tens of hours, during which I was recording my fathers

narrations as being an informant with the tape recorder, because they are referring to

incidents I consider determinative for both our memorys formulation They are

concerning the frostbites he got in Murgana and the following facts which had to do

with his health, during his nursing in Albania, after a surgical operation in which he

lost his right foots toes e was then, twenty years old

When we arrivedat Murgana, we climbed up to Velouna and we

occupied positions, but the weather was frosty, too much cold, a really bad

situation We didnt have anything to dig with, to take off the stones, in


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order to make our positions. We were dislodging some small stones with many

difficulties and we finally managed to take cover, but we made some

positions, almost fake. The army was opposite us and a little bit lower () I

spent a week inside there, in the entrenchment I had also made by myself.

After a week, they came to get us, in order to leave, to replace some fighters,

who were continuously fighting and were damaged. They had to be replaced.

The leader of my company comes and calls me Were leaving et up, take

your things and were leaving I m trying to stand up, but Im falling Im

trying it again and Im falling for second time I couldnt stand up in any way.

The leader of the detachment comes next, Mr. V., with whom we had been

sharing even a cigarette Stand up! he told me -and with a very rigorous tone

after it- I will kill you, you gun-dog! I tell him o whatever you want! I

cant stop my legs from falling! o you understand that f course you

can! et up you stupid, you bum, you e takes his gun and he puts it into

my mouth. I tell him Kill me Im dead already, both ways e stood up and

left. He went back and reported the fact to our captain. There he also comes:

ey you patriot, whats wrong What happened to you he tells me I

explain I cant stop my legs from falling down! e tells me isten We

will leave now. I will go to put the company in order and send them with Mr.

S. he was the companys commissioner, from the village Ziaka of Grevena-

and Ill come back to find you You will go up to this hill by dragging your

legs. Behind it, the kitchen places are located. You will go there -he

understood I got frostbites- and you will wait for me. But do not put your feet

near fire! ctually, I reached the kitchen places by dragging my legs. After

some time he also comes ets see, you patriot, what happened to you e

tries to take off my shoes, it wasnt possible I had a pair of boots, which I had

taken from somebody who was killed. He tears them with his knife. He tries to

take off my socks and my skin started to take off with them. e says You

have really terrible frostbites e shouts n animal! n animal! (orse

or mule is meant) -Theres no animal ring my horse! They wrap my

feet in blankets, theyput me on the horseback of the leaders horse and one of

them starts to pull it towards the hospital. In a village -I dont know in which

one- there was a station in which the injured were being forwarded to the

hospital. There was a villager in charge, Mr. N. V. They left me there and


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returned the horse back to the captain. I say ey, r , do you have

anything for me to eat Iwas hungry and I wanted to eat Yeah Theres a

tin of milk over thereThe tin was already opened and had just a few grams

of milk inside e took it and gave it to me h, what did you do ow did

this happen Tsto you You stupid! You bum! You s my injuries werent

enough, he also started insulting me nd I thought h, what kind of

people are they? What kind of popular army is thisAnyway, the other day,

load us to the mules and they took us to Tsamanda. They had commandeered a

house there and they were using it as preventorium () (Dalkavoukis

2006a).

B. fter Argirokastro, they took us to another hospital, in Sukt, which is

between Dyrrachio and Tirana. But this was for slightly injured and we were

also working there. We were digging the vineyards and similar things. As they

told us, this was because we had to work for the Albanian People who was

taking care of us. There, while we were returning one day from work -it was

spring- we sat down to eat. We were a thousand of persons. The kitchen had

cooked broad beans that day. Somebody could see thousand of mess tins with

broad beans, on an oblong table. I also took my mess tin and my slice of bread

and I sat outside to eat. While I was eating, I felt somehow badly. I put my

hand -like this- on my pulse, it was very quick: malpitation! I tell to the guy

next to me Im not feeling well, my pulse is running. They run, call the

doctor (), takeme in their hands, lift me up and put me to a room like corf

house, which had wooden beds. There should have passed 3-4 hours until this

thingwas over. Since then, this was happening in periods: sometimes in a

month, sometimes in two months, sometimes twice in a month and sometimes

three times in a month until it reached the three times in a day, when I came

here [in reece] m, well, this also is over (Interview 8/5/2006)

We can make some important remarks on these narrations, which are related

to the first generations way of memory shaping First of all, I am referring to the

body elements which preserve this memory, namely to the corporal geography, as

R. Bastide (1970) defined it, and more than that to a memory which is inscribed to

the bodies of those who bear it: the corporal wound (in this case the frostbites, the


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following surgical removal of the right foots toes and malpilation as a

psychosomatic, most likely, reaction to the total pressure) is constantly present as a

point of reference of the ivil Wars memory It also defines in a large extent the

following activity of the person, his corporal posture and acting, the constrictions and

the possibilities of action In other words, consists a kind of kinetic memory

(Bastide 1970) as it has been defined, which in my fathers case is exceptionally

apparent. I mean that his walking is somehow unstable, his body leans towards the

right side and he has a slight cyphosis, which was already caused since that age. On

the other hand, the often malpilations, obligate him to restrict importantly his corporal

activity and surely to stop it for enough time, that something similar happens to him.

Besides that, the socioeconomic consequences of this wound are not less

important. Because of his disability, he was cut off from having the chance to

emigrate, during the 1s decade, while at the same time the lack of his

acknowledgment as a victim of war, was also cutting him off from positive measures

which were only concerning the victims of victory side of War. Those circumstances

made even heavier the corporal dimension of memory, as the shaping of his body by

the wound and the sickness, did literally define his life after it and especially after

repatriation.

The crucial question, however, is lying somewhere else: Does the corporal

wound consist also a trauma of second grade, which means a psychic trauma for the

second generation? According to the narrow definition of psychic trauma, as Anna

Vidali (1996: 89)1presents it to us, this is:

[It is] defined by the weakness of apprehending a fact, while it is happening,

as the tension of the experience obstructs its comprehension () y

obstructing the realization of the historical moment, the trauma causes a

serious truth crisis If an object of reference, which can guarantee for the

less or the more accurate representation for memory, does not exist, then how

is possible to get familiar with the past? And if this knowledge of the past is

not possible, then how can we return to our roots and presuppose our

continuity? Violent facts disturb the continuity and the communication among

the members of the community

1See also Caruth 1991, Van der KolkMcFarlaneWeisaeth 1996: 279-330.


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ccording to this definition, if we accept that the object of reference does exist -

here is meant the trauma and the kinetic memory of his bearer- then we must

search for the violent facts which disturb the continuity and the communication

among the members of the community(in this case, among the members of the first,

the second and the third generation of political refugees), in order to corroborate the

existence psychic trauma. And even more, the possibility of communication among

the members of the national community, that is of nation-state, which appears divided

after the Civil War.

I think that the framework of the configuration of the ivil Wars memory

among the three generations is now more explicit and more accurate. If we assume

that the political refugees are a community of memory in the pl ace of their refugee

situation, then the violent facts which cut off the communication among

generations, must be searched in the political frame of ex-socialist countries, but I

suppose there are more qualified persons than me, to talk about this subject. If the

community of memory is the nation-state, then the violent fact is the political

refugees expatriation, and the first presupposition for the recomposition of this

community is the massive repatriation which was already happening since the decade

of 1s and afterwards In the temporal framework which mediates until nowadays

since then, the public conversation for the Civil War and the institutional initiatives

for the political refugees rehabilitation, also consist, in my opinion, important steps

towards the rehabilitation of this community ut what happens when the

community of memory is the family and the violent fact is the ambient political

situation, which either forbids public conversation for the Civil War, or morally

stigmatizes the defeated ones, by using characterizations such as bandits,

brigands and others Its been exactly about a community of memory which I

intensely experienced during my childhood and during the years of my first

adolescence, during the 1s decade, a particular situation which emerged from my

fathers premature repatriation and the lack of a balanced public conversation for the

Civil War during that period in Greece. My implement here is my personal, anymore,

memory.

The corporal wound of my father as a real object of reference was creating

me, as it is natural, reasonable questions. The typical reply I was receiving to my

persistent questions about how it happened was just an indefinite incident which

happened to the village ogs bite me, he was telling me with consistency and he


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was changing the subject of discussion. His reaction however, was impressive

considering the transmission of kinetic memory, to me Every time he was seeing

me to incline my body towards its right side or to shape a slight cyphosis to my

bodys posture, he was rebuking me and advising me to stand upright ut the results

although of this procedure are evident, although his advice. He justified later this

dimension between the two forms of memorys transmission, the corporal (which he

couldnt avoid) and the verbal (which was based on elusions), by adducing exactly

these violent facts, for which I spoke before e was worrying, lest I would diffuse

a family secret, because of my childishness, which could easil y cause successive

reactions and of course, to damage his image to me (because the surrounding people

would call him bandit) or to traumatize my socialization, which was apparent as

normal, if I would bring into question these peoples characterization and identified

myself with him.

n the other hand, the malpitations role as a corporal incident w hich was

happening to my father was determinative for the shaping of my behaviour. My fear

-probably exaggerated, as was proved later- of a possible death of my father during

one of these frequent crises, imposed me important self- restrictions, during the period

of my adolescent outbursts, a fact that my wider environment of relatives -and

fortunately not my family- tried to take advantage of inadvertently, in order to

manipulate and incorporate me to the suburban values it was believing to. My

ignorance about the origin of this corporal symptom of my father was making my

family an exceptionally problematic community of memory

Equally, the change of the political atmosphere during the 1s decade,

when a left-wing narrative dominated concerning the German Occupation and the

Civil War, although it could restore the balance in the abnormal community of

memory of my family, didnt finally bring about the expected results. My left-wing

political orientation was causing the selective reconstitution of my fathers memory as

a criticism, not only towards the soviet model, which you havent live and so you

dont have the necessary experience to talk about, but also and towards the Left more

generally, which he was accusing for inconsistency of words and actions, fragments

of which he had only transmitted to me.

I could continue for much more time, but the crucial point on which I want to

focus, I think that is already clear the memory of the ivil War and of the being a

political refugee situation, was constituting a traumatic experience in the frame of


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this particular community of memory for decades, so that it could even define the

identity of its community. My father, by being cut off of his generations collective

memory, was trying to manage his individual memory, into a problematic frame, by

hesitating even for his identity: He was a volunteer or a recruited man? Was he a

typical political refugee who was early repatriated, or was he shaping the identity of a

captive, something like the soldiers whom radency presented to us In other

words, there was a clear and visible problem considering his integration to an

accepted public myth (Tsimbiridou 2004)2 for the period of the Civil War.

Considering me, the questions I had were similar: I was the son of a political refugee

or the son of a kidnapped man, according to that periods current terminology To

which generation I was belonging to and, furthermore, how my identity was being

shaped through this placement? Was it worth to insist on the transmission of this

pending memory, or my integration would be more typical and normal if I ignored

it?

These questions -which both sides had- find today a relatively sufficient reply,

after of more than a decade of public conversation, inside the domestic community

of memory ut for this to happen, some also pending presuppositions should

mature: Among other presuppositions, the depreciation of the soviet model during the

1s decade, allowed my father to place himself at last, to a community of

memory of political refugees, in the frame of an acceptable public myth for the Civil

War Its about, as I have mentioned already from the beginning, a criticism towards

all directions and without any party affiliation, which brings to the forefront weak

voices, as those we hear to be narrated to the book of V. Papagianni, Screams of

memory (2005), for example, or like the one of Tasoula Vervenioti to her Double

Book (2003), where their connection of these voices with the historical and

ethnographic research is being done in an exceptional way. This kind of disciplinary

maturity, was a presupposition I was also called to cover, before the effective

transmission of memory was achieved. And this is exactly where I think the nodal

point of intersection lies, between the two points of departure, the experiential and the

disciplinary, considering my avocation with the Civil War.

2This public myth is normally an effect arising from the elaboration of the memory according to the

persons strategies of surviving, the political frame and of course the role of printed information

about the same period of time. I mean the role of literacy which permits the informants to be aware ofevents -or to interpret them- by using information they learned later. See Goody and Watt 1968, and for

an example Dalkavoukis 2006b.


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During the recurrent interviews with my father, which also lasted many hours

usually, recorded or not, we both tried to master the trauma of interrupted

communication between the two generations, and I think that we managed to do it, not

without friction of course. On of the friction points, considers my fathers aim to

transform the community of memory of our family, into an exclusive community

of memory but with no results. I quote a characteristic -and somehow humorous-

extract from our latest interview, which is particularly eloquent:

- About three or four colleagues -until now- have asked me to interview

you

- To tell them what?

- To tell them your experience of Greek Democratic Army, of Tascend etc.

ut you tell me that you dont talk to others

- o, I dont want to talk to others, because if I do it, those I will tell to you

will not have any value

- k, but they might ask you other kind of things Wouldnt you like to tell

them?

- oI dont want to dilate these things I want to forget them as much as I

can. And these things Im telling to you now, it is because you need them

to do a particular job.

- So, if I wasnt to do this particular job, you wouldnt tell me

- o, Im telling you now, in order to do you job (laughing)

- Yes, but youre also writing them.

- Yes, I do write them, but in order to leave them to you and not to give

them to the people (Interview 8/5/2006)

Because this particular ethnographic case doesnt have only personal but also

scientific value, as I introduced in the beginning, I would like to summarize the

disciplinary conclusions of this procedure, in the end. The first conclusion is of

methodological nature: The clarification of terms and presuppositions of ethnographic

research is not only an inviolable disciplinary rule, but also a particularly beneficial

exercise of acquiring self-knowledge, which allows us to dilate and to go into the

depth of the hermeneutical patterns we use, their modification and re-adjustment

through a kind of empirical material which would otherwise stay unknown to the

ethnographer and to the disciplinary community in general. The second conclusion is


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15

factual and assures the disciplinary orientations we had until now in the Net for the

Study of Civil Wars: The turn from the collective towards the individual subjects does

not only proves the diverse ways which shape collective or social memory, as has

been ascertained already, but furthermore puts on the map a huge field for the study of

the tactics with which we manage memory in the every time unique frame which the

ambient society shapes We have already opened and trying to understand this field

which concerns the ivil Wars memory The third conclusion concerns the theory

which we walk with and consists a case of study which easily derives from these two

previous points: memory, either as individual or collective or social, is not static, but

flows and it is being adjusted to the every time unique circumstances, which favour or

not -and hence direct- its enunciation, by the one or the other way. Memory -in other

words- is a construction. This is something we have already admitted in anthropology

and oral history, but in the context of positivist historiography, this recognition

consists of a constant pending epistemological issue, especially for those who use the

expressed memory as factual material (Margaritis 2001).

This is also an issue, as similarly happened with the Civil War, which must

constitute the object of a wide public conversation, inside the disciplinary community.

Such a conversation is the only way to overcome our trauma, by unfixing the

violent facts of our ideological or other anchyloses.

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