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Reviewed by:
  • Anastasia Karakasidou
Efi Avdela , . Athens: Nefeli. 2002. Pp 257. €15.60.

Honor and shame in Greek society has been a widely studied theme in anthropology and sociology, politics and law, and even psychology. Now Greek historiography contributes to this voluminous—though often essentialist—literature with a fine monograph on honor crimes during the decades of post–Civil War reconstruction in the 1950s and 1960s. This book, by a well-known historian of gender, offers a descriptive and analytical study that touches on gender roles and sexuality, family and marriage, sentiments and emotions, violence and values, modernization and nationalism. It explores what narratives about honor crimes can reveal about changing social relations and social values, outlining a fascinating criminal history that illuminates how violence in the name of honor has constructed and shaped the meaning of human behavior in post-war Greece.

Avdela offers an excellent review of the scholarly literature on honor and shame in traditional Greek society, including the pioneering, and sometimes neglected work of Dorothy Lee. Early commentators often made sweeping generalizations about national character that tended to reify aspects of Greek culture and society. In particular, the Anglo-Saxon modern "Self" (derivative of individual esteem and personal achievement) was typically contrasted with the "Self" of traditional (mostly rural) Greek culture, couched in terms of a "collective individualism." Since at least the mid-nineteenth century, sentiments of "honor" (timi) have been a principal impetus for interpersonal violence in Greek society, and long upheld as a core fundamental value of the family. By the mid-twentieth century, however, a new "love of honor" (filitimo) gaining salience, tied to the emerging modern, more flexible, sense of Self in postwar Greece.

Through historiography, Avdela seeks to locate key transformative moments in the constitution of the modern Greek self. Working with court records, newspapers, and magazines covering the period 1949–67, she identifies 340 cases of honor crimes, classified on the basis of etiological discourses. By documenting how these discourses, or "cultural scenarios," were used by actors involved in the "melodrama" of such crimes, her study spotlights how they reflect transformations toward modernity in post-war Greece, a process that engendered a fundamental shift in cultural values surrounding notions of honor. Honor, for Avdela, is a "key" symbol—in the sense of the term articulated by anthropologist Clifford Geertz—a symbolic construct that is understood by everybody, a standardized emotion, an unquestioned moral code. Moral dilemmas [End Page 397] lead to impassioned responses, she maintains, and the moral honor code functioned as a protective wall in a new chaotic era of post-Civil War modernization. The politics of managing female sexuality was embedded in much broader transformations, and while central powers manage interpersonal relations they also influence and shape emotions, perceptions, and assumptions.

Avdela approaches the courts as a space of power where hegemonic values present themselves, a setting where the public-private dichotomy is resolved, a site where Greek society reveals itself in drama. Public prosecutors working to implement a modern penal code often took a harsh stance against honor crimes, and argued for more severe punishments. Public opinion, however, saw such crimes with a more sympathetic eye, and juries came to play a critical role in determining which defendants were candidates for leniency. Motive was the key factor in honor crime cases. At stake for most Greeks during the transformative decades of the post-war modernization was whether a particular incident constituted an honor crime. If so, the simple unwritten code allowed for males of a family (usually a father or a brother) to take it upon themselves to "wash" away with blood the stain on family honor brought about by the "corruption" of female family members.

Modernity as a discourse, and new moral code, rendered traditional notions of honor and honor crimes outdated and backward, characterizing them as Romiot traits that distance Greeks from the modern (European) Self. Punishments for honor crimes became more severe, and their incidence steadily declined, as post-war modernizers made concerted efforts to assume management of violence and to erase what they regarded as "backward" features of Greek society. A series of legislative actions, including the 1946 family laws, the 1950 New...

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