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Reviewed by:
  • Iστoριoγραφία της vεότερης και σύγχρovης Ελλάδας 1833-2002
  • Gerasimos Augustinos
Paschalis M. Kitromilides and Triantaphyllos E. Sklavenitis, editors. Πασχάλης Μ. Κιτρoμηλίδης και Τριαvτάφυλλoς Ε. Σκλαβεvίτης, editors, Iστoριoγραφία της vεότερης και σύγχρovης Ελλάδας 1833–2002. 2 vols. Athens: Institute for Neohellenic Research/National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2004. Pp. 627 (vol. 1), 766 (vol. 2). Paper €60, Cloth €70.

This publication comprises the papers and comments presented at a conference held in Athens in 2002 sponsored by the Institute for Neohellenic Research (KNE). A brief historiographic look at works on Greek historiography provides some perspective on the scope and magnitude of this project.

In 1988 the Athenian periodical Σύγχρovα Θέματα (Contemporary Issues) devoted an entire issue to "Contemporary Currents in the Historiography of Neo-Hellenism." Wide-ranging in scope, there were contributions by some of the same individuals who appear in the current publication as well as interviews with Constantinos Th. Dimaras and Nikos Svoronos. Also worth noting are discussions [End Page 227] in that volume on the teaching of history and the state of libraries and archives. A few years earlier, in 1982, the Modern Greek Studies Association published the papers of a summer seminar held at Anatolia College. Entitled New Trends in Modern Greek Historiography, the volume highlighted some of the work being done at the time on various topics. A decade earlier saw the publication of the third edition of Modern Greek Culture: A Selected Bibliography (1970) by the same institution that sponsored the current publication. It reflected the interests and outlook of the then research center's director, Constantinos Th. Dimaras. Still earlier, in 1966, Dimaras oversaw the issuance of Quinze ans de Bibliographie Historique en Grèce (1950–1964). By comparing the present publication with the earlier works, both the quantitative and the qualitative changes in Greek historiography since the 1970s are readily apparent.

Not counting the introductory and closing remarks of the conference and the round table session, the volumes encompass 65 presentations which are grouped thematically. In length the essays vary from about ten to over 40 pages, with most around 20. All the contributions, except one, are in Greek. There are summaries of varying length and usefulness to the non-Greek reader in French or English at the end of each paper. The topics range widely from commerce to philosophy and biology to minorities. However, as Spyros Asdrahas notes in his introductory remarks, despite the wide thematic scope there are some omissions due not only to the parameters of the conference but also to evaluative criteria (vol. 1, p. 27). Notably missing are treatments of some key institutions such as the military and the monarchy as well as studies relating to major political figures, urban workers, and the topic of foreign relations with its overtones of interference and intervention. Temporally, though the date on the title page is that of the founding of the Greek nation-state, developments in the eighteenth century are covered as well. As might be expected, the spatial focus is on Greece and the neighboring areas—the Balkans, the Mediterranean, and the lands of the now vanished Habsburg, Ottoman, and Russian empires. Some of the essays are straightforward historiographic accounts, while others delve into the issues pertaining to a particular topic.

Papers relating to the emergence and establishment of a national historical narrative and the cultural and social instruments and collectivities that intersect and are intertwined with it—literature, the press, education, folklore, the development of the social and scientific disciplines, as well as debates on key historical eras, such as the revolution and the decade of the 1940s—make up the contents of the first volume. The essays on social and economic themes and institutions, including demography, geographical space, gender, agrarian society, commerce, finance, communities and the diaspora, constitutional development, ethnicities and minorities, religious history, and political camps, appear in the second volume, along with the remarks of the participants in a round table on Greek historiography and international scholarship. Although the papers are grouped according to the thematic format of the conference, one can profitably juxtapose contributions from different thematic units to see continuity and change or to compare viewpoints. An example would be the essays of Basil Gounaris, «Ελληvική βαλκαvιo...

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