Project MUSE®: Journal of Modern Greek Studies - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Journal of Modern Greek Studies.daily12026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 1 (1983) through current issueLatest Articles: Journal of Modern Greek StudiesTWOProject MUSE®Journal of Modern Greek Studies1086-32650738-1727Latest articles in Journal of Modern Greek Studies. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Blackwashing the Greek Past: The Engagement of the Trans-Saharan Africans of Ottoman Crete with a Roman Marble Statue
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988598
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In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in Heraklion, Crete, a Roman marble statue embedded in the Venetian Bembo fountain was painted black and was venerated by the city's trans-Saharan African community. This phenomen—dismissed by local Christians and foreign antiquarians at the time as "superstition" and only recently reconsidered in scholarship (Papadakis 2008, 145–147; Greenberg and Hamilakis 2022, 119–120; Karanastasi 2023)—presents an exceptional case of the engagement of a marginalized group with a monument of classical antiquity in ways that were not shaped by the antiquarianism of white elite Europeans but instead developed by Black African-descended migrants (also known as trans-Saharan
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmallBlackwashing the Greek Past: The Engagement of the Trans-Saharan Africans of Ottoman Crete with a Roman Marble Statue2026-04-28text/htmlen-USBlackwashing the Greek Past: The Engagement of the Trans-Saharan Africans of Ottoman Crete with a Roman Marble Statue2026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®1968172026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28The Goulianos Family: An Aristocratic Lineage in Seventeenth‒Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Constantinople between Korydalleus and Mavrokordatos
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988599
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In 1695, a book entitled État présent des nations et églises grecque, arménienne, et maronite en Turquie was published in Paris by La Croix, the second secretary of the French Embassy in Ottoman Constantinople.1 This work provides a comprehensive depiction of Greek society and the Greek Orthodox Church during the latter half of the seventeenth century. Widely recognized among scholars, it has been extensively utilized as one of the rare sources offering insight into the social structure of Constantinople at the time, while also documenting the prominent families that constituted the Greek Orthodox elite (Apostolopoulos 1980, 51n1). Originally written around 1670 by Antoine Galland, the theological attaché of the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmallThe Goulianos Family: An Aristocratic Lineage in Seventeenth‒Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Constantinople between Korydalleus and Mavrokordatos2026-04-28text/htmlen-USThe Goulianos Family: An Aristocratic Lineage in Seventeenth‒Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Constantinople between Korydalleus and Mavrokordatos2026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®1061262026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28Historical Narratives, Built Cultural Heritage, and National Claims: The Expansion of the Greek Kingdom and the Shaping of Athens' Cultural Heritage Space
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988600
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Within Modern Greek Studies, there has been a keen interest in the politics of Greek identity and the reception of antiquity. Analyses have focused on how the Greek past has been mapped, articulated, used, diffused, or decolonized and redefined.1Building upon recent studies on Greek heritage and the role of archaeology in handling material evidence of the past,2 this paper examines the physical presence and discursive articulation of Athens' cultural heritage space, focusing on the transition from the historiographical narrative of Revival, which formerly prevailed,3 to that of Continuity.4 Here, cultural heritage space refers to the physical area—whether in urban environments or rural landscapes—which encompasses
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmallHistorical Narratives, Built Cultural Heritage, and National Claims: The Expansion of the Greek Kingdom and the Shaping of Athens' Cultural Heritage Space2026-04-28text/htmlen-USHistorical Narratives, Built Cultural Heritage, and National Claims: The Expansion of the Greek Kingdom and the Shaping of Athens' Cultural Heritage Space2026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®1685032026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28Far from a Popular Movement: The National Defense Coup d'État in Thessaloniki, August–October 1916
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988601
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After the outbreak of the First World War, Greece initially remained neutral, but Greek society became sharply polarized over the question of intervention. Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and his Liberal Party wanted to enter the war on the side of the Entente, while King Constantine and conservative public opinion favored neutrality. This was the so-called National Schism. In August–September 1916, the country split in two with the formation of a pro-Allied regime in Thessaloniki that gained control over Greek Macedonia and several islands. The official government in Athens, however, remained neutral and retained its hold on the central and southern sectors of the country. Greece reunited almost a year later
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmallFar from a Popular Movement: The National Defense Coup d'État in Thessaloniki, August–October 19162026-04-28text/htmlen-USFar from a Popular Movement: The National Defense Coup d'État in Thessaloniki, August–October 19162026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®1047552026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28From Sacred to Silenced: Blasphemy and Censorship in Post-dictatorship Greece (1974–2019)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988602
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"Indigenous residents of Greek territory who believe in Jesus Christ are Greek … and enjoy their political rights." This is Article 1 of the first three constitutions adopted during the Greek War of Independence (1822, 1823, 1827). At that time, being Greek meant being Christian, just as being Ottoman, in the eyes of the Greek rebels, meant being Muslim. Ever since, this intrinsic link between nationhood and religion has been the basis of the enduring bond between the Greek state and the Orthodox Church (Christopoulos 2013). The Church of Greece is embedded within the state because, historically, religion has been central to Greek identity. And this is not because Greeks are inherently more religious than other
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmallFrom Sacred to Silenced: Blasphemy and Censorship in Post-dictatorship Greece (1974–2019)2026-04-28text/htmlen-USFrom Sacred to Silenced: Blasphemy and Censorship in Post-dictatorship Greece (1974–2019)2026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®1235012026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28Introduction
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988603
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The Cold War is commonly understood as the post–World War II rivalry between the two emerging superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Rather than being fought primarily through direct military confrontation, this conflict unfolded through a complex array of proxy wars, political interventions, and struggles for ideological and economic influence across the globe. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki revealed with unprecedented clarity that a direct military confrontation between the superpowers—now armed with nuclear weapons—would entail catastrophic and potentially irreversible consequences. As a result, the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union increasingly shifted
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmallIntroduction2026-04-28text/htmlen-USIntroduction2026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®1352002026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28"Gagarin, Save Us!": Yuri Gagarin's 1962 Visit to Athens and Space Exploration as a Cold War Battlefield
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988604
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On 13 April 1961, the Greek newspaper Eleftheria featured the headline "The greatest scientific achievement of mankind," celebrating Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's groundbreaking journey into space.1 The day before, on 12 April, the twenty-seven-year-old Gagarin had successfully completed an orbital flight around Earth aboard the Vostok spacecraft. His historic achievement propelled him to global fame, dominating media headlines worldwide and securing his place in history. Gagarin's pioneering voyage resonated around the globe, garnering widespread acclaim and marking a significant milestone in human space exploration (Gerovitch 2015).In Greece, Gagarin's triumph received widespread attention, though the nature of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmall"Gagarin, Save Us!": Yuri Gagarin's 1962 Visit to Athens and Space Exploration as a Cold War Battlefield2026-04-28text/htmlen-US"Gagarin, Save Us!": Yuri Gagarin's 1962 Visit to Athens and Space Exploration as a Cold War Battlefield2026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®1467712026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28A Means to an End or a Means in Itself? Nuclear Science and Space Exploration in the Context of US Cultural Diplomacy in Greece, 1955–1967
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988605
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The cultural turn in Cold War historiography has produced extensive literature on the instrumentalization of cultural activities in the context of the antagonism between the Eastern and Western blocs (Scott-Smith and Krabbendam 2003; Mitter and Mayor 2004; Romijn, Scott-Smith, and Segal 2012). A major subject of this literature is the shaping of US propaganda and cultural diplomacy, in which a special role was played by the United States Information Agency (USIA). Founded in 1953, USIA served as the coordinating body for US cultural diplomacy throughout the Cold War (Cull 2008).Despite much recent research on the subject, our understanding of Cold War cultural diplomacy remains incomplete. As some have noted (e.g.
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmallA Means to an End or a Means in Itself? Nuclear Science and Space Exploration in the Context of US Cultural Diplomacy in Greece, 1955–19672026-04-28text/htmlen-USA Means to an End or a Means in Itself? Nuclear Science and Space Exploration in the Context of US Cultural Diplomacy in Greece, 1955–19672026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®1423592026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28"A Mental Rebaptism in the Font of National Ideals": Psy-sciences Communication in Post-Civil War Greece
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988606
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When, in 1927, the young psychiatrist Dimitrios Kouretas, trained in interwar France, made a request to the Medical Association of Salonica to give a public lecture on psychoanalysis—the first ever to be announced in Greek—he was rejected on grounds that "psychoanalysis is contrary to the moral principles of the Greek people, a contaminator that causes the decay of the soul" (Kouretas 1984, 37). Less than thirty years later, in 1956, Kouretas, by then an esteemed professor of psychiatry, wrote an article in Peloponnisiaki Estia under the title "Psychoanalytic Views on Criminality in Greece." In it, he elaborated on a special category of criminals, the "anarchists," a term used in the post-Civil War period to denote
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmall"A Mental Rebaptism in the Font of National Ideals": Psy-sciences Communication in Post-Civil War Greece2026-04-28text/htmlen-US"A Mental Rebaptism in the Font of National Ideals": Psy-sciences Communication in Post-Civil War Greece2026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®1419702026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28Nostalgia Podcasts: A New Historical Source
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988607
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This research note discusses nostalgia podcasts as a historical source, examining Greek media developments alongside international ones. Nostalgia podcasts are podcasts grounded in nostalgia, transporting listeners back to a particular era—often their own youth or childhood—by revisiting cultural touchstones such as music, fashion, games, television, and lifestyle trends. They revolve around cultural retrospection, personal memories, and emotional resonance. They aim to evoke warm emotions about the past and build community linkages based on common generational identity and cultural memory among hosts, guests, and listeners. Broadening the use of the term, this note also considers as nostalgia podcasts those in
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmallNostalgia Podcasts: A New Historical Source2026-04-28text/htmlen-USNostalgia Podcasts: A New Historical Source2026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®1100002026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28Why Not Build the Mosque? Islam, Political Cost, and the Practice of Democracy in Greece by Dimitris Antoniou (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988608
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The fact that Athens remained until 2019 the only capital in the European Union without an official mosque has long puzzled observers. The absence of a mosque in a city of more than four million people, including tens of thousands of Muslim residents, seemed both anomalous and difficult to explain. Possible explanations included local hostility, bureaucratic inertia, church opposition, and an entrenched nationalism wary of religious pluralism. In Why Not Build the Mosque, Dimitris Antoniou demonstrates that none of these explanations, taken in isolation, can account for more than a century of failed attempts to build a mosque. The book offers a striking reinterpretation: the mosque's non-construction was not simply
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmallWhy Not Build the Mosque? Islam, Political Cost, and the Practice of Democracy in Greece by Dimitris Antoniou (review)2026-04-28text/htmlen-USWhy Not Build the Mosque? Islam, Political Cost, and the Practice of Democracy in Greece by Dimitris Antoniou (review)2026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®106742026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28Ethnic Cleansing in Western Anatolia, 1912–1923: Ottoman Officials and the Local Christian Population by Umit Eser (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988609
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The violent transition from the multiethnic Ottoman Empire to the homogenizing nation-states that succeeded it has long been one of the most contested topics in modern historiography. For decades, the decisive period between the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) and the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) was beset by competing nationalist narratives: the Turkish "War of Liberation" versus the Greek "Asia Minor Catastrophe." In Ethnic Cleansing in Western Anatolia, 1912–1923, Umit Eser intervenes in this polarized field with a study that is as rigorous in its archival methodology as it is nuanced in its argumentation. Appearing in the Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire series, the book challenges the binary categories of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmallEthnic Cleansing in Western Anatolia, 1912–1923: Ottoman Officials and the Local Christian Population by Umit Eser (review)2026-04-28text/htmlen-USEthnic Cleansing in Western Anatolia, 1912–1923: Ottoman Officials and the Local Christian Population by Umit Eser (review)2026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®126842026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28The collaborators: Armed, political, and economic cooperation during the Occupation by Menelaos Haralambidis (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988610
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Published in December 2023, Οι δωσίλογοι (The collaborators) by Menelaos Haralambidis quickly became a bestseller: the author visited more than thirty-five cities across Greece in events that attracted large audiences, while total sales exceeded fifty thousand copies—a spectacular number in the Greek publishing world. This success underlines the significance of the topic that the book seeks to address: the taboo issue of collaboration during the country's occupation in World War II. Until now, the issue has largely been addressed by amateurish works, with the only major scholarly account being focused on the trials following the country's liberation in 1944 (Kousouris 2014). Haralambidis explores the core issue:
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmallThe collaborators: Armed, political, and economic cooperation during the Occupation by Menelaos Haralambidis (review)2026-04-28text/htmlen-USThe collaborators: Armed, political, and economic cooperation during the Occupation by Menelaos Haralambidis (review)2026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®135002026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28The Business of Transition: Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule by Paris Papamichos Chronakis (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988611
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The political transition from Ottoman to Greek rule transformed Salonica from a vibrant imperial port city to a national border town cut off from what had once been its prosperous Balkan hinterlands. Paris Papamichos Chronakis's debut monograph, The Business of Transition, explores this period of political turmoil from the perspective of the Jewish and Greek Orthodox merchants who constituted the city's commercial elite. The author traces how Jewish merchants' hegemony over a multiethnic commercial bourgeoisie, which had emerged during the Ottoman Empire's integration into the global economy in the late nineteenth century, slowly waned even as a Greek commercial elite with a national outlook consolidated its
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmallThe Business of Transition: Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule by Paris Papamichos Chronakis (review)2026-04-28text/htmlen-USThe Business of Transition: Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule by Paris Papamichos Chronakis (review)2026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®121132026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28Literature's Refuge: Rewriting the Mediterranean Borderscape by William Stroebel (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988612
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One thing that will strike readers of William Stroebel's debut monograph, Literature's Refuge: Rewriting the Mediterranean Borderscape, published in Princeton University Press's groundbreaking Translation/Transnation series, is that they are in the company of a superb, sensitive, and compassionate narrator. Stroebel, who carries his immense knowledge of the subject with incredible humility, stands alongside—not above—his readers as they explore complex and often relatively unknown texts, as well as their authors and contexts, from the seventeenth to the early twenty-first century. Stroebel shows, first, how philology, "the study of languages, literatures, and textual transmission" (4), can exclude texts and their
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmallLiterature's Refuge: Rewriting the Mediterranean Borderscape by William Stroebel (review)2026-04-28text/htmlen-USLiterature's Refuge: Rewriting the Mediterranean Borderscape by William Stroebel (review)2026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®102372026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28The West: The History of an Idea by Georgios Varouxakis (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/988613
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The West has been a concept central to political discourse for more than two centuries. Georgios Varouxakis's The West: The History of an Idea offers an exploration of how this term was created, how it became prevalent, and how its meanings multiplied. Varouxakis correctly points out that current understandings did not originate in antiquity—neither with the division of the Roman Empire into East and West nor with the subsequent split between the Roman and Orthodox Christian churches. Rather, they acquired their meanings and the weight they have since carried in the nineteenth century. The key question the book poses is: to which "East" was this "West" opposed?Following the Napoleonic Wars, the distinction between
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/126/image/coversmallThe West: The History of an Idea by Georgios Varouxakis (review)2026-04-28text/htmlen-USThe West: The History of an Idea by Georgios Varouxakis (review)2026-04-282026TWOProject MUSE®118202026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002026-04-28