BOOK LAUNCH - Historical Memory in Greece, 1821–1930

Christina Koulouri (Athens)

Beginning:

Tuesday, 04 October 2022 17:00

On 4 October Christina Koulouri (Athens) will present her recently published book "Historical Memory in Greece, 1821–1930: Performing the Past in the Present".

Abstract:

This book presents a social and cultural history of collective memory in modern Greece during the first century of state independence, contributing to the debate over the relationship between memory and identity.

It discusses how modern Greek society commemorated its distant and recent pasts, both real and imagined, namely antiquity, Byzantium, the Greek Revolution and the Asia Minor Catastrophe; how cultural memory was shaped by the various war experiences (victory, defeat, mass death and mourning, refugeedom); and how memory politics became arenas of social and political strife. Historical painting, monuments, historical pageantry, tableaux vivants, national anniversaries, performances of ancient drama and revivals of ancient games are analyzed as instances where the past was visualized, represented, performed and "consumed".

An explosion in public history has taken place over the last decades around the world, with a veritable flood of commemorations, anniversaries and "memory wars". As more and more social groups claim the "right to remember", public discourse and polemics have arisen at the same time that traumatic memory has become a field of international academic research. In the arena of public history, historical memory is being constructed through the sentimental, irrational reception of mythological narratives told through images.

Christina Koulouri:

Christina Koulouri is a Ph.D Professor in Modern and Contemporary History and Rector of Panteion University of Political and Social Sciences (Athens, Greece). She specialized in Greek, Balkan and European History of 19th-20th centuries. Her main research topics include the teaching of history, the history of historiography, school textbooks, national identity, public history and the history of sports and the Olympic Games.

Date & Time:

4th October 2022 at 5 p.m.

Venue:

Landshuterstr. 4, 93047 Regensburg,

Room 319 (IOS) and via Zoom