This seminal anthology, long out of print, is now digitized and in the public domain for all readers to access, in anticipation of the 200th anniversary of the Greek revolution. It brings together a large selection of American documents illustrating the various aspects of United States involvement in the Greek War of Independence. Published in 2002 to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the war, it is the work of Constantine G. Hatzidimitriou (PhD, Columbia University in Byzantine, Ottoman, and Modern Greek History). Dr. Hatzidimitriou is the author of a parallel volume, American Documents and Eyewitness Accounts of the Turkish Destruction of Smyrna in 1922 (Caratzas, 2005) and this addendum to the book on the Greek revolution: “Revisiting the Documentation for American Philanthropic Contributions to Greece’s War of Liberation of 1821” (Journal of Modern Hellenism Vol 31, 2015), He is Senior School District Improvement Liaison in the New York City Department of Education, Office of State/Federal Planning Policy & Implementation Programs.
Gratitude to Dr. Hatzidimitriou for licensing the work to the public domain under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 license (CC BY-NC 4.0), and to Christiane Lange for releasing Dr. Hatzidimitriou from any contractual obligation to the publishing house and letting the copyright revert to him.
“The Permanent Rebellion of Nicolas Calas: The Trotskyist Time Forgot”
Alan Wald
“I believe that I first came across the name of Calas while researching a book on the US Marxist poets John Wheelwright and Sherry Mangan--published in 1983 as THE REVOLUTIONARY IMAGINATION (University of North Carolina Press). Mangan and Calas had worked on a revolutionary literary journal in Paris, and Mangan helped Calas come to the US. They traveled in the same Trotskyist/surrealist circles, and were close to the Greek Trotskyist Michael Pablo (Raptis). After Calas and I began corresponding, he told me he had been invited to U-M to speak by Gerome Kamroskski--a surrealist painter on the U-M faculty. We met and stayed in contact until Calas became ill. In that period I also traveled to Paris where I met with Pablo/Raptis in person.”
(Copyright Against the Current Sep/Oct 2018; published with kind permission from Against the Current)
Interview with Cornelius Castoriadis (English Subtitles)
Chris Marker
This interview with Castoriadis was conducted in 1989 by famed filmmaker Chris Marker for Marker's own television series L'héritage de la chouette ("The Owl's Legacy"). Eighty-one minutes long, the raw footage originally recorded in French has been translated into English (via easy-to-read subtitles) and edited anonymously as a public service. Here, Castoriadis lays out and examines the contributions of ancient Greece to questions of contemporary relevance relating to democracy, politics, philosophy, art, poetry, economic and social reorganization, and the creative chaos that underlies all existence.
"Resist: A Letter from Greece"
Natalie Bakopoulos
My great-uncle, the Greek poet Mihalis Katsaros, saw poetry as a means of resistance, and that first day I arrived in Athens, a friend sent me a photo of a banner that hung in the 'tent city' that had for two months been a fixture in Syntagma Square. Printed on the banner was one of Katsaros's poems that begins, simply enough: 'Resist."
"From the Diplomatic Pouch: Reports from British Envoys on the Greek National Character"
S. Victor Papacosma.
The archives of the Foreign Office reveal how the seemingly vexatious nature of the Greeks regularly challenged the analytical abilities of Britain's diplomats.
May '68 and the Greek Resistance against the Junta
A leaflet circulated in Thessaloniki by the underground group "Student Struggle" (in Greek)
Maps and National Sensitivities
Thomas W. Gallant
Imagine a people who are so thin-skinned and insecure about their nation's integrity that a simple map showing part of their country incorporated into the territory of a neighbor is provocative.
Mother Tongues and Other Traumas
Dr. George Syrimis
A personal testimony marking the anniversary of the disastrous events of July 1974 in Cyprus.
Greek Reason at Regensburg
Dimitri Krallis
Dimitri Krallis holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and is Assistant Professor of Byzantine History in the Department of History/Hellenic Studies of Simon Fraser University in Canada.
The Jews of Thessaloniki, 1912-1941
Dan Georgakas
The story of the Jews of Thessaloniki is one of the most complex in the history of Jews in Europe.
Andromahi's 1936 Poetry Journal
Transcribed and translated from Greek by her grandson, John Espinosa, U-M Law School graduate, 2009
2009 Platsis Student Award for the Greek LegacyDan Georgakas
