Becoming communist: Political prisoners as a subject during the greek civil war

Abstract

While the bulk of the historiography on the Greek Civil War has been concerned almost exclusively with the conflict's political and diplomatic dimensions, lately an increasing number of scholars have begun to study the experience and memory of specific groups and social subjects. This chapter discusses the case of the political prisoners. It addresses two interrelated points that stem from considerations concerning the historiography of the prison and assumptions regarding the identity of political prisoners: the emergence of political prisoners as a subject, and the formation of their identity during the civil war. The question of the identity of political prisoners is rather more complicated than is usually assumed. Te chapter argues that the formation of the subject and its identity is a process. Many political prisoners became communists while they were in prison, and this identity homogenized the subject but also generated new differences and conflicts. © 2004 Philip Carabott and Thanasis D. Sfikas.