The National Liberation Front ( Greek : Εθνικό Απελευθερωτικό Μέτωπο , Ethnikó Apeleftherotikó Métopo ( EAM ) was an alliance of various political parties and organizations which fought to liberate Greece from Axis Occupation . It was the main movement of the Greek Resistance during the occupation of Greece. Its main driving force was the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), but its membership throughout the occupation included several other leftist and republican groups. ΕΑΜ became the first true mass social movement in modern Greek history . Its military wing, the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS), quickly grew into the largest armed guerrilla force in the country, and the only one with nationwide presence. At the same time, from late 1943 onwards, the political enmity between ΕΑΜ and rival resistance groups from the centre and right evolved into a virtual civil war, while its relationship with the British and the British-backed Greek government in exile was characterized by mutual mistrust, leading EAM to establish its own government, the Political Committee of National Liberation , in the areas it had liberated in spring 1944. Tensions were resolved provisionally in the Lebanon Conference in May 1944, when EAM agreed to enter the Greek government in exile under Georgios Papandreou . The organization reached its peak after liberation in late 1944, when it controlled most of the country, before suffering a catastrophic military defeat against the British and the government forces in the Dekemvriana clashes. This marked the beginning of its gradual decline, the disarmament of ELAS, and the open persecution of its members during the " White Terror ", leading eventually to the outbreak of the Greek Civil War .
123-711: The National Republican Greek League ( Greek : Εθνικός Δημοκρατικός Ελληνικός Σύνδεσμος ( ΕΔΕΣ ) , Ethnikós Dimokratikós Ellinikós Sýndesmos ( EDES )) was a major anti-Nazi resistance group formed during the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II . The largest of the non-communist resistance groups, its military wing, the National Groups of Greek Guerrillas (Εθνικές Ομάδες Ελλήνων Ανταρτών, Ethnikés Omádes Ellínon Antartón (ΕΟΕΑ)) concentrated its military activities in Epirus . From 1943 onwards, EDES came into confrontation with
246-460: A "gentlemen's agreement". Under its terms the two sides were to enter a truce, exchange limited information on ELAS prior to each side's military operations against the communists and enter full on collaboration in case EDES found itself on the brink of collapse. According to 1st Mountain Division officer Karl Heinz Rotfuchs, the agreement remained a secret from the absolute majority of EDES members. It
369-645: A British airdrop of supplies in Achaea . The airdrop did not materialize and Sevastakis' group disbanded in late July, numbering some 70 men at the time. 1942 1943 1944 Following large scale clashes between ELAS and EDES in October 1943, Zervas entered into contact with the Germans and began discussing the possibility of collaboration against ELAS. In February 1944, Zervas and XXII Mountain Corps commander Hubert Lanz reached
492-570: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,
615-404: A better position, at a higher level than now...Our organization and our own government...gave so many rights to women that only much later, decades later we were given." Another woman EAM member recalled: "I couldn’t go anywhere without my parents knowing where I was going, with whom I was going with, when I would be back. I never went anywhere alone. That is, until the occupation came and I joined
738-673: A civil war that would last until February 1944. After that, a fragile truce was established, which lasted until December, two months after the Liberation. Then, while the ELAS of Athens attempted to overthrow the government, other units stormed the EDES positions in Epirus . The latter was defeated and the remaining forces were evacuated to Corfu. After the defeat of the ELAS in Athens (January 1945), EDES forces returned to Epirus, where part of them got involved to
861-414: A desire to uphold Greek national honor by continuing the fight. A notable aspect of EAM was the emphasis upon sexual equality, which attracted much support from Greek women. Before the war, Greek women were expected to be highly subservient to men, being treated as almost slaves by their fathers, and after their marriages, by their husbands. In rural areas, three quarters of Greek women were illiterate in
984-552: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in
1107-556: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on
1230-531: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near
1353-560: A letter, urging him to create a branch of EDES in Peloponnese , before ELAS establishes full control of the region. A branch of the National Groups of Greek Guerrillas (ΕΟΕΑ) was then founded in Patras and by the summer of 1943 a small armed guerilla group was formed by E. Sevastakis. The Peloponnesean branch of EDES struggled with finding weapons and ammunition, prompting Zervas to request for
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#17328477532181476-706: A member. As the organization grew, it succeeded in establishing links with the British Headquarters in Cairo , and receiving funds, weapons, and guidance. Under British pressure, in support of the Greek monarchy, Zervas sent a statement of loyalty to King George II in March 1942. This marked a silent breach with the anti-monarchist attacks of the past months, and marked EDES's turn towards a pro-monarchist stance. The organization supported irredentism , arguing that Greece should be allowed to annex parts of Albania and Bulgaria after
1599-698: A month after the official appearance of the military wing of EAM, the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS), Zervas, accompanied by Pyromaglou and a handful of companions, set out for the Valtos Mountains in Aetolia-Acarnania , an area with long traditions of guerrilla warfare stretching back to the Ottoman period . From then and until the end of the Occupation, Epirus would be the primary area of operations of
1722-515: A mounting series of strikes in Athens, culminating in an ΕΑΜ-organized demonstration on 5 March, which forced the collaborationist government to back down. In the event, only 16,000 Greeks went to Germany, representing 0.3% of the foreign labour force total. ELAS fought against German, Italian and Bulgarian occupation forces as well as, by late 1943, anticommunist rival organizations, the National Republican Greek League (EDES) and
1845-524: A party unique in Greek history in achieving mass support while its leaders remained obscure". On 10 October, ΕΑΜ published its manifesto and announced itself and its aims to the Greek people. During the autumn of 1941, its influence expanded throughout Greece, either through pre-existing Communist cells or through the spontaneous actions of local "people's committees". The Great Famine had radicalized Greek opinion. One woman from Athens who joined EAM later recalled in an interview:: "The first goal EAM had set
1968-557: A strict rule forbidding sexual relationships outside of marriage between male and female members. One female EAM member in a 1990 interview recalled: "We girls and boys weren't really allowed to have romances" Despite the emphasis upon the equality of sexes, in its propaganda recruiting for the andartes , EAM emphasized traditional masculine values such as leventia and pallikaria , untranslatable Greek words for which there are no precise English equivalents, but which roughly mean "bravery" and "courage". Women who joined EAM when captured by
2091-426: A territorial and occupational basis, starting from the local (village or neighbourhood) level and moving up, and subsidiary organizations were created: a youth movement, the " United Panhellenic Organisation of Youth " (EPON), a trade union, the " Workers' National Liberation Front " (ΕΕΑΜ), and a social welfare organization, " National Solidarity " (EA). ΕΑΜ's military wing, the " Greek People's Liberation Army " (ELAS)
2214-526: A threat to the clientelist system. Unlike the traditional Greek parties that were loose coalitions of various politicians, the Greek Communist Party was a well-organized party designed for an underground struggle, and was much better suited for resistance work. Starting under the 4th of August regime and even more so under the Triple occupation, the clientist system broke down as none of the politicians had
2337-766: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout
2460-474: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During
2583-462: Is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki ,
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#17328477532182706-510: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to
2829-795: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern National Liberation Front (Greece) During
2952-758: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,
3075-650: The Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from
3198-609: The Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are
3321-605: The Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute the objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of
3444-470: The Church of Greece and many ordinary priests. At any given time in 1943 and 1944, about 10% of German forces in Greece were engaged in anti- andarte operations while during the course of occupation ELAS killed about 19, 000 Germans. The elections organized by EAM in 1944 to its National Council undeniably included a far broader and representative sampling of Greek society than ever before with women sitting on
3567-486: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It
3690-510: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as
3813-492: The Lebanon conference , ΕΑΜ participated in the government of national unity under George Papandreou with 6 ministers. Disagreements regarding the disarmament of ELAS and the formation of a national army made their ministers, on 1 December, resign. ΕΑΜ organized a demonstration in Athens on 3 December 1944 against British interference. The exact details of what happened have been debated ever since, but Greek gendarmes opened fire on
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3936-591: The Metaxas Regime , the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) was outlawed and its members persecuted. Its hierarchy and organization suffered heavy blows from Metaxas' efficient security forces, and more than 2,000 Communists were imprisoned or sent to internal exile . The fact that a great many of the Communists in Greece had been tortured under the 4th of August Regime, and that the party had been heavily infiltrated by
4059-554: The National and Social Liberation (EKKA). It succeeded in destroying the latter entirely in April 1944. ΕΑΜ-ELAS activity resulted in the complete liberation of a large area of the mountainous Greek mainland from Axis control, where in March 1944, ΕΑΜ established a separate government, the " Political Committee of National Liberation " (PEEA). ΕΑΜ even carried out elections to the PEEA's parliament,
4182-641: The Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of
4305-633: The Security Battalions were always raped to punish them for having in the opinion of the Battalions betrayed their sex by abandoning the traditional subservient role expected of them. It was also common for the Security Battalions to rape women who merely had relatives serving as andartes . Another play by Kotzioulos, Ta Pathi to Evraion ( The Suffering of the Jews ) was one of the first to engage
4428-525: The communist -led National Liberation Front , beginning a series of civil conflicts that would lead to the Greek Civil War . The National Republican Greek League was founded on 9 September 1941 by a former army officer, Colonel Napoleon Zervas , a Venizelist who had been expelled from the army after the failed coup d'état of 1935 , and two companions, Leonidas Spais and Ilias Stamatopoulos. Like many other resistance movements founded during that time,
4551-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in
4674-422: The " National Council ", in April; for the first time in Greek electoral history, women were allowed to vote. In the elections, it is estimated that 1,000,000 people voted. In the territories that it controlled, ΕΑΜ implemented its own political concept, known as laokratia (λαοκρατία, "people's rule"), based upon "self-administration, involvement of new categories (mainly women and youths) and popular courts". At
4797-646: The " National Solidarity " (Εθνική Αλληλεγγύη, EA) welfare organization 28 May. After the German attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June and the break of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , the newly reconstituted Communist Party found itself firmly on the anti-Axis camp , a line confirmed by the Party's 6th Plenum during 1–3 July. The Communists were committed to a " Popular Front " tactic, and tried to engage other parties from
4920-433: The "New Greece" that EAM is creating that there will be no more ethnic, racial or religious bigotry. The play ends with Moses persuading Haim to give up his "prewar mentality" and both men become andartes . The play's message was that all Greeks, regardless of their religion will a place in the "New Greece", where Moses insists "Here everything is shared. We live like brothers". The position of EAM/ELAS in occupied Greece
5043-413: The "establishment in Greece of a Republican regime, of Socialist form", the "revelation [...] of the treason of former King George II and the gang of the so-called 4th of August Dictatorship", calling for a thorough cleansing of the state and Greek social and public life from anyone "who has not proven through actions [to be] a National Republican [and have a] socialist conscience". The charter acknowledged
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5166-424: The "people's courts" did not require lawyers and the rules of the "people's courts" were very easy to understand. The "people's courts" usually made their decisions quite quickly and tended to respect the informal rules of the village instead of being concerned with the legalities. The "people's courts" were very draconian in their punishments with people who stole or killed livestock being executed for instance, but
5289-509: The 1930s, and were generally not allowed to go outside alone. One agent from the American Office of Strategic Services serving in rural Greece during the war reported that women were "regarded as little better than animals and treated about the same". Since women did not have the right to vote or hold office in Greece, the clientist system had led Greek politicians to almost totally ignore the concerns and interests of Greek women, and EAM as
5412-621: The Cham minority remains open from the Albanian side, after the communist regime fell. Like most similar groups, EDES was initially limited to Athens. Having the support of many prominent Venizelist and Republican military figures, EDES came into contact with EAM and tried to establish some form of cooperation. The negotiations failed over the demands of the Communists for a merger of EDES with EAM and their distrust of Zervas' pro-British attitudes. On 23 July 1942, after intense British pressure and more than
5535-544: The EAM groups towards him. The 12th Army of Nazi Germany attempted for a short time to coopt the EDES forces, and to use them against the ELAS , but this attempt failed and in July 1944 the EDES launched new attacks. These internal conflicts caused rivalry between resistance groups and eventually escalated into civil war. In October 1943, ELAS launched an attack on EDES. These attacks triggered
5658-453: The EDES andartes . Supported by British parachute drops, EDES quickly gathered some 100 fighters. The first major operation of EDES was " Operation Harling ", the destruction of the Gorgopotamos viaduct by a joint force of British SOE commandos, and EDES and ELAS forces. While the successful operation, one of the greatest sabotage acts in occupied Europe, greatly boosted the prestige of
5781-518: The Germans" but, by ourselves, as soon as we saw the Germans were coming down, we experienced a "shock" because, we were the winners, and that played a large role; that is, if the Greeks in Albania hadn't won against the Italians, we might have been otherwise. But, since we felt so proud of winning, so...the feeling in the souls of the young people in Greece and of others, of everyone, was so enormous because of
5904-476: The Greece of the 4th of August Regime was not that future. The 1930s were remembered as the time of the Great Depression and the oppressive 4 August Regime, and many Greeks, especially younger Greeks, did not have fond memories of that decade. Following Communist practice, ΕΑΜ took care to set up a refined system with which to engage and mobilize the mass of the people. ΕΑΜ committees were thus established on
6027-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit
6150-491: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in
6273-445: The Greek people's sovereign right to determine its form of government". At the same time, while the door was left open to cooperation with other parties, the ΚΚΕ, with its large size concerning its partners, assumed a clearly-dominant position within the new movement. Furthermore, the ΚΚΕ's well-organized structure and its experience with the conditions and necessities of underground struggle were crucial to ΕΑΜ's success. Georgios Siantos
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#17328477532186396-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow
6519-610: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community
6642-495: The National Council and in addition on the National Council there were farmers, journalists, workmen, village priests, and journalists; in contrast before the war, almost the only men elected to represent rural areas were doctors and lawyers. Electoral fraud had been common in rural Greece even before the 4th of August regime was imposed in 1936, and Mazower wrote "...in this respect at least, things were not much different during
6765-509: The Party line. The EAM established "People's Committees" to govern villages in "Free Greece" who were supposed to be elected by all people over the age of 17, through in practice EAM sometimes set up "People's Committees" without elections. Much of the work of the "People's Committees" was to mitigate the devastating effects of the Great Famine of 1941-42 and to carry out social reforms intended to ensure that everyone would receive food. There
6888-427: The Party's theories were not relevant in the predominately rural "Free Greece". Several of the ELAS kapetans such as Aris Velouchiotis and Markos Vafeiadis were frustrated during with the way that the Party's leadership remained focused on the urban working class as the "vanguard of the revolution", charging that Party needed to broaden its appeal in rural areas. It was pressure from Velouchiotis who has emerged as
7011-404: The Soviet Union, and that therefore EAM membership was incompatible with being Greek. Former members of EAM were considered by the police to be "dangerous to public welfare", and a great many of the women who served in EAM were raped while a smaller number were executed as "enemies of the Greek family and state". With the coming of the socialist Andreas Papandreou to power in 1981, however, ΕΑΜ
7134-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),
7257-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of
7380-552: The armed conflicts between ELAS and EDES in Athens , a propaganda war was launched with ELAS accusing EDES of collaboration, mainly due to gaining plausibility from the explicit exemption of EDES from German propaganda attacks. On the other hand, Stylianos Gonatas , initially a political leader of EDES in Athens, won the peculiar enmity of the organization because he supported the collaborationist Security Battalions and encouraged young officers to join their ranks, which led to hostility of
7503-428: The border. And in Athens, every Greek victory was something...very triumphant. And suddenly, we the victors, had become slaves to a much greater power, the Germans...Suddenly, we found ourselves faced with a conqueror that we had already won against, because the Germans had brought in the Italians...that is, Italian orders on the walls, kommandatoura, blockades...for instance, to go from Filothei where we lived by bus (with
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#17328477532187626-412: The boys and some of you were also killed by the tanks, they could no longer say to you, ‘You, you’re a woman, so sit inside while I go to the cinema.’ You gained your equality when you showed what you could endure in terms of the difficulties, the dangers, the sacrifices, and all as bravely and with the same degree of cunning as a man. Those old ideas fell aside. That is, the resistance always tried to put
7749-479: The concept of patriotism is closely linked to the more individualistic concept of timi (self-worth and honor). In terms of gender relations, EAM effected a revolution in the areas under its control, and many Greek women recalled serving in EAM as an empowering experience. EAM differed from the other resistance groups by involving women in its activities and sometimes granting them positions of authority such as appointing women as judges and deputies. A popular story
7872-567: The crowd, resulting in 25 dead protesters (including a six-year-old boy) and 148 wounded. The clash escalated into a month-long conflict between ELAS and the British and Greek governmental forces, known as the "December events" ( Dekemvrianá ), which resulted in a government victory. In February, the Varkiza agreement was signed, leading to the disbandment of ELAS. In April, the SKE and ELD parties left ΕΑΜ. ΕΑΜ
7995-520: The economic exploitation by the Axis occupation, most notably the Great Famine of 1941-42 together with the experience of defeat in April 1941 made many Greeks receptive to EAM's message. Before the 4th of August Regime was established in 1936, Greek politics were characterized by a "clientelist" system under which a politician, who was usually from a well-off family, would set up a patronage machine that would deliver goods and services in his riding in exchange for
8118-466: The expulsion of the Cham Albanians . Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ ) is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of
8241-443: The first organization that took female concerns seriously won significant female support. To justify involving women in public life, EAM argued that in a time of national emergency it was necessary for all Greeks to serve in the resistance. American historian Janet Hart noted that nearly all of the female EAM veterans whom she interviewed in 1990 said their main reason for joining EAM was "intense love of country", noting that in Greece
8364-511: The food kitchens in towns and villages in "Free Greece" while also working as nurses and washerwomen. At least a quarter of the andartes (guerrillas) serving in the ELAS were women. The Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent C.M Woodhouse complained in a radio message to SOE headquarters in Cairo that "many weapons are wasted in the hands of women", charging that it was absurd on the part of ELAS to have women fighting as andartes . To address traditional concerns about "family honor", EAM had
8487-414: The government in Athens ruling the villages and decisions about even matters of purely local concern being made in Athens. A recurring complaint before the war was the decision-making process in Athens was slow and indifferent to local opinion while EAM's system of "people's councils" was considered an improvement. Likewise, the legal system before the war was widely considered to be cumbersome and unfair in
8610-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn
8733-414: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write
8856-430: The left and the centre, including established pre-war politicians. However, the efforts proved largely fruitless. On 16 July, however, the "National Workers' Liberation Front" (Εθνικό Εργατικό Απελευθερωτικό Μέτωπο, ΕΕΑΜ) was established, bringing the country's labour union organizations together. At the ΚΚΕ's 7th Plenum, the establishment of ΕΑΜ was decided despite the refusal of mainstream politicians to participate. ΕΑΜ
8979-463: The man best perceived to be able to reward his voters rather than a party. Greek politicians jealously guarded control of their patronage machines, and vigorously resisted efforts to create better organized political parties as a threat to their own power. Most notably the attempt by Eleftherios Venizelos in the 1920s to give the Liberal Party more structure was defeated by various Liberal grandees as
9102-564: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek
9225-399: The modern girl is especially impressive. In city demonstrations, we see her as a pioneer, a fighter, courageous and defying death: first in the line of battle the country girl defends her bread, her crops; but we see her even as an andartissa , wearing the crossed belt of the andartes , and fighting like a tigress". In the EAM propaganda play O Prodotis ( The Traitor ) by Yorgos Kotzioulos,
9348-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and
9471-418: The most successful of the andarte leaders which forced the Party to start making an appeal to rural people in 1942. The British historian Mark Mazower wrote that EAM "was far from being a Communist monolith", and there was much lively debate within EAM about how a "People's Democracy" was to function. The kapetans who commanded the andarte bands were often independent-minded men who did not always follow
9594-417: The nascent Resistance, it also caused a significant rift between EDES and ELAS: the British loudly proclaimed and lauded Zervas' role in the operation, while ignoring the contribution – numerically far greater – of the leftist ELAS forces. While the rift was healed by British mediation, it presaged the problems that would appear in the future. On 24 February 1943, Zervas addressed his friend Antonis Petsakis in
9717-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks
9840-420: The occupation, many Greek Army officers joined EAM. By 1944, about 800 Army officers together with about 1, 000 officers from the prewar reserves were commanding ELAS andarte bands. About 50% of the men who served as ELAS andartes were veterans of the Albanian campaign of 1940–41, the "epic of 1940" when Greece defied the world's expectations by defeating Italy, and gave as one of their reasons for joining EAM
9963-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
10086-497: The political orientation of the National Republican Greek League was Republican, with a strongly stated opposition towards the exiled king, George II , and general leftist-socialist proclamations. In the aftermath of the four-year right-wing widely rejected in the country, while social ideals for "social fairness" became the vogue among the various resistance groups. The founding charter of EDES explicitly demanded
10209-442: The population". Although precise numbers do not exist, out of a total Greek population of 7.5 million, at its height in late 1944 EAM numbered, from a low estimate of 500,000–750,000 (according to Anthony Eden ) up to some 2,000,000 (according to EAM itself) members in its various affiliated organizations, including 50,000–85,000 men in ELAS. The American political scientist Michael Shafer in his 1988 book Deadly Paradigms estimated
10332-493: The power to alter the policies carried out by the Bulgarians, Italians and Germans. Much of EAM's appeal centered around the fact that it argued the people should mobilize and organize themselves to cope with the disastrous occupation, instead of passively hoping that one of the traditional politicians might be able to arrange some deal with the Germans to improve living conditions. The British historian David Close wrote: "EAM became
10455-588: The predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation
10578-472: The prominent exiled Venizelist general Nikolaos Plastiras as its nominal political head, although, due to his exile in France, they'd failed to obtain his consent beforehand. At that time, yet, no explicit reference to armed opposition against the occupying forces was made in the text. On the same day, Komninos Pyromaglou , a friend and assistant of Plastiras, left Nice , where Plastiras resided, for Greece. He
10701-399: The resistance. In the meantime, because we were right in the midst of the enemy, we had an underground press, there at the house...It was very dangerous [but my parents] had to support us...The minute you confront the same danger as a boy, the minute you also wrote slogans on the walls, the moment you also distributed leaflets, the moment you also attended protest demonstrations along with
10824-443: The same time, the mechanisms of the "revolutionary order" created by ΕΑΜ were often employed to eliminate political opponents. Within "Free Greece" as the area under EAM control was known, EAM's rule was broadly popular as the elected councils that EAM set up to rule the villages were made up of local people and were responsible to local people. Before the occupation, Greece was ruled in a very centralised way with prefects appointed by
10947-486: The secret police had contributed much to an embittered, paranoid view of the world. The majority of the Communists had acquired a mentality that saw power as something to be gained and not to be shared. With the German invasion and occupation of the country in April–May 1941, several hundred members were able to escape and flee to the underground. Their first task was to reform the party, along with subsidiary groups like
11070-405: The sense that poor and illiterate farmers could not afford a lawyer nor understand the law, causing them to be victimized by those who did. Even for those who could afford lawyers, trials were held only in the district capitals, requiring those concerned to make time-consuming trips to testify. EAM's system of "people's courts" which met in the villages every weekend to hear cases was very popular as
11193-405: The simplicity and speed of the "people's courts" together with the convenience of trials being held locally were all felt to compensate. In both the "people's courts" and "people's councils", EAM did not use Katharevousa , the formal Greek that was the language of the elites, instead using demotic , the informal Greek of the masses. In Free Greece, there was much differences of opinion about
11316-507: The sort of society that EAM should establish. The Greek Communist Party following Moscow's orders to establish a "Popular Front" against fascism allowed other parties a say in ruling "Free Greece", which considerably diluted its Marxist programme. Furthermore, the majority of the Greek Communists were intellectuals from urban areas who before the war had paid little thought to the problems of rural Greece, and thus most Communists found that
11439-413: The story line concerns an old man living in a village named Barba Zikos who argues with his son Stavos about EAM's reforms; the elder Zikos contends that equality for women will destroy the traditional Greek family while his son maintains that sexual equality will make the Greek family stronger. One female EAM member later recalled in an interview as an old women in the 1990s: "we women were, socially, in
11562-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of
11685-484: The subject of the Holocaust. The plot concerned two Greek Jews who have both fled to "Free Greece" to escape being deported to the death camps named Haim, the son of a wealthy businessman and Moses, a former employee of Haim's father who has joined EAM. Haim who has become a Zionist plans to move to Palestine after the war and is uncomfortable with living with Christians, but Moses urges him to stay in Greece, arguing that in
11808-544: The total EAM membership in 1944 as about 1.5 million while ELAS fielded about 50, 000 andartes ; by the contrast EDES, EAM's main rival, fielded about 5, 000 andartes in 1944. Although the poorer sections of society were naturally well represented, the movement included many of the pre-war elites as well: no fewer than 16 generals and over 1,500 officers of the army, thirty professors of the University of Athens and other institutions of higher education, as well as six bishops of
11931-447: The various stages of the Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than
12054-529: The vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in the early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between
12177-404: The very rare buses then) the Italians would make checks. At a stop, they would board the bus, searching around, yelling "Madonna"...and we despised them. The Germans we hated, but we just couldn't believe that now we were faced with the Italians in this way". Another reason for EAM's appeal was a desire for a better future after all the wartime sufferings and humiliations, and the feeling that
12300-416: The victory of the Greeks up in the mountains of Epirus and in Albania, where they pushed the Italians out, abruptly, and without any declaration of war, that came later when they had crossed our border; the enthusiasm of the Greeks at that time was such that, and so great the heroism of the boys that were constantly leaving for the Albanian mountains to confront the enemy that had so underhandedly tried to cross
12423-427: The votes of the local people. Under the clientelist system in Greece, issues of ideology or even popularity were often irrelevant as all that mattered was the ability of a politician to reward the men who had voted for him. The clientelist system made politics in Greece very much a transactional and personalized affair, and as a result, most Greek political parties were weakly organized. Greek men usually voted more for
12546-559: The war in "Free Greece", and we should avoid idealising the National Council as an expression of free will". Mazower cautioned that these elections organized by EAM bore a close similarity to the elections organized in wartime Yugoslavia by the Partisans, and that in the same way that the wartime "People's Democracy" in Yugoslavia became a Communist dictatorship after the war, the same thing might have happened in Greece had EAM came to power after
12669-498: The war. Through very sympathetic towards EAM, Mazower wrote that historians should avoid "excessive naivety" about what EAM meant by "revolutionary elections". However, Mazower also wrote that EAM was generally "not regarded as an instrument of Soviet oppression, but on the contrary, as an organisation fighting for national liberation". After Liberation in October 1944, the tensions between ΕΑΜ and anticommunist forces, which were supported by Britain, escalated. Originally, as agreed at
12792-791: The war. In 1944 and 1945, following the retreat of Axis forces and their evacuation of Greece, EDES participated in the expulsion of the Cham Albanians community , on account of their collaborationist actions during the Occupation , which included atrocities and acts of ethnic cleansing against the local population. The expulsion was approved by the Middle East Allied Command, in a directive to "push [the Chams] out of Greece and into Albania." The state of Albania subsequently accused Greece of having perpetrated, through EDES, war crimes by attacking Cham villages and murdering civilians. The issue of
12915-470: The woman next to the man, instead of behind him. She fought a double liberation struggle." EAM allowed women to vote in the elections it organized and for the first time in Greek history declared that men and women would receive equal pay. EAM tried to establish a universal education system in rural areas, using the slogan "A school in every village", and made education for girls compulsory. Women were enlisted in EAM were engaged in social work such as running
13038-421: The word is applied to the most disreputable criminals such as serial rapists. By applying the term symmorite to EAM members, the government was suggesting that EAM was a criminal organization of the most unsavory type, which reflected a broader campaign to present resistance by EAM to the Axis occupation as illegitimate and wrong. The government's line was always that EAM was an "anti-national" movement loyal to
13161-568: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or
13284-418: Was also kept secret from the British, so that EDES would continue to receive material support from the former. Upon their departure from Epirus, the Germans ensured that leftover materiel would reach the hands of EDES rather than ELAS. The left wing Greek People's Liberation Army on various occasions accused its rival organizations, and particularly EDES, of collaboration with the occupying Nazi forces. During
13407-549: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of
13530-546: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe
13653-575: Was appointed as the acting leader, since Nikolaos Zachariadis , the ΚΚΕ's proper leader, was interned in Dachau concentration camp . Siantos with his affable manner and modest ways was much more popular in the party than Zachariadis. In many ways, EAM was a continuation of the Popular Front that the KKE had attempted to create in 1936, but was far more successful. In 1941, the conditions of extreme poverty owing to
13776-522: Was authorize by the general to form, on his behalf, a republican organization with socialist content", and prepare to turn both "against the Occupier" and against a return of the monarchy. After his arrival in Athens on 23 September, Pyromaglou came into contact with Republican circles, and after contacting Zervas took EDES' command. In October, a five-member Executive Committee was founded, with Pyromaglou as General Secretary, representing Plastiras, and Zervas as
13899-400: Was constant tension between the demands of the national EAM leadership vs. the local "People's Committees" who often resisted orders to supply food to other villages in "Free Greece". As part of its "Popular Front" message, EAM appealed to Greek nationalism, saying all Greeks should unite under its banner to fight against the occupation. As EAM was the resistance group most committed to fighting
14022-602: Was formed in December 1942, and a crude navy, the " Greek People's Liberation Navy " (ELAN), was established later, but its strength and role were severely limited. One of the great successes of ΕΑΜ was the mobilization against the plans of the Germans and the collaborationist government to send Greeks into forced labour in Germany . Public knowledge of the plans created "a kind of pre-insurrectional atmosphere", which in February 1943 led to
14145-624: Was founded on 27 September 1941 by representatives of four left-wing parties: Lefteris Apostolou for the ΚΚΕ, Christos Chomenidis for the Socialist Party of Greece (SKE), Ilias Tsirimokos for the Union of People's Democracy (ELD) and Apostolos Vogiatzis for the Agricultural Party of Greece (ΑΚΕ). ΕΑΜ's charter called for the "liberation of the Nation from foreign yoke" and the "guaranteeing of
14268-457: Was not dissolved but was now for all intents and purposes merely an expression of the ΚΚΕ. During the 1945–1946 period, a conservative terror campaign (the " White Terror ") was launched against ΕΑΜ-ΚΚΕ supporters. The country became polarized, eventually leading to the outbreak of the Greek Civil War in March 1946, which lasted until 1949. In its aftermath, and in the context of the Cold War , ΚΚΕ
14391-484: Was our first song." About 300,000 Greeks starved to death during the Great Famine, and as the best organized resistance group, EAM attracted much support. Additionally, the experience of being occupied by Fascist Italy, a nation that Greece had defeated in 1940-41 caused many to join EAM. Another EAM veteran recalled in interview: "The Greek Resistance was one of the most spontaneous, that is, it wasn't necessary for someone to tell us, "come join this organization to fight
14514-421: Was outlawed, and ΕΑΜ/ELAS vilified as an attempt at "communist takeover" and accused of various crimes against political rivals. The issue remains a highly controversial subject. During the civil war and afterwards, those who joined EAM were vilified by the government as symmorites -an untranslatable Greek word meaning roughly hoodlums. In Greece, the term symmorite evokes a lifestyle of extreme criminality, as
14637-413: Was that Velouchiotis had an andarte who was against women serving in EAM taken out and shot; regardless if this story was true or not, it was widely believed, and the slogan for EAM members was "respect women or die!" A typical EAM pamphlet "The Modern Girl and Her Demands" criticized the traditional patriarchal nature of Greek society and stated: "In today's struggle for liberty, the mass participation of
14760-499: Was the fight for life. Against hunger. The first song that was heard was (starts to sing) 'For life and for freedom, bread for our people! The old, women, men and children, for our beloved country.' That was the first hymn of EAM that was heard around the city. It was sung to an old island tune and it went, 'Brothers and sisters, we who are faced with starvation and slavery; we will fight with all our hearts and our strength; for life and for freedom, so that our people might have bread.' That
14883-566: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect
15006-409: Was unique in several aspects: whereas the other two main resistance groups, the National Republican Greek League (EDES) and National and Social Liberation (EKKA), as well as the various minor groupings, were regionally active and mostly military organizations centred on the persons of their leaders, EAM was a true nation-wide mass political movement that tried to "enlist the support of all sections of
15129-653: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage
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