Cyprus in the 1930s British Colonial Rule and the Roots of the Cyprus Conflict

by Rappas, Alexis

• ISBN13: 9781780764382
• ISBN10: 1780764383
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-04-24
• Publisher: INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP

Summary

Why has the unification of Cyprus proved impossible? The existing literature looks to the 1950s, and the formation of EOKA under George Grivas. Here, Alexis Rappas challenges that view, showing that the key to the conflict between the British Empire and Greek Cypriots lies in the history of the 1930s. Cyprus in the 1930s charts the history of the island in this period, and details British attempts to impose a homogeneous 'Cypriot' culture onto a diverse and divided population. Community leaders and the hierarchy of the Church, who had functioned as bridges between local interests, were marginalized as Britain attempted to engineer unification through education and social policy. The result was a radicalization of both Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot identity. Based on primary source material from Britain, Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, Rappas analyses British state-building and the role of Cypriot ethnicities in the formation of modern Cyprus.

Author Biography

Alexis Rappas is Lecturer in Modern History at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris, France. He has been a visiting scholar at Brown, Princeton and Northeastern Universities and gained his PhD in History at the University of Florence, Italy.

Table of Contents

List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Foreword
1. Introduction: A Revolt and the Consolidation of Authoritarian Rule
2. The Three Pillars of Arcadian Cyprus: Experiments in Social Engineering
3. Rituals of Bureaucratic Governance
4. The Constitutionalist Movement and the Avenues of Mass Politicization
5. The Orthodox Church and the Displacement of the Public Sphere
6. The Labour Question: Political Stakes in a Battle of Denominations
Conclusion: The Expanding Boundaries of a Faceless State
Sources and Bibliography
Index