Many people tend to think that the 4th of August regime ended with Ioannis Metaxas’ death in late January 1941. It can be understood, since Metaxas was the obvious strongman in the dictatorship, but it’s not historically true. The regime […]
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In this paper, Philip Carabott examines dominant visions of the past during the Metaxas regime of 1936-1940, drawing primarily on a range of sources including the writings of the dictator. Besides representing the Greek experience of the “age of dictatorships” […]
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One usual debate about the Fourth of August regime is whether it was a fascist regime. In rough numbers, about one third of historians consider it ‘fascist’, while the other two thirds consider it ‘authoritarian’, ‘quasi-fascist’, ‘radical conservative’ and so […]
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The Labour Battalions (Greek: Τάγματα Εργασίας, Tagmata Ergasias) was a short-lived paramilitary organization manned by unemployed Greeks during the quasi-fascist 4th of August regime in Greece (1936-1941). It was created as the initiative of Kostas Kotzias, the deputy minister of […]
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The perceived militarism of ancient Spartan society had an obvious appeal for all fascist regimes including the Third Reich, but for Ioannis Metaxas and the Greek fascist regime it had a more intimate and deeper connection entrenched in blood and sentiment. In […]
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These are some scans from the ‘Junges Griechenland’ book (‘Young Greece’), published by Alfred Widenmann in Berlin in 1940.
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A day just like today, 84 years ago, a 4th of August, Ioannis Metaxas established his regime. As a commemoration, August 4 became a day of national holiday and throughout the dictatorship it was celebrated with massive rallies and festivities all across […]
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One of the first actions of the Metaxas dictatorship, only twelve days after the abolition of democracy on August 4th, 1936, was to perform massive book burnings in several Greek cities. As an imitation of similar actions in Nazi Germany, […]
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These are a number of scanned pages from the book “Enas Xronos Dimiourgikon Mochthon” (Ενας Χρονος Δημιουργικον Μοχθον), “One Year of Creative Hard Work”, published in Athens in 1937 by the usual Ekdoseis Ethnikis Etairias. It celebrated the Metaxas’ regime first […]
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Like other European countries, Greece was swept up in the 1930s by a strongly nationalist sentiment, and a fascist regime was established in 1936 by General Metaxas. As in Germany and Italy, the Metaxas dictatorship established a youth organization, the Ethniki Organosi Neolaias (EON, […]
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