Venizelist

Traditionally regarded as apathetic and increasingly conservative in this period, the Greek peasantry lost faith in the Venizelist liberals, in the royalist conservatives, and in Metaxas.

Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity 2008

Meletimata gyro apo ton Venizelo kai tin Epochi tou (Studies in Venizelist Greece).

Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity 2008

This schism was irreversibly compounded by the Venizelist government's execution of six anti-Venizelist leaders held responsible for the Asia Minor disaster of 1922. back

Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity 2008

The protracted and bitter Venizelist-Royalist conflict made the 1930s, especially the period between 1932 and 1936, one of extreme political instability marked by several regime shifts, unsuccessful broad coalition governments, and three different coups, each one launched from a different point on the political spectrum.

Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity 2008

Interwar feminism was located within the liberal Venizelist tradition, which focused on legal reforms but was also influenced by the substantive formulations of liberty and democracy promoted by the increasingly powerful socialist and communist movements.

Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity 2008

Note 29: See Hondros in Close (1993) for an evaluation of the Metaxas ascendancy as a ploy by the king to sustain his anti-Venizelist support base. back

Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity 2008

The 'National Schism' between the two dominant power blocs in Greece, the monarchy and the liberal Venizelist camp, led by the republican prime minister Venizelos, found expression during this period, in the king's new-found pacifism and objection to Greek participation in the wars orchestrated by Venizelos.

Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity 2008

Venizelist modernisation went hand in hand with his irredentist project of enlarging Greece through both war and diplomacy.

Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity 2008

The post – Civil War institutions that constituted the real vestiges of power and authority, were the monarchy,1 the military, paramilitary organisations, and the United States Embassy, which was central to the cohesion of the post – Civil War regime. 2 In such an environment of nominal democracy, the bourgeois-liberal establishment of Venizelist Greece failed to unite and present a viable alternative to the conservative right.

Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity 2008

Note 22: As mentioned earlier, feminism's supporters were not necessarily located within the republican, predominantly Venizelist, currents.

Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity 2008