YDIA Publications
The Publications Department is responsible for publishing collections of documents, archive unit catalogues, conference proceedings, various books and studies, which delineate aspects and facets of contemporary history. To date, the publication series consists of the following thematic groups:
1. 'Collections of Documents' Series
This particular series of publications forms part of the general project of systematically publishing the archival material of the MFA relating to important issues of national foreign policy. The following volumes have appeared to date:
a. The Dodecanese . The Long Road to Union With Greece (Kastaniotis Editions, Athens, 1997), in both Greek and English. This book was published to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the unification of the Dodecanese with Greece . The volume contains 133 diplomatic documents concerning the Greek, Italian and Turkish foreign policy with regards to the Union of the Dodecanese with the nation state, while it also depicts the social, economic and cultural life of the Dodecanesian people and their participation in the struggle against occupation. The goal of this publication is to present the broad and multi-faceted image of the island's history during 1943-1951.
b. Documents on the History of Greek Jews (Kastaniotis Editions, Athens, 1998), was published initially in English, and was followed soon thereafter by a Greek version in December 2000. This volume appeared first in English because its preparation coincided with the organisation of International Conferences on the search for Nazi gold and compensation for the victims of the Holocaust. It was on the occasion of this publication that Greece was singled out from the forty-seven countries at the Washington Conference for the stance it adopted towards Jews both during and after the Second World War, and also for its efforts and its active role in international meetings and committees dedicated to securing justice for the victims of that dark period of the history of mankind. The Greek edition, comprising 263 documents, shed light to some hitherto unknown aspects of the history of Greek citizens of Jewish faith who took root in our country at the time of Alexander the Great, became acquainted with the Greek civilization through their everyday life, acquired a special bond and a patriotic Greek conscience and participated in the social and military struggles of the country as citizens equal to the rest of the Christian population. These people sought a better tomorrow and, consequently, suffered relentless persecutions during the German occupation despite the significant efforts made by the people, the Church and all the Greek governments to protect Greeks of Jewish faith.
c. Greece on the Verge of a New World . Cold War-Truman Doctrine-Marshall Plan (Kastaniotis Editions, Athens , 2002, in Greek). This is a three-volume collection of 188 documents relating to the American aid made available to Greece , amongst other European countries, after the Second World War. Along with the economic reconstruction of the country, which was given primacy in the prologue to the decision taken by the American Congress, it traces the political, social and military implications of the implementation of the economic recovery program extended throughout Greece especially after the Civil War. Included in the publication is a timetable, biographical information, rare photographic material and the testimony of a former Greek employee at the Embassy of the United States in Athens responsible for the implementation of certain aspects of the Marshall Plan in Greece .
d. The Participation of Greece in the Process Towards European Integration. The Crucial Twenty Years 1948-1968 (Volume One, Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs-Service of Diplomatic & Historical Archives, Athens, 2003). This first volume of a three-volume series, published simultaneously in Greek and English within the framework of the Greek Presidency of the Council of the E.U., covers the years from 1948 until 1968 and includes 120 documents from the archives of the MFA. It also includes a preface by the Minister of Foreign Affairs George A. Papandreou, an introductory historical note by the Director of YDIA Photini Tomai-Constantopoulou, while valuable testimonies were provided by the Ambassador at large Vyron Theodoropoulos, the former Minister and Commissioner of the EU Georgios Contogeorgis, the former Minister and Vice-Governor of the Bank of Greece Ioannis Pesmazoglou and Professor P. C. Ioakimidis.
This publication aims at presenting, through unpublished archival material, the attitude and position of Greece towards the first efforts for European integration: from its stance towards the creation of the Organisation of the Treaty of Brussels (later the Western European Union) in 1948, until the creation of the European Communities and from its participation in the Council of Europe in 1949, until the Association Agreement with the EEC in 1961. By studying this material, the interested reader will quickly discover the explicit European orientation of Greece , evident as early as the first post-war years. It is noteworthy that this European orientation was supported by the majority of the political forces of that time.
e. The Participation of Greece in the Process Towards European Integration, vol. 2, From the Freeze of the Association Agreement to the Accession to the European Communities 1968 - 1981 (Papazisis, Athens 2006 in Greek). This volume refers to the exceptionally difficult period for the country that started in the first year after the imposition of the military dictatorship and lasted until the accession of Greece to the European Communities (1968 -1981), as the subtitle of the volume indicates. The publication of the volume also coincides with the completion of 25 years since the country became the tenth member of the European family. 83 diplomatic documents are published. They were selected after laborious research as the most representative ones among a big amount of archival resources of the period. They refer to the diplomatic efforts of the government of Konstantinos Karamanlis, to whose determination and political prestige the positive result of the Greek application for immediate accession is owed. The volume, besides the diplomatic documents, the bibliography, the chronological table and the biographical notes of Greek and European personalities, also contains introductory notes written by some of the main political actors of the period: the ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister Georgios Rallis, who is no longer among us, the former Minister and first Greek EEC Commissioner Mr Georgios Contogeorgis, and Ambassadors at large Vyron Theodoropoulos and Stefanos Stathatos. The volume was to be released in English by the end of 2007.
f. The participation of Greece in the San Francisco Conference for the creation of the United Nations (1945) and its first participation in the UN Security Council (1952-1953) (DVD, Service of Diplomatic and Historical Archives, Athens 2006). This electronic publication includes the digital depiction of 384 documents (in pdf format ), from which the 256 emanate from the period of the San Francisco Conference and the rest 128 from the period 1950-1953. The documents from the San Francisco Conference are presented through two different catalogues. The first one is chronological and it includes all 256 documents that were selected, in absolute chronological order. The second one constitutes an attempt of reconstitution into a special archival unit of the outgoing documents of the Delegation, organised by Protocol Number, and it includes the 144 documents that were located (they are included in the 256 documents of the first catalogue) from a total of roughly 300 that the Greek Delegation dispatched. The documents of the period 1952-1953 have been placed in the corresponding list in absolute chronological order and they have been selected in order to present the main questions that concerned the Greek Delegation in the Security Council during its participation in this body as a non-permanent member.
g. «Documentary History of Greece: 1943-1951, Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan» (Papazisis Publishers, Athens 2011). In July 2011 a new book with diplomatic documents was released by the Service of Diplomatic and Historical Archives edited by the Director of the Service Photini Tomai. It is entitled “Documentary History of Greece: 1943-1951, Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan” (Papazisis Publishers, Athens 2011) and it is a translated and thoroughly revised and completed version in English of an older publication of the Service in Greek. The volume is comprised of 181 documents relating to the American aid available to Greece, amongst other European countries, after the Second World War.
h. “Grazzi writes about the Italian attack against Greece” (Papazisis, Athens, 2008). In Greek. The book includes 21 letters-articles of the Italian Ambassador in Athens during the outbreak of the Greek-Italian War that were published by the Rome newspaper Giornale del Matino between July and August 1945 and which were translated and dispatched to Athens by the Greek diplomatic mission in Italy at the time.
2. 'Archive Unit Catalogues' Series
a. Cinematographic Archive (Kastaniotis Editions, Athens , 2000), in both Greek and English editions. This publication is devoted to the operation of a new YDIA department, that of the Film Archive. The descriptions and catalogues of this archive, the first such archive within a Foreign Ministry in the EU, is prefaced by an extensive historical introduction tracing events from the time of the Macedonian Struggle to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus . The presentation of the historical events is accompanied by an account of the early steps and subsequent growth of the Greek and Balkan cinema.
b. Catalogue of the Archive of the Italian Administration of the Dodecanese, 1912-1945 (Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Service of Diplomatic & Historical Archives - Ministry of National Education and Religion - General State Archives of the Prefecture of the Dodecanese, Athens, 2002, in Greek). As its title clearly reveals, this volume contains a catalogue of the files of the Administration of the Italian Islands of the Aegean during the period from 1912 to 1945. These record groups derive from the time the Italian Authorities played an active role in the Dodecanese , when this group of islands belonged to Italy . The archive located in the building of the Castellanian Library, at Aristotelous Square in the Old Town of Rhodes, contains extensive information about the activities of a significant part of the Greek population that played a formative role and prospered in the Dodecanese.
3. 'Conference Proceedings' Series
a. This particular series of publications was launched in December 2001 with the presentation of the Proceedings of a Conference organized in April of the same year on The Film as Testimony: Historical Sources and Commentary from the film work of Lakis Papastathis (Aigokeros Editions, Athens , 2001, in Greek). This collective volume contains the presentations made during the inaugural academic symposium of the MFA Film Archive, while it also includes other texts, specially written for this volume. The authors of this publication (academics, cinema and art historians) comment on two units that are directly related to the film production of Lakis Papastathis, i.e. the ways in which History is presented in Greek film-making, and documentaries that date from the 1960s up to the present. It also includes detailed analyses of three of the director's feature films, namely 'Ton Kero ton Ellinon' ('When the Greeks'), 'Theofilos' and 'To Monon tis Zois tu Taksidion' ('The Only Journey of His Life').
b. Reality and myth in the artistic work of Lefteris Xanthopoulos (Papazisis Editions, Athens , 2003, in Greek). This is a collection of texts that includes the presentations made during the second academic symposium of the MFA Film Archive in 2002. The authors of this volume (academics, historians, literary critics, cinema theorists) analyse the director's documentaries and his two feature films, namely 'Kali Patrida, Sintrofe' ('Happy home coming, comrade') and 'O Drapetis' ('Master of Shadows'), while special references are made with respect to Xanthopoulos' work in the fields of poetry, literature and essay-writing. The introductory addresses include a testimony written by the then Minister of Transportation and Communications, Christos Verelis, who also contributed as a producer to the director's first documentary.
c. Immigration in the Cinema (Papazisis, Athens 2004). The academic conference "Immigration in the Cinema" coincided with the Greek Presidency of the European Union (01/01-30/06/2003), a priority of which was the formulation of a common policy on the phenomenon of immigration. Through the variety of approaches explored in the texts, this volume contributes to the formulation of a constructive basis for dialogue regarding both the relations governing immigration, with its audiovisual representations, as well as the value of the cinematographic picture as a witness to history. Also moving in this direction was the two-day event entitled "Negotiations for War: Representations of War in the Greek Cinema," which was organized by the Foreign Ministry's Cinematographic Archive, and which will be the next subject of the "Film as Testimony" series of publications.
d. Representations of War (Papazisis, Athens 2006). It constitutes the fourth publication of the series "The testimony of cinematographic picture" realised by the Service of Diplomatic and Historical Archives of the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the included texts, the inquiring glance of prominent researchers from various scientific areas (historians, specialists in international relations, cinema historians) attempts to analyse the ways that important military events of our history have been represented on film. Through newsreels and documentary films, propaganda and satirical films, lyric or tragic representations, cinema turned the idea of war into a major social issue. Images from the war (those that constitute a product of the risky effort of their filmmakers to record authentic military events) and images for the war (directed images that were recorded in order to represent military activities) are both the subject of the scientific analysis of this publication. The variety of approaches, the subjects and the conclusions which the writers of the volume reached, led to an interesting scientific study on the value and the importance of cinematographic picture as a source for major historical and social issues that influenced and still influence our modern life. However, the contribution of the image in the formation of modern political culture of the land and its History is also considered, as well as the need to be handled in the most appropriate way in order to be integrated in its historical and social context.
e. History and Politics in the Work of Pantelis Voulgaris (Papazisis, Athens 2007). It is the fifth consecutive volume of the series "The testimony of cinematographic picture". A well-known film director inside and outside the Greek borders, Pantelis Voulgaris has connected his name with the renewal of the countrys cinematography. In an unwavering course since the 1960s, his lens carefully observes the major changes of the Greek society. He records and comments with his lens the important events of the country's modern political and social life and he thus becomes a reporter of his era. His morals, his sensitivity, his aesthetics, the until today artistic deposit of this great creator who allowed his glance to infiltrate with honesty in the past, are examined by Greek intellectuals, historians, political and social scientists, researchers and filmmakers, who deposit their own readings of History and Politics in the work of Voulgaris based on the testimony of the cinematographic pictures, as he recorded them with his own lens. More specifically, the volume includes texts by Ilias Giannakakis, Andreas Pagoulatos, Stelios Kymionis, Eva Stefani, Vasilis Vamvakas, Georgios Polydorakis, Yannis Papatheodorou, Nikos Potamitis, Stathis Valoukos, Lefteris Xanthopoulos, Polymeris Voglis, Panagis Panagiotopoulos, Angeliki Pantaleon, Nikos Poulakis, Athina Kartalou, Ioanna Laliotou, Maria Komninou, Ioanna Athanasatou, Irini Sifaki and Yannis Soldatos. The foreword of the book is written by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs Ms Dora Bakoyannis.
4. Other publications
a. The Foundation of the Modern Greek State : Major Treaties and Conventions, 1830-1947 (Kastaniotis Editions, Athens, 1999). This volume focuses on the foundation and consolidation of the Modern Greek state. It begins with a long introduction referring to important landmark events in Greek diplomatic history and includes the texts of the eleven treaties and conventions through which the contemporary boundaries of Greece were formed. It was written in English in order to ensure its accessibility to major academic centres abroad and its exposure to a large academic reading public.
b. The Foreign Ministers of Greece , 1829-2000, by Professor Antonis Markidimitris (Kastaniotis Editions, Athens , 2000, in Greek). This volume not only offers biographical sketches of the politicians who held the office of Foreign Minister during the course of the history of the Modern Greek state, but, presents, through the 'genealogy' of the MFA important periods in the diplomatic and political life of Greece. Included are analytical charts with detailed references regarding the commencement, the conclusion and the duration of each ministerial tenure. Further, there is a series of diagrams, where in a more elaborate fashion, the duration of each ministerial tenure in reference to the specific historical time is indicated.
c. Ph. Tomai, Greeks in Auschwitz-Birkenau (Papazisis, Athens, 2009). In Greek and English. Auschwitz-Birkenau… Words associated with horror and death. In the bloodbath of innumerable victims who were sacrificed on the altar of the Hitlerian minotaur, Greek blood was not absent. Sixty thousand Greeks, whose only crime was that they had been born Jewish, and a few dozen Christians, who were arrested either for resistance or for aiding their Jewish compatriots to escape, met with incredible torment in that particular version of hell that even Dante’s pen would have difficulty to describe. This book comes to cover this dark, mostly unknown, chapter of Greek national history. With the aid of a photographic lens and both written and oral testimonies of those who managed to survive, it undertakes a painful journey of memory and history, treading step-by-step into the hellish lair of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
d. Ph. Tomai, The American People’s Support to the Greek War of Independence 1821 (Papazisis, Athens, 2010). A special publication concerning the assistance by the American Philhellenes who rushed to help redeem Greece from slavery during the Greek War of Independence. The first copy of the book was presented by the then Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou to President Obama during his visit in Washington in February 2010. The publication contains numerous official documents from Greek and American archives and copies of masterpieces from the big collection of paintings on the War of Independence that belongs to the National Gallery in Athens. It was presented at a successful special ceremony in Washington DC, which took place in the Monroe House, residence of US President James Monroe, during whose mandate the Greek Revolution broke out and to whom Greece owes the first declaration of official recognition of the Greeks’ struggle for National Independence.
e) “Greece in Europe 1981-2021: Celebrating 40 years of integration” (National Printing Office, Athens 2021). In Greek and English.Catalogue of the exhibition of documents of the same name, organized by YDIA and the Historical Archives of the EU (Florence) on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Greece’s accession to the European Union. The catalog in digital format is posted on the website of the Historical Archives of the EU (in pdf file format), and can be downloaded from the online address:
https://www.eui.eu//Documents/Research/HistoricalArchivesofEU/Events/Greece-in-Europe-1981-2021-CATALOGO.pdf