‘An almost unique isle in the sea of democratic Europe’: Greek Communists' perceptions of international reality, 1944–1949

This paper proposes a realistic appreciation of Greek communist perceptions of international realities and their impact on their domestic disposition and tactics in 1944–1949, during a particularly dense and rapidly changing international milieu. In a context whose volatility fuelled too many false perceptions, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) chose to internalise whatever it interpreted as positive signs and ignore those suggesting imponderables and adversities. The real difficulty for the Greek communists, however, was not the accuracy of their perceptions or lack thereof, but a lack of sufficient power to survive their inaccuracy. In addition, historiographically the paper seeks to redress the analytical balance in favour of national, regional and international politics as against the recent flood of local area studies.     

SPACE,PRESSURES AND THE MANAGEMENT OF THE GREEK LANDSCAPE

Landscapes are the result of the interaction of natural and human factors, with many dimensions; they are part of natural and cultural heritage and an important component of the quality of life. Greece has heterogeneous and mixed landscapes issuing from both geomorphology and the impact of complex human systems. Despite the existence of many and early legislative efforts, Greece has a relatively poor history of spatial planning and landscape has been particularly neglected. The adoption of the European Landscape Convention (ELC) in 2010 provides an updated strategic context for integrating landscape in spatial planning. In this article, we seek to contribute to the discussion of landscape policies and the inclusion of the landscape level in the spatial planning national framework. We identify the dominant landscape types by categorizing landscapes at the national scale with reference to the (combined) presence of three different components: geomorphology, land cover and coasts/islands. Then, we investigate the most important processes of change for each type and link these processes with spatial planning policy. The identification of these dynamics sheds light on current and future trajectories of the changes of Greek landscapes, thus providing challenges for its management in the context of the ELC. The case study concerns the regional level; we focus on Attica, Thessaly, Epirus and the Cyclades and identify the principal characteristics according to the proposed landscape typology.