ABSTRACT
Political exiles in Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Greek Civil War (1946-9) constitute an interesting research field in which the Greek experience of civil war and its consequences intersects with the East European experience of communist regimes. It is an area which raises issues concerning the identity construction of political exiles, a process involving negotiation with the traumatic experiences of war and defeat as well as with the new experiences in the communist countries. The completely new way of life which the exiles had to face challenged their political and ideological beliefs, their national consciousness and their social and family roles. The community of civil-war political refugees is therefore a crucial part of the Greek diaspora, if one that has been insufficiently studied – most probably because of the complicated ideological and archival problems involved in researching it.1
