ABSTRACT
From the 19th century, jubilees and various anniversaries became a pan-European and American fashion both as “realms of memory” and leisure activities. The magnificent celebration of the Centennial of the Greek Revolution in 1930 epitomized and reproduced historical memory not of the War of Independence but of the creation of the Greek state and the integration of the “New Lands” after the Balkan Wars. The festivities summarized the ritual vocabulary that had developed up until then for the representation of historical memory and national identity. Chapter 9 analyzes the various local festivals for the centennial not only as anniversaries in the 1920s commemorating events of the War of Independence in order to investigate the official historical memory but also as alternative collective memories claimed by local communities and the feminist movement. On the occasion of the centennial, opposite the dominant historical memory of “great men”, the Greek women’s movement promoted the “feminism of the Greek Revolution” and created a special female memory. The chapter reveals the consensuses and political conflicts surrounding the past, the entertainment offered by mass historical spectacles, the commodification of history and the relationship between local and national memory.
