By Catherine Curan                                     

What happens to a society when "the only means of production is violence," and how does power shift from the border to the halls of state?

Military historian Spyridon Tsoutsoumpis explored these questions in a lecture at the Seeger Center titled "Ruling the Margins: Crime, Governance, and Nation-Making in Civil War Greece (1946-49)." His ground-breaking analysis synthesized the war's social, political, military, and cultural aspects. Categorizing Greece during this period as a "post-colonial society," Tsoutsoumpis argued that focusing on the culture of the borderlands and the limits of state power provides a valuable lens for examining Greece -- during the 1940s and today – as well as other post-colonial societies.

"Illegal ways of doing things persist," he said. “This kind of violence can haunt the state and inform the way citizens are treated for decades.”

Tsoutsoumpis is one of three visiting fellows at the Center this spring, and his talk on April 11 concluded the lecture series by our current cohort. Princeton Professor of History and Hellenic Studies Molly Greene was the respondent.

Seeger Center Director Dimitri Gondicas introduced Greene and Tsoutsoumpis. Gondicas noted that Greene was the first graduate student in the Program in Hellenic Studies. She is now an acclaimed historian of the Mediterranean, specializing in Ottoman and early modern Greek history. Greene's current research project focuses on the Pindus Mountains in Greece, including pre-modern life in the mountains and monasteries as well as warfare, guns, and rifles.

Gondicas said that Tsoutsoumpis has been conducting research in the Hellenic collections at Princeton University Library, focusing on the papers of American diplomats, public servants, and Princetonians who were active in Greece during the twentieth century. These collections were developed by the Library in partnership with the Seeger Center. 

"Building on extensive archival research, Spyros works from the ground up … [weaving] the micro-dynamics of civil conflict and local politics into a historical narrative that informs larger questions on the lived experience of violence and broader debates on post-colonial societies, state-building and nation-making," said Gondicas.

Challenging the accepted wisdom that the development of nations such as Greece should be examined from a top-down perspective, Tsoutsoumpis argued that during this period, people at the margins exerted a powerful influence on the Greek government.

“A violent middle class … became powerful because it was very skilled in violence. … They move from the margins to the center. Not necessarily as leaders, but as mediators, as brokers.”

Over time, this group shifted even further to the center of the Greek government. Tsoutsoumpis traced the evolution of political power in Epirus, a region in northern Greece, as a case study where bandits created a nationalistic political party.

In her response, Greene highlighted Tsoutsoumpis' depiction of the evolution of Epirus and the Greek state.

During a question-and-answer session, Maria Kotsoni connected Tsoutsoumpis' historical research to contemporary Greek politics and the rise of the right-wing party Golden Dawn. Given that Golden Dawn's roots are in Athens, she asked how Tsoutsoumpis' paradigm of the center and the margins would account for Golden Dawn's ascension. Kotsoni is a postdoctoral research fellow in Hellenic studies and public and international affairs, funded by the Paul Sarbanes '54 Fund for Hellenism and Public Service.

"Obviously this culture begins at the borders. The geography is real but also imaginary, and it shifts all the time," said Tsoutsoumpis. “The border culture was part of the security apparatus … Golden Dawn was part of this.”

Tsoutsoumpis' first book, "A History of the Greek Resistance in the Second World War: The People's Armies," was published by Manchester University Press in 2016, and he is working on two other titles.