Balkan Wars 1912-1913: Experience, Narratives, Memory Claim (ePub)

Greece, through the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), doubled its territory and population. In this book, through the narratives of the protagonists at all levels-soldiers, officers, politicians, journalists, volunteers, nurses, and others-the surrounding atmosphere of Greek society before and during the wars emerges, along with the ideological framework that shaped and mobilized it. Critical and controversial aspects of these two wars are revealed, as well as the psychological and ideological changes they brought to Greek society. However, how were the Balkan Wars reflected in contemporary historiography and retrospectively, when myths and distortions of the National Schism and the Asia Minor Catastrophe had permeated the memory of the wars? The juxtaposition and comparison of testimonies bring to the surface two differentiated versions of narratives. The first concerns war narratives written in 1913-1914, examining the subject without embellishments. A second version of narratives after 1915 reveals the battles fought even in the field of historiography for the ideological dominance of each side of the National Schism, as well as for the personal vindication of the protagonists. The differences identified in retrospectively published testimonies are related to the function of memory and the acknowledgment that the memory of experience is constantly reshaped under the influence of the present.