Greece 2021: Official and lay understandings of national identity

Résumé 0

Jubilees and national days are privileged opportunitiesfor (re)negotiating national identityand its markers. They offer both to thestates and groups of citizens or minoritieswithin states, the opportunity to assure orchallenge accepted forms of identity. The Bicentennialof the Greek Revolution, which isthe founding moment of modern Greek state,was no exception to this. In this paper we presenta synopsis of the public discourses aboutthe meaning of the Bicentennial and the roleof the Committee 2021 which was assignedto oversee the preparations and select projectsto include in the year-round celebration. Wethen contrast those discourses to the onesfound in the Facebook posts reacting to theproposal of the emblem of the Bicentennial.We find that contrary to conventional wisdom,it is the state and its institutions thatopted for a new identity narrative, while theordinary citizens who decided to express theiropinion were resisting such a novelt