Creating official images of the past in Greek Cypriot historical narratives and school texts

When considering the contemporary representation of British actions and influences on Cyprus during the crisis of 1974, the predominant popular concept of ‘foreign conspiracies’, detailed in the previous chapter, operates in somewhat of a contrast to the content of Greek Cypriot school texts. Indeed, rather than directly reflecting the widespread popular belief perpetuated in numerous media, including some official PIO publications, of the ‘collusive’ culpability of Britain in 1974; the school text versions of a History of Cyprus from 2004 and 2011 significantly marginalise the role of Britain within their narratives of the post-colonial period. ¹ This divergence is not only peculiar, but a particularly neglected area of research given the significant scholarly attention directed towards the content of Greek Cypriot school texts. For example, the analysis of Andrekos Varnava and Stavroula Philippou on the ‘assignment of responsibility’ for the division of Cyprus within history texts and ‘social studies subjects’ raises a number of intriguing points regarding the depiction of the Greek Junta, Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot community in this ‘official’ narrative of conflict. Minimal reference is provided, save for a brief geographic analysis of the formation of the Green Line in 1964, to the perceived culpability of Britain within this narrative. ² Yet this is a common occurrence, as aside from occasional and particularly brief references to Britain’s colonial legacy, scholarly productions on school texts are invariably focussed more on the official depiction of the Turkish Cypriot ‘other’ than that of the British ‘other’. ³