Supervisors info:
Δήμητρα Λαμπροπούλου
Λέκτορας Νεότερης Ελληνικής Ιστορίας
Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας
Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Βαγγέλης Καραμανωλάκης
Επίκουρος Καθηγητής Νεότερης Ελληνικής Ιστορίας
Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας
Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Σπυρίδων Πλουμίδης
Επίκουρος Καθηγητής Νεότερης Ελληνικής Ιστορίας
Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας
Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Summary:
This diplomatic research examines the young girls in 1936, the year of establishment of the Metaxa’s dictatorship and the establishment of the EON, until 1945, shortly after the withdrawal of the German troops from Greece. The development of this research is done on the basis of gender and age as methodological tools and the questions that it tries to answer are how the two organizations experienced by the girls, how and in which they were affected by each organization, what led to the participation of the girls to EPON after the EON's experience and what they expected to achieve for themselves.
In the first chapter of the paper is presented the position that society traditionally reserved for the girls, that of the young who held the roles of the sister and daughter, whose work and education were subordinate to the peer and the main purpose of her life was marriage and maternity. At the same time, it is examined the new position of the girls that Feminism of the Interwar period expressed , through the feminist magazine The Struggle of Women, which aimed to change the traditional position of the girl in the Greek society, to change the bond of dependence that girls had permanently by a male figure and become self-righteous, with means education and work.
The second chapter of the work focuses on the image of the woman promoted to the young girls by the National Youth Organization (EON) through the journal Youth. The position that girls were called to take into society as future female women was that of wife and mother. The EON could initially have the impression that it removed the teenagers from the family's restrictive ties and gave them the opportunity to engage with boys of their own age, but denied every position that the feminist speech of the previous period had supported, preserved the traditional perception for girls and women, and gave particular emphasis to motherhood, as the purpose of girls' lives, in order to serve the purposes of the New State of Ioannis’s Metaxas.
The third chapter presents the organization of the Unified Pan-Hellenic Youth Organization (EPON) as the largest resistance organization of young people and, accordingly, the position of girls in the Greek society, as expressed through the organization's speech, is being sought. EPON wanted to create a new type of girl who could stand at her feet with her own strength and would take her place not behind the man but beside him, participating equally in the social and political arena, but without embraces the feminist speech of the Interwar.
Concluding, the last chapter of the research examines the experience of resistance action through testimonies of women, who in young age participated in the Resistance and were organized in EPON. Through their experiences, it turns out that resistance activity was the basis that young girls needed in order to take control of their lives. The experience of the Resistance transformed their lives, changed the patterns of life they had until then, and gave them the power to follow a different path, that of independence and individual self-existence.
Keywords:
gender, age, girls, young girls, young women, teenagers, women, Metaxas, Resistance, occupation
