Public History and National Identity

Abstract

In 2011, while the causes of Greek “crisis” started becoming the subject of public controversy, a documentary series aired on Skai channel vowing to challenge nationalist and populist accounts of the 1821 Revolution. By popularizing the main arguments of modernization theory, the “1821” documentary approached the past through the lens of “Cultural dualism” – the clash between a ‘reformist' and an ‘underdog' culture – and operated as a metaphor for contemporary Greece. Via the study of the media spectacle and the ways the history of 1821 goes public, historical inquiry can reflect on the normative/descriptive complex of rival historical narratives, exercise itself in perspectival seeing and self-reflexivity and move towards a history of the present.