- MGA
- Collection
- 1935-1992
The Modern Greek Archive Collection includes records of the League for Democracy in Greece,1935-1992, the Greek Relief Fund, 1947-1984, and other associated bodies. Pre-1945 League for Democracy in Greece material includes a set of the Balkan Herald , 1935-1940, and surviving papers, 1943-1945, of the League's predecessor, the Greek United Committee, and one of its supporters, E Athanassoglou. Notably there are proofs of Sir Compton Mackenzie's The Wind of Freedom (published in London, 1944) and a photocopy of a telegram from Winston Churchill prohibiting favourable mention of EAM-ELAS by the BBC, 1944. The papers of the League itself date from 1945 to 1975 and include a large collection of press cuttings covering all British and some foreign press references to Greece during the period of the League's activity, with some later cuttings concerning Greece to 1992; material produced by the Greek News Agency including the Weekly Survey of Greek News and later monthly surveys, covering Greek and foreign press output and the Free Greek Radio Broadcasts, complete from November 1946 to September 1953 and January 1969 to January 1974 but otherwise incomplete, the contents of particular value for the period of the Civil War, 1947-1949, as they form a rare source for the broadcasts of Radio Free Greece; and eight volumes of the League's own duplicated information and organizational circulars. There are copies of all official British reports on Greece: TUC (Citrine), Legal Mission, March 1946 Election Observers, All-Party Parliamentary Delegation (1946); a fairly complete collection of Hansard for parliamentary references to Greece; reports of the UN Commission for observing the Balkans (1947-1950); daily broadcasts of the Greek refugee radio at Bucharest, 1970-1974; a large collection of pamphlets, leaflets and news bulletins, British and foreign; a large collection of material from similar organisations in other countries and from Greek refugee committees; and specialist journals. Over 280 files of the League's correspondence and information material cover its various campaigns. Over 23 files represent other organisations which donated material to the League's archives: British Branch of the Patriotic Anti-Dictatorial Front (PAM), Campaign for the Release of All Political Prisoners in Greece, European-Atlantic Action Committee on Greece, Greek Committee against Dictatorship. The papers include an important collection of archive material, arising from the League's work to stimulate British parliamentary action, particularly regarding persecution, on Greek government repression, Law 375/1936, the Emergency Measures Act of June 1946, Law 509/1947 on 'subversion', the operation of the special courts-material and the security committee, and the conditions in prisons and concentration camps, including dossiers on the cases of individual prisoners, supplemented by thesis material on Greek political legislation since 1921. There is a card index of junta detainees; material from the prisons and concentration camps, including two volumes of smuggled appeals (some in microscopic writing); and personal files on individual political prisoners and concentration camps detainees, 1945-1964, 1967-1974. A small library contains unusual publications of the Greek left. Other material comprises a photographic collection, in 18 albums, on occupation, resistance, liberation, civil war, prisons, prisoners, concentration camps, Greek refugee children, and activities abroad; loose photographic items; four reels of film including a Czech film of evacuated Greek children, c1949; and a collection of organisational stamps. Post-1975 material relates to the League's successor, the Friends of Democracy in Greece. Subjects covered by the Archive include the day-to-day evolution of the Civil War, 1947-1949; Greek political legislative and administrative measures; conditions in the prisons and concentration camps; the Greek trade unions; the 'kidnapped' or 'evacuated' children; the Greek political refugees in Eastern Europe; the operations of Greek anti-junta groups in Western Europe and the United States, 1967-1974; attitudes and action of the British Labour movement (Labour Party and trade unions) in regard to Greece, 1945-1974; individual political prisoners and concentration camp detainees; action regarding Greece in Western European countries, Australia, Canada, and the United States; and the operation of pressure groups (from the League's organisational material and correspondence with Members of Parliament and trade unionists). The papers from the Greek Relief Fund, 1947-1984, also contain material from its predecessor the League for Democracy in Greece Relief Committee, including minutes; administrative, legal and financial material; correspondence with donors and with organisations including branches of the Red Cross, relief funds, and pro-Greek democracy organisations in various overseas countries; material relating to appeals for funds for relief work; press cuttings on the visit of Queen Frederika of Greece to Britain, 1963; papers relating to visits to Greece and to conferences on Greece, including a draft paper, 1979, by Diana Pym on 'The British Philhellenic Movement, 1944-1974'; correspondence concerning the archives of the League for Democracy in Greece; and winding up of the Greek Relief Fund, 1984. The bulk of the material pertains to recipients of aid, including correspondence, and the papers are relevant to the resistance activities and prison records of individual Greeks opposed to the regime in Greece.
League for Democracy in Greece, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1943-1974