THE GREAT WAR AND THE BALKANS: THE USE OF MEMORY IN BULGARIA AND GREECE
THE GREAT WAR AND THE BALKANS: THE USE OF MEMORY IN BULGARIA AND GREECE

Summary/Abstract: For Bulgarians the First World War was a national disaster. The memory of defeat in the war, the loss of so many soldiers and the Macedonian region remained very strong until the Second World War. The defeat in the Second World War and the predominance of the communists seemed to put an end to national aspirations. But the memory on a personal and social level remained strong as evidenced by its revival after the fall of communism. For the Greeks the First World War was not the most important war. For most Greeks it was rather a break, an interlude between national wars (1912 – 1913 and 1919 – 1922). That is why it was recorded in the literature and in the collective memory not as the Great War, but as the period of the National Discord, which has caused several problems to the political life in Greece for decades and is considered by many researchers the main cause of the in Asia Minor Disaster (1922).

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