Greek Dialogues - “Our flexible policy of judicious integration”: a recessive diplomatic vision for Cyprus

Date and Time: Thursday, 12th October, 2023 at 18:00h BST

Online: Access details below and

Venue: Room GR05, Faculty of English, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 9DA

The new season of Greek Dialogues begins with Dr George Kalpadakis (Lewis-Gibson Visiting Fellow and  Academy of Athens) exploring the complex challenges of reconciling Cypriot self-determination with postcolonial shifts and geopolitical dynamics involving the UK, Greece, and Turkey.

A key question underlying the project of an independent Cyprus concerned the notion of how to reconcile the principles of equal rights and self-determination of the Cypriots with the incipient postcolonial reconfigurations and the evolving geostrategic dynamics between the United Kingdom, Greece and Turkey after the war.

Mirroring ideological cleavages and schools of thought which had developed in Greece since the nineteenth century, two divergent approaches emerged whose clash would have a significant impact on the fate of the Isle. The first, which would come to dominate the Cyprus policy of Athens, harbored a territorially-bounded notion of nationhood while the second, less conspicuous approach was characterized by a gradualist and transnationally-oriented outlook which reflected what the Alexandrian interwar poet Constantine Cavafy termed a policy of “judicious integration”.

While not opposed to the pursuit of territorial consolidation at the appropriate juncture, the proponents of the latter, recessive vision sought to establish the diplomatic conditions for a transitional phase whereby a multiplicity of Hellenic centers would be instrumental in progressively asserting the hegemonic role of diasporic Hellenism through its command of the intellectual, economic and cultural sinews of Eastern Mediterranean societies.

Topic: Greek Dialogues - “Our flexible policy of judicious integration”: a recessive diplomatic vision for Cyprus
Time: Thursday 12th October, 2023 at 18:00h BST

Join Zoom Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/94698839735?pwd=WHlQVDlhdW83dTZQV1ZZSVQ0V0dwZz09

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Meeting ID: 946 9883 9735
Passcode: 095393

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