Page 27 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

Remembering the Former Eastern Bloc:
Who Owns the Legacy – the Case of Těchonín
Spomin na nekdanji vzhodni blok:
kdo je lastnik zapuščine – primer Těchonín

Maria Kokkinou
Researcher affiliated to the Anthropology of Politics Laboratory, LAP, EHESS, Paris,
fellow at the Institute Convergence Migration, ICM.
mkokkinou03@yahoo.com

27
Abstract
ti This article explores the recent history and heritage significance of Těchonín, a site former barracks
turned into a convalescent home between 1950 and 1962. In this period, the facility hosted 600 refugees
of the Greek civil war (1946–49) who were sheltered in Czechoslovakia. The article aims at exploring
ta uted to them in commemorative monuments. The analysis of the issue is based on first-hand accounts
what long-lasting legacy the minorities have established and what formal recognition ought to be attrib-

from a refugee as well as on other private photographic archives of the refugee families in Těchonín.
Keywords: legacy of minorities, monuments, Greek civil war refugees, Czechoslovakia, photographs
di Izvleček

Članek je posvečen polpretekli zgodovini in pomenu dediščine Těchonína, mesta nekdanje vojašnice,
med letoma 1950 in 1962 spremenjene v okrevališče. V tem obdobju je objekt gostil 600 beguncev iz
grške državljanske vojne (1946–1949), ki so bili na Češkoslovaškem dobili zatočišče. Članek raziskuje,
here iz drugih zasebnih fotografskih arhivov begunskih družin v Těchonínu.
kakšno dolgotrajno zapuščino so ustvarile manjšine in kakšno formalno priznanje bi jim morali pripisa-
ti v javnih spomenikih. Analiza teh vprašanj temelji na prvoosebnem pričevanju begunca ter na gradivu

Ključne besede: dediščina manjšin, spomeniki, begunci grške državljanske vojne, Češkoslovaška,
fotografije

Introduction
perhaps, the passing vestiges that the refugees in
studiauniversitatis
crosses open up a breach in the personal and col-
hat do the tombs of Greek refu- Těchonín have left us. As a final trace, these tomb
gees (photo 1) in a Czech cemetery lective experience of refugees in Eastern Europe,
Wopposite a military barracks in the which lies between their previous existence and
North Moravia region of Silesia, in the village of their definitive disappearance, inviting us to link
Těchonín in the Czech Republic, tell us? the past with the present. In their book entitled
Apart from showing us the (ultimate) pass- Dissonant Heritage, Tunbridge and Ashworth
ing away from life to death for refugees, these (1996, 189–190) ask ‘what durable heritage the
tombs announce, through the declared absence minorities are creating, and what recognition
that the annihilated body engenders, a presence should be granted them in formal monuments’.
that preceded it. And when we speak of the dead In this paper, I investigate long-lasting legacy
body of a refugee, we are also speaking of a ‘dis- that the rather unknown minority of Greeks in
placed’ body. These are the remains of a passage, Czechoslovakia has established and the forms
https://doi.org/10.26493/2350-5443.11(2)27-41 © author/authors