Page 34 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

From Testimonial to Archive:
or Additions and Gaps
Although most refugees from the civil war were
of rural origin, they did not form a homogene-
ous group, either ethnically – among the refu-
gees there were Slavic speaking refugees, who
identified themselves as Macedonians and who,
although Greek citizens, constituted a linguis-
tic minority with its own identity – or politi-
cally; not all the refugees were communists, and
among those who were, we find ideological dif-
ferences, both then and now, to which I shall re-
34 Figure 6: Workers at the textile mill, n.d. around 1954 turn (Kokkinou 2019).
(source: Savas’ personal archive) It was during the exile the first crisis within
Greek Communist Party - KKE broke out, also ti
studia universitatis hereditati, letnik 11 (2023), številka 2 / volume 11 (2023), number 2
in relation to the living conditions of the refu-
person in charge of Domov ČSČK, another ref-
ugee family, and so on. gees there and the reasons for its defeat. Known
as the ‘Tashkent events’, which took place in Au-
Apart from the Czech staff in charge, some gust-September 1955, in the wake of de-Stalini-
refugees also worked in the barracks: Savas’ fa- zation, the party crisis arose in the same year as ta
ther as a translator, while at the same time being the 20th Congress of the Soviet Union Com-
responsible for reuniting the families of the ref- munist Party (CPSU), in the city of the of Tash-
6
ugees; his mother in the kitchen, like another kent. Here 12.000 refugees, mainly supporters
refugee; or even outside the barracks: in cooper- of the DSE, were taken in, half of them mem- di
atives (photo 5), in forestry work and field work, bers of KKE. This crisis was characterized by
hoeing beetroot and cabbage, harvesting flax, ce- violent incidents culminating in bloody clash-
reals, chamomile, etc. es among communists, sparked by the dismiss-
Lastly, some women worked in the village al of the party’s former general secretary, N. Za-
textile factory (Figure 6). Life in the barracks hariadis, on the one hand, and the election of K.
was punctuated by meals, medical visits, and Koligianis in his place on the other, which divid-
communal life; Savas recounts that some of the ed KKE members into supporters of one or oth- here
refugees played musical instruments (Figure 7), er of the party’s general secretaries (Kokkinou
another had created his own garden, and some 2019, 213). Following the dismissal of the former
were busy repairing old cars that were aban- secretary, the new leadership proceeded to expel
doned next to the barracks outpost. He ends his party members who were supporters of Zahari-
text ‘Těchonín, Memories of’ by writing that: adis and to intensify ideological control of com-
I would like to mention here that the Greeks munist refugees in all host countries.
were very disciplined throughout their stay In this context of political and ideological
in the barracks and that they got on very well upheaval within KKE, the position of the Com-
with the Czech inhabitants of the village, munist refugees in the face of the Soviet army’s
even in terms of friendship and coopera- invasion of Budapest in November 1956 pro-
tion, and I don’t remember seeing the slight- voked intense political conflicts which, however,
est conflict. were not openly expressed (Fokas 2016). What studiauniversitatis
is more, the archives we have do not mention
6 According to Savas, Těchonín was ‘a gathering point for any involvement of Communist refugees in the
children in Czechoslovakia who had parents in other so-
cialist countries to whom they went to join them’. events in Budapest, still less on the side of the