Greece in the Third World

Abstract

This chapter examines Pyrsos, a Greek illustrated magazine published by political refugees in East Germany, as a case study on the aesthetic articulation of solidarity with the so-called Third World in the 1960s by emigres situated in-between the West and the socialist states. It argues that the magazine's complex political and aesthetic discourse on solidarity was intellectually and aesthetically entangled with notions of identification and metonymy that 'inserted' the Greek case within an anti-imperialist, anti-American Third Wordlist struggle and, as such, were loaded with desires for the liberation and democratisation of Greece. The analysis examines how aesthetic and political articulations of solidarity were rendered visible in the magazine's visuality and intertextuality, focusing on its discourse on the Vietnam war. The chapter discusses the specific cultural histories and highlights the hidden accounts that unfolded from the margins during the Cold War. Beyond de-centring established, primarily Western-centric, paradigms of solidarity in the 1960s, its contribution speaks to the role of political publishing and to the distinctions between state and grassroots solidarity in the Eastern Bloc. By examining the emigres' magazine as a case study, this chapter aims to tease out existing definitions of solidarity in the 1960s whilst contributing to the study of its visual and aesthetic dimensions.