Teachers, History Wars and Teaching History Grade 6 in Greece

Abstract

It seems surreal now that such a small book, of only 136 pages, between 2006 and 2007, could have contributed towards inter-party strife within the ruling Greek government; its reduced majority at the election of 16 September, 2007; the failure by the Minister of Education, Marietta Giannakou, and her deputy minister George Kalos, to be re-elected to parliament; the hostility of the Church of Greece; the rise of the ultra-right-wing nationalist party of L.A.O.S., which won, for the first time, 10 seats in Greece’s 300-member chamber of parliament; enormous media spotlight and the chagrin of many teachers who systematically refused to teach the contents of the book, not to mention the opposition of many ordinary people. The book, in question, was the 2006-2007 school history textbook for year 6 primary school which was written under the supervision of Maria Repousi from the University of Thessaloniki.

It was introduced as the new main school history textbook, for that level, in all government primary schools, in September 2006. Its contents primarily included an examination of the history of Greece from the 1400s until approximately 1981. It addressed the rule of the Ottoman Empire over Greece, the Greek war of Indepen-dence (1821-1827) against the Ottoman Empire and the history of the new Greek state post 1827 until the present, with special concluding emphasis on Greece’s admission to the European Economic Community (1981).