Assassination in Colonial Cyprus in 1934 and the Origins of EOKA
Reading the Archives against the Grain
By (author) Andrekos Varnava
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Publication date:
11 January 2021Publisher
Anthem PressDimensions:
229x153mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9781785275524
This book explores the assassination of Antonios Triantafyllides, a leading Cypriot lawyer and politician, in British colonial Cyprus in January 1934. This event has been the infamous subject of rumours since its occurrence and a taboo subject for Cypriot society and historians alike, as the event has been silenced or dismissed. This book explores the assassination in its broadest possible context by situating it within the broader events within the British Empire, the region and the world more generally at that time. The basis for the exploration is a ‘community of records’ through which all the evidence is sifted, reading it both with and against the grain, in order to provide the most likely answer to who was really behind this mysterious cold case. Through rigorous analysis, this book concludes that those who most likely masterminded the assassination supported radical right-wing extremist pro-enosis nationalism and were subsequently also prominent in forming the EOKA terrorist group in the 1950s.
“The author not only narrates a case of political assassination framing it in the context of far-right politics but he also questions dominant narratives of Cypriot history, providing at the same time a history of Greek Cypriot elites, showing the influence they exerted on the politics and contemporary history of Cyprus.” —Yiannos Katsourides, Assistant Professor, Department of Politics and Governance, University of Nicosia, Cyprus