Peasants and Workers in Tobacco Production in Greece, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Social and Cultural Lives.

Tobacco played a major role in the socio-economic development of Greece starting from the period of Ottoman rule. A related cultural history was written by those who took part in economic activities associated with the product. During the nineteenth century, the farmers who were involved in tobacco production, and tobacco-related urban professions, contributed to the formulation of social and cultural identities that had a distinct presence within the spectrum of the stratification of Greek society. During the twentieth century, a broad popular mass of two million local people and refugees helped to shape the various profiles of the social strata linked to tobacco. Customs, habits, traditions, behaviours, mentalities, psychologies, attitudes, life models, all merged with the willingness of people to influence the course of social developments in the country and participate in social movements. The aim of this paper is to examine issues related to various aspects of the relevant social and cultural identities

Le sport ouvrier en Grèce pendant l’entre-deux-guerres. Le cas de Thessalonique

Nous présentons d’abord la manière dont le mouvement communiste s’est progressivement doté d’un modèle international d’encadrement des ouvriers par le sport alors qu’il y était hostile au début. Puis, en s’appuyant sur le dépouillement d’une vaste palette d’archives, nous voyons comme ce modèle fut mis en place et appliqué en Grèce et surtout à Thessalonique dans une volonté de contrecarrer de projets antagonistes comme ceux des scouts, de la YMCA et même en ce qui concerne la nombreuse communauté juive de la ville, les projets sionistes.The author undertakes to show how the international communist movement progressively adopted an international model of organizing workers through sport, although it ah been opposed to the idea of sport in the beginning. Then, based on wide range of archival material, he examines the practical introduction and implementation of this model in Greece, and especially in Salonica. This implementation was motivated by a will to oppose antagonistic projects, such as those of the Boy scouts, the YMCA and, in regards with the city’s numerous Jewish community, the Zionist ones

Le sport ouvrier en Grèce pendant l’entre-deux-guerres. Le cas de Thessalonique

Nous présentons d’abord la manière dont le mouvement communiste s’est progressivement doté d’un modèle international d’encadrement des ouvriers par le sport alors qu’il y était hostile au début. Puis, en s’appuyant sur le dépouillement d’une vaste palette d’archives, nous voyons comme ce modèle fut mis en place et appliqué en Grèce et surtout à Thessalonique dans une volonté de contrecarrer de projets antagonistes comme ceux des scouts, de la YMCA et même en ce qui concerne la nombreuse communauté juive de la ville, les projets sionistes.The author undertakes to show how the international communist movement progressively adopted an international model of organizing workers through sport, although it ah been opposed to the idea of sport in the beginning. Then, based on wide range of archival material, he examines the practical introduction and implementation of this model in Greece, and especially in Salonica. This implementation was motivated by a will to oppose antagonistic projects, such as those of the Boy scouts, the YMCA and, in regards with the city’s numerous Jewish community, the Zionist ones

THE SOCIALIST PERSPECTIVE OF DIFFERENCE: TOWARDS A NEW COMPOSITION OF ITS MATERIAL AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

This article deals with the concept of "difference" as it is shaped socially, politically and philosophically, within the contemporary framework of postmodernism. Initially, it mentions and analyzes the paradox of today's capitalist world: while the production system tends to be integristic, the operational premise of production is fragmentation. In an age that subscribes unconditionally to the myth of the natural supremacy of capitalism, "difference" gives birth to "cultural policy," sidelining economic policy. At the same time, this notion is incorporated into the conceptual structure of philosophical-scientific field, as well as the notions of "otherness" and "Other." These notions surrender to the artifices of linguistic invention, slipping away from established meanings condemned to serve as a support for a specific power structure. In the framework of the socialist ideology whose core focus is the struggle against social injustice, economic exploitation and adjection, a proposal to maintain the centrality of the economicmaterial element of difference sounds commonplace. What seems open to exploitation and reflection is how "difference" is handled in the context of a socialist social practice