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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Competing Political Spaces in Colonial Cyprus, 1931-1950 Kalantzopoulos, Dimitrios Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 27. Sep. 2021 Competing Political Spaces in Colonial Cyprus, 1931-1950 By Dimitris Kalantzopoulos A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, September 2015 Department of History and Centre for Hellenic Studies King’s College London University of London 1 Abstract The outbreak of the October Revolt in 1931 provided the government in Cyprus with an ideal opportunity to act against its political opponents and repress political activity in the island. But the authoritarian regime failed to dampen the growing political ferment in Cyprus, which would ultimately make British colonial rule unsustainable. This thesis seeks to explore the politicization of Cypriot society and to interpret the discourses and dynamics of the emerging political spaces. In particular, it focuses on three key themes in the making of contemporary Cyprus: first, the confrontation between secular and confessional politics and the consolidation of nationalism in the Greek-Cypriot community; second, the processes through which nationalist politics eventually prevailed within the Turkish-Cypriot community, at the expense of the traditional, pro-British elite; and thirdly, the emergence and consolidation of a ‘Left’ political space, dominated by the labour movement and AKEL. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s the Orthodox Church sought to claim an ethnarchic leadership over the Greek-Cypriot community, promoting a nationalist politics, bonded by the claim to enosis, or union of Cyprus with Greece. The confessional politics of the community, however, came to be challenged by the gradual formation of a broad secular political space, marked by the foundation of AKEL in 1941. The social and political programme put forward by the party gained great appeal among the Greek-Cypriot population, redefining the politics of the community. However, AKEL employed the increasingly hegemonic nationalist discourse and eventually adopted enosist politics. By 1950 ethnarchic enosist politics had prevailed within the community, demonstrating the state’s failure to gain Greek-Cypriots’ loyalty. By contrast, the Muslim traditional pro-British elite lagged behind the rising nationalist politics advocated by a modernist secular Kemalist political force. Despite the Government’s attempts to control its appeal, the modernizing leadership had prevailed within the Turkish- Cypriot community by the end of the Second World War. The new leadership called constantly for communal autonomy and for Cyprus’ restoration to Turkey if Britain left the island, while its cooperation with the Government would be dependent on the political conjunctures throughout the rest of colonial rule. Faced with the increasingly radical Greek-Cypriot nationalism, the Turkish-Cypriot community was gradually nationalized, as demonstrated at the end of the 1940s. 2 Nevertheless, some bi-communal cooperation materialized at the grassroots level: throughout the period under scrutiny Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots participated in common labour mobilizations. Despite the Government’s legal and administrative precautions and the use of repressive measures, the trade unions, supported by the parties of the Left, managed to organize a mass labour movement appealing to broad sections of Cypriot society across ethnic and religious boundaries. However, the adoption of the enosist politics by AKEL and the hardening of the nationalist politics of both the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot leaderships led to an increasing polarization of Cypriot society on ethnic lines, a process which the labour movement proved unable to avert. By 1950, nationalist politics had prevailed within both communities, leading to the consolidation of the ethnic division of Cypriot society in the following years. 3 Table of Contents Abstract ..........................................................................................................................................2 Acknowledgments .........................................................................................................................6 Introduction: The Historical and Historiographical Background ...........................................8 Chapter 1: British Colonial Rule: The Administrative and Political Context ......................27 1.1 The Occupation of Cyprus and the British Administrative Framework 1.2 The Local Elites in the Face of British Rule 1.3 The Advance of Greek-Cypriot Nationalism Conclusion Chapter 2: Confessional vs. Secular Politics and the Consolidation of Greek-Cypriot Nationalism ..................................................................................................................................50 2.1 Political Dynamics and the 1931 Crisis 2.2 The Archiepiscopal Question 2.3 Colonial Legality vs. Ethnarchy 2.4 Towards the Nationalization of Greek-Cypriot Politics 2.5 Attempts at the Formation of a Common National Front 2.6 The Consolidation of Ethnarchic Enosist Politics Conclusion Chapter 3: From Loyalism to Nationalism in Turkish-Cypriot Politics .............................115 3.1 The Politics of the Traditionalist Elite and Early Controversy 3.2 Government Intervention in Communal Affairs and the Emergence of a New Political Dynamics 3.3 Consolidation of Modernist Politics and the Advance of Nationalism 3.4 New Government Policy and the Redefinition of Turkish-Cypriot Politics 3.5 Towards a Radical Nationalist Politics Conclusion Chapter 4: The Attempt to Escape the Ethnic Divide: the Labour Movement and the Left ......................................................................................................................................................162 4.1 The Emergence of the Political Space of the Left 4.2 Government Policy and Labour Organization 4 4.3 Foundation of AKEL and the Institutionalization of Trade Unionism 4.4 Intra-communal and Inter-communal Divisions: The Impact on Labour Politics 4.5 New Government Policy, Inter-communal Cooperation and Intra-communal Polarization Conclusion Conclusion .................................................................................................................................218 Sources and Bibliography ........................................................................................................226 Appendices .................................................................................................................................238 5 Acknowledgments Although this thesis bears only my name, its completion would not have been possible without the generous support of a number of people, whose contributions I would like to acknowledge. King’s College London, its Department of History and the Centre for Hellenic Studies were kind enough to accept my initial research proposal, provided me with an inspiring academic environment and presented me with the opportunity to share some of the knowledge I acquired there with the undergraduate students. First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisors, Professors Robert Holland, David Ricks and Richard Drayton, for their insightful suggestions and comments and their inexhaustible patience. Furthermore, I would also like to thank especially Professors Sarah Stockwell and Roderick Beaton for reading partial drafts of this thesis and offering me their crucial advice. I am equally indebted to Professors Nikos Theotokas and Sia Anagnostopoulou, from the Department of History of Panteion University, Athens, for their essential guidance at decisive points throughout the research and writing process. I could not have started this thesis without the scholarships I received from the A.G. Leventis Foundation and the Sylvia Ioannou Foundation. I would like to thank them for this opportunity, and for making sure my stipend would always be on time. I owe much gratitude to my teachers from the School of Oriental and African Studies, Emine Çakir and Yorgos Dedes, for giving me the opportunity to access and assess the Turkish- language material that proved instrumental for this thesis. They both welcomed me in their classes, and graciously answered all my

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