Re-imagining Homeland in the Aftermath of the Greek Civil War (1946-1949): Children's Magazines.

The childrens/youth magazines published in the wake of the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) pose questions with regard to the notion of homeland as part of identity and subjectivity. The paper analyzes material from two such magazines: ... (Eaglets), published outside Greece (1949-1953) after the expatriation of communists at the end of the Civil War and intended for the little emigrant Greeks," and ... (Childtown) (later to be renamed To ..., The Child's Home,) (1950-1969), published in Greece but addressing the residents of Childtowns, special institutions set up by the Queen of Greece, so as to preserve the "Right" Greekness. The analysis points out that in Eaglets, the cultivation of a new collective consciousness, internalization of communist tenets, and admiration of the Soviet Union and communist leaders were formative features of the notion of homeland. By contrast, in Childtown, homeland was constructed as an agricultural nation-state, where future citizens would ideally work towards reconstruction and pay tribute to religion, family, and the king. Yet together the two magazines enacted a change in the conception of the place of rural children, who were formerly working hands within the context of the family and became social capital in the service of an overarching institution of the party and the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]