The completion of the digitization project marks the beginning of a new era in the long process of recording and documenting modern Greek history, through which national collective memory is painstakingly shaped. The project concerns millions of pages (the exact number will be clarified upon completion), derived mainly from the Central Service Archive as well as Greece’s main diplomatic missions abroad.

At the same time, alongside this complex digitization effort—launched in early 2024 with Recovery Fund resources—tens of thousands of files are being classified for the first time, the contents of which have until now remained unknown. Among them are files relating to the dictatorship period (1967–1974). The result?

New horizons open for historical research, shedding light—at least partially—on the dark years of the “black seven-year period.” This is happening for the first time within the structures of a state which, by general admission, has historically shown tendencies toward inwardness, particularly in handling traumatic events.

A confidential document dated 12 October 1964 from Greece’s ambassador to Cyprus, Menelaos Alexandrakis, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—addressed to Prime Minister George Papandreou and Foreign Minister Stavros Kostopoulos—outlines the key points of his contacts with then UN mediator for Cyprus, Galo Plaza. According to Plaza, Turkey would not accept any solution unless its “security needs” and “prestige” were taken into account. The mediator told Alexandrakis that Turkey’s primary objective was the separation of populations and subsequently “double enosis” (partition combined with union of the Greek Cypriot sector with Greece).

The “Black Seven-Year Period”

From 1 May onwards, beyond members of the historical research community and other researchers, any interested citizen will be able to access the Foreign Ministry’s official documents digitally through the prescribed procedures. Understandably, attention is focused first on the archives from the period of Georgios Papadopoulos (1967–1973) and then on the few but dramatic months of rule by the so-called “invisible dictator,” Dimitrios Ioannidis (November 1973 – July 1974).

Among the materials to be included in the electronic archive are documents from this period, initially to enable documentation of the foreign policy of those years, and subsequently—once reviewed and declassified by the Declassification Committee, as provided for—to be made available for research.

When Security services were placing Dalaras and Galani under surveillance as allegedly active in support of the Communist Youth (KNE).

The Cyprus Issue

However, since the foreign policy of the dictatorship is in collective memory almost exclusively associated with Cyprus, there is considerable interest in whether, in the first phase after digitization, access will be granted to documents that on the one hand highlight the criminal handling of affairs by the junta, and on the other reflect how reality was perceived by both the appointed foreign ministers and the responsible diplomats.

In the historical community and beyond, there are hopes that the electronic archive will indeed include such documents from the period culminating tragically on 15 July 1974, with Ioannidis’ treacherous coup against Archbishop Makarios. These were the years of intense confrontation between Athens and Nicosia. These were the events that slowly and painfully led, five days later, to the Turkish invasion: the deaths of thousands of Greek Cypriots and Greeks, the disappearance of more than 2,000 missing persons, and the loss of national territory.

As is well known, the Cyprus issue did not suddenly emerge in July 1974. The fact that among the newly catalogued materials there is a particularly large volume of archives from the 1955–1960 period is in itself a major development: a necessary leap forward for historical research. This is because that period includes pivotal events around and within Cyprus.

In early 1955, Britain’s firm “never” was established—that is, London’s final rejection of Prime Minister Papagos’ request for union between Cyprus and Greece. On 1 April of the same year, the armed struggle of EOKA began, with support from circles in Athens.

In August, with the prime minister gravely ill, the tripartite conference between Greece, Turkey, and Britain took place in London, which, according to many historians, marked Turkey’s official involvement in the Cyprus issue. A few weeks later, Konstantinos Karamanlis came to power, later playing a leading role alongside Archbishop Makarios in the Zurich–London Agreements (February 1959) and the constrained independence of Cyprus (August 1960).

Breaking Taboos

Approximately one year before the digitization project began, in November 2024, the National Intelligence Service (EYP) made a somewhat unexpected move. Under the supervision of its director, diplomat and former Foreign Ministry secretary-general Themistoklis Demiris, and with academic oversight by Professor of History of the Postwar World Evangelos Hatzivasileiou, 58 intelligence reports from the then KYP concerning developments in Cyprus between 1 July and 31 August 1974 were declassified and released.

Even if these 58 reports do not contain a dramatic revelation, the initiative was groundbreaking. Above all, because it broke a taboo under which the Greek state had, even 50 years after the Turkish invasion, avoided officially addressing the nation’s collective traumas.

At the same time, it captured in the clearest possible way both the chaotic rift between Athens and Nicosia and the machinations of the Ioannidis regime to overthrow Makarios, as well as the junta’s complete inability to understand that its coup would open the door for Turkey to invade Cyprus.

It was such an ill-conceived action that even Makarios’ closest associates ruled out the possibility of a coup. “Greece cannot carry out a coup in Cyprus, because it is doubtful whether it would succeed and because it would have international consequences.” This was recorded by KYP at the time, intercepting a conversation of Parliament President Glafcos Clerides.

Instances of similar ignorance, amateurism, and mishandling of Cyprus diplomacy are recorded throughout the seven-year dictatorship, which is why the possible publication of diplomatic archives carries special significance. One example is the disastrous handling of the Kessani–Alexandroupoli summit, a monument of failed diplomacy on the most complex international issue that preoccupied Greek political life and Hellenism for two decades.

At that time, “Prime Minister” Konstantinos Kollias directly proposed to the Turkish delegation the union of Cyprus with Greece and the granting of the Dhekelia base to Turkey via lease or sovereignty, citing the “communist threat.”

Although Ankara’s clearly negative position had already been conveyed to “Foreign Minister” diplomat Pavlos Oikonomou-Gouras, Kollias was taken by surprise. The further escalation between Greece and Turkey led to the intercommunal clashes in Kofinou and ended with the withdrawal of the Greek division from Cyprus following a Turkish ultimatum. This marked the definitive burial of enosis. How, one wonders, is all this recorded in the official archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?