Deputy Education Minister Sia Anagnostopoulou told daily newspaper, Kathimerini, that she disagrees with the way in which history is taught in Greek schools. “History school books must change,” she said. “Research and the opinions of scientists on history and how it is taught in schools must stop being molded within a national measure. In Greece, national history is considered to be what some people have imposed. This means that it is interpreted as what they, not historians, consider to be the national history of Greeks.”

She said that there are forces in Greece that want to push a nationalistic line, and they are successful at pushing this across as – according to the minister – Greeks don’t have a “historical culture.”

Anagnostopoulou exemplifies the difference between history and national identity by pinpointing Greece’s hero from the War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire, Theodoros Kolokotronis. She says that a nationalist points to Kolokotronis achievements as a national, and would point to heroism as a product of the Greek race, whereas a historian would view Kolokotronis as a heroic figure of a European period of revolutions.

The views are part of a SYRIZA zeal in reforming the education system. For instance, Education Minister Nikos Filis recently caused controversy by denying that there was a Pontic Genocide and MP Maria Repousi, who in the past had been criticised for stating that there was a “congestion of Greeks” at the port of Smyrna in 1922 (later retracted), had vouched for the Education Ministry’s collaboration with historian Antonis Lakos who has been known to refer to Macedonian heroes as jihadists of their time.

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