Assassination in Colonial Cyprus in 1934 and the Origins of EOKA: Reading the Archives against the Grain

Description

This book explores the assassination of Antonios Triantafyllides, a leading Cypriot lawyer and politician, in British colonial Cyprus in January 1934. This event has been the infamous subject of rumours since its occurrence and a taboo subject for Cypriot society and historians alike, as the event has been silenced or dismissed. This book explores the assassination in its broadest possible context by situating it within the broader events within the British Empire, the region and the world more generally at that time. The basis for the exploration is a 'community of records' through which all the evidence is sifted, reading it both with and against the grain, in order to provide the most likely answer to who was really behind this mysterious cold case. Through rigorous analysis, this book concludes that those who most likely masterminded the assassination supported radical right-wing extremist pro-enosis nationalism and were subsequently also prominent in forming the EOKA terrorist group in the 1950s.

Andrekos Varnava, FRHistS, is an associate professor at Flinders University, South Australia and an honorary professor at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.

"The author not only narrates a case of political assassination framing it in the context of far-right politics but he also questions dominant narratives of Cypriot history, providing at the same time a history of Greek Cypriot elites, showing the influence they exerted on the politics and contemporary history of Cyprus." -Yiannos Katsourides, Assistant Professor, Department of Politics and Governance, University of Nicosia, Cyprus "Through the retelling of the tragic killing of Antonios Triantafyllides, this fascinating, well-researched and well-documented book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the evolution of Greek Cypriot nationalism during the inter-war years, as well as revealing the importance of the official and colonial newspaper archives." -Panikos Panayi, Professor of European History, De Montfort University, United Kingdom This book can be considered as unique, since there are no comparable books that are focusing on the assassination of a leading nationalist colonial elite while his country was still a British colony by other nationalist colonial elites and former allies." -Alexios Alecou, Visiting Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies of the University of London