Mark Mazower > Quotes

“Democracy suits Europeans today partly because it is associated with the triumph of capitalism and partly because it involves less commitment or intrusion into their lives than any of the alternatives. Europeans accept democracy because they no longer believe in politics. It is for this reason that we find both high levels of support for democracy in cross-national opinion polls and high rates of political apathy.”
― Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century

“Post-modernity” had spawned an obsession with “roots” and “heritages” among a politically immobilized electorate, too sophisticated any longer to trust the media, and deprived of any dependable sources of knowledge. Television opened up a world of images, but robbed personal experience of its authenticity. The spread of astrology, New Age philosophies and other forms of irrationalism reflected this growing anxiety in the face of an uninterpretable world. The Guardian talked of the “fretful 1990s, when fear is the new badge of citizenship.”43”
― Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century

“Signs of communist domination of the andartes were not difficult to find, but at the same time there was no indication that the KKE desired to seize power by force. On the contrary, what evidence there is suggests that the KKE - in so far as its divided leadership was capable of any decisions at all in the absence of a clear lead from Moscow - had decided not to seize power at a time when it could easily have done so.”
― Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-44

“When the discussion threatened to overheat, Palamas calmed it down by saying politely: “Had we been able to agree in debate we might as well have been of one faith.” To which he received the revealing reply: “There will be a time when we shall all agree.”11”
― Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950

“To imagine that Hitler was merely following in, say, Bismarck’s footsteps was profoundly to misunderstand the man and his view of the world. Bismarck thought in terms of great-power politics, Hitler of racial triumph.”
― Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century

“This story of benign judicial neglect of Nazis and collaborators forms a striking contrast with the systematic repression of the Greek Left, which lasted for over two decades.”
― Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-44

“But it is also, and more basically, because if this century has shown one thing, it is that politics cannot be reduced to economics: differences in values and ideologies must be taken seriously and not simply regarded as foils for class interest. Fascism, in other words, was more than just another form of capitalism.”
― Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century

“Germany had to be kept in her place. The new states of eastern and central Europe would act both as a buffer against Bolshevik revolution and as a check against Germany. The slogan of national self-determination was thus a means to an end, and could be overridden when it clashed with French interests. This explains the French lack of enthusiasm for the minorities treaties—which seemed merely to weaken her new east European allies—and the French refusal in 1918–19 (and again, implicitly, in 1931) to allow Austria and Germany to be united, against the evident wishes of the bulk of the Austrian population.”
― Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century

“and at the end of 1820 Mavrokordatos started teaching Greek to Mary Shelley, whose Frankenstein had been published two years earlier.”
― Mark Mazower, The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe

“Για παραπάνω από ένα χρόνο το αδιέξοδο των λιμοκτονούντων φτωχών εκδηλωνόταν σποραδικά με επιθέσεις, κλοπές και σουφρώματα, χωρίς όμως πολιτική έκφραση. Τα περί κοινοτικής αλληλεγγύης - η δυσαρέσκεια από τις εγωιστικές αξίες του προπολεμικού καπιταλισμού- έμοιαζαν κούφια και απατεωνίστικα σλόγκαν στο στόμα ενός Τσολάκογλου κι ενός Γκοτζαμάνη. Έμελαν όμως να εμφανιστούν ξανά στο δημόσιο στίβο και, προερχόμενα αυτή τη φορά από την παράνομη Αριστερά, θα έβρισκαν άμεση ανταπόκριση σε μια κοινωνία που είχε ριζοσπαστικοποιηθεί από μια οικονομική κατάρρευση χωρίς προηγούμενο.”
― Mazower Mark

“The very distinction between “high” and “low” culture was itself looking increasingly shaky, a product of an earlier era of elite intellectual self-confidence and benevolent moral superiority.41”
― Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century

“La Segunda Guerra Mundial promovió un nuevo consenso internacional antirracista, impulsado por nuevos descubrimientos en genética, guiados por científicos políticamente comprometidos como Huxley y fortalecido por el conocimiento de aquello de lo que en definitiva habían conducido las políticas nazis. Todo esto contribuyó a desacreditar actitudes que habían sido corrientes en la época entre las dos guerras.”
― Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century

“Hasan Pasha also gave the green light for Turks and Greeks to take whatever action they pleased against any Albanians they found: killing them was not a crime. Continuing his march, he executed all the Albanians he encountered, setting fire to a monastery where other were hiding and offering five sequins for every Albanian head brought him.”
― Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950

“By the 1990s the UK was the most unequal society in the Western world, with around fourteen million living in poverty, including over four million children, but other west European countries were heading in the same direction.”
― Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century

“Discrimination against minority rights was not primarily the work of reactionaries and conservatives. On the contrary, in eastern Europe it was above all the work of modernizing liberals who were trying to create a national community through the actions of the state. For them, the state had to show that its power was above “everyone and everything,” and to override its opponents whether these be the Church, brigands, communists or ethnic minorities. Thus it was entirely consistent for the Romanian Liberal Minister of Education, Constantin Angelescu, to criticize not only minorities but also the Church and provincial administrators in his desire to build up a centralized school system, since “the interests of the State, the interests of the Romanian people, stand above individual interests, be they those of the communities . . . The Romanian State that is ours, all of ours, must be strengthened and . . . this State can only be strengthened by . . . letting the State mold the souls of all its citizens.”

Because democracy was about the creation of national communities, it was generally anti-Semitic, or at least more ready to allow anti-Semitism to shape policy—through separate electoral colleges, for example, or entry quotas into the universities and civil-service posts—than old-fashioned royalists had been. In Hungary a 1920 law marked out Jews as a separate race rather than as “Hungarians of the Mosaic faith”; had the country been more democratic, it would probably have been more anti-Semitic still. “All citizens in Poland irrespective of creed and nationality must enjoy equal rights,” the Polish Peasant Party announced in 1935, adding the rider that “the Jews, however, as has been proved, cannot be assimilated and are a consciously alien nation within Poland.” Similar views were evident in Slovakia and Romania. And this was not just an east European problem: such sentiments were on the rise in once ultra-assimilationist France as well, and eventually led to the notorious clause in Vichy’s draft constitution describing the Jews as “a race that conducts itself as a distinct community that resists assimilation.”
― Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century

“When we eat wheat from Canada,” remarked Hitler one evening during the war, “we don’t think about the despoiled Indians.”
― Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century

“to found a fraternal society of their own. Humbler than its illustrious Vienna equivalent, their Filiki Etaireia (Friendly Society) would turn out to be the catalyst for Europe’s first successful national revolution, ultimately forcing kings and diplomats to change their entire approach to the management of the European peace.11”
― Mark Mazower, The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe

“The crucial difference was between the regimes of the old Right, who wanted to turn the clock back to a pre-democratic elitist era, and the new Right, who seized and sustained power through the instruments of mass politics.”
― Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century

“As the Civil War raged, large parts of the occupation experience were passed over and forgotten as quickly as possible. The Greek authorities showed little interest in pursuing war criminals, and war crimes petered out more quickly than anywhere else in Europe, whilst over-conscientious prosecutors were buried in provincial postings.”
― Mark Mazower

“Μπαίνει κανείς στον πειρασμό να εικάσει για ποιο λόγο πήγαν τόσο λίγοι Έλληνες να δουλέψουν στο Ραιχ. Η οικονομική καταστροφή στην πατρίδα τους σίγουρα δεν ήταν ικανή να τους κάνει να τραβήξουν βόρεια, παρόλο που οι συνθήκες ήταν πολύ χειρότερες στην Ελλάδα απο ότι σε άλλες περιοχές της Ευρώπης, οι οποίες αναλογικά προμήθευσαν μεγαλύτερους αριθμούς στρατολογημένων: πολύ περισσότεροι Βέλγοι, Γάλλοι, και Τσέχοι κατέληξαν να δουλεύουν στη Γερμανία παρά Έλληνες. Επίσης δεν αποτελεί εξήγηση η κακομεταχείρισή τους μέσα στο Ραιχ, γιατί δεν ήταν χειρότερη από εκείνη των άλλων αλλοδαπών εργατών, και πιθανόν να ήταν καλύτερη από εκείνη που επιφύλαξαν οι Γερμανοί στους Πολωνούς, στους Ουκρανούς και τους Ρώσους. Ούτε πάλι οι δυσχέρειες στη μεταφορά εξηγούν τους χαμηλούς αριθμούς, γιατί, όταν καταστρώνονταν οι μεταφορές, δεν ήταν πάντα γεμάτες. Η προπαγάνδα των Συμμάχων την εποχή του πολέμου έλεγε πως οι Γερμανοί είχαν αφήσει επίτηδες τους Έλληνες να λιμοκτονήσουν, για να τους κάνουν σκλάβους. Ίσως όμως ο λιμός του 1941-42, μαζί με την σκληρότητα της κατοχικής πολιτικής του Άξονα γενικότερα, να προκάλεσε το αντίθετο αποτέλεσμα. Οι εκθέσεις της Γκεστάπο δίνουν την εντύπωση ότι ο ελληνικός πληθυσμός ήταν περισσότερο ανοιχτά αντιναζί από οτι, ας πούμε, οι Ιταλοί, οι Γάλλοι ή οι Τσέχοι. Ο Νίκος Καζαντζάκης πέρασε την Κατοχή δουλεύοντας το μυθιστόρημά του "Αλέξης Ζορμπάς". Μετά τον πόλεμο ο "Ζορμπάς ο Έλληνας", ένας χειρώνακτας, έμελλε να συμβολίσει ένα ιδιότυπα ελληνικό πνεύμα αντίστασης και ανεξαρτησίας. Ο ίδιος ο Καζαντζάκης έγραψε οτι έμαθε από τον Ζορμπά πως "ο Ζορμπάς με έμαθε να αγαπώ τη ζωή και να μην φοβούμαι το θάνατο". Ίσως εδώ βρίσκεται το κλειδί για το σθένος του εθνικού αισθήματος, που έκανε μια ολόκληρη κοινωνία να απορρίψει το προπαγανδιστικό ειδύλλιο περί Νέας Ευρώπης.”
― Mazower Mark

“Where conservative parties were stronger, radical anti-immigrant parties found it more difficult to make headway. Where weak, the conservatives themselves often flirted with the same rhetoric: in Vienna, for instance, the ÖVP slogan of “Vienna for the Viennese” was hardly less inflammatory than the FPÖ version.”
― Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century

“being, of living, and of dressing, the pleasures and the wants of yesterday are to him the pleasures and wants of tomorrow. Rich or poor, he puts on every morning the same woollen cloth, and lays it aside only when he has worn it entirely out, in order to purchase another”
― Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950