GREEK PHOTO ALBUM - ANTI BRITISH POLITICAL PROPAGANADA - CYPRUS CONFLICT - 1950s

This exceptional album was published by the National Committee for Self-Determination of Cyprus, as indicated by a label affixed to the inside front cover, with address provided in Athens, Greece. Several references to publications by that organization can be found online, all from the mid- to late-1950s. No other captions or context is provided anywhere in this album, nor any dates anywhere. The photos are understood to shout in silent protest.

To briefly contextualize the politics surrounding this photographic record: Cyprus had been under Ottoman rule for centuries until 1878, when the British Empire gained control. During the Ottoman years, the Turkish population steadily grew, especially in the island's northern and eastern areas. The British held the island in a status of protectorate until the First World War; thence, until 1925, as an annexed territory under military occupation; and thereafter, until 1960, as a Crown colony. There were levels of resistance to foreign rule throughout, building to this point, when the British Empire was shedding many of its colonies because of violent uprisings. Cyprus would raise its flag in August 1960, with the agreement that Britain would retain two military bases, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, which still stand there today - one of 14 remaining British Overseas Territories.

19 11/16" x 13 7/8", landscape orientation, 1" thick at the edge and 1 1/2" at the partially-segmented spine. The album is heavy, nearly 10 lb. Cover in excellent condition, with wear to corners and a small, 1/4"-inch bumped indentation at left top of front. 28 leaves/56 pages, dark brown, thick paper (or perhaps better described as thin board) in excellent condition with no tears and only minor chipping and creasing. Glassine pages separating each leaf, some creased, chipped and torn, yellowed at edges but still mostly in good condition. The last glassine page has a corner square entirely detached but not missing. The final page is blank.

200 b&w photos, all 7" x 5 1/8", except the first (more on which below), glossy; all in excellent, unfaded condition, still perfectly glued to the page. Two additional photos have been tucked in - one glossy, in faded color, 3 1/2" x 5", of thirteen men in dark suits, all standing; one 8" x 10", matte, of nineteen men in dark suits, three seated, the rest standing - this one has a New York photographer's stamp on the back for Costa Hayden, who was the traveling photographer of Archbishop Lakovos. These two do not appear to be from the same event, but both are likely related to the organization responsible for the publication of this protest - perhaps members of the board or foreign benefactors.

The album opens with a photograph of an Orthodox Greek clergyman, probably a pre-independence portrait of Makarios III (1913-1977), Autocephalous of Cyprus, and its first president from independence until his death. It is evident from the honor bestowed upon him here that he serves as the spiritual guide of the organization or perhaps the entire pro-independence movement. This photo is alone on the page and is larger than all the rest, at 7" x 9 1/2". All subsequent pages have either three photos in portrait orientation, staggered in descending steps, left-to-right; or four photos in landscape orientation, at right angles to each other but carefully offset to avoid forming a cross in between them.

The album is meant to demonstrate British brutality against the restive Greek Cypriots agitating for independence. Page after page depicts British troops arresting young men, searching the pockets of little boys, even detaining clergy. The regular soldiers have 1-3 chevrons on their upper arms and sometimes wear webbing; the officers wear black uniforms, and it is possible that these latter are in fact local gendarmerie, Cypriot loyalists to the British dominion, employed by the colonialist bureaucracy.

Many men are rounded up and placed in trucks, their faces showing more defiance than fear - some smile for the camera. Some are forced to stand in rows with their hands up on the city walls. The few women shown are in black shawls and weeping. The men are carted off to coiled barbed-wire enclosures, guarded by soldiers with rifles and large machine guns, some with back-borne communications gear. The British soldiers drive jeeps, Land Rovers and personnel trucks, and some are shown donning gas masks. The act of photography does not seem to be illegal or subversive, and the camera itself was clearly of photojournalistic quality, as the photos chosen are of exceptional clarity.

Some photos show the empty streets of Nicosia. English is often featured in the signs above the shops. In one photo the RAF station in that city can clearly be seen from a distance. In that same plaza, several subsequent photos depict mass civil unrest. Soldiers are shown searching cars, bushes, fields, confiscating innocuous contrabands of various sorts. One page depicts real violence: smoke in the streets, a man lying supine with severely bloodied face, women weeping over a coffin draped in a flag and overlaid with wreaths.

Trees are cut down, entire groves, with machete and bulldozer. Houses are ransacked, grave-crosses toppled, forests set alight. One man bares his back for the camera, the striping on his upper arms displayed. Many walls are daubed with slogans protesting foreign rule.

One picture incongruously shows Othello's Castle in Famagusta (known by the Turks as Magosa), but this does not seem to have been the site of political unrest.

Women join the fray. Several dozen in colorful dresses carry a protest banner through the alleys; several hundred clad in black proceed through the streets. Schoolgirls genuflect at a memorial, and march in procession. Housewives argue with soldiers at their door. Moms pushing prams, flanked by children carrying signs. Men and women gather to read the list tacked on one facade, probably of detained or killed.

The slogan "Enosis" ('integration', meaning with Greece) appears in several places, as does the acronym "E.O.K.A." (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston) - the formal name of the nationalist guerrilla organization, active from 1955 until 1959 - when the agreement with London on indendence the following year was signed. (It would be reconstituted in the 1970s in order to formalize Enosis, but the Turkish invasion put paid to those priorities.) "Ethnarch" is also scrawled on city walls - the honorific given to Makarios.