Conserveries Mémorielles (May 2014)
Trajectoire mémorielle entre continuités et ruptures : l'exemple de la communauté grecque à Marseille au XIXe siècle
Abstract
This historical perspective discusses the settlement of Greeks in Marseille, France, from the late-eighteenth century to the first decade of the 1900s. During this period, the sociological bonds between the different Greeks suggest a nuclear and an individual-based colony. The wave of new-comers from the Island of Chios precipitated some major changes in the Marseille Greek's social morphology: these individuals, members of the historic leading class (Archons) indeed turned their individual itineraries into a social crystallization process which helped them develop multiple belonging relationships. On the one hand the archontal Generation (1825-1875) incorporated the long-term representations of the group (socio-historically determined legacies such as religion, language, kinship, and self-administration policy) into its main identification frame, the Community, on the other hand and at the same time, this Generation elaborated its own social model through a selective acquisition of local French values and representations. Thus, a global understanding of the Community posits two sets of dynamics: the first one was representative of the Greek living memory which contributed to preserve the Greek spatio-temporal representations. The second dynamic led the Community to adopt new practices without altering its long-term legacies. In this way, the Greek Community building in Marseille displayed a bipolarized pattern between adaptation and social resistance process.
