The Cultural Cold War in Greece: The Case of Pasternak's <i>Dr. Zhivago</i>

Abstract This article explores the intellectual and cultural dimensions of the Cold War in Greece in the late 1950s and early 1960s, focusing on the heated debate about the Soviet regime's harsh clampdown on Boris Pasternak's acclaimed novel Doctor Zhivago. Despite Greece's particularities regarding its status as a frontline European state in the Cold War and the acute tensions with Turkey over Cyprus, public discourse among Greek intellectuals broke down along Cold War lines when core ideological and cultural issues of the capitalist and Communist camps were at stake. The ideological content and argumentation in public debates mirrored ideas, perceptions, and concepts that were common in the “high” Cold War ideological battle of the 1950s, making Greece an active participant in the wider cultural Cold War. The gradual relaxation of Cold War tensions by the mid-1960s made the “Zhivago affair” one of the most typical examples of Cold War intellectual discourse in Greece.