Burası Politeknik

In November 1973, in Greece, where the military dictatorship was in power, the student youth's reactions to the junta's education policies and pressures turned into a large mass movement demanding "Bread, education, freedom". The spark that ignited the streets struck at the Polytechnic University in Athens.

“This is Polytechnic… This is Polytechnic! … We call on all our people, workers and laborers to take to the streets and join the fight for freedom against the junta! Let's fight against the junta... Let's fight against fascism... Long live the free Polytechnic, long live the free Greek people! ... Evacuate the neighborhoods and come to the center of Athens to show solidarity with the struggling youth! Today the junta will go!... Today the fascist government will be destroyed!”

The occupation, which lasted three days, ended with an operation that turned into a massacre by soldiers and police entering the school accompanied by tanks. However, despite hundreds of dead and thousands of injured, the potential revealed by the popular movement that exploded around the demand for freedom and democracy became the signal that started the process of the collapse of the military fascist dictatorship.

“Bread, education, freedom!” The demanding students shielded their chests to break the darkness and united with the working people against tanks, cannons, rifles, soldiers, police and oppression. They couldn't fit into the worlds. “Tonight fascism will die, long live freedom!”

Journalist, writer and translator Riza Özlütaş tells the reader about the legendary Polytechnic Resistance of the Greek youth against the Colonels' Junta, together with the historical developments of those days and testimonies.

“The Polytechnic Resistance is the most important resistance in the recent history of Greece after the national liberation war. "It is the name of a living legend," says Siflis Kafkalas, who took part in the resistance from the beginning to the end. “Polytechnic left a great legacy… It is a struggle and resistance against imperialism and fascism. It is a rebellion against the rulers. If the slogan 'Bread, education, freedom' chanted at the Polytechnic still remains current and expresses the class demands of the oppressed, then we need new Polytechnics. As long as there are struggles for freedom and class liberation, there will be new Polytechnics all over the world. Let bourgeois historians and politicians keep arguing that the Polytechnic era is over and closed! For those who defend dialectical materialism, the Polytechnic is not 'history' but a class attitude that will inevitably repeat itself.”

(From the Promotional Bulletin)

Cover Design: Devrim Koçlan

Dough Type: 2nd Dough

Number of Pages: 152

Size: 13.5 x 19.5

First Printing Year: 2017

Number of Printings: 1st Edition

Media Type: Paperback