ELDYK 1974

Argyris Dinopoulos recorded the testimony of the soldiers of ELDYK about the battles of the summer of 1974 in Cyprus. The documentary — part of his television series "On the Road" — was broadcast by Antenna (ANT1) in 1998, and gives voice to the men who fought: nearly half an hour of oral history.

ELDYK — the Hellenic Force in Cyprus — was the Greek military contingent stationed on the island. In Dinopoulos's own words, the men who speak in the film were the soldiers "who in 1974 repelled the Turkish invasion of Cyprus".

It is a primary, oral historical source: men who, decades later, had largely been left out of official public memory recount the waiting, the fighting and the loss of comrades. "Peoples remember only the wars they won", Dinopoulos writes; the documentary sets out to restore the memory of a unit that fought hard.

ELDYK was stationed in Cyprus under the 1960 Treaty of Alliance, after the island's independence. In July 1974, following the 15 July coup against President Makarios, Turkey carried out a military invasion in two phases, on 20 July and 14 August 1974. ELDYK's men fought defensive battles, mainly around their camp near Nicosia, with significant losses. By the end of the operations the northern part of the island had passed under Turkish military control, and Cyprus has remained divided ever since — an issue still unresolved internationally.

The film was directed by Michalis Galanakis, with Yiannis Maroudas as assistant director. As a first-hand testimony of the events of 1974 from the soldiers themselves, it is one of the most prominent pieces of Dinopoulos's archive.