Emmanouela Giannoulidou Presents Civil War Seminar on Third Side
Emmanouela Giannoulidou will present a Melbourne civil war seminar on Thursday 18 June at 7pm, using two literary works to examine the idea of a “third side” in the Greek Civil War. The free talk will take place in person at The Greek Centre on Lonsdale Street.
Giannoulidou, an archivist at La Trobe University’s Dardalis Archives of the Hellenic Diaspora, will speak in English. Her research challenges the assumption that civil wars are simply conflicts between two opposing camps.
The Greek Centre seminar
The seminar is titled “The Third Side of Civil War: in Nikos Kazantzakis’ The Fratricides and Manuel Chaves Nogales’ A Sangre y Fuego: Héroes, Bestias y Mártires de España.” It is part of the 2026 Greek History and Culture Seminars at The Greek Centre.
The event puts civil war in literary rather than strictly historical terms. Giannoulidou’s work seeks to formalise the concept of this “third side” and place it within literary analysis, not only in accounts of armed conflict.
Kazantzakis and Chaves Nogales
The research draws on Nikos Kazantzakis’ The Fratricides and Manuel Chaves Nogales’ A sangre y fuego: Héroes, bestias y mártires de España. The seminar abstract says both works show the violence produced by political extremism and the moral ambiguity experienced by ordinary people caught outside clear factional loyalties.
That framing gives the Melbourne audience a way to read the Greek Civil War and the Spanish Civil War alongside each other without reducing either to two fixed camps. Giannoulidou’s argument instead places attention on the people whose experience is not captured when history is told only through competing sides.
What attendees will hear
For attendees, the practical detail is simple: the seminar is free, in person, and starts at 7pm on Thursday 18 June at The Greek Centre on Lonsdale Street. Giannoulidou will present it in English.
The wider value of the talk lies in the method. By using two literary works to test a “third side” of civil war, the seminar asks listeners to think about who gets left out when civil conflict is described only as a clash between opposing camps.
