Voluntary Associations

This Voluntary Associations Database documents and catalogues the basic features and the historical evolution of some 9,500 formal collectivities created in twentieth-century Greece in the urban centres and thematic areas analysed by the different case studies.

Most of the material included in this database comes from the archives of the Courts of the First Instance of Athens, Lesvos and Syros. Material was also found in a variety of archives and publications, such as: the Archive of the Society for the Protection of Minors of Athens, the Archive of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies, the Archives of Contemporary Social History, the General State Archives of the Cyclades, the Greek Centre for Psychic Hygiene and Research, the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive, the Historical Archive of Macedonia, the Service of Diplomatic & Historical Archives of the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, various personal archives etc. This material was gathered by researchers in RT 1 and 3.

Researchers of RT 2 created an electronic database with publication cuttings from their research in the newspapers Τα Νέα [The News], Μακεδονία [Macedonia], Καθημερινή [Daily] and Ριζοσπάστης [Radical] for the years 1974-1981. This material was incorporated in the database of associations.

In constructing the database our aim was to include as many of the voluntary associations located during our research as possible. The fields of each entry created for each association a documented profile depending on the available data. The fields follow the structure of the statute of an association. Information includes its title, location, year of institution, year of approval and registration; the physical condition of the statute of a specific association, its language, aims, symbol and commemoration day, provisions for its finances in case of dissolution, subscriptions paid by members and names of members of management committees as well as bibliographical references or other comments. However, several entries concern associations for which there are no or few available data.