The Transnational Formation of Imperial Rule on the Margins of Europe: 1 British Cyprus and the Italian Dodecanese in the Interwar Period

Abstract

This article records and offers to interpret a parallel hardening of British and Italian colonial governances in the Eastern Mediterranean in the interwar period. It focuses on the cases of the Dodecanese, an Italian ‘Possedimento’ since 1912, and Cyprus, a British dependency since 1878, lying on the geographical and cultural margins of, and the border between, these two colonial empires. Building on the recurrent cross-references between British and Italian colonial systems in British, Italian and Greek archives, official and unofficial, this article highlights the circulation of administrative ideas and practices across imperial boundaries. It suggests that British and Italian authorities saw in enosis, or the union with Greece advocated by the Orthodox majorities under their rule, an opportunity to implement an authoritarian form of governance potentially transposable to other Mediterranean settings. Engaging with current debates on inter-imperial transfers, this article enquires into colonial policymaking as the outcome of a mutually productive exchange across territorial frontiers and assumed ideological differences.