Evaluating and Constructing the ‘Friend’ in Crisis. Mediated Depictions of Russia in the Newspapers of Cyprus

Abstract

The main purpose of the present study is to explore and evaluate the diachronic relations between Russia and Cyprus, noting their historical context and to examine the perceived image1 of Russia in the Cypriot press, during the crucial period of Eurogroup’s decisions of March 2013.

In 1878 the UK rented Cyprus from the Ottoman Empire in exchange of a British promise to help Turkey against Russia. In 1914, the UK annexed the island and Cyprus became a British Colony because the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War on the side of the central powers. According to the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), the Ottomans quitted all of their requirements on Cyprus-and the new status led the UK to declare the island as a Crown’s colony in 1925 (Stavrinides 1975, p.2). This event coincided with the creation of the Communist Party of Cyprus (1926) as a blueprint for the global resonance that the Bolshevik movement gained, expressed in the October 1917 Revolution. These events resulted in cultivating within the working class of Cyprus, a communist ideology which, over time, founded the Cypriot Left. Apart from the ideological associations or the religious ones, on the basis of common doctrine, since 1960, after the founding of the Republic of Cyprus, these relations have become transnational in political and economic terms.