From Resurrection to Insurrection: 'Sacred' Myths, Motifs, and Symbols in the Greek War of Independence

This paper is the result of about sixteen months of fieldwork, part of my doctoral research project, from September 1989 to June 1991 in the village of Aghios Dimitrios on Lemnos, a Greek island of the Northern Aegean. My aim was to gain an understanding of the refugee identity of the inhabitants of Aghios Dimitrios in contrast to the indigenous islanders and other Greeks. I was fundamentally concerned with the profound tension between the latter’s distinctive sense of identity on the one hand, and the broad, totalizing national images of the Mikrasiates (people originating in Asia Minor) on the other. I focused mainly on how the Ottoman and the refugee past was experienced and represented by members of this group seven decades after their expulsion from Asia Minor. In my investigations I used participant observation and oral history techniques to document a broad range of practices of daily life: narratives of the past, songs, labour, and the social life of objects of material culture. The group I focused on was older men and women originating from Reisdere,2 a peasant community located in the peninsula of Erythrea (Western Asia Minor), who came from Asia Minor when they were children and who had a direct experience of the persecution.

A noticeable percentage of the Modern Greeks identify themselves in comparison to other nationalities concerning the ancient Greek civilization and culture. The Modern Greek Mentality even now maintains that “Greeks turned on the light to the rest world… are the creators of the world civilization and subsequently have the right to make mistakes and others forgive them because Greeks are Greeks…” Therefore in the Greek case of Nationalism the interpretation of the concept of Nationalism relies on the hypothesis that Nationalism is a worldview, a way of understanding one’s identity of belonging and collective goals which give the reasons of their adoption by the nation and explain the areas of strength and achivements of the State. Of course Greek civilization throughout the years from antiquity until modern times has played a very important role in the world theatre of arts, sciences and humanities being the driving force for evolution and innovation in many scientific fields giving feedback to the human mind for creative and critical thinking.Nevertheless we can not use it as alidi for our mistakes, disadvantages and negative behaviors. But why the majority of Modern Greeks can not understand that considering enemy everyone (teacher, scholar, journalist, artist, politician,) tries to explain that?! Subsequently could we argue that Nationalism is a part of Modern Greek identity starring in many phases throughout Modern Greek History and blocking many Modern Greeks to make self criticism and think without stereotypes and bias about their present ( social, economic, political crisis) and fututre ( how could we overcome the crisis)?? Trying to answer this thorny and burning question it would be wise to present an overview of the concept of Nationalism throughout the Modern Greek History in order to explain how we resulted in the neo Nazi / neo fascist movement at present in Greece contextualizing the Golden Dawn. But is it safe arguing that Greek Nationalism is connected only with Greek Antiquity?? Ancient Greek tradition is a main dimension of Greek Nationalism affecting until now the Modern Greek Mentality but Greek Nationalism is a more complicated and multidimensional phenomenon. Some elements indicative of the dimensions of Greek Nationalism could be the model of patriotism, the strategic manipulation of nationalist feelings by Greek politicians, the role of politics and culture in (re)defining national identity and in drawing the boundaries, symbolic and territorial, between 'us' and the ‘others’ as also the problems that may arise from such an ethnic conception of the nation-state. Following that it would be useful and helpful studying the Greek case of Nationalism under the aspects of history, politics, language, literature and religion. For example the historical and political perspectives give a deeper understanding of the origins, the nature, the transformations and the goals of Greek Nationalism over the years from the nationbuild. Moreover we could study the conceptional framework of Nationalism through the Greek language and especially the tension between Katharevousa and Demotic in the 19th century which divided the Greek nation into two conflicting parts causing many tragic events even with victims. Following that the Greek Nationalism through the study of literature reveals the reflection of the nation and national identity on the texts of literature and especially focused on Greek Children’s Literature we could understand how the Greek State attempted to nurture to the young generation all that characteristics that were considered necessary for the continuity of the nation across time and Greeks’ unity around a common identity and consciousness. Of course children are the most appropriate choice for this purpose as they are the future of a nation and the link between the former and latter generations. Lastly the study of the issue of religion relies on the significance of religion in the definition of Greek national identity. Late 19th century Greek Nationalism is presented as competing with the Orthodox tradition and in the texts of the period there was the understanding of making of a modern Greece to threaten the unmaking of Orthodoxy (Pourgouris, 2011: 293 &294).

Historein, 2018

The interwar crisis as perceived by conservative German and Greek intellectuals focused particularly on national identity, which they thought to be decisively challenged and threatened by radical transformation. In Greece the intellectual elites undertook the task to interpret the crisis in order to frame a cultural programme concerning the meaning of Hellenism that incorporated their ideological and partisan assumptions. This article explores the notion of Greekness, and the ways it embraced and encapsulated the problems that bedevilled both state and society, during the period of the interwar crisis. It aims, first, to examine the intellectuals' narrative and production of the ideology of Greekness as a signifier that launched, implicitly and explicitly, the elements that constituted a new imaginary institution of the nation. To this end, it will examine theoretical schemes and cultural transfers from German academic currents and theorists of the time and the appeal of their proclamations. The ideology of Greekness offered a means for the government to resolve the issues of the interwar state and, in particular, the challenge of its political survival and continuity. My second aim is to trace the convergences and divergences of the concervative intellectuals' schema of Greekness with the equivalent aspirations of the Thirties Generation. By capturing the meaning of Greekness, the conservative intelligentsia expanded the criterion for Greekness beyond an aesthetic perception of Hellenism and its related conversation with European modernism, as the issue was employed by the writers and poets of the Thirties Generation. Conservative's examination of Greekness disclosed the way that the politics of culture both served and promoted a hegemonic discourse. In conclusion my paper holds that the intellectuals' main concern was to utilize the cultural capital of Hellenism in order to propose a technique of governance, numbering the Greek case among the counterpart nationalist project in Germany at the time. Greekness demonstrated anew an imaginary conceptualization and institutionalization of the nation, that was articulated in accordance with the ideological assertions of conservatives circles and became synonym with a pedagogy of national conformity.

Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, 2019

The retrieval and subsequent burial of the war dead in classical Greece was considered an important component of any given battle. Scholarship has observed how the retrieval of the war dead in the classical period could determine the outcome of a battle, as well as how the commemoration of the war dead functioned as a tool of civic identity, especially in the city of Athens. Although the above observations provide sufficient motivation for the recovery of the battle dead, this paper proposes an additional impetus for their collection: religion. Although scholars have often noted that Greek customs surrounding the war dead were motivated by religious concerns, what those religious concerns were have not been elaborated. This paper remedies this gap by exploring the relationship between the war dead and the gods. In this paper, I argue that the war dead were considered the property of the gods and were afforded special protections for this reason. Moreover, the proper burial of the war dead was necessary to transfer the war dead from the custody of the human world to the gods below. Such a transfer, I argue, maintained the relationship between the polis and the gods, ensuring its continued existence.

West European Politics, Vol. 26, No. 1, 2003

Hellenic Nationalism Descending from Parnassus

In 1830, the proclamation of an independent Greek state and, three years later, of Athens as its capital city, implied a clear-cut distinction between a ‘state’ and a ‘nation’, enforced by the three ‘Protective’ European Powers (England, France and Russia). The prescribed geographical borders of the new state did not last for long. Even if the ‘invented’ Megali Idea’ (litter. ‘Great Idea’), had not been indicated to king Otto in 1836, ‘Nationalism’, perhaps of the Italian form, was waiting around the corner. The ‘key’ to that direction was Irredentism. The word soon became part of the Greek political (and social) agenda, throughout the nineteenth century. Religious history was often asked to give its support. In the present paper we are discussing aspects of Athenian architecture and its new plan of 1833 – shorty before that, an advanced triangulation system had provided the means for an holistic vision of the entire town. The arguments we provide refer to the traditional Athenian house, as well as to neighbourhood life which was due to change. By that time, strange thought it might seem, Athens, a modest town of some 20,000 (twenty thousand) people, sided London with its cutting of Regent Street a few years earlier, and Paris, with its Haussmannian piercing of streets, a few years later. Thus Athens was, at the same time, ‘modern’ and ‘traditional! Yet, it appeared that the pendulum of Athenian History swung dramatically between a ‘Past’ including solely the glories of Antiquity and a ‘Past’ which, apart from Antiquity, also included the Byzantine and the Ottoman years. All in all, understood as a long term process, nineteenth century ‘Hellenic Nationalism descending from Parnassus’ propagated an idealistic vision of an historical continuum. This is the context of our previously mentioned discussion on Athenian architecture and civic life.

SJBMGS 7, 2021

Tribute to Alki-Kyriakidou-Nestoros

The subject to be discussed in this article touches on two very important issues: nationalism and Orthodoxy. But analysis of the thematic link between a fundamentally divisive ideology such as nationalism and an ecumenical religious issue raises certain difficulties, and an examination of the Orthodox Christian doctrine from a nationalist viewpoint serves only to increase these difficulties. It is a rather curious fact that even though properties of ontological and historical significance are widely ascribed to Orthodoxy, and indeed the lingering reactions of Orthodox Christians are thought to be important in the responses of certain societies to the demands of modernization, from a sociological and religious point of view, Orthodoxy still remains largely an "unknown quantity."