Antonis Liakos Greece and Hellenism What is to be Greek? Two ...

Antonis LiakosGreece and HellenismWhat is to be Greek? Two poems might provide an answer. The first one is written byKostis Palamas, the poet responsible for the first Olympic games anthem in 1896.Palamas wonders 'what is my motherland'? Is it her landscape and monuments leftbehind by all previous periods? That is, the monuments left by the ancient Greeks, theRomans, the Byzantines, the Venetians, the Ottomans etc. In the second poem, writtenby the Nobel-prize winner George Seferis (1963), the poet describes Greece likesomeone who wakes up from a deep sleep holding in his hands an ancient marblehead, which he had dreamt his entire life as being inseparable from it. However, hedoes not know what to do with it, as he is tired of holding it. In the first poem,contemporary Greece is nothing less than an amalgam of everything that took placefor thousand years, leaving behind their traces on the physiognomy of the land,including those of her conquerors. In the second poem, contemporary Greece isunable to decide her identity; instead, she swings between the present and antiquity,as the latter is proven unbearable for the country to obtain a contemporaryconsciousness.Greece, as a modern nation state, was the result of a revolt against the OttomanEmpire (1821-1830). Prior to this, it was not self-evident that the new state was to becalled Greece (Hellas), nor its inhabitants Greeks (Hellenes). 'Greek' in vernaculardenoted a pagan, a meaning given by the Church Fathers. In other words, Christianity,after its rise to supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean in the fourth century, replacedold religions, as well as the culture of the old Greek city. That is the culture of publicworship, debates on public issues at the Agora, of theatre, the wrestling arena and thatof the Olympic games. Undeniably, this was a sensational change. The question thatarises on many occasions on this issue is: did the Hellenic world survive after the endof the antiquity?But what is the Hellenic world? Plato describes the Greeks as frogs sitting around apond, meaning the Greek settlements around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.But were the Greeks an ethnicity or were they a civilization? For Herodotus, theGreeks had a common language and religion and shared the same ancestors.

Therefore they were one race, even if they lacked in political unity and nationalconscience. Thucydides held a more sceptic view on the issue. He wrote, for example,that the Arcananes were initially barbarians who became Greeks, meaning thatpreviously they solved their problems with arms as barbarians did, and not throughlaws, as the Greeks. Therefore the Greeks were a level of civilization. Anyone couldbe identified as Greek as long as he felt for that culture. Isocrates' perception thatGreeks were those with Greek education (paideia) suggests that Hellenism was acultural rather than an ethnic category. In the empires founded by Alexander the Greatand the Macedonians, Hellenism encompasses mainly cultural features. Cities withGreek culture and Greek way of life extended to Central Asia. Many people who hadGreek as a second language emerged as Greek writers. At the culmination of theRoman Empire, Hellenism, through poetry, philosophy, theatre, sculpture andarchitecture, emerged as a culture of social distinction. It became the culture of theRoman or rather Greco-Roman aristocracy.Was there anything left from this cultural Hellenism after antiquity? The Christiansadopted the Greek language and safeguarded a selection of philosophical and poetrytexts, as well as medical, mathematical, astronomical etc. However, they destroyed'visual' Hellenism, i.e. schools of philosophy, statues, temples, theatres, and thewrestling arenas, along with everything that evolved the Agora and public debate. Inother words, the Christians brought the destruction of the Greek way of life. This iswhy words like 'Greek' and 'pagan' became synonymous for Christians. Nevertheless,Christianity might not have acquired the form by which it is known to us, if it was notformulated by a Greek conceptual language. Then, the question that lies here is: wasHellenism destroyed or did it survive?If we consider Hellenism as the civilization of an era, than this era began with theHellenic settlements in the Mediterranean (eighth century B.C.E.) and ended with thecomplete christianisation of the Roman Empire (sixth century C.E.). The prohibitionof the ancient worship and the Olympic games by the Byzantine emperor Justinian,and the conversion of the Parthenon to a Christian church set the limits. Despite thesechanges, this is a civilization that lasted for twelve centuries. Certainly, many culturalfeatures from the old civilization were passed on to the modern era. They survived inthe linguistic and conceptual background of European languages, as well as in the

languages of the Eastern Mediterranean (e.g. Coptic, Arabic, Syrian, Armenian,Slavonic, Turkish). The dominant culture of the modern era reassessed, re-used andeven more competed with Greek and Roman concepts and forms. From thisperspective, especially from the time of the Enlightenment, cultural Hellenismemerged as a reference point in philosophy, political theory, visual arts andarchitecture. It turned into the core of the canon of the European and largely Westerncivilization.However, Greeks today do not see Hellenism as a level of civilization. Needless tosay, they attribute primacy to it, regarding it as a supreme civilization and the motherof the modern world civilization. Moreover, they consider Hellenism as amanifestation of the Greek nation's brilliance and ingenuity. In other words, Greeksbelieve that Hellenism corresponds to a nation that lived on after the end of antiquityin the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. This nation in its second life was co-shapedwith the Hellenised Eastern Orthodox Church (compared to the Latinised Church ofthe West). Greeks believe that, after the Ottoman occupation of Asia Minor and theBalkans, their nation managed to survive, re-emerge and to assert its independence inthe early nineteenth century. Greek scholars of the nineteenth-century in various waysnurtured this notion, of an uninterrupted history of a nation from Greek antiquity tothe Greek kingdom in 1830. First, they archaised the spoken language and developeda written one as close as possible to the Hellenistic koine. Second, they changed thenames of toponyms; towns, villages, mountains and islands regained their ancientforms. Moreover, archaeological sites (e.g. Acropolis, Delphi, Olympia, Epidauros,Mycenae, Delos, Knossos, Vergina) turned into a geographical network of historicalreference sites, underlining their Greek identity. Third, they adopted a neoclassic styleas an architectural design for public and private buildings and dwellings. The samestyle was also used for national symbols and monuments. But above all, Greekscholars created a powerful narrative of a nation with a continuous history fromantiquity to the present, using supporting evidence from historiography, folklore andart history. With this notion of Hellenism, the Greeks convinced themselves andothers, not only their summer visitors, but also those who study various periods oraspects of the Greek culture and civilization, in their own schools and universities.Moreover, those who were mesmerised by the ancient Greek civilization assisted withthe "re-birth" of the Greeks. Although, Greeks succeeded on this issue, they paid a

heavy price, and are still paying: they fall short when compared to their invented, butalso 'distant', ancestors.There was always an asymmetry on how Greeks regarded themselves and on howothers do. Prior the advent of mass tourism, a few learned visitors, already knewGreece from their books. These were the people that admired ancient Greece, butlooked down on any of her other historical periods. The Greeks themselvesmanifested a similar contempt, for example, by 'purifying' the Acropolis and Athensfrom any Roman and Byzantine structure. Then there was a change in the course andthey strived to display Greek elements from all previous periods so to demonstrate theuninterrupted history of Hellenism. By doing so they stumbled on a great obstacle:Byzantine history was missing not only from the genealogy of the Greek canon, butalso from the European. This meant that the history of the Eastern EuropeanOrthodoxy was also absent. Needless to say, many Western scholars of Byzantiumviewed Orthodoxy and Eastern Europe as a separate civilization to the European. TheGreek motive was to appropriate the history of Byzantium for themselves and thenpromote it as an in-between link of their own national history. They wished tointroduce Byzantium to European history as the pipeline, through which ancientGreek letters passed to modern Europe. It is interesting though, that Westerners hadturned their backs on the Greeks, in the same manner the Greeks had turned their backto other Balkan and Middle-Eastern people. Greek historical experiences withVenetians, Serbs, Albanians, Bulgarians, Arabs and Turks, although they were not setaside, were registered in a frame of national antagonisms.Often a reference to the Balkans brings to mind issues such as ethnic conflicts, warsand even ethnic cleansing. This is a region where everyone fights against everyoneelse. However, there is nothing exceptional about the Balkans; no more blood wasshed on this region, than on any other part of the world. What actually happened was:different ethnic populations co-existed in the same territory. Thus, when a nationgained political will it began to claim areas that other nations were also laying claimto. For example, Greeks and Bulgarians were claiming Macedonia. The former alsodisputed Constantinople (Istanbul) and Asia Minor with the Turks. World War Ibrought in an explosion of nationalisms, leading to a decade of constant wars andbloody conflicts (1912-1922). These events were to change the physiognomy of the

egion, as well as, each nation's society. Greece quadrupled in size by acquiring thelargest part of Macedonia, which she Hellenised, mainly by transferring refugeesfrom Asia Minor. The end of these wars was followed mostly by violent and certainlyunwillingly mass expulsions or population exchanges, even massacres. In 1922 oneand a half million Christian refugees were forced to leave Turkey for Greece. Sixhundred thousand also of their Muslin counterparts left Greece to settle in Turkey.Additionally, all Greek populations spread around the Balkans and Asia Minor wereto converge within the borders of the Greek state. In the following years the Greekstate placed its effort to assist the refugees, who took up 20% of the population,assimilating them into Greek life.War changed the political scene of Greece; the army became stronger and oftenresulted to coup d'états, bringing crises to the country's parliamentary system. The1929-1932 economic crisis resulted in a series of social unrests. A spectre of a socialrevolution hovered over the country until 1936. This changed when a dictatorship wasestablished, which followed existing regimes of this period. In fact, with this type ofregime Greece entered World War II.For Nikos Svoronos, a leading twentieth century Greek historian, a key elementthroughout Greek history was the spirit of 'resistance'. Greeks, he claimed, werealways resisting foreign invaders, as well as internal tyranny. This widespread attitudeamomgs Greeks is the result that the modern Greek state was a product of arevolution, which in turn created a strong subject: We, the people! Namely, it createda tradition of popular patriotism and nationalism, of intense politicisation and strongpolitical parties, as well as, of a relatively long-term parliamentary tradition. Whatwas more, Greece became an independent state by the intervention of the majorpowers of that period, especially by Great Brittain and Russia. For most of her historyGreece was dependent on Great Brittain, and then on the USA. Consequently, bothpowers often had a say in her domestic policy. Greece, in other words, was somethingbetween an independent state and a colony, without having ever turned into a colony.At the same time, Greece maintained an ambivalent stance towards Europe and theWest. Western powers were needed to be present when it was a lined up against eitherTurkey or any other Balkan neighbour. Interestingly though, Greece held an antiimperialistspirit, risking to be regarded as the naughty child of the West. This

ambivalence was reinforced after World War II, having a profound impact oncontemporary Greece.In the events of the period 1940-1942 the Greeks defeated the Italians, but then weredefeated by the Germans. From April 1941 to October 1944 Greece came under atripartite German, Italian and Bulgarian occupation. This is a period when the entirestate mechanism collapsed. Famine hit the urban population, while the currency, dueto uncontrollable inflation, was devaluated. The population's self-organization so as tosurvive together with a resistance movement against the occupiers resulted in themerging of patriotic spirit and of a social revolt. Since, liberal and conservativepolitical parties were inactive, the National Liberation Front, a coalition of leftistparties, took up leadership of city and village resistance groups. Its military branchwas a guerrilla army, known as ELAS (Greek Resistance Army). Despite theleadership's cautious declarations that Greek resistance was on the side of the Alliesand against Axis, the whole organization gained the characteristics of an undeclaredsocial revolution. Furthermore, ELAS attempted, sometimes using bloody methods, todominate over any other political or armed activity. As a revolution brings acounterrevolution, this was also the case in occupied Greece. With the cooperation ofthe occupying forces, rival armed groups evolved and were to lead the country to abloody civil war. This did not come to an end after Greece's liberation from theGermans (October 1944), instead it escalated in December 1944 and then again in theperiod 1947-1949, turning into a full blown war.The Greek Civil War was one of first episodes of the Cold War, to which the Britishand the Americans responded with an immediate interference. This war ended with acrushing defeat for the Left; a large number of its supporters were either executed andexiled to barren islands of the Aegean or fled to Eastern Block countries. Until 1967the country was governed by the weakest sense of democracy. Greece has nowseized to be an agricultural society, having most of its population moving into thecities. The country's economy was not strong enough to support its people, thus begana large wave of migrants to Western Europe. However, Europe's post-war prosperityhad also impacted on Greece. Steadily the country began to move closer to the livingstandards of other European countries, even though together with Spain, Portugal andSouthern Italy belonged to the slower-paced Europe. This direction was interrupted

y the 1967 military junta, that lasted for seven years, bringing significant disaster toGreece, as well as to Cyprus, dismantling from the latter its legitimate governmentand causing a Turkish invasion, which has become permanent. The military junta wasthe final act of a period of wars and fierce political unrests that commenced in theearly twentieth century. Yet, the last quarter of the century inaugurates a period inwhich the country's democratic institutions were consolidated. Moreover, thanks totourism, people's standard of living improved, and finally, in 1981 Greece became thetenth member of the European Union. The accession into the European club provedhighly beneficial for the country, especially for its economy and institutions, both ofwhich to a great degree were modernized.During the second half of the 20th century, the vast majority of tourists, who visitedGreece, had not read any of the ancient Greek writers. However, the same people hadseen films such as Zorba the Greek starring Anthony Quinn and Never on Sundaystarring Melina Merkouri in the 1960's. Post-war cinema manifested a fresh,unconventional and jovial identity of the Greeks. This was expressed through difficultto translate words/virtues, such as 'levendia', 'filotimo' and 'glendi', as well as throughthe 'rembetika' songs (known as the Greek-blues) and dances such as the 'syrtaki'.Although many Greeks, especially males, adopted this identity, the truth is thatGreece today lies between an optimistic and pessimistic view of history and identity.Furthermore, the collapse of the socialist regimes in 1989 and globalisation have hadtremendous consequences on Greece: a constant wave of new migrants from Albania,Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa reaching her most remote parts, make up 10 per centof the population. There are neighbourhoods and schools in Athens and Thessalonikiwhere the migrants outnumber the locals. Xenophobic outbursts that the Hellenicidentity is in danger from globalisation are frequent. Ironically, this is happening in aland in which people regarded 'filoxenia' (hospitality) as an ancestral trait. At the sametime, twenty-first century found Greece celebrating her entry in the Euro club. Theparty went on to the 2004 Olympic games in Athens; it was a great occasion forGreeks to show to the rest of the world that they have succeeded, and they wereworthy sons of their eminent forebears. On the flip side, there was a huge bill to pay,which together with the recent economic crisis has made Greek people uneasy of theirfuture. An example of this unease was displayed in the angry civic riots in Athens,December 2008.