Search

In 19th-century Modern Greek life, the most common written word that means 'mirror' was 'katoptron'. It is well-known that during this period katoptron as a material object still indicated luxury and welfare. Many 19th-century Modern Greek writers, just like their colleagues in Europe, used 'katoptron' as a means of mirroring in metaphorical and symbolic ways: it mirrors the body but reflects the soul, it tells truths or lies, it reveals the future or the past, it provokes feelings and emotions, joy or despair, self-complacency or remorse. A widespread use of katoptron during the same period made the mirror equivalent to a means that provides a wide periscopic or panoramic point of view, a full inspection of an issue discussed by the writer. But it appears that there was a wider spread of the use of katoptron/mirror as a synonym of profound (and meant to be scientific) research on social and individual morality. Some of these meanings of katoptron can be found in the three-volume Modern Greek novel The King of Hades published in Constantinople in 1882, written by Konstantinos Megarefs and obviously inspired by the famous The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) by Alexandre Dumas. The present paper examines the role of the mirror in this novel in the context of the aforementioned meanings. Subsequently it focuses on a very special use of a mirror as a secret key-mechanism and invisible door/passage leading to an underground space used for escape, hiding, and punishment, and it discusses this particular use of the mirror as a constructive element in the mystery novel.

This paper explores how Byzantine iconoclasm is depicted in the Modern Greek fiction of the past 150 years. It focuses mainly on the novels Pope Joan by E. Roidis and Sergios and Bakchos by M. Karagatsis and a crime fiction series by P. Agapitos, but it also takes into account short stories (A. Papadopoulou, Z. Papantoniou). It argues that the authors chose three types of approaches respectively: a romantic one, a satiric one, and one which combines historical fidelity with contemporary characters.

Th is study focuses on the Greek far-right political party "People's Association – Golden Dawn" between 2010 and 2016. During this period, Greece faced several different types of crises including economic, political, social, and migration crises, all of which were extensively covered by international media. Based on definitions by Cas Mudde, this article aims to examine and present Golden Dawn's political goals and practical functioning. Using Golden Dawn's official documents, ideological articles, and related secondary literature, this paper analyses the party's political program, ideology, activities, organizational structures, symbolism, and election results. Although Golden Dawn shares many similarities with other European far-right organizations (such as hierarchical leadership, chauvinism, xenophobia), in many respects it proved to be more extremist. It stands out mainly due to its unconcealed racism, violence, terrorist methods, and subversive activities attacking the democratic foundations of the Greek state. For these reasons, it can be considered a threat to the stability of not only Greece but also the European Union.

The present study offers a general overview of Byzantine visual poetry, based on older studies including works by Paul Speck (1964; 2003), Odysseas Lampsidis (1982), Wolfram Hörandner (1990; 2009) and Ulrich Ernst (1991), focusing on a special poetical form where the text is interwoven with other intexts (e.g. acro-, meso- and telestics). These poetical forms are called carmina cancellata or carmina quadrata in Latin and Gittergedichte in German. The Greek term "woven verses" [στίχοι υφαντοί] was introduced by Eustathios of Thessalonike (c. 1110–1195). But this type is scarcely known in modern studies of visual poetry. One of the main aims of the present study is therefore to emphasize the importance of the Greek term στίχοι υφαντοί as a terminus technicus for the Byzantine examples, as they differ in their metric construction from the Latin ones. The study associates the form with the general metaphor of text as a woven texture. The paper compares Byzantine and Latin examples as well as Modern Greek visual poetry. In addition, it examines the instrumentalization of the genre as a tool of propaganda, as an imperial and mannerist form, raising questions concerning the mediality and public presentation of Byzantine visual poems.

The article describes the performance of Kostis Palamas' play Trisevgeni at the National Theatre of Northern Greece in Thessaloniki in 1963. It reviews the position of this crucial staging in the overall history of the performances and perception of the play, and it disputes the characterization of a "milestone for a first successful phase" used today for this particular staging. The paper is based on a thorough new study of the criticism, evidence, and testimonies of the time. The article investigates the choice of the director, Socrates Karantinos, to stage the play according to the will of the author, verbatim, without a single word of its text cut out. It also tries to integrate this staging within the general theatre atmosphere of the 1960s. In addition, it attempts to study the case of Karantinos as a key factor in the National Theatre, a person who determined the nature of many of the new theatre's performances, if not its entire identity. Τhe paper further examines the relationship between the director and progressive academic circles at the University of Thessaloniki, the perception of Palamas' poetry and literary work, and, finally, the conservative director's turn to totally outdated practices.

My paper documents the textual dialogue between Elytis and Camus and analyses their common literary, philosophical, and ethical preoccupations. Although they shared a number of literary motifs and interests, including the space of the Mediterranean and the modernist attraction to ancient Hellenic philosophical traditions, I argue that they approached these interests from fundamentally different perspectives: while Camus' knowledge of ancient Greek thought was based on second-hand scholastic interpretations, Elytis' reading of ancient philosophical texts provided him with an original, intimate understanding of their literary and discursive qualities. I have also included original archival material which shows that Elytis was in an immediate literary dialogue with Camus during his writing of The Axion Esti.

The present article provides an overview of the main ritualistic masks, disguises, and improvised scenic plays in South-Eastern Europe performed during quête-song processions in winter and spring. These may be considered the first steps in the evolution towards organised, more complex folk theatre performances, which usually take place in the festive carnival season. The presentation starts from Greek material and proceeds to comparative approaches of similar phenomena in other Balkan regions as well as Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, Turkey, and Asia Minor.

The aim of this paper is to present a popular trilogy written by the contemporary Greek novelist and highly respected Byzantinist Panagiotis Agapitos (born 1959). His novels The Ebony Lute (2003), The Copper Eye (2006), and Enamel Medusa (2009) are set in ninth-century Byzantium and combine the elements of historical and crime fiction. The article focuses in particular on the character of the central protagonist of the trilogy, Leon, and offers a comparison with other great fictional detectives. It also reveals the role of byzantine sources in the writing of the trilogy, and the way in which the author worked with them in order to create an impression of authenticity with respect to the atmosphere of the period.

This paper presents the contribution of George A. Megas (1893–1976), an academician and professor at the University of Athens, to the academic organization and development of Greek Folklore, through a review of evaluations of his work. It focuses on the ideological and methodological components of his work and the position it could hold in the academic study of Greek folk culture, and reveals that it established the guidelines adopted by folklore studies in Greece today. This paper also critically examines relevant aspects of the existing literature and perspectives on the academic character of Megas's work and his contribution to the study of historical folklore, folk literature, and traditional architecture in Greece.

The Greek Civil War was the first open confrontation in Europe between the Eastern block and the West after the Second World War. This confrontation did not only develop on the battlefront, but also on the propaganda front, inside Greece and abroad. Czechoslovakia was actively involved in the Greek Civil War, mainly by sending military equipment to Greece and by providing asylum to approximately 4,000 child refugees. The Greek Civil War was prominent in the Czechoslovakian press throughout its duration (1946–1949). This article, based on material from the Prague National Archives, analyses the events of the Civil War as presented by Czech newspapers. In addition, this presentation reflects on the confrontation between the political forces that formed the National Front government of Czechoslovakia, before and after February 1948. There is also special reference to the activities of the propaganda machine that the Greek Communist Party had established in Prague at this time.

The present article deals with humour in the surrealist works of Nikos Engonopulos and Andreas Embirikos. The first part provides a methodological framework based on classical views of authors such as H. Bergson, L. Pirandello, S. Freud, and A. Breton. In addition, the basic forms of humour are specified. The classification is based on the work of the Czech literary theoretician V. Effenberger and is complemented by the characteristics of black humour as identified by M. Winston. In the second part of the article, examples of humour from the works of Engonopulos and Embirikos are analyzed. I quote examples based on plays on words, poems using surrealist metaphors, and parodies of tradition literary forms (texts of an ecclesiastical or informative character), which surprise and amuse by their unusual combination of traditional forms and non-traditional content. The irony and the auto irony with which the poets identify themselves with mythical (Neoptolemos) or historical (Ermolaos, Bolivar) heroes are directed against the uncritical adoration of tradition, national heroism, and the conventional values of bourgeois society. The humour of both authors belongs to the category of absurd humour; black humour occurs only rarely in a moderate form (absurd black humour) without the intensive morbid character known from works of French or Czech authors.

The present paper assesses how applicable Ernest Gellner's modernization theory of nationalism is to the Greek national movement of the 19th century. The aim is to challenge Gellner's theory and its claims that industrialization is causally linked to nationalism. Gellner contends industrialization and modernization always precede nationalism. He says economic factors lay the groundwork for the emergence and spread of nationalism. But the historical development of modern Greek nationalism largely disconfirms Gellner by showing that the phenomenon was mainly the outcome of cultural factors. The formative period of a modern nation in the Balkans, as studied in this paper, remained unaffected by the revolutionary economic and social changes described by Gellner. The erosion of traditional social bonds and the initiation of industrialization in Greece in fact followed the introduction of nationalism as the leading political principle. Gellner's claim that it was nationalism that created nations does, however, find partial confirmation. Using the example of Greece, the paper demonstrates that the newly created state was consolidated by establishing unified administrative systems, national cultures, and irredentist policies. In conformance with Gellner's theory, these steps are seen to strengthen the identification between the people, the state, and the nascent nation. Gellner's modernization theory is thus perceived as insufficient for explaining why nationalism emerges in underdeveloped states such as Greece, but partly successful in describing the forces behind the spread of the phenomenon.

The present study deals with female characters in selected novels of the renowned Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis in Zorba the Greek, The Last Temptation, Christ Recrucified and God's Pauper: St. Francis of Assisi. The study is based upon a typological analysis of the books' major female characters. Individual chapters are devoted to Kazantzakis's female literary archetypes: woman-seductress, woman-mother and woman-virgin. Two other important female characters, Madame Hortense and Sister Clara, who cannot be classified in any of the above-mentioned categories, are also an essential part of this study. The various female literary types and characters are compared to isolate common features and points of difference. Characteristics of the female characters hold in common are summarized in the final section.

This article examines the mechanisms and semantic manifestations of how fictional characters and the social/natural space are depicted in the work of the post-war Greek author Spyros Plaskovitis, who exploits description as a way to organise his works conceptually and aesthetically. The paper focuses on a study of the descriptive pauses in Nature Morte, from the Naked Tree collection (1952), which is a short story not previously thoroughly studied by criticism wherein the author manages to structure the plot and the ideological core of his story with reference to naturalistic standards. An analysis of the narrative reveals the extent to which Plaskovitis converses with previous European and Greek prose tradition but at the same time achieves modernisation and adaptation to the aesthetic/cultural needs of his time.

Since 2009, Greece has faced serious economic challenges. It has tried to resolve them together with the Troika. As of 2014, the Greek economy seems to be inching toward recovery. This paper analyses the causes of the economic crisis in Greece, the evolution of the crisis, and its impact on Greek politics and society. It opposes the current tendency to interpret the Greek crisis as a simple economic slump. It argues that the origins of the Greek crisis can be traced back to the foundations of the Greek political system. Secondly, the paper focuses on the methods chosen by the Troika and the Greek state to resolve the Greek economic crisis. It claims that they have been unsuccessful, since they severely burdened Greek society and led indirectly to radical changes in the Greek party system that have given rise to populist and extremist political parties.