A PORTRAIT OF GREECE

Before venturing into the study of a country’s dance and dances, a portrait of the nation’s history, geographical situation, climate, landscape and culture is beneficial. And what a rich and vibrant country it was and is.

The modern Greek State dates only from the 1830s, after the Greek War of Independence in 1821. It is a country, which encountered and endured struggles from internal and external forces. Other empires and countries hungered to possess the land due to its richness in raw materials and geographical position, the gateway to the West or the East. Contemporary Greeks are a mixture of the invaders, such as Albanians, Arabs, Bulgarians, Italians, Slavs and Turks, who have captured and monopolized the country since ancient times.  What is a Greek unfolds the first and foremost question, what is Greece?

‘Greece is the Acropolis and the islands’ is a frequent stereotypical personification of what Greece is. But when one travels to Greece, the marked regional differences in topography remodel the imaginary image; small secluded valleys submerged within the mountain ranges, a 15,020 km indented coastline, small non-navigable rivers, long green plains and a mountainous peninsula, towered by the Pindos range.

The country is situated at the southern extremity of the Balkan Peninsula, encircled by the Ionian, Cretan and Aegean Seas.  (see Fig.1: Map of Greece). It consists of a mainland and about 1400 islands, of which 169 are inhabited. Geographically, Greece has land borders with Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north and with Turkey to the east.  It would be wrong to say that the neighboring countries had no influence upon Greece’s culture. A constant flow of migration, conflicts and trade, both overland and by sea existed between the countries, where presumably other things in addition to money, crops, fabrics and equipment were traded. As echoed by Metatallinos & Schumacker

When a foreign country is residing adjacent to or has conquered a particular region, there is a strong tendency to include elements of that culture with one’s own traditions and customs”.

Metallinos & Schumacker, 1975, p10

It could be suggested the distinctive and discrete characteristics of each nation resulted from the way acts and substances were manifested, modified and adapted.

Greek culture or Greece’s culture are frequently used ‘locutions’, hence the need for ‘culture’ to be defined.  Early scholarship in anthropology assumed that “social evolution occurred in a similar way to biological evolution” (Billington, 1991, p3).  But this belief was opposed by the twentieth century anthropologists who stressed the importance of viewing culture as “systematic wholes” (Billington, 1991, p3), which embodies the knowledge, practices, beliefs and values of a society.  As Ted Polhemus describes in his article Dance, Gender and Culture, “…a blueprint for a way of life” (Polhemus, 1993, p8).  This complex web of shaped and structured codes in a range of aspects such as language, religion, drama, music, dance and cuisine “…is learned and transmitted through groups and individuals in societies” (Kroeber, cited in Billington, 1991, p3), from one generation to the next.

Historical overview of Greece

Popular life resonates back to the Bronze Age with the settlements and palaces of the Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenaean Civilization. In 1200 BC, the Dorians conquered Greece. But, following a long legacy of internal conflicts and wars, Greece enjoyed the golden Classical Age (480 BC and 338 BC). However, in the latter year, Philip of Macedon, succeeded by his son Alexander the Great went beyond the boundaries of Greece, spreading and ushering in Hellenic (‘Greek’) culture throughout a large part of the ‘civilized’ world: this heralded the Hellenistic Period. The culture and traditions were no longer confined within the temples and societies of the ancient world.

Greece fell under Roman Rule in 146 BC. For approximately three hundred years, Greece became the Roman province of Archaea, where the Empire venerated and adopted the ‘Greek’ culture. It was the Romans who referred to the ‘native’ people as Greeks, a work derived from the word graikos: the name of a prehistoric tribe.  However, accompanied by the decline of the empire in Italy, successive invasions by Goths and the increasing weight and power of the Eastern Provinces, the Byzantine Empire germinated in 324 AD and flourished. This period lasted until 1453 AD when the Turks seized the Greek capital, Constantinople (present day Istanbul). For four hundred years Greece, with the exception of the Ionian Islands, was under the Ottoman suzerainty.

During this occupation, the longing to become autonomous rumbled and vibrated across Greece.  The reality of this notion emanated on the 25^th March 1821, when Bishop Germanos raised the Greek flag at Patras in the Peloponnese, declaring the War of Independence.  After the signing of the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829, a new chapter unfolded, ‘Modern Greece’.  It became a country reigned by a monarch.  However, it suffered a great deal of political instability in the twentieth century. A pernicious tragedy occurred in 1923 when almost 1.5 million Greeks left Turkey adhering to the compulsory population exchange under the Treaty of Lausanne.  The “Great Idea” of recapturing lost lands and Constantinople evaporated after the invasion of Asia Minor ended in defeat in 1922. After the German occupation of 1941-1945, there followed the Civil War between 1946 to 1949 and military dictatorship in 1967-1974. In 1975 Greece became a republic with a president as Head of State. Conflicts and insurrections have been dormant since. As member of the European Union, Greece shares Europe’s destiny today.

Greece as a nation

The present political boundaries of the Greek State have only existed since 1948, when Britain ceded the Dodecanese islands which had been under Italian rule since 1912. It is a country divided into regions and island groups.  On the whole, these concur to the ethnographical divisions of the widely divergent Greek culture.

These partitions are also divided into prefectures for administrative purposes. For the classification of the different dances, the geographical division will be used (regions and island groups) rather than the prefectures. Other dances belong to Greek populations originating from outside the borders of the country, such as Northern Thrace (now in Bulgaria), Eastern Thrace (Turkey), Pontos, Cappadocia and the coast of Asia Minor (Turkey) who have been resettled in Greece. Another case is Cyprus, an island which is an independent state with a predominantly Greek population. Still another case are dances belonging to distinct ethnic groups which have been living in Greece for ages, such as the Vlachs, the Sarakatsanoi, the Pomaks, the Gypsies, the Jews, the Armenians etc.

But,

Staunched by a turbulent history, the territory and boundaries constantly changed.  It is a nation not created and governed solely by its geographical location and its territory but by its language, culture and customs. It was mainly through language, religion and tradition that the concepts and constructs of the Greek identity were sustained. The Orthodox Church retained and preserved their religious scriptures in Greek and the festivals and liturgies of the Church calendar maintained as integral to the life and customs of a Greek and its community.  Consequently, the chief source of communicating news and information remained steadfast regardless of imposed external innovations and authority.

On the contrary, there is an argument as mentioned previously, questioning whether there is an exclusive, pure Greek culture or whether that culture is an ‘hellenic invention’. Certainly the case for ‘invention’ would be difficult to prove, as “Cultural innovations are not like technological inventions which can be patented.” (Raftis, 1987, p26).  Greece throughout its history has been exposed to a multitude of “tangible and intangible cultural elements” (Petrides, 1988, p217) from foreign societies and countries. They were either fully received or merely accepted for a short period of time and then rejected, consequently never become a part of the living tradition.  Maybe, only names were assimilated.  But possibly, the objects and concepts were borrowed, adjusted or altered to befit a required exigency, such as, Kamara, a sash or cummerbund of Persian origin and moussaka, a meat and vegetable dish of Turkish-Arabic origin.

What is considered to be ‘Greek’ now aggrandized in the nineteenth century. This national phenomenon swept across Greece, in reaction to the French Revolution and the debilitating and crumbling of the Ottoman hegemony. The War of Independence accelerated a call and demand for a patriotic disposition, encoding nationalistic signs and symbols, to accost and enhance their dreams of freedom (Sugar, cited in Griffiths, 1993, p11). As the anthropologist Anderson proclaims, “nation-ness, as well as nationalism, are cultural artefacts of a particular kind” (1983, p13), “it is an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (1983, p15).

Generally, the fashioning of such a phenomenon utilizes and adopts the invention and instruments of tradition (Hobsbawm, 1983, p14), a term which suggests age, ceremony, duty and respect and “is generally considered to be at least two or three generations in age” (Buckland, 1995, p14).  Without a doubt, what was regarded as traditional was boxed and traded as imprints and images of the nation’s consciousness and identity, such as Dionysios Solomos’s (1798 – 1857) poem, Hymn to Freedom which became the National Anthem and a handful of folk dances which were claimed and renamed as Panhellenic folk dances.  In reflection to the latter, “Folk dance has, of course, nothing to do with party politics, but it cannot escape being a part of that culture which politics also reflects” (Buckman, 1978, p224).

TODAY: What does it bring?

In the society of today, traditional customs still vociferate, regardless of the inescapable syncretization determinants of “economic globalization” (Strianti, 1995, p238).  The mutual blending of singing, dancing, music and feasting echo a distinctive essence of life, a certain way of celebrating a religious event, a good harvest or a wedding.  There has always been in the Greek life of yesterday and today a “triadic relationship between music, dance and poetry” (Loutzaki, 1989, pix).  Hence, dance movement was one of the “threefold countenances” (Papachristou, 1988, p209) where the consciousness of the people was manifested to emanate life and its certain constituents.  This ‘art’ is one of the many ingredients in the thriving enterprise of tourism.

Many guided tours include a ‘Greek folklore show & dinner’, where visitors relish and enjoy the ‘bouzouki music and Greek folk dances’ at a traditional Greek taverna.  Greece’s current economy relies upon this commerce. It is an outcome and product of people and populations migrating from villages to urban dwellings after the Second World War.

What do Greeks refer to when they talk about ‘dance’?  All the factors uttered above impel an influential role: geography, history, traditions, socio-economic conditions and external elements.  Questions asked are similar to Are the dances from Thrace the same as the dances from Crete?  Are they dancing for enjoyment?  What is the function of that dance?  Does it have a meaning? What is the Kalamatianos xoros?  Do I always have to dance in a couple?  These are just a few, hence the inclusion of Part II and IV, which is supplemented by brief descriptions of Greek music, costume and poetry.

                                                                                                                                                      Alkis Raftis