This work questions modern Greek identity: how, when, why, and at what cost did it become important to think the modern Greeks are descended from the ancients? As explained in the preface, answers were sought at an international conference held in September 2006 at King’s College, London, under the auspices of the Centre for Hellenic Studies in collaboration with the Institute for Neohellenic Research, National Hellenic Research Centre, Athens. Approximately half of the papers given at the conference found their way into this publication.
Roderick Beaton, Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language, and Literature, and David Ricks, Senior Lecturer in Modern Greek Studies, both in the Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, King’s College, London, are the editors of the volume. The collected essays meditate on the national rhetoric that traced the continuous history of the Greek nation back to the first Olympiad in 776 BCE. A common thread among them is the “making” of modern Greece, viewed in its complex relationship with antiquity and its powerful drive to be modern, progressive, civilized, and European.
The book is divided into seven sections, thematically and not chronologically set, although within each section there is a trend of progression from earlier to later. It spans the period from 1797, when Rigas Velestinlis published, at the cost of his life, a constitution for an imaginary “Hellenic Republic,” up to the celebration of the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, an occasion which sealed with international approval the hard-won self-image of “Modern Greece” as it had become established over the previous century.
The authors come from a variety of academic disciplines and subject areas to explore the ideological concepts and developments that made the achievement of Greek statehood possible in 1830. The first section of the volume is entitled “Nationalisms Compared: The View from the Early 21st Century.” A governing thought is posed by Kitromilides: can Greece serve as a paradigm nation in the study of nationalism, and thus, be canonized? The second section, “Towards a National History: Greek and Western Perspectives,” consists of two essays that examine historiography around the middle of the nineteenth century. “Defining Identity (1): Religion and the Nation State,” part three, includes two essays that explore how religion has shaped Greek identity, whereas “Defining Identity (2): Insiders vs. Outsiders,” part four, is composed of three essays that focus on the binarism of outsider-insiders.
Two essays in part five, “The Colonial Experience: Politics and Society in the Ionian Islands,” focus on the colonial perspective, mostly related to issues of debt and social status. Part six, “Language and National Identity,” is about one of the pillars of national identity, language. Lastly, part seven, “The Nation in the Literary Imagination,” consists of five essays, wherein all the previous topics are being negotiated via literature. Perhaps the reason why more essays are present in this part is because rarely do political theorists turn to literature to address historical issues. In the case of Modern Greek, however, these texts witness the nature and development of national identity.
All essays give a perspective on nineteenth-century Greek nationalism in its comparative context while also yielding some insights into the current state of Hellenic studies in Greece and Europe. Bibliographies are attached to each chapter along with an index at the end. Additional entries on the nation-building role of the Greek folk and on the so-called National School of Music could have complemented the supporting argument.
The Greek revolution against the Ottoman rule is seen as the earliest of the national revolutions in Europe to be fully successful in achieving its aims. This fact has placed Greece in the vanguard of the new nation-states of Europe. Despite that, however, Greece’s example, in universal terms, has not been put upfront. Thus, a hope expressed throughout the book is that the isolation of Greek Studies among historians and theorists of nationalism in the modern world might come to an end. After all, these Greek ideas, attitudes, and achievements can be considered in relation to similar trends elsewhere in Europe and the region, as nationalism retains great power in the world around us.
For folklorists, significant are the “ethno-symbolisms” and the images produced by this making of modern Greece, which relate to current debates about modern nations and nationalism, romanticism, and the “uses of the past.” The book echoes Michael Herzfeld’s Ours Once More [1], which analyzes the intense attempts to form a Greek national identity, and illustrates how Greek folklore was (and perhaps still is?) a cultural weapon, an ideology promising cultural continuity and uninterrupted, unsullied national unity from antiquity to the present day. Regarding the construction of a durable national identity at once “Greek” and “modern,” one may also read further Alexander Kitroeff’s Wrestling with the Ancients. [2]
The book’s cover, “Grateful Greece,” an oil-painting by the “romantic” Theodoros Vryzakis, speaks out clearly: the woman-Greece fulfils the society’s demand for self-sacrifice, thus becoming immortalized in history. Sacrifice is female in gender, and the only way to reach resurrection is through insurrection. [3]
[1] Herzfeld, Michael. Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology, and the Making of Modern Greece. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982.
[2] Kitroeff, Alexander. Wrestling with the Ancients: Modern Greek Identity and the Olympics. New York: Greekworks.Com, 2004.
[3] In Greek, the words “Greece,” “sacrifice,” “resurrection,” and “insurrection” are female in grammatical gender.
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[Review length: 903 words • Review posted on December 1, 2009]