Conflict abounds in this epic novel of the long, fierce war for independence fought by the Greeks against the Ottoman Turkish Empire, set in 1821 to 1829. Two young teenage boys join the Greek Freedom Fighters to avenge the murder of their parents by the Turks. Story set in the rugged mountains of the Peloponnese region of southern Greece.
Age-old scholarly dogma holds that the death of serious theatre went hand-in-hand with the 'death' of the city-state and that the fourth century BC ushered in an era of theatrical mediocrity offering shallow entertainment to a depoliticised citizenry. The traditional view of fourth-century culture is encouraged and sustained by the absence of dramatic texts in anything more than fragments. Until recently, little attention was paid to an enormous array of non-literary evidence attesting, not only the sustained vibrancy of theatrical culture, but a huge expansion of theatre throughout (and even beyond) the Greek world. Epigraphic, historiographic, iconographic and archaeological evidence indicates that the fourth century BC was an age of exponential growth in theatre. It saw: the construction of permanent stone theatres across and beyond the Mediterranean world; the addition of theatrical events to existing festivals; the creation of entirely new contexts for drama; and vast investment, both public and private, in all areas of what was rapidly becoming a major 'industry'. This is the first book to explore all the evidence for fourth century ancient theatre: its architecture, drama, dissemination, staging, reception, politics, social impact, finance and memorialisation.
From German idealism onward, Western thinkers have sought to revalue tragedy, invariably converging at one cardinal point: tragic art risks aestheticizing real violence. Tragically Speaking critically examines this revaluation, offering a new understanding of the changing meaning of tragedy in literary and moral discourse. It questions common assumptions about the Greeks’ philosophical relation to the tragic tradition and about the ethical and political ramifications of contemporary theories of tragedy. Starting with the poet Friedrich Hölderlin and continuing to the present, Kalliopi Nikolopoulou traces how tragedy was translated into an idea (“the tragic”) that was then revised further into the “beyond the tragic” of postmetaphysical contemporary thought. While recognizing some of the merits of this revaluation, Tragically Speaking concentrates on the losses implicit in such a turn. It argues that by translating tragedy into an idea, these rereadings effected a problematic subordination of politics to ethics: the drama of human conflict gave way to philosophical reflection, bracketing the world in favor of the idea of the world. Where contemporary thought valorizes absence, passivity, the Other, rhetoric, writing, and textuality, the author argues that their “deconstructed opposites” (presence, will, the self, truth, speech, and action, all of which are central to tragedy) are equally necessary for any meaningful discussion of ethics and politics.
From the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth, Greeks comprised one of the largest and most influential minority groups in Egyptian society, yet barely two thousand remain there today. This painstakingly researched book explains how Egypt’s once-robust Greek population dwindled to virtually nothing, beginning with the abolition of foreigners’ privileges in 1937 and culminating in the nationalist revolution of 1952. It reconstructs the delicate sociopolitical circumstances that Greeks had to navigate during this period, providing a multifaceted account of demographic decline that arose from both large structural factors as well as the decisions of countless individuals.
Moscow and Greek Communism is the first comprehensive analysis of Soviet conduct in Greece during the most critical period of Greek history in this century-the last months of World War II and the years of the Greek Civil War. Peter J. Stavrakis demonstrates that Soviet policy in Greece was highly mutable and reveals how its shifts were governed by Moscow's changing aims in the Near East generally, Soviet policy toward the Western powers, and the constantly changing Greek political situation. Stavrakis draws on previously inaccessible evidence from Greek Communist archives, recently declassified materials from the U.S. National Archives, documents from British archives, and personal memoirs of former Greek partisans to create the most accurate picture available of developments in the Balkans between 1944 and 1949. He traces the course of Soviet policy, explaining why Stalin vacillated in his attitude toward the armed insurgency of the Greek Communist party (KKE), finally acting in a way that ensured its defeat. Students of Soviet foreign policy will want to consider his thesis that the lessons learned in Greece have continued to guide Soviet interventionism in regions where its capabilities for control are limited.
Since the nineteenth century, some of the most influential historians have portrayed opera and tragedy as wholly distinct cultural phenomena. These historians have denied a meaningful connection between the tragedy of the ancients and the efforts of early modern composers to arrive at styles that were intensely dramatic. Drawing on a series of case studies, Opera, Tragedy, and Neighbouring Forms from Corneille to Calzabigi traces the productive, if at times rivalrous, relationship between opera and tragedy from the institution of French regular tragedy under Richelieu in the 1630s to the reform of opera championed by Calzabigi and Gluck in the late eighteenth century. Blair Hoxby and his fellow contributors shed light on “neighbouring forms” of theatre, including pastoral drama, tragédie en machines, tragédie en musique, and Goldoni’s dramma giocoso. Their analysis includes famous masterpieces by Corneille, Voltaire, Metastasio, Goldoni, Calzabigi, Handel, and Gluck, as well as lesser-known artists such as Luisa Bergalli, the first female librettist to write for the public theatre in Italy. Opera, Tragedy, and Neighbouring Forms from Corneille to Calzabigi delves into a series of quarrels and debates in order to illuminate the history of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theatre.
For nearly 130 years, the Greeks, the Bulgarians, and the Yugoslavs have fought over the question of who has the historical and demographic rights to use the name "Macedonia." Historically the land of Philip II and Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Mount Olympus and the Greek gods, Macedonia boasts an impressive cultural heritage that the Greeks have claimed as their own. In 1991, a state resulting from the breakup of Yugoslavia proclaimed itself Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), angering the Greeks and adding fuel to the persistent dispute. This book argues the Macedonian question from a Greek perspective. It questions FYROM's right to the Macedonian name, arguing that Greece possesses the historical, cultural, linguistic, anthropological and demographic ties to the legacy of Alexander. Research examines the origins of the dispute between Hellenism and Bulgarism, the Balkans wars, the world wars and the rise of Tito's communism in Yugoslavia. The book also shows, step by step, the misconceptions about the legacy of Macedonia as promulgated by international communism, and carefully analyzes communism's role as the main protagonist in the formation of the new state and as a pivotal source fomenting and fueling the Greek Civil War. Cover to cover, it traces the conflict's change from an initial struggle between Hellenism and Bulgarism to the present dispute between Athens and Skopje.
Classical drama on the modern stage as a cultural and political phenomenon is scholarly trailed since the 1950s and 60s and intensified in the last third of the twentieth century. The evidence is being extensively documented, pioneered by Walton (1987) and McDonald (1992) and subsequently developed by collaborative research projects which include published databases. It is clear from the work of these projects that performance of classical drama is a major feature in all types of theatre – avant-garde and experimental, student, international and fringe, epic and classical, commercial, popular and canonical. This means that it is closely intertwined with the politics of locale, environment and geography as well as of language, translation and culture. Each of the essays has a specialised contribution to make. However, the total impact of the whole section will be even greater than the sum of the parts because the authors not only intersect in their discussions of common concerns in modern performance of ancient drama but also provide case studies that will add to the knowledge base and critical acumen of everyone working in the field.
From the early nineteenth century through to the 1960s, the Greeks formed the largest, most economically powerful, and geographically and socially diverse of all European communities in Egypt. Although they benefited from the privileges extended to foreigners and the control exercised by Britain, they claimed nonetheless to enjoy a special relationship with Egypt and the Egyptians, and saw themselves as contributors to the country’s modernization. The Greeks and the Making of Modern Egypt is the first account of the modern Greek presence in Egypt from its beginnings during the era of Muhammad Ali to its final days under Nasser. It casts a critical eye on the reality and myths surrounding the complex and ubiquitous Greek community in Egypt by examining the Greeks’ legal status, their relations with the country’s rulers, their interactions with both elite and ordinary Egyptians, their economic activities, their contacts with foreign communities, their ties to their Greek homeland, and their community life, which included a rich and celebrated literary culture. Alexander Kitroeff suggests that although the Greeks’ self-image as contributors to Egypt’s development is exaggerated, there were ways in which they functioned as agents of modernity, albeit from a privileged and protected position. While they never gained the acceptance they sought, the Greeks developed an intense and nostalgic love affair with Egypt after their forced departure in the 1950s and 1960s and resettlement in Greece and farther afield. This rich and engaging history of the Greeks in Egypt in the modern era will appeal to students, scholars, travelers, and general readers alike.
Through case studies that examine historical and contemporary crises across the world, the contributing writers to this volume explore the cultural and social construction of trauma. How do some events get coded as traumatic and others which seem equally painful and dramatic not? Why do culpable groups often escape being categorised as perpetrators? These are just some of the important questions answered in this collection. Some of the cases analysed include Mao's China, the Holocaust, the Katyn Massacre and the Kosovo trauma. Expanding the pioneering cultural approach to trauma, this book will be of interest to scholars and postgraduate students of sociology.