The conservation and use of ancient theatres

Abstract

The use of ancient theatres for present-day performances was the subject of a colloquium organized by the Council of Europe in September 1995 which gave rise to the ‘Segesta Declaration’ concerning the protection and proper use of ancient places of performance. These include theatres, amphitheatres, stadia, hippodromes and arenas with origins in the Greek and Roman periods. The following note draws upon a summary of the colloquium, held in Trapani, Segesta and Palermo in Sicily, and reproduces the text of the recommendations of the Segesta Declaration.     

Perfectly absent: the emergence of the Modern Greek perfect in Early Modern Greek

Abstract

This paper traces the emergence of the Standard Modern Greek perfect ?χω + infinitive in the Early Modern Greek period. It shows that the construction appears in written sources towards the very end of the seventeenth century. Special attention is given to ‘phantom’ perfects, which can be found in editions of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literary and non-literary texts as well as in the bibliography and which distort the picture of its emergence.     

Cavafy in Poland

Abstract

Despite the diversity of Modern Greek poetry available in Polish translation, Cavafy's work has eclipsed the achievements of other poets, just as the shadow of his lifelong translator, Zygmunt Kubiak, has inhibited other attempts only starting to surface in the twenty-first century. While external factors have determined Modern Greek anthologies in Poland, Cavafy translation has been mostly driven by personal passion. Apart from translation, this article reflects on various reasons why the Alexandrian's work should be so attractive to the Polish literary scene. Cavafy's seminal place within Polish literature stimulates further reflection on rewriting Cavafy in Poland.     

Encountering the Epistemological Challenge or,beyond Humanism: Contemporary Greek Criticism and the Languages of Theory

Abstract

It has been a common assumption that the great number of existing Histories of Modern Greek Literature reflects the growing maturity and sophistication of Greek literary studies. Specialists in the field argue that the variety of approaches and perspectives used in these surveys, while establishing a sense of tradition and achievement, has also stimulated both significant research and major reappraisals. If one adds to this scholarly labour the anthologies, the dictionaries, the encyclopaedias, as well as the studies on particular periods and schools, the picture of a thriving critical industry emerges clearly. It is then very difficult to try and reconcile these promising signs with the pervasive scarcity of meta-theoretical work, beginning with the embarrassing absence of a History of Modern Greek Criticism itself. For how can a field develop without introspection? How can a discipline refine its methods or advance its causes without undergoing vigilant self-examination? The lack of theoretical reflexivity on the part of contemporary Greek literary studies gives often the alarming impression that Greek criticism does not even know its history …     

On some recent views concerning the development of the Greek future system

Abstract

Researchers of the historical grammar of Modern Greek agree in general terms that the particle θ? derives from an older construction which included the verb θ?λω. In the past years, however, there has been some disagreement about the exact point of departure, and, consequently, the exact route (or routes) of the development of θ?. In this article we present a straightforward account of θ?, explicating several of the disputed aspects of its development, and comparing our account to other, recently published, views. In this way we try to set the record straight with respect to the history of this important element of the Greek verbal system.     

Modern Greek in the European Union: Language,Economy and Culture

Abstract

For those teaching and researching in Modern Greek Studies outside Greece, discussion of the eighties and nineties is characterised by reference to changes in Greek political life, as well as in the Greek educational system and policy making directly connected with Greece's entry into the European Union. Greece became a member of the EU as recently as 1981. PASOK, viewed membership as temporary but these claims were dropped after 1985. In the same period changes introduced into the linguistic system of the Greek language led to discussions of educational and cultural interest. More recently, however, certain developments concerning the role of strong languages in the European Union have brought to the fore issues concerning weak languages, those spoken by less people in the European Union, and their related cultures. This has once again opened the forum of discussion regarding matters of linguistic survival and cultural variety.     

The Officer Corps in Greece (1912–1936)

Abstract

The formation of the modern Greek army coincides with the efforts of the newly established Greek nation of the nineteenth century to import and emulate western institutions. The persistence of most governments in creating an officer corps inspired by the professional standards of western armies may be viewed as part of a general effort to modernize the Greek state. This attempt has invariably been thwarted by traditional practices which prevented modernizing forces from taking firm root in Greek reality. The degree to which professionalism was attained in the army depended both on the quality of military education and on the degree of professional security enjoyed by officers. Lack of security made some officers willing clients of ambitious cliques and agents of disruption of both military and political order.     

The Constantinopolitan Greek Factor during the Greco-Turkish Confrontation of 1919–1922

Abstract

The traditional Greco-Turkish antagonism culminated in the bitter military confrontation which took place in Anatolia immediately after the First World War. While the Greeks fought for the establishment of a foothold in western Anatolia and Thrace, the nationalist Turks resisted vigorously the invasion of what they considered to be their indisputable fatherland. The crux of the problem lay in the Greek determination to bring the entire Hellenic race under a single Greek state. This Hellenic Megali Idea (Great Idea) envisaged a future Greater Greece which was to include Epirus, Macedonia, Thrace, western Anatolia and the Aegean islands. The ultimate fulfilment of the Megali Idea would be achieved with the incorporation of Constantinople (istanbul), the most important administrative, religious, commercial, and cultural centre in the Near East, into the future Greek state. According to Greek nationalists, such a state was to materialise with the final dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, a process which they regarded as inevitable. Deeply rooted in Greek national and religious consciousness, the Megali Idea had for one hundred years inspired official Greek foreign policy.     

Interpreting the past: Presenting archaeological sites to the public

Abstract

A wide range of methodologies have been applied to promote the conservation of exposed and managed archaeological sites, including shelters. Commonly used as a protective measure in many areas of the world, shelters are not as common in the USA. In addition there have been few efforts to evaluate scientifically their use and efficacy. As a response to the recognized need to further scholarship and dialogue about shelters, a colloquium on the topic was held in Tumacacori, Arizona, in January 2001. The colloquium goals focused on research, exchange of information, the advancement of methodological approaches, incorporation of sheltering concepts into planning processes and identifying field needs. To achieve these aims, the following four themes were developed:

? deciding to shelter

? establishing conservation, design and construction criteria

? designing and constructing shelters

? evaluating shelter performance.

The colloquium followed a course of presentations, site visits and a final plenary session summing up the issues put forth. Participants represented a cross-section of disciplines and a range of international experiences.     

The playful mode of writing in Psycharis's To Tαξíδι μoυ (1888)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss the literary qualities of Psycharis's To Tαξíδι μoυ, in particular, to analyse specific examples that demonstrate its playful mode of writing. Firstly, it will attempt to place the text in the literary context of its period by discussing its conception and significance for Modern Greek literature. Secondly, it will focus on the element of humour in the text, which can best be described as a playful mode of writing. The playfulness can be explained as raising false expectations in readers in a way that does not become obtrusive or unpleasant, but aims to entertain through the effects of surprise. This mode of writing is created mainly through intertextual allusions, incongruous juxtapositions, and comical, satirical or parodic undertones.     

Arabs,Latins and Persians bearing gifts: Greek translations of astrolabe treatises,ca. 1300 D. M. Angeliki E. Laiou

Abstract

Although translation of foreign literature was rare in Byzantium, in c. 1300 three Greek translations of treatises on using the astrolabe appeared, two from Latin and one from Persian or Arabic; all three are assessed in terms of Greek style and significance for Byzantine culture. The Islamic treatise translated by Shams al-Din al-Bukhari includes a translator's preface, edited in full and translated into English here for the first time. In the preface, Shams describes a deluxe astrolabe sent to Andronikos II with the treatise in the hope, it is argued, of some personal benefit in return.     

Classifying science and technology: two problems with the UNESCO system

Abstract

The Viking spacecraft to Mars have clearly revealed a planet to ponder. In some ways it appears Earth-like, in other ways it is similar to our Moon, and yet in many aspects it is unique. This was the conclusion of the Second International Colloquium on Mars, held at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA, 15–18 January 1979. The first colloquium was held five years earlier to discuss results of the highly successful Mariner 9 mission to Mars. Two Viking landers and two orbiters were sent to Mars in 1976. All four spacecraft lived a healthy life through a full 688-day Martian year transmitting a rich harvest of scientific data. In fact, three are still at work, although at a much slower pace than before.     

Rentiers,teachers and workers: Greek women in late nineteenth-century Odessa

Abstract

This article sheds light on a neglected aspect of the Greek paroikia of Odessa, its female component, in the late imperial period. By revisiting the 1897 All-Russian Census, it offers an insight into the demographic and social features of Greek women, and depicts their occupational position. It shows that middle-class and working women formed the majority of the Greek female workforce and suggests that their participation or non-participation in the labour market depended on the ability of the male breadwinner to support his household financially.     

On historical linguistics,linguistic variation and Medieval Greek

Abstract

This article focuses on two questions: the application of current historical linguistic methodologies to vernacular Medieval Greek in comparison to similar research in other medieval languages, and the notion of linguistic variation in Medieval Greek, in parallel with the possible methods for its fruitful investigation.     

Enlightenment and Prophecy: The Jews and Neo-Hellenic Nationalism

ABSTRACT

Even before the rise of nationalism and its counterpart anti-Semitism sensu stricto, anti-Judaic prejudices and stereotypes were widespread in the Christian Orthodox communities of the Ottoman Empire. These attitudes arose mainly from the commercial antagonism between the Christian and Jewish communities during the crisis that beset the empire from the seventeenth century onward. To examine these attitudes more closely, this article first focuses on the extreme anti-Judaic discourse in the sermons of eighteenth-century Father Cosmas Aitolos (Cosmas of Aetolia; d. 1779), an itinerant monk, who was canonized in 1961. It then turns to Rhigas Velestinlis’s enlightened vision of a tolerant multi-ethnic, multi-religious republic, which gradually replaced the Sultan’s oriental despotism, in which Jews, Muslims, and Christians were to be equal citizens. But this vision sank into oblivion, as the aspiration to national independence and to ethnical homogeneity prevailed in Greece, as well as everywhere in the Balkans. Although the early advocates of enlightened Greek nationalism embraced the language of citizenship and emancipation, they excluded from it the proviso of multi-ethnicity. Accordingly, they perceived the “Jewish Question” as one of gradually integrating a “foreign” religious minority into the Greek nation by “re-educating them in the values of Hellenism,” in the words of Adamandios Korais (1748–1833), and according them full citizenship only in the generations to come. All three distinctive attitudes towards the Jews are traceable in subsequent ideological trends and conflicts in Modern Greece.     

Byzantine History in late Ottoman Turkish Historiography

Abstract

The present Short Note is intended as a brief introduction to a subject which is part of a wider research project on Greek (ancient, Byzantine, and modern) as well as Roman history and culture as described and discussed in Ottoman literature, particularly in late Ottoman historiography. As an attempt to familiarise the reader with, at this stage, no more than a few aspects of the subject in question, the following sketch does not pretend to be exhaustive. It is hoped, however, that it will provide a general idea of the context, as well as of the relevant sources, some of which will be described in more detail. Our note is, in addition, intended to arouse interest, particularly from the point of view of Byzantine and modern Greek studies, and to invite comments.