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MA THESIS “I Am a Song, I Am a Nation”: a Historical Comparative Analysis of the Politics of Music Concerning the National Identity of Rebetiko

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MA THESIS “I Am a Song, I Am a Nation”: a Historical Comparative Analysis of the Politics of Music Concerning the National Identity of Rebetiko MA THESIS “I am a song, I am a nation”: A historical comparative analysis of the politics of music concerning the national identity of rebetiko. Anthony Jean Yves Gayraud GKMV17023 Dr. Christian Wicke 25 June 2018 Gayraud 1 UTRECHT UNIVERSITY MASTER: HISTORY OF POLITICS AND SOCIETY COURSE: 2017-2018 3 MA-Thesis Geschiedenis van Politiek en Maatschappij (GKMV17023) Title: “I am a song, I am a nation”: A historical comparative analysis of the politics of music concerning the national identity of rebetiko. Author-Student: Anthony Jean Yves Gayraud ID: 6217648 E-mail: [email protected] Submission date: 25/06/2018 Deadline: 25/06/2018 Teacher: Dr. Christian Wicke Word Count: 14.375 Page Numbers: 12 Gayraud 2 TABLE OF CONTENT Summary………………………………………………………………….………….p.3 1. INTRODUCTION…………………..……………………….……………………p.4 1.1 Research Question…….…………………………………………………p.4 1.2 Sources and Structure of Paper.………………………………………….p.5 1.3 Nationalism……..………………………………………………………..p.7 2. THEORETICAL APPROACH…………………………………………………. p.10 2.1 Music and Nationalism…………...…………………………………….p.10 2.2 Greek Culture and Greek Nationalism…..…………………………...…p.13 3. FIRST STEPS OF REBETIKO………………………………………………….p.16 3.1 Greek Music in the Beginning of the 20th Century……..………………p.16 3.2 Greeks from Anatolia……..…………………………………………….p.17 3.3 The Emergence of Rebetiko………..…………………………………...p.18 3.4 Rebetiko Community – Rebetiko Identity........................................…...p.20 4. REBETIKO AND DICTATORSHIP..…………………………………………..p.24 4.1 The Censorship under Metaxas……...........…...…………....………….p.24 4.2 The Communist Debate and the Censorship under the Junta Regime…p.28 5 REBETIKO AND DEMOCRACY…………….…………………………………p.37 5. 1 Rebetiko in the Post-Junta Era...………….……………………………p.37 5. 2 Cultural Policies under PASOK Government…….……………………p.40 6 CONCLUSION….………………………………………………………………..p.45 7 APPENDICES…...………………………………………………………….……p.47 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………..p.51 TABLE OF FIGURES AND TABLES 1. Figure 1: The lyric sheet of “Fiye, aponi, kakia”...................................................p.27 2. Figure 2: December 1972 censorship approval for the song “Xasapiko”..............p.32 3. Table 1: Degree of implementation of PASOK’s manifesto pledges....................p.42 4. Table 2: Methods of pledge implementation in each relevant ministry.................p.43 Gayraud 3 Summary This paper examines the role of politics in the relation between music and nationalism. It focuses on the case of Greek music genre ‘rebetiko’. Policies concerning the use or reproduction of rebetiko music, both by authoritarian and democratic regimes, are investigated under the light of theories of nationalism. Gayraud 4 1. INTRODUCTION On February 4, 2018, ten thousand protesters marched in the streets of Athens during a rally concerning the ongoing political debates about the name of Macedonia1. During that rally, Mikis Theodorakis, 92, the acclaimed composer of Zorba the Greek made a speech about the importance of the name Macedonia. His music was replayed from big speakerphones during the whole event and his songs were chanted by masses like a common national anthem. That event suggest a kind of national importance to be found in his songs, lyrics and melodies, something Greeks consider “Greek”. When rallies such as this one, concerning issues of national identity, make use of music, it makes us wonder about the importance of the specific musical genre that is being broadcasted to all those gathered. Such use of songs underlines a relation between music and politics. This paper will explore the relation between music and nationalism from a comparative historical perspective focusing on the musical genre called rebetiko. 1.1 Research Question My research question in the spectrum of the broader historical academic research field is this: In what way is music being used to determine national identity by democratic and non- democratic regimes? My claim is that within the social strata, cultural identity evolves unpredictably and in such a way that it poses a threat to political structures, which in turn, in their attempt to control and stabilize social movement and mobilization exercise their state’s legislative power to sculpt models of symbolical meaning that convey a specific cultural nationalism through the calculated use of mass media diffusion and public entertainment. In other words, I plan to explore if music was used as a tool to impose cultural policies so that political regimes may have control over what defines one’s national identity and what not. By comparing the cases of both democratic and non-democratic states, my purpose is to illuminate the role that music plays on matters of national identity and the circumstances under which music can either pose a threat or serve as a tool to different political regimes. In order to investigate this issue from a more case-specific and comparative point of view the following question takes my research one step further: To what extent did the policies, concerning musical expression and made by different political institutions, 1 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42937889 (10/6/2018). Gayraud 5 constructed public semiology in order to convey and sometimes impose to the public their own idea of national identity? I will address the case of musical genre rebetiko by comparing cultural policies that involved its use. I will examine cultural policies that were implemented firstly, by the two authoritarian nationalistic regimes of the 20th Century in Greece, one being the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas from 1936 to 1941 and the other being the Junta regime from 1967 to 1974 and secondly, by the democratic government of PASOK from the 80s to the mid-90s. The goal of this comparison is to determine the political mechanisms that are cultural policies drafted either by authoritarian or democratic regimes in regards to the case of music. The use or censorship of rebetiko is of great significance in my research seeing that in the Greek social context, rebetiko’s journey evolved from a banned genre to a publicly acclaimed Greek traditional music. Therefore, I explore the process of rebetiko getting banned during dictatorships and being transformed into a celebrated and traditionalized genre after democracy was restored. Why did I choose Greek rebetiko to examine the relation between music and politics? I hope that the history of rebetiko will shed some light into the interlinked nature of music and nationalism because it is a genre imbedded in today’s Greek music culture. I also chose this subject for its originality. Not a lot of research has been made about the political extensions of rebetiko culture. I could have used the case of national anthems as well, but anthems have been a subject researched thoroughly by many scholars and they cannot be used to explore the impact of music in relation with everyday life. Anthems are recognized musical pieces and their existence justify their role. They represent the nation. But rebetiko was not created to symbolize a “pure” or “not pure” Greek national identity. To sum up, I intent to explore rebetiko’s interesting journey, from anonymity, sub- culture, and prohibition to recognition, popularity and “traditionalization”. My aim is to show what this journey has to tell about the way nationalism is handled by political entities through cultural policies made in the sphere of the art of music. Gayraud 6 1.2 Sources and structure of paper The data I have chosen as primary sources are newspapers, songs, and official state documents. I explore the role of institutional policies and reforms implemented by governments focused on the art of music and more specifically rebetiko. Songs are an important part of my research, including their melody, their lyrics, their performance, their culture, and their composers. Concerning secondary sources about rebetiko, I turn to long time researchers of rebetiko, Gail Holst-Warhaft, Stathis Gauntlett and Ole L. Smith, but also to newer ones like Dafni Tragaki and Yona Stamatis. My paper is divided into six Chapters. In the first chapter, I introduce the subject of my research. In the second describe my theoretical framework concerning nationalism, cultural nationalism and music. I specifically focus on Greek nationalism and Greek music. I continue in the third Chapter by narrating the history of rebetiko and provide historical data to supplement the origins and emergence of the genre. I analyze rebetiko culture in the beginning of the 20th Century focusing on its compositions made in the Piraeus area, where the genre musical composition took its first steps towards popularization. In the fourth chapter I focus on dictatorships. Firstly, I focus on the regime of Metaxas from 1936 to 1941. I present documents contesting the possibility that rebetiko was banned by the regime as an “un-pure” Greek music genre. I follow a causal ordering from cause to effect, and narrate the events that took place, through primary sources (newspapers, laws, songs, censorship documents). I also refer to material concerning the policies that were implemented and the immigrant’s influence in regard to the efforts of Metaxas’s regime to make Greece a proud and important nation that could stand next to countries such as Germany and Italy. Secondly, I analyze the case of the Junta dictatorship from 1967 to 1974. I talk about how the rebetiko was associated with the left and had to be persecuted. Furthermore, I refer to one important figure, Mikis Theoodorakis, who made rebetiko a genre associated with the communist party of Greece but also imbued it with Western orchestration. During that period, rebetiko changed in musical tonality, lyrics, and performativity. I analyze the fluctuation of the dynamics between the nationalist agenda of the Junta and the presence of rebetiko. I try to demonstrate how rebetiko acquired a new status in relation to its persecution by these authoritarian regimes. In the fifth chapter I explore if rebetiko was used or not by the PASOK government, during the 80s, as a cultural tool to formulate a Greek national identity, and what does that imply on how to perceive the role of music within the democratic political spectrum.
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