Performing Greekness Through Rebetiko Song

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: PERFORMING GREEKNESS THROUGH REBETIKO SONG ―The Greeks gained their freedom from the Ottomans only to become slaves of Europe.‖ ―Rebetika is traditional Greek music. It is the truest expression of the Greek people.‖ -Pavlos Vassiliou, 2007 Introduction and Chapter Summaries The first decade of the twenty-first century marks a powerful moment in modern Greek history. Economic, political and cultural dilemmas that have shaped Greek modernity since the founding of the Greek nation in 1832 are finally coming to a head. As Greece enters what international press characterize as ―a time of crisis,‖ a marked instability permeates the public and private sector:1 economic corruption and political favor-trading fuel general mistrust in government practices; reduced wages and inflated prices stunt Greek market growth; and austerity measures imposed by the European Commission drastically alter economic and cultural realities. As Greeks scramble to 1 BBC: ―Greece Crisis: Fears Grow That It Could Spread‖ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8648029.stm] Visited April 28, 2010; ―The Washington Post‖: ―Greece‘s Debt Crisis Could Spread Across Europe‖ [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/07/AR2010050700642.html] Visited May 11, 2010; ―The Independent‖: ―As Tourists Stay Away, Greece Suffers an Identity Crisis‖ [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/Europe/as-tourists-stay-away-greece-suffers-an-identity-crisis- is-there-too-much-concrete-and-too-many-bawdy-clubs-639194.html] Visited May 11, 2010. 1 account for a staggering national economic debt, ideological concerns about control of contemporary Greek culture and topos (Leontis 1995) rise to the fore: Should Greeks engage in the sale of their land and cultural artefacts in order to account for economic troubles? How should Greeks cope with increasing global interdependence in the political, economic and cultural realm? And how can Greeks create a national identity, a contemporary Hellenism that takes into account the realities of globalization, world market politics and national myths of Greekness? While Greek modernity has always entailed a struggle for control over Hellenism, today the conflict seems less philosophical and more practical in nature than ever before. The ―social, cultural and environmental bankruptcy that evolved [in postwar Greece] as Greece opened its doors to foreign investors and tourists, and commodified its ancient monuments‖ (Leontis 1995, 170) now plays a decisive role in the handling of objects of Greek culture. One no longer questions whether Greeks are willing to commodify national culture, but which and how many objects they sell and at what price. Rebetiko musician and leftist intellectual, Pavlos Vassiliou who comprises the focus of this study, characterized the negative effects of the pervasive commodification trend in the following manner: ―The question is not whether Greeks are willing to sell themselves for monetary profit. It is now a matter of just how far they are willing to go, even to sell their souls in that insatiable Greek desire to become European just to be like everyone else‖ (Vassiliou 2010). The commodification of objects and ideologies of Hellenism along with the effects of powerful transnational forces have transformed perceptions of contemporary Greek culture and Greek national identity. 2 Just how far are Greeks willing to go? A German senator crossed an invisible boundary during recent loan negotiations with the European Union when he suggested that Greeks account for the national debt by selling the Acropolis to the Germans. Greeks were so outraged by the suggested sale of their national cultural symbol that Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou made an immediate television appearance assuring the people that the sale of the Acropolis would not take place. But a chord deep in the heart of Greek sensibility had been struck. Was Greek poet Giorgos Seferis‘s once outrageous nightmare in which Americans had won the Acropolis in an auction and turned its columns into giant tubes of toothpaste, not so far-fetched after all (Leontis 1995)? While an auction of the Acropolis never did take place, in 2010 Greece did accept high interest- rate loans from Germany and from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and implemented a series of mandatory austerity measures. Given Greece‘s economic dependence on Germany and on the IMF, the national symbol may already have been sold without most Greeks realizing it. In this thesis, I discuss the complex characteristics that shape Greek modernity through the prism of music. I focus on contemporary performance of the urban popular song genre rebetika, a musical form that has been used time and again to support varying notions of Greek national identity. For as with ancient artefacts, Greeks disagree over the proper way to incorporate rebetika into contemporary society. Over years of extensive debate, Greeks questioned whether rebetika was fundamental to the Greek national community imagined or lived and how the music should be incorporated into contemporary life. In this work, I challenge the reader to view rebetika as a Greek ―musical ruin,‖ thus normalizing the questions I address about the music. For like the 3 discussion of the proper handling of ancient ruins, Greeks question how to incorporate rebetiko culture into their everyday lives. Should they change the sound and style of the music in order to cope with contemporary needs in live performances? Or should they preserve early rebetika recordings as sacred cultural treasures never rerecording the songs? Answering these questions about rebetika touches on questions fundamental to Greek modernity. In order to examine Greek modernity through rebetiko performance, I discuss well-known Greek rebetiko musician Pavlos Vassiliou (1952 -). Vassiliou is known throughout Greece for his exceptional vocal abilities and for an almost religious devotion to early-style rebetika. He is perhaps best known as the owner of Rebetiki Istoria [Rebetika History], the oldest rebetadiko [night-time establishment devoted to live rebetika performance that offers drinks, appetizers and a space for dancing for its customers] in Athens. Vassiliou maintains strong ideas about contemporary Greek culture. He believes that the forces of Europeanization and capitalization dominate and hybridize the Greek soundscape and contribute to a general cultural amnesia of the Greek people. Believing that rebetika songs are fundamental to Greek national consciousness, he works hard to preserve and promote the music in its early style of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. By promoting a particular style of rebetiko performance and enjoyment, Vassiliou strives to counteract the ills of Greek modernity. His rebetiko performance is a type of defensive musical nationalism in which he tries to protect traditional Greek culture from corruptive influences such as commodification and Europeanization. 4 In this thesis, I propose that Vassiliou‘s Rebetiki Istoria culture is simultaneously a product of Greek modernity and a rejection of it; while designed to counteract the downfalls of Greek modernity, its very existence depends upon it. For Rebetiki Istoria is a culture of authenticity (Guignon 2004), a product of modernity that responds to and rejects its central ideological issues. These issues include the incorporation of past and present, the tension between preservation and change, the commodification of culture and the creation of a contemporary Greek national identity. This thesis is part biography and part ethnography. It introduces Vassiliou as a musician and public intellectual with strong beliefs about Greece and Greek culture. In addition, it presents his rebetiko culture within the larger fabric of contemporary Greek modernity as a musical representative of his desired alternative Greekness and as a commentary on the times. The dissertation is organized as follows: Chapter One serves as an introduction in which I lay out the central themes of this dissertation. Central topics include Greek national identity discussions, characteristics of Greek modernity, the place of rebetika in contemporary Greece, Vassiliou‘s Rebetiki Istoria culture and my place in this culture. In addition, it places this dissertation in dialogue with scholarship on Greece, on national identity issues and on ethnomusicology. In Chapter Two, I present the theoretical paradigms I will use throughout the dissertation. In order to arrive at my theoretical discussion of musical nationalism, I begin with an examination of the nation and the nation state as distinctly modern ideological constructs. Then, I discuss the national identity concept as a social glue that helps hold nations together. I emphasize the notion that national identity is not only an idea but an action that is performed over and over again in infinite ways by all members of society. 5 With the rise of nation states, music came to be a central factor in the performing of the nation—music helped unify national communities by emphasizing shared beliefs and by defining aural boundaries between national cultures. I close the first part of this chapter with a discussion of musical nationalism in newly-founded European nations. In the second part of this chapter, I discuss the issues of musical nationalism as they apply to the Greek case. First, I outline the metanarratives that shaped the ideological construction of the Greek nation in the early nineteenth century and the subsequent search for a contemporary

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