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Learning New Languages: Literature of Migration in Greece

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Learning New Languages: Literature of Migration in Greece Learning New Languages: Literature of Migration in Greece Maria Oikonomou Introduction Speaking of ‘migration literature’ is the first step towards its recognition as aesthetic form or even as genre; further, it implies canonisation, with its intrinsic links to hierarchies.1 For knowledge, with its centres of distribution and valuation, generates institutional power. The location of literature, especially of immigrant literature, ‘depends not only on the places where books are written but also on the places where they are classified’, as Rebecca L. Walkowitz argues in her essay on transnational writing and migrant authors (Walkowitz 2006: 527). Accordingly, an entry in a volume on migration literature addresses both literary questions and aspects of a politics of culture. Yet we are entrapped in a conceptual as well as a linguistic sphere which is tied to, and results from, the imaginary of the territorial state. The case of Greece – just as the entire structure of the collection at hand – demonstrates our dependence on notions of the nation and, more importantly, reveals not only a terminological dilemma but a deeply rooted difficulty of thinking about migration in terms other than national. Thus, the question arises as to whether it is really adequate to talk and think in terms of nation-state when this concept itself, according to numerous examples and current discourses, is challenged by the very phenomenon of migration. Since many scholars across the disciplines seek to separate migration from homeland, border and fixed identity, acknowledging it as a general dynamisation of contemporary culture and a fundamental, rhizomatic force which defies the controlling mechanisms of the old, increasingly obsolete nation-states, it is obvious that a new language (and a new politics) must be invented to ‘capture’ or, rather, describe the complex, non- territorial, postnational formations of migration as Arjun Appadurai has put it (Appadurai 1997: 166). Without doubt, this also applies to literary studies: scholars are not only writing about migration in general, they do not just depict an actual geopolitical situation but – through their terminology – take part in shaping its actuality. This chapter does not – and cannot – give an exhaustive overview of ‘immigrant and ethnic-minority writing’ in Greece (Are we dealing with a homogeneous ‘ethnos’? Is it the majority that produces this difference?) but, rather, tries to detect tendencies or structural ‘dominants’. However, even the attempt to trace these dominants is supported by the fact that, since its emergence in the 1990s, immigrant writing has motivated only a few academic studies and little critical response. Therefore, the first part of the chapter outlines the initial steps in the publishing history of so-called ‘Greek-Albanian’ or ‘Northern Epirotic’ authors and ‘ethnic Greeks from the Former Soviet Union (FSU)’. It also takes into account the authors’ reception in Greece and abroad, be it through anthologies, articles in the press, promotion events, book presentations or literary criticism. With regard to the second part, one must note that only recently has academic attention in Greece focused on ‘migrant writing’ [‘λογοτεχνία των μεταναστών’, ‘λογοτεχνία της μετανάστευσης’] and the resulting theoretical discourse is still in the early stages. It seems that, on the one hand, the majority of these limited approaches centres on one particular group of authors, namely on ‘Albanian-Greek writers’ (especially Gazmend Kapllani). On the other hand, some of these studies adopt conceptual models from sociology: they consider the respective texts as fully transparent to their social contexts, i.e., to the historical and political reality which ‘generates’ them. Various examinations tend to interpret fictional narratives about the experience of migration, settlement, foreignness etc. as 1 biographical or social documentary (e.g. Kokkinou 2012; Kyriazis 2011 – studies which will not be taken into consideration). Without discrediting such studies – which, in fact, contain much useful information – one might argue that they reduce the text to its alleged social- mimetic function and pay scant attention to its form or literary structure. In so doing, they barely possess the same degree of differentiation as sociological studies of migration literature conducted in other academic environments.2 Meanwhile, other approaches concentrate on issues of identity and subjectivity. However, these concepts are increasingly being called into question and modified according to current, more flexible and constructivist notions of personal or communal ‘identification’. In general, and considering the diversity of immigrant authors whose texts are part of and influence the cultural sphere of Greece, the subject of migration literature appears underrepresented in academic research. To date, the migrant has not yet found an established place or produced an adequate vocabulary in Greek literary studies. Historical background and development of the field In a highly illuminating book on the notion of ‘state essentialism’ and difference, the anthropologist Efthymios Papataxiarchis points out that alterity or otherness are phenomena that official Greek ideology has persistently ignored (Papataxiarchis 2006). In his introductory essay entitled ‘The burdens of alterity: dimensions of cultural differentiation in Greece in the early 21st century’, Papataxiarchis not only speaks of Greece as an emblematic case of rigid identitarian politics and harsh monoculturalism;3 he also declares that (the tolerance of) difference exists often under the precondition of discretion: ‘cultural intimacy’, the quotidian and practical negotiation of alterity, was and still is the general means of coping with the dynamics of difference. Although intimacy, as Papataxiarchis argues, is generally assumed to spring from equality, here it emerges from difference, while also concealing difference. Following J.K. Campbell’s theory on the negotiability of agonistic relations and Michael Herzfeld’s (2005) concept of the ‘scaffoldings of tact’, Papataxiarchis richly illustrates how widespread methods of normalisation can prove much more flexible than official discourse. In particular, everyday practices permit a manageable coexistence even within the confines of a state ideology that does not allow for such flexibility. In this context, ethnic minorities such as the Kutsovlachs or the Arvanites are perceived as different, since their language is not Greek. At the same time, they are subordinated as ‘local cultural peculiarities to an encompassing logic of national authenticity’ through elaborate forms of ‘tact’. Obviously, the conditional basis of ‘cultural intimacy’ is that ‘citizens’ loyalty to the state depends on its effective tolerance of the very practices that its ideology denies’ (Herzfeld 2005: 61). Due to such double strategies, Greece has hitherto both negotiated and silenced difference and, in so doing, has reproduced ‘internally the crypto-colonial dynamics of its own international encapsulation’ (Herzfeld 2009 ibid). However, the momentous events of 1989 caused radical transformations on a national and local level and brought thousands of immigrant ‘others’ from Eastern Europe and the FSU to Greece.4 The national community was confronted with ‘as much its own rejected and historically oppressed alterity as the alterity of those “others” […] who began to settle in its interior’ (Papataxiarchis 2006: ix). Meanwhile, several studies have demonstrated how the state handled the influx of migrants: by passing two laws on migration (1975/1991 and 2910/2001) and ‘authorizing the creation of a border regime’ by deporting a million Albanian citizens just during the period 1991–1995 (Parsanoglou 2004); and by tolerating workforce mobility ‘according to the long-term needs of a flexible labour market’. Eventually, by introducing the terms ‘co-ethnics’ and ‘repatriates’ and speaking of their ‘return’, the authorities constructed a 2 legitimate frame for the various groups of foreign citizens settling in Greece and incorporated them – at least in official parlance – into the nation (Venturas 2009). Aside from this ‘rehellenisation’ of ethnic communities or even the ‘invention’ of new ones, a novel concept of ‘ecumenical’ or ‘worldwide Hellenism’ was propagated. The country tried to consolidate its position on the international stage by integrating the diaspora into its imaginary ‘national body’, invoking a common descent and common heritage, developing channels of international communication and strengthening Greek networks abroad. This strategy can be understood as the state’s implementation of processes designed to stabilise its ethnic, cultural and linguistic unity through a combination of ‘older versions of the nationalist discourse with the contemporary language of cultural communities which transcend state borders’ (Venturas 2009: 136). While ‘Greece has rapidly developed into a more multicultural, open and diverse society’ (Tziovas 2009: 1), it has at the same time applied the tropes of a discourse of national identity – and thereby abetted the current rise of essentialist, ultra-conservative and right-wing political movements. In the interest of a better understanding of the larger cultural context, it is worth pointing out that Greece has incessantly been shaped by a distinct and dialectic tension between the concepts of ‘native country’ and economically or politically motivated movement. It is defined by massive emigrations
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