‘Compulsory Greekness?’: Grand narratives, minor literatures and politics of identity in Greek-Cypriot literature education.

Panayiota Charalambous Institute of Education, University of London

Introduction

This is a conference about narrative and life histories in research and I am planning to discuss the pedagogy of a ‘compulsory Greekness’ in Greek-Cypriot literature education. To translate this into the terms of the topic of this conference, this paper would be about pedagogic dislocation of literary narratives from the multiple and dynamic contexts of their emergence – in which they are deeply situated and acquire their meaning from – and their relocation in different contexts and the ‘grander’ nationalist narratives of official Greek-Cypriot state-education. In the concept of ‘literature education’, I will argue, ‘education’ is by far the most determining constituent, that which provides the framework, defines the conditions and sets the limitations to which then ‘literature’ is called to conform. The complexity of such processes is considerable, as I will try to show in an analysis of three poems in which language is a central topic.

i. Pedagogy and the sociology of literature education

From the multiple forces that constitute the field of education, I chose to focus on pedagogy, as the aggregate of a variety of processes through which ‘school knowledge’ is coming down to the students. This is less about ‘transmission’ and more about ‘constitution’ of school knowledges, if we agree with Fabian that ‘the

1 methods, channels, and means of presenting knowledge are anything but secondary to its contexts’ (1983, p. 116). I will argue that pedagogy is the lens through which the initial narrative is refracted to the direction of official state ideology and made to partake in the construction of a rather different story. By foregrounding the pedagogic perspective, I see the problem of identity politics in Greek-Cypriot literature education reformulated and alternative possibilities emerging. In the case in point here, my analysis will aim to show that institutional power operates through a series of pedagogic ‘technologies’, which, by imposing a particular meta-pragmatic regime of language representations, direct to ‘preferred readings’ which seem to suggest the idea of ‘compulsory Greekness’.

This form of analysis requires a sociological rather than philological perspective on literature education. Beyond literary criticism’s old certainties on the ‘authenticity’ of the ‘autonomous text’, its ‘inherent meanings’ and ‘universal values’, I opt for a socio-historically informed approach, that understands society as a dynamic composite of different arenas, where social agents compete over power and domination (Thompson, 1978; Williams, 1977). In this picture, texts stand as both means and products for social struggle, indivisible from their historical contexts of use. The move from ‘meaning’ to ‘function’ I am proposing here, is political and epistemological at the same time: it introduces cultural specificity and historical relativity in the field of textual production and consumption, and advocates its politicization, by making manifest the conflictual dynamics, institutional frameworks and power hierarchies that underpin such practices (Bourdieu, 1993; Foucault, 2003).

Significantly inspired by the Foucauldian and Bourdeuian sociologies, I want to extend this view to questions of literature in education. To sketch the general background, I will examine education as a social institution, central in struggles over legitimation and social reproduction, by proliferating and disseminating ‘authorized knowledge’, while dooming other knowledges to silence, oblivion or disregard (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977) – the workings of Power/Knowledge in Foucault’s terminology. As for literature, it is necessary, I believe, to distinguish between at least three different meanings of the term here; first, literature as a socio-culturally specific genre, the wide diversity of stories available in a society, composed for all kinds of reasons, often stemming from competing standpoints and aiming at very different

2 audiences; second, literature as ‘high literature’, a much more limited number of texts from ‘great authors’, judged worthy enough to enter the ‘national canon’ by ‘credentialed’ literary critics; third, literature as school literature, the very few texts, here, from the ‘national canon’ that make their way into the canonical ‘national curriculum’ of a very centralized, single-textbook education system.

Through a double infiltration, we have a move from the less structured and hierarchized level of stories-in-society, to the strong institutionalization of ‘literature’ in state-education. The question of the criteria for ‘taming’ literature’s first ‘raw’ form is central to my inquiry. Beyond ‘literariness’ and the ‘autonomous aesthetic’, I want to see competing interests – both socio-political and symbolic – determining particular inclusions and exclusions. More specifically, I want suggest that, in both literary and educational canons, nationalism constitutes the main overarching principle and guiding logic underpinning choices and practices. ‘Good literature’ is literature relevant to debates in the public sphere, or as Jusdanis argues, a canon

‘contains texts that, because they narrate a community’s own tale, are deemed worthy of being saved and transmitted to other generations. These texts serve as objects of criticism, enter school curricula, are included in histories of literature, and are annotated in anthologies. The literary canon is composed of those texts from the past that are made relevant to the present’ (1991, pp. 53-54)

ii. Language, literature and national identity

In my analysis below, I choose to focus on the complex and crucial link between language and national identity mediated through literature, regarding both language and literature as primary forces in manufacturing, sustaining and reproducing the ‘deep horizontal comradeship’ we call national belonging (Anderson, 1983; Bhabha, 1990; Cleary, 2002). Also with reference to the situation in Cyprus, narrative representations of language and literature feature very centrally in the construction of the conflicting definitions of Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot identities on the north and south parts of the island respectively (Bryant, 2004; P. Kitromilides, 1981; Yashin, 2000b). Since the ceasefire in 1974 and the de facto partition in two ethnically and linguistically homogenized parts, textual representations can be

3 regarded among the main weapons through which the ‘battle’ is being fought (Killoran, 2000).

The frequent association of language and nationality in popular understandings, creating the feeling of a linguistic community and being, thus, perceived as a basic ingredient of a national consciousness, is well documented (Anderson, 1983; Jusdanis, 1991; Smith, 1991). Through the analysis of three poetic texts thematically centered on language, I discuss their implications on issues of national identity, aiming to show that they project an ethno-cultural, romantic type of nationalism with Herderian overtones. This kind of nationalism is justified exclusively on linguistic and ethno- cultural grounds, claiming boundedness in cultural unity and intolerant of any civic notions of national identity.

For Herder, language was that which made man human and it could be learned only in a community. Faced with the diversity of world languages, he argued for the deep interdependence of language and culture. Through language each community was seen to acquire its own authentic mode of thought, which is as ‘natural’ as language, and deserves to preserve its “purity” through national independence (Breuilly, 1993, pp. 56-64; Ozkırımlı, 2000, pp. 17-19). Other cultural material such as customs and traditions are also being attributed an ‘authentic’ and ‘unchanging’ quality. Literature as a collection of languaged cultural representations falls into that category. In Herder’s words, “the spirit of a language is also the spirit of a nation’s literature” (Herder in Jusdanis, 1991, p. 46). The political implications of the ‘naturalness’ and ‘uniqueness’ of national communities are, of course, far reaching. They conclude to the ‘language-nation-state’ equation, in which nations are natural entities that, despite exigencies and periods of hibernation, carry their distinct ‘spirit’ through their language, seeking their political realization as nation-states in time appropriate. Often employing the metaphor of the collective individual with a unique character or soul, romantic nationalism draws correspondences between the nation and the Kantian ‘free individual’, foregrounding cultural and political consensus and connecting claims for cultural individuality with political aspects of independence.

4 iii. ‘Grand narratives’ and ‘minor literatures’

For the purposes of this study, I am also introducing the concepts of ‘grand narrative’ and ‘minor literature’, corresponding to the two parts in which I divide my analysis of the poetic material under discussion here. In the first part, I am borrowing the concept of ‘grand narratives’ from Jean-François Lyotard (Lyotard, 1984) to refer to an ambitious, all-encompassing meta-narrative, which, constructed around a notion of greatness, aspires to account for every aspect of reality. Usually supported and proliferated by social institutions, ‘grand narratives’ are legitimized knowledges, which make claims to universality and transcendental, absolute truths, aiming to sustain social stability and promote ideological homogeneity. Here, I will be referring to nationalism as a meta-narrative, which, supported both by the institutions of literary criticism, education and wider ‘national’ culture, conditions the interpretation of the literary narratives of the first part. However, I am making use of the concept here, without necessarily going all the way along the epistemological claims of Lyotard.

In the second part, I will be turning to a third poem, this time from a Turkish-Cypriot, Mehmet Yashin, in the outsides of both state curriculum and official culture. Here, I will introduce Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of ‘minor literature’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1986), again, not because of its totally unproblematic nature1, but because the poet himself seems to make recourse to this concept as helpful in order to describe the political implications of his poetic endeavor in his, by choice, literarily and socially marginal position within Turkish official culture. Deleuze and Guattari define ‘minor literature’ as ‘that which a minority constructs within a major language’ (p. 16), which ‘deterritorializes’ the official space of that major language to express the impossibility of the minoritarian condition in a strictly defined context, ‘the impossibility of not writing because national consciousness, uncertain or oppressed, necessarily exists by means of literature’ (p. 16). Thus, they stress the political enterprise that ‘minor literatures’ undertake and their collective, inherently social character and use (p. 16). Here, I will be introducing Yashin’s poem as a counter- example that attempts to ‘deconstruct’ the official ‘grand narratives’ of the previous two examples, not for deconstruction’s sake alone, but in search of a common space where to ‘reconstruct’ shared images of a ‘Cypriotness’ that would include both communities.

5 Constructing ‘Compulsory Greekness’

Situated in the broader field sketched above, in this a first part I will discuss representations of language and identity in two poems, one by a Greek, the other by a Greek-Cypriot poet, from the literature curriculum of the 3rd year of Greek-Cypriot public-schooling. Through a reading of the textbook material, I will point to a series of pedagogic ‘technologies’ that strictly circumscribe the limits of the ‘speakable’ and the ‘thinkable’ in classroom practices, essentializing national identity along the lines of the ‘grand narratives’ of ethno-cultural nationalism. These pedagogical ‘technologies’ effectively narrow a potentially infinite range of possible readings down to one or a handful, steering the interpretive work into very specific directions. Through analysis of the meta-pragmatic regime of language representations that these technologies impose, I will attempt to discuss its implications for the construction of a Greek-Cypriot identity.

i. Framing literature education in Greek-Cypriot public schooling

Literature education features centrally in the Greek-Cypriot education system at all stages. Integrated with Modern Greek language teaching in the primary school, becomes an independent component of the school-subject of ‘Modern Greek’ in secondary education, where it acquires its own textbooks and teaching hours in the school timetable. In all stages of secondary education, is assessed throughout the year and, consisting a part of ‘Modern Greek’, is also assessed in final year examinations, for all students, regardless of subject preferences and direction of specialization. The two poems I will discuss below come from the third year of Lyceum, the final year of public schooling, leading to the final ‘entrance examinations’, the outcome of which determines admission to Greek and Cypriot universities. The final exams are very competitive and all Greek-Cypriot candidates are assessed by a single paper for each subject.

The poems in case come from two school anthologies designed by the Programms Development Service of the Ministry of Education and Culture: the Anthology of

6 Modern Greek poetry: for the 3rd grade of Lyceum (Ministry of Education and Culture, 2005) and the second volume of the Anthology of Cypriot Literature: for Lyceum (Ministry of Education and Culture, 1998). Their distribution is free and compulsory to all students of this grade since they comprise the one and only source of curriculum material for ‘Modern Greek literature’ and ‘Cypriot literature’ respectively2. The first contains poems written in Greek from Greek poets only, and the second poetic and prose texts from Greek-Cypriots only, written mainly in Greek, with very few exceptions in the Greek-Cypriot linguistic variety. As I have already suggested, pedagogy starts from the highest levels of educational policy and curriculum design, where decisive choices on what is to be taught are made.

In the Greek-Cypriot case, Greek literature is the indispensable and dominant ingredient of ‘literature education’. The category ‘Cypriot literature’ is used complementarily to ‘Greek literature’ and does not refer to all literary production on the island of Cyprus. It is often used interchangeably with the term ‘Greek literature of Cyprus’ assuming complete integration of Cypriot – meaning Greek-Cypriot – literature in the largest body of Modern Greek literature. This is part of a more general tendency to appropriate the term ‘Cypriot’ by the nationalist camps on both sides, making totalizing claims for the ‘Greekness’ or ‘Turkishness’ of the island’s essential character, and cultural production accordingly (Yashin, 2000a). As the Turkish- Cypriot poet Mehmet Yashin remarks:

‘‘Cypriot Poetry’ includes only poets writing in Greek who refer to Hellenic literary traditions […] All encyclopaedias, anthologies, magazines, critical reviews, essays and other [Greek-Cypriot] publications refer only to Greek-language poetry as ‘Cypriot’ and they do not consider any other poetry which appears in other languages written in Cyprus as Cypriot’ (Yashin, 1998)

Thus Cypriot literature as a branch of the main Greek trunk is presented as a diasporic yet ‘purely Greek’ literature coming from the wider space of world-wide ‘Hellenism’.. This is clearly an ideological choice tracing its roots back to the advent of Greek nationalism on the island in the early nineteenth century (Kitromilides, 1977). The ideal of enosis, that is, annexation to the Greek state, had gradually developed and was culminated in the EOKA armed struggle against the British in 1955. The final outcome of that struggle was not the then ‘much-desired’ enosis but, instead, the

7 Independent Republic of Cyprus in 1960. In a process frequently observed elsewhere, political-ideological movements consolidate themselves through pedagogic practices: the education of Greek-Cypriots from its inception in 19th century until today has been largely Greek-centered (Bryant, 2004), with most of educational material either coming directly from Greece or designed on Greek models.

ii. Elytis’ ‘Psalm B’ from The Axion Esti

The Anthology of Modern Greek poetry is ordered chronologically and structured in small sections for each poet. The poem I chose to look at comes from Odysseus Elytis’ section, and particularly from his long, and very celebrated poetic composition To Axion Esti (often translated as ‘Dignum Est’) published in 1960. The Axion Esti consists of three extensive parts, ‘The Genesis’, ‘The Passions’ and ‘The Gloria’. ‘Psalm B’, the focus of my discussion comes from ‘The passions’. I will not provide more contextualizing information, since I am attempting here a reading through the lens that its pedagogic ‘technologies’ create for the reader. In what follows, I will discuss the pedagogic frame that the accompanying introductions, comments and questions create for the poem, focusing mainly on the points pertinent to the construction of a Greek-Cypriot identity.

Starting from the introductory comments that open every section, we have a photo of the poet, and, in way of a short CV, a couple of biographical lines, his first steps in the literary scene, his literary achievements – here a Nobel prize in 1979 – and a quote from a poet’s statement on his work. Then follows a comprehensive list of Elytis works (poetry, prose, translations) and a selective bibliography of secondary sources, works of literary criticism that is, on his work. These are all distinctive indexes of canonicity, explicitly situating the poet’s work within the institution of ‘Greek Philology’ and suggestive of the way in which the students and teachers are expected to ‘read’ the poems: not as just any poem, but as important, acknowledged ‘great literature’ that deserves to be studied in depth by methodical teachers and scrupulous students.

8 Moving on to the Axion Esti section we have yet another long introduction, informing the reader about the content, structure and inspiration of the poem. This is taken from the line-by-line commentary of the critic Tasos Lignadis’ (Lignadis, 1971), one of the first on Elytis poem and, probably, the most extensive one as well. Commentary is one of the main indicators of canonicity (Jusdanis, 1991, p. 64), assuming the responsibility to illustrate the ‘worthiness’ of a literary work by deciding on its ‘main meanings’ and providing ‘evidence’ that could otherwise be overlooked. Lignadis’ commentary is a rather characteristic instance of traditional Greek literary criticism of the 70’s. In the first lines we read:

‘Axion Esti is a Greek poem, not only as theme, but also in terms of its morphology. It consciously reflects the structure of a divine Service and is influenced by it, not only in its style but also in its structure […] glorification in the birth of the son of God, mourning for the passions of the sheep holding the sins of the world and the Hymn of Resurrection for the immortality of Lord. […] As to the dramaturgic logic of its composition, an association with ancient tragedy would not be untimely3.(p. 146)

Before one even gets to the poem, the ‘Greekness’ of the poem is predicated and justified, distinguished in thematic ‘Greekness’ and formal ‘Greekness’. On the thematic level, ‘Greekness’ is associated with the particular teleology of the New Testament story-line: glorious birth – passions – immortality. Structural ‘Greekness’, we are told, is achieved through formal borrowings from the ancient Greek and Byzantine Orthodox tradition. Here, the history of Greek literary production is emplotted in the story-line of official Greek historiography first weaved by Constandinos Paparrigopoulos (1969-72), starting from the ancient Greek days and coming, with minimal adulterations, through the Byzantine era, up to our modern times.

Introductions as pedagogic ‘apparatuses’ are meant to provide a matrix in which any ‘correct’ reading of the poem should be sought. In this case two ‘grand’, ready-made templates are being amalgamated, namely the Christian view of world history and nationalist historiography, within which the history of Greek literary tradition is then embedded. The ideological move of identifying ‘Greekness’ with ‘Christian Orthodoxy’ saturates the former with divine qualities, while predicating its glorious destiny. If we take narrative as ‘a story with well-marked beginning, middle and end phases’ (White, 1987, p. 2), we have a linear, teleological ‘grand’ narrative, with

9 Ancient Greece as the nation’s glorious beginning and national immortality as its already decided ending. In a very Herderian line, the particular poem is placed in the centuries long history of ‘Greek language’ and ‘Greek literary forms’, through which the distinctive quality of ‘Greekness’ is preserved – transformed, but essentially the same – to the present day4.

Then follows the poem, which I cite here in English translation (Elytis, 1980, p. 32):

Psalm B

1 Greek the language they gave me; 2 poor the house on Homer's shores 3 My only care my language on Homer's shores

4 There bream and perch 5 wind beaten verbs, 6 green sea currents in the blue 7 all I saw light up my entrails, 6 sponges, jellyfish 7 with the first words of the Sirens, 8 rosy shells with the first black shivers. 9 My only care my language with the first black shivers

10 There promegranates, quinces 11 swarthy gods, uncles and cousins 12 emptying oil into giant jars 13 and breaths from the ravine fragrant 14 with osier and terebinth 15 broom and ginger root 16 with the first chirping of finches, 17 sweet psalms with the very first Glory Be to Thee 18 My only care my language with the very first Glory Be to Thee!

19 There laurel and palm leaves 20 censer and incense 21 blessing the swards and muskets 22 On soil spread with vine-scarves 23 the smell of roasting lamp, Easter eggs cracking 25 and ‘Christ is risen’ 26 with the first salvos of the Greeks. 27 Secret loves with the first words of the Hymn 28 My only care my language with the first words of the Hymn

I will resist going through the poem and move directly on to the questions, again, aiming to show how pedagogy creates a pretext for reading. In a school-subject that is assessed both for the purposes of the ‘school-leave certificate’ and students’ entrance

10 in Greek-speaking universities, questions are not just hints or ideas; they should rather be seen as the final goal to which classroom activity should be oriented.

Questions 1. In which lines is the indivisible of Greek language indicated? 2. Distinguish the lines where one can discern elements of a. the Greek natural environment b. the Greek and Christian spirit/culture (‘πνεύμα’) 3. With which lines is the association of the rest of Greek struggles for freedom with the struggle of 1940 achieved? 4. The poet in psalm B is presenting the whole of Greek nature contributing to the formation of the Greek language Distinguish the lines and the means of expression through which this is stated (pp. 151-152)

Here, I am interested both in the content and rhetoric of the particular questions and their implications for pedagogy, interpretation and identity construction. First note the rhetoric of the questions. The particular wording and formulation of the questions contribute to the presentation of their statements as factual, unquestionable and veritable ‘truths’. The question consists of two parts: first, a ‘given’, the necessary starting point that precedes the required task, serving as a ‘pointer’ towards the right direction; then, the assignment for the student, here a persistent ‘find the lines’. The implications of this particular way of question-making on the subject positions created for the users of the textbook are considerable; the student from meaning-maker the student is reduced a ‘follower’ of a narrative woven for him/her by others; and, similarly, the teacher is left with the task to explicate, according with the instructions given by the questions, what is left unremarked.

Then, on a thematic level there are expectations created and guidelines posited for the reader – teacher or student. The questions inform us that: ‘Greek language has remained unified and inseparable through the centuries’; ‘there are traceable elements of Greek natural environment and of Greek and Christian spirit in the poem – and they are important’; ‘Greek and Christian culture is to be regarded as a single corpus’; ‘there is a long series of Greek struggles – always for freedom’; ‘the poem refers to events in 1940 (beginning of WWII), which are yet another instance of the struggles of Greeks for freedom’; ‘the references to nature in the poem represent the whole of Greek nature’; ‘the natural environment contributes to the formation of a language’; ‘it is the poet’s intention to make the link between Greek nature and Greek language’.

11 As I will try to show, these statements and the anticipated ‘correct’ answers convey a particular sense of ‘Greekness’, with considerable implications for identity politics. I am now turning to the poem itself and the ten ‘comments’ from Lignadis’ commentary reproduced in the textbook. Starting from the ‘indivisible nature of Greek language’, the evidence is to be found in references to the past and the present of Greek language: from the celebrated beginning of Homer in Mycenaean Greece (lines 2-3), to ‘the giant jars’ with oil, images from the Minoan civilization in Crete (comment 7), and with a huge leap of more than ten centuries, to the Byzantine era (lines 17-18) with the well-known religious tag-phrase ‘Glory Be to Thee’, still used in Orthodox religious services. Then, according to the commentary, ‘the first words of the Hymn’ (line 28) refer to the Hymn to Freedom (1823) of the Greek ‘national poet’ Dionysios Solomos, the first two stanzas of which became in 1865 the national anthem of the Greek independent state.

Through simple reference to a series of textual achievements in different ‘phases’ of Greek language spanning more than twenty centuries of human history, the doctrine of ‘the indivisible of Greek language’ is verified. This is not to deny that no radical discontinuity takes place in the long Greek linguistic tradition, mainly sustained through the literacy practices of a scholarly linguistic paradigm, alongside popular culture (Jusdanis, 1991, pp. 41-42). However, ‘the indivisible of Greek language’ also indexes cultural and political continuities. It is through language that the ancient Greek and Christian Orthodox spirit/culture of question 2b come to be seen as elements of one equally ‘indivisible’ whole, that of modern Greek ‘national culture’. Also, the emphatically proclaimed ‘care’ for language through different periods in history implies a need for vigilance in order to shield, through language, a threatened cultural identity which is the core of national survival5.To bring together a series of diverse traditions by way of their related linguistic medium, points to romantic assumptions of a fundamentally ageless ‘Greek spirit’, safeguarded through language, despite exigencies, to reach its political realization in the modern nationally organized ‘world’.

Freedom is another thread that cuts across the centuries as a timeless feature of ‘Greekness’. According to the commentary, line 28 ‘denotes the poet’s apprenticeship in the sentiment of freedom and in the expression of Solomos’ (comment 10) and the

12 poem’s leitmotif ‘my only care my language’ should be paralleled to Solomos’ famous line ‘do I have anything else in my mind apart from Freedom and language?’. Here Solomian romantic poetry of the turbulent period of Greek Revolution is presented as Elytis’ basic source of inspiration for ‘freedom’, assuming that the essence of freedom is sedimented in the language, style and formal characteristics (‘expression’) of Solomos’ poetry. Presented as ‘twin values’ here, language and freedom illustrate the strong connection that romantic, ethno-cultural nationalism establishes between culture – in this case language and literature – and political issues of national emancipation and independence.

In this romanticist line of thought, freedom appears a fundamental element of Greek political ethos, transmitted through the centuries-long cultural traditions to the present day. This has also significant implications for history and memory. Language and literature become the ‘arks’ through which national history and the idea of freedom are bequeathed to popular memory and, thus, made relevant to contemporary history, namely the Second World War. This is the only instance when the pedagogic ‘technologies’ bring the discussion from the transcendental and ahistorical level of ‘eternal’ values down to the historical context of the text’s emergence. However, the motivation here is not historical specificity and relativity, but generalization again, offering a recent ‘struggle’ as an instance of the destined position of Greek people, fighting for freedom, always in the position of defense. Thus, ‘Greekness’ in historical perspective is here identified with a long series of heroic and teleologically victorious struggles for liberation, mobilized by the qualities of an unbowed ‘national soul’.

The connection of language and natural environment, so painstakingly undertaken in the poem and emphasized by questions 2a and 4, is also contributing to similar directions. Language is presented as the child of the Greek landscape, determined by its physical features, endowed with its qualities and therefore, most appropriate to express its variations, its beauty and its sensuality. Successive images from both coastal and mountainous landscape, loosely connected or completely disjointed in a lyrical exposé, invoking colours, smells, sounds, create an euphoric utopia and attribute a sense of blissfulness to the quality of ‘Greekness’. A series of alliterations in the Greek original, of ‘r’ in lines 4-10 (comment 3) and ‘p’ in lines 15-16 (comment 8) are also aimed to produce effects of ‘iconicity’, attempting to evoke the

13 sounds of running sea water and bird chirping. The argument is very Whorfian in its details. It provides an ecological perspective, where language and culture are presented as indigenous to and inseparable from their natural environment of use. By implication, any mixture of foreign elements is regarded as an ‘impurity’ that disrupts the ecologic system of the language.6 Thus, given the tardy progress of environmental change, the landscape comes also to support the doctrine of ‘the indivisible of language’, as the permanent scenery where the different episodes of Greek political and cultural history have been enacted.

In sum, this is a poem written in 1960 in Greece and found pedagogically appropriate, with the necessary framing, to be taught in Greek-Cypriot schools as an instantiation of the ‘Greekness’ of ‘Greek-Cypriotness’, based on linguistic and ethno-cultural grounds but, due to its Herderian line of thinking, also with substantial political implications. National language is celebrated with a ‘psalm’, an incantation of both its richness and ‘uniqueness’, and its significant contribution in preserving the ‘Greek spirit’ impervious through the long centuries to the day of independence and national realization. National history, language, literature, even national celebrations and national anthem are seen as equally Greek-Cypriot. The very subtle hint on Greece’s humble place in the Western scene by reference to the “poor house” is quickly dispelled by the loud affirmatory voice of a Nobel awarded poet who has moved beyond the narrow limits of the Greek space to the center of the international arena.

iii. Montis’ ‘Greek poets’

The second poem to discuss here comes from the Anthology of Cypriot Literature (1998) and is written by a Greek-Cypriot poet, Kostas Montis. Also published by the ministry of Education and Culture, the anthology’s layout is identical to the previous one: not thematic but chronological ordering, organized in sections of authors, according to the time of their appearance in the literary scene. In every section, again, introduction, bibliographies, photos, poems, questions. The introduction, signed by the then General Director of the Ministry of education, gives the general philosophy of the endeavor:

14 This [literary] ‘generation’ has functioned eminently as a number of other centers of Hellenism, such as Athens and Alexandria giving us the unity of Modern Greek literature both in terms of theme and form […] As part of the Hellenism of diaspora, [Cypriot literature]deals with a wider horizon of problems and themes, that surpass the Cypriot centre and spread both towards the agony of the wider Hellenism and towards ecumenical and universal problematics. […] Beyond their pure literary value, these texts lend themselves to national instruction (εθνικό φρονηματισμό) and emulation (παραδειγματισμό) in these hard times our motherland is going through (p. v)

It is striking to the outsider that Cyprus, an independent state since 1960 is presented as a centre of the Hellenism of diaspora, ethnically, linguistically and culturally homogenized with mainland Greece. Any notion of distinctiveness, or cultural variation is significantly downplayed in favour of identification with what is perceived as the linguistically and ethno-culturally homogeneous space of Hellenism. Most strikingly, the only moment of differentiation pertains to the suggested pedagogic use of these texts, by explicitly suggesting a move beyond their aesthetic function, exalting them to models not of writing but of action. Here, Cyprus with its political problem still unresolved is presented as a place of perpetuated warfare that requires a ‘vigilant’ type of national consciousness, in need of constant alertness, militancy and moral edification.

This is the pedagogic context in which the anthologized texts should be read, among which Montis’ poem ‘Greek poets’. The introduction poses Montis at the top of the hierarchical scale of Cypriot poets, ‘his poetry [being] characterized by a short, epigrammatic, aphoristic verse and austerity in expression’. And the poem:

Greek poets

1 Very few read us 2 Very few know our language 3 We remain without vindication and applause 4 In this remote corner 5 But it counterbalances that we write in Greek (p. 111)

Following the same strategy I now will go through the questions before turning to the poem:

Questions: 1. What is the bitterness expressed by the Greek poet in this epigrammatic poem? 2. What role and function assumes the repetition of the adjective ‘very few’ «ελάχιστοι» in the poem?

15 3. Comment on the last line ‘but it counterbalances that we write in Greek’ 4. Which aspect of Greekness and Hellenism is the line ‘in this remote corner’ revealing? (p. 111)

Although a seemingly more open-ended type of questioning, here, again, the preceding statement significantly bounds the limits of the “correct” answer. Thus, we learn that ‘the poet is Greek’; ‘the poem is written in the ancient Greek form of an epigram’; ‘the poem expresses a bitterness about something related to Greek poets (the title)’; ‘the poem pertains to Greekness and Hellenism’; ‘the line “in this remote corner” reveals a specific aspect of Greekness and Hellenism’; ‘the last line is important and should be commented upon’.

Once again, ‘Greekness’ is offered as the necessary lens for making sense of the poem. It also appears that one of its fundamental traits is a curious blend of inferiority and superiority, and a deep ambivalence of bitterness and pride, marginality and significance. Contrary to Elytis, Montis’ absence from most discussions on Modern Greek literature, allows for a more explicit reference to the bitter reality of an undervalued international periphery. However, there is an anxiety to revoke this first impression and replace it by an infinite pride for the medium of his art. As with Elytis, Montis is seeking to endow contemporary language with the prestige of past celebrated moments and securely canonized forms. Thus, through language a purely ‘diasporic’ identity is projected, which, lacking firm rooting in the ‘ancenstral’ national center, is imagined on a much more abstract level, grounded on a literary tradition and the stylistics of expression.

However, I want to argue here that, despite Montis’ precision of expression and the pedagogic ‘clarifications’ provided, the poem is built on silences more than presences. This is a self-referential work of a Greek-Cypriot poet written in 1962, two years after the establishment of the Cyprus Republic, a bicommunal state with both communities participating in the government and both Greek and Turkish as its official languages. Apart from official bilingualism, both the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot vernaculars are linguistic varieties with significant divergences from standard Greek and Turkish; and yet, no visible signs of any kind of ‘Cypriotness’ or ‘Greek- Cypriotness’. Any attempt to inscribe Cyprus in the poem could work at the expense of its ‘Greekness’, which is very anxious to proclaim.

16 The silenced presence of Cyprus is not problematised by the questions. On the contrary, I see the only point where an allusion to Cyprus could be suspected, namely the spatialization of language to a ‘remote corner’ in line 2, overwritten by the certainty of the interpretation offered by question 4. Both the geography of the island and the actual place of Cypriot writers amongst their Greek counterparts could provide support for such an assumption. However, the mere possibility of an indirect hint to the liminality and vulnerability of the diasporic ‘Hellenism of Cyprus’ within wider Hellenism, and, consequently, to the tensions and dilemmas of such a position, is categorically excluded by question 3, that firmly ascribes marginalization as an incontestable feature of Hellenism in the international context. The poem and its pedagogy take every care to present it formally and thematically ‘purely’ Greek: an instance of the long Greek tradition of ancient Greek epigrammatists, revived by a deserving modern Greek descendant, in the Cypriot center of Greek diaspora.

Elytis’ and Montis’ poems seem to be particularly valued for their aesthetic and educational importance, since they were selected and put next to each other in the Greek-Cypriot ‘entrance examination’ paper of ‘Modern Greek’ in 2005. All candidates are handed the same paper and, for reasons of ‘impartiality’ the ‘correct answers’ are sent by the ministry to all examiners. After the exams the ‘solutions’ are uploaded to the page of Ministry of Education and Culture7 from where I quote:

Instructions Read the two poems and then answer the following questions a. What is the meaning of Kostas Montis’ poem “Greek poets” (marks 4) b. Define the common theme of the two poems and the expressive means(technique) through which each poet projects this theme (marks 6)

Examiner’s answers a. In the first four lines Montis, after observing that very few people in the world know the Greek language (it is considered “without siblings” «ανάδελφη») he expresses his bitterness for the disregard and the lack of recognition of Greek poetry. The phrase “distant corner” heightens/intensifies the bitterness and the feeling of isolation of Greek intellectuals, which is again attributed to the small number of the Greek people. The fact however that Greek poets remain without recognition and applause is counter-balanced in the last verse, where the bitterness converts into pride, when the value of Greek language is realized along with the fact that we are the continuers of a great intellectual tradition

b. The common theme of the two poems is the love and pride for the richness and value of Greek language […]

17 Again, we see here the homogenization of differences across the whole of the Greek- Cypriot student community in the highly disciplinary system of one ‘true’ meaning and one ‘correct’ answer. However, the most impressive point here is the note in the brackets referring to Greek language as a language ‘without siblings’. The word indexes a particular ultra-nationalist ideology, since it was first used by the ex President of the Greek state Christos A. Sartzetakis in the phrase ‘we are a nation without siblings’ («είμεθα έθνος ανάδελφον») to suggest that Greece, because of its racial origins was without allies in the international arena and point towards a particular line of foreign policy. His ‘dictum’ was then either warmly embraced by the nationalist fractions or widely satirized, especially in the realm of popular culture. In a polemic letter Sartzetakis send to the journal Ellopia defending his thesis he wrote:

Therefore, departing from the always commonly accepted and scientifically unshakable […] concept of the nation, the remark which I expressed publicly in the Easter of 1985, that we, Greeks, are a nation without siblings, indicates an indisputable and tangible truth […] and indeed no nation on earth is related with us, we have siblings nowhere, as it happens with other nations and peoples e.g. the Anglo-Saxons, the Romanic people, the Slaves and the Arabs. Since all these comprise not one nation, but families of nations; with the exception of the Jews, who are also a nation without siblings (Sartzetakis, 1994)8

Much of the heavy indexical load of the word is preserved, I want to argue, in the inspector’s a ‘correct’ reading of the poem’s meaning. This racialized and ‘purist’ view of the nation used to describe the ‘national language’ in the international scene supports both the claims for the ‘naturalness’ of linguistic communities and the inferiority/superiority complex entailed by this ‘unique’ position in the world.

To sum up the argument so far, I have suggested that a text acquires meaning only in the context of its use, supporting a more systemic view, where a modification in the context changes the text-relational dynamics, effecting alterations in its meaning. In the case of literature education, I have proposed a prioritization of the pedagogic perspective, viewing pedagogy as the mediating recontextualizing process, whereby contexts are foregrounded or silenced in an attempt to control practices of meaning- making. Through analysis of examples from the school anthologies, I have pointed to the over-prescriptive way in which pedagogy directs the text’s readings, drawing from certain discourses and embedding the text in fixed and predetermined narrative-lines.

18 I have also suggested that by offering texts as ‘sacred scriptures’ containing the secrets of our ‘national essence’ and requiring the double mediation of institutional ‘exegetes’ from literary criticism and education alike, students are reduced to mere ‘preachers’ of ready-made ‘truths’, with their creativity and critical thinking severely impaired.

As to the politics of identity construction, I have tried to shed light to the ways in which Greek-Cypriot identity is constructed in a static and inflexible way, by lending authority to a selective number of celebratory representations of Greek language and literature to express the ‘collective national consciousness’. I hope to have provided enough evidence for the way in which linguistic, historical and cultural aspects of ‘Greek-Cypriotness’ are constructed on the lines of a pure ‘Greekness’, grounded on an essentialist and foundationalist epistemology. I have also attempted to point at the reduction of the multiplicity of contexts, in the juncture of which the two poems were produced, to the monophonic ‘grand narrative’ of an ethnocultural, Herderian type of nationalism. The particular way in which language, culture, time and space are interweaved together points to that direction.

Deconstructing national ‘purity’

In what follows, instead of a restoration of the missing contexts and their competitive interactions, I will try to illustrate the conflictual social dynamics of literary production by introducing a third poem, this time from the Turkish-Cypriot community, conspicuously absent in the previous examples. I will be looking at Mehmet Yashin’s poem ‘Wartime’, first published in his collection The ChairMan (1993) and subsequently in English translation in the collection Don’t go back to Kerynia (2001) in the ‘World Literature Series’ of Middlesex University, where he now works.

Yashin describes himself born ‘in Neapolis, the last cosmopolitan neighborhood of Nicosia’ in 1958. On an online biography9 of his we read:

His father Ozker Yashin, was considered the foremost "national poet" of Turkish- Cypriots […] 1963: In the first intercommunal conflict […] his family home was looted

19 and burned by EOKA […] 1974: […] After eleven years of refugee life, the family [returned] to their original home […] captured by Turkish soldiers […] 1981: He published a literature magazine which provoked a strong reactions from the conservative literary establishment. 1982: [A] series of articles entitled "Cyprus Estranged" about the looting of historical sites in north Cyprus […] accused by anti- Greek Turkish authorities […] 1986: […] On the first day of the sale [of his collection] Ladder of Light, it was seized by police and banned. He was deported from Turkey as a 'persona non grata' and left […] for London […] 1988: […] He visited south Cyprus for the first time after fifteen years and performed his poetry in three languages (Turkish, Greek, English) in both parts of Nicosia and in London. He was accused of being a "traitor" by Turkish authorities, because of the anti-nationalist and cosmopolitan quality of his works.[…] 1993: The deportation decision from Turkey was cancelled by the Turkish government […] 1995: [His] novel won […] one of the most prestigious literature prizes in Turkey […] 1996: […] Since then he teaches comparative translation and literature at Middlesex University […]

Now, this is what I call the intricate and conflictual dynamics of social life. The reason I am quoting so extensively is to indicate the multiplicity of intersecting fields, interests, institutions and agents, in a space and time as tumultuous as Cyprus in international perspective, during the last fifty years. Personal biography and family relations, local and international history, inter- and intra-communal conflict, international relations, literary criticism, journalism, academia, immigration all in the biography of one poet, sketching the chart of the complex forces conditioning – and being conditioned by – literary production.

Beyond the seeming contingencies of life, on the ideological domain two opposed camps are discernible: the dominant ‘legitimate’ nationalist discourses and their marginalized counter-nationalist opposition. A long series of displacements, prohibitions, deportations and other sanctions is a result of a textual-discursive resistance to established social institutions, whether political, social or cultural, revealing their intricate interconnections. Not all poets of course have such an adventurous life; the more one contests the status quo, the more its complex mechanisms for sustaining the establish order become apparent; and it is also true that shifts and transformations in the equilibrium of social power do come about, as the outcome of intra- and inter-national struggles and developments, as in the case of the cancelled deportations and ‘national’ award.

In the context sketched above I want read Yashin’s poem:

20 Wartime

I used to talk within myself so that no one could hear me, and they all suspected wisdom in my silence! Turkish was dangerous, must not be spoken, and Greek was absolutely forbidden… My elders who wanted to save me, were waiting each on trigger-ready before a machine-gun. Anyway, everyone was then a willing soldier. English remained right in the middle, a slender paper-knife for cutting schoolbooks, a tongue which must be spoken at certain times especially with the Greeks! I was often unsure in which language to shed tears, The life I lived wasn’t foreign, but one of translation – My mother-tongue one thing, motherland another, And I altogether different… Even in those days of blackouts it became obvious That I could never be the poet of any country, Because I belonged to a minority. And ‘Freedom’ is still A little word uneasy in any nation’s dictionary… Then in my poems, the three languages got into a wild tangle: Neither the Turks nor the Greeks Could hear my inner voice, nor the Others… But I don’t blame them, it was wartime.

No introductions, comments or questions. Coming from a poet of the Turkish-Cypriot opposition (Killoran, 2000), this poem cannot be canonized in any Cypriot ‘national curriculum’, neither Greek nor Turkish. There is no single language to be exalted to the skies, but a ‘sotto voce’ narrating a multi-lingual condition that becomes painful and is, therefore, problematized, not because of its linguistic impossibility, but due to the socio-historical friend-foe relations that through the languages become embodied in a single person. Forbidden, silenced, translated or self-censured, his hybrid ‘inner voice’ cannot fit in any official ‘national’ category, restricted at a minority position in the periphery. Although writing in Turkish, Yashin constructs a counter-narrative that resists the homogeneous space and time of a national culture, undermining the naturalness of constructs such as ‘national language’ and ‘national literature’. By ‘deterritorializing’ the familiar ‘nationalized’ space of Turkish language, Yashin is moving from the certainties of national ‘purity’ to the multiplicity of actual inhabited spaces in a globalized and conflict-driven world.

21 Through language Yashin also touches upon other related areas, familiar from the previous two poems, but very differently treated. First, history is problematized as a series of personal wounds and displacements rather than collective victories. By implication, the Cyprus conflict, silenced in the other two instances now comes forcefully to the fore; relations of mistrust, ideological polarization that produces willing soldiers, interference of ‘motherlands’, displacement, even implicit reference to the local Turkish-Cypriot idiom as ‘mothertongue’. Along with history, Yashin is also destabilizing the notion of ‘Freedom’, much celebrated as the national virtue in Elytis’ poem. In his highly politicized view of language, freedom is sacrificed by the tyranny of ‘national truths’ during the project of manufacturing national unity through ideological consensus.

In terms of a theory of identity, I see the poem diametrically opposed to the assumptions of the metapragmatic regime created by pedagogy in the two previous examples. Against the purist and essentialist representations of the languaged self in Greek-Cypriot education, Yashin attempts a rethinking of the nationalist concept of singular, authentic, monolingual and monophonic identities. His marginal position leads not to corroboration of national bonds and erasure of tensions as in Montis’ case, but to a radical defamiliariation of dominant ‘grand narratives’ that seeks to decenter static notions of national identity. In doing so, he is projecting a dialogical self in a cross-cultural perspective, speaking from a liminal, third space that resists permanent categorization and reflects both an ‘and…and…’ and a ‘neither...nor…’. This in-betweenness allows him to transcend the narrow limits of the territorialized national space and denaturalise its arbitrary boundaries, while opening a dialogue with the outside world.

However, as I have suggested before, Yashin’s contestation of existing national identities does not renounce the possibity of reconceptualizing identity. Rather, he seems to propose that, beyond trauma and victimization, history can also become vehicle for resolving the tension: the distance created between ‘those days’ and the present introduces a historical perspective that relativizes absolute ‘truths’, allowing for a toning down of polarities and for a comprehension of the historical dynamics of conflict on both sides. Eventually, reconciliation and understanding seem to be indirectly sought on the grounds of a common humanity – the ability to shed tears –

22 shared by the two sides, beyond political, linguistic and cultural differences. Yashin is deconstructing given ‘grand narratives’ in order to reconstruct, in an abstract, discursive realm, the possibility of reframing differences into new forms of commonalities (Killoran, 2000).

Conclusions

By way of conclusions, in the analysis above I have attempted to foreground pedagogy as the necessary lens through which school knowledge is communicated. I tried to show how highly manipulative pedagogic technologies sketch an official topography of mind and thought, conditioning classroom practices and preordaining desired outcomes. For literature education in particular, I have offered instances of a hermeneutic/exegetical model of thought, in which canonicity is the overarching principle, the author’s ahistorical ‘meanings’ the purpose, and expert scholars – literary critics and curriculum designers alike – the necessary mediators between the text and the lay reader. Governed by the idea of the ‘true’ meaning, this exegetical model constraints reading practices and produces totalizing and reified ‘correct’ readings, which strictly define the boundaries of the meaningful and the acceptable. I have also suggested, that the monophony and uniformity that pedagogy imposes serves particular identity politics, projecting reified, static and predetermined definitions of the national self.

I have also argued that the same essentialist epistemology is shared by the ideology of romantic, Herderian nationalism that appears as the governing logic of both education and literary criticism. In the case of the two poems here, romantic nationalism promotes a hyper-accentuated and hyper-present ‘Greekness’ as the unquestionable quality of Greek and Greek-Cypriot ‘national literature’, while dooming alternative perspectives in silence. Through a metapragmatic regime of essentialist, timeless, monolingual and monocultural representations, national ‘purity’ is affirmed and the idea of ‘compulsory Greekness’ is promoted as the official version of cultural ‘Greek- Cypriotness’. Thus, even if not attained politically, ‘enosis’ with motherland Greece is realized and experienced discursively through the integration of the Greek and Greek-

23 Cypriot perspectives in a single realm of symbols, stories, values and language, what we call ‘national culture’.

By bringing to the fore a third poem, from the outsides of the curriculum and national official culture, I tried to provide an instance of ‘minor literatures’ that resist the dominant master narratives and attempt a critique of the nationalist concept of identity from the social margins. Yashin’s poem as a counterpoint, introduces plurality and hybridity in the discussion of national identity and makes manifest the conflictual dynamics, whereby national and educational canons are manufactured. By deconstructing traditional identities, oppositional discourses ultimately aim to reclaim the symbolic space of a homogeneous national culture and to create new discourses with their own conceptual tools for new forms of identity-formation.

To translate all this to the terms of this conference, I have presented examples of a traditional pedagogic paradigm baring no signs of the transitions that Cyprus is currently undergoing. The accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the EU, , the increasing influx of immigrants, the movement of Greek-Cypriots and Turkish- Cypriots across the border, and the ongoing negotiations for a settlement for the ‘Cyprus-conflict’, after the failure of the famous ‘Anan plan’, all indicate that Cyprus is no exception to rule of changing social structures in a progressively globalized world. In this paper I have provided examples of existing totalizing and isolationist educational practices in order to put forward the need for rethinking of pedagogic ‘technologies’ and established canons, to adjust to contemporary realities.

By moving from ‘meaning’ to ‘use’ I want to underline the relevance of literary narratives in political debates, either by perpetuating the established dichotomies or by destabilizing the established order and contesting ‘given’ identities. Especially in the case of Cyprus, where the clashing nationalistic definitions of official identities in the two communities contribute to the perpetuation of the polarity, literature education could function as a space for critical rethinking of the national stereotypes and antithetical totalizing identities that keep the conflict alive. If the idea of a united Cyprus is still on the agenda, I see an imperative need to turn the critical potential of literature to advantage, and revise our current reductionist and polarizing practices,

24 not in terms of ‘truth’ or ‘correctness’, but of ‘usefulness’ and ‘relevance’ for the present and the future.

25 Bibliography

Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London; New York: Verso. Bhabha, H. (1990). Nation and narration. London: Routledge. Bourdieu, P. (1993). The field of cultural production: essays on art and literature. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1977). Reproduction in education, culture and society (R. Nice, Trans.). London: Sage. Breuilly, J. (1993). Nationalism and the state. Machester: Manchester University Press. Bryant, R. (2004). Imagining the modern: the cultures of nationalism in Cyprus. London; New York: I. B. Tauris. Cleary, J. (2002). Literature, partition and the nation-state: culture and conflict in Ireland, Israel and Palestine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cyprus Pedagogical Institute. (1987). I didaskalia tu logotehniku vivliu sto yimnasio [The teaching of the literary book in Gymnasium]. Nicosia: Pedagogiko Instituto Kiprou. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1986). Kafka : toward a minor literature. Minneapolis ; London: University of Minnesota Press. Elytis, O. (1980). The Axion Esti (E. Keeley & G. Savvidis, Trans.). London: Anvil Press Poetry Fabian, J. (1983). Time and the other : how anthropology makes its object. New York: Columbia University Press. Foucault, M. (2003). Abnormal. New York: Picador. Fragkoudaki, A., & Dragona, T. (Eds.). (1997). 'Ti in' i patrida mas': ethnokentrismos stin ekpedefsi ['What is our country': ethnocentrism in education]. Athens: Alexandria. Jusdanis, G. (1991). Belated Modernity and Aesthetic Culture: Inventing National Literature. Minneapolis; Oxford: University of Minnesota Press. Killoran, M. (2000). Time, Space and national identity in Cyprus. In M. Yashin (Ed.), Step-mothertongue: from nationalism to multi-culturalism: literatures of Cyprus, Greece and Turkey (pp. 129-146). London: Middlesex University Press. Kitromilides. (1977). From coexistence to confrontation: the dynamics of ethnic conflict in Cyprus' In M. Attalides (Ed.), Cyprus Reviewed (pp. 35-70). Nicosia: Jus Cypri Association. Kitromilides, P. (1981). Collective consciousness and poetry : three moments in the literary tradition of modern Cyprus. Austin: University of Texas Press. Lignadis, T. (1971). To Axion Esti tu Eliti [Elytis' Axion Esti]. Athnes: Vivliothiki Sxolis Moraitidi. Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The posmodern condition: a report on knowledge (G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Trans.). Manchester: Manchester University Press. Ministry of Education and Culture, D. o. S. E. (1998). Antholoyia Kipriakis logotehnias: yia to Likio [Anthology of Cypriot literature: for Lyceum] (Vol. B). Nicosia: Programmes Development Service. Ministry of Education and Culture, D. o. S. E. (2005). Antholoyia Neoellinikis piisis: yia tin triti Likiu [Anthology of Modern Greek poetry: for third grade of Lyceum]. Nicosia: Programmes Development service

26 Ozkırımlı, U. (2000). Theories of nationalism: a critical Introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Paparrigopoulos, C. (1969-72). Istoria tou Ellinikou ethnous [History of the Greek nation] (Vol. 1-16). Athens: Galaxias. Sartzetakis, C. A. (1994, Summer). [Sartzetakis' letter to the director of Ellopia]. Ellopia, 20, 67-70. Smith, A. D. (1991). National identity. Reno; Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press. Thompson, E. P. (1978). The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays London: Merlin Press. White, H. (1987). The content of the form: narrative discourse and historical representation. Maryland: John Hopkins University Press. Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yashin, M. (1998). Three generations, three identities, three 'patries' within twentieth- century Cypriot poetry. In V. Calotychos (Ed.), Cyprus and its people: nation, identity and experience in an unimaginable community, 1955-1997 (pp. 223- 233). Boulder; San Francisco; Oxford: Westview Press. Yashin, M. (2000a). Introducing step-mothertongue. In M. Yashin (Ed.), Step- mothertongue: from nationalism to multi-culturalism: literatures of Cyprus, Greece and Turkey (pp. 1-21). London: Midddlesex University Press. Yashin, M. (2001). Don't go back to Kyrenia (T. Baybars, Trans.). London: Middlesex University Press. Yashin, M. (Ed.). (2000b). Step-mothertongue: from nationalism to multi-culturalism: literatures of Cyprus, Greece and Turkey. London: Middlesex University Press.

27 28 1 For a discussion of problems with the concept see: (Jusdanis, 1991) 2 The teaching material for Modern Greek literature is complemented by the teaching of a whole novel/collection of short stories for each semester from a list of recommended books that the Ministry of Education and culture provides. For more information see (Cyprus Pedagogical Institute, 1987) 3 With only exception the poem of Elytis, all translations from the textbooks to English are mine. 4 The pedagogic framing is not necessarily a misrepresentation of the author’s intended meanings in the contexts of the poem’s production. In this paper I am not interested in the ‘provenance’ of the meanings offered by the textbook material, but rather at the metapragmatic regime that these pedagogic devises project. Besides, it is usually the case that during selection the preferred texts are those more easily conforming to the goals and principles of educational discourses. 5 On the construction of a threatened national identity by Greek textbooks see (Fragkoudaki & Dragona, 1997) 6 See also Montis’: “Turks on Pendadaktilos” I am wondering how they can communicate with him!/ I am wondering in what language they talk to him! and “Pendadactilos to the Turkish invaders” Come on! I’ve seen so many of your kind My eyes have seen so many of your kind!

7 The page has been updated and the particular document is no longer available online. See this year’s exam samples in http://www.moec.gov.cy/daae/SamplePapers.pdf (20.02.2006) 8 See the relevant letter of response in Sartzetakis’ website: http://www.sartzetakis.gr/points/thema1.html (20.02.2006) 9 The biography is taken from the page (20.02.2006): http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~durduran/newpage/culture/poetry/mehmetyasin/mehmetyasinbio.txt (find how to do online referencing)