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Mikis Theodorakis is a man of many definitions and an inexhaustible supply of talents: poet, musician, composer, - CULTURE GREEK MODERN conductor, political activist, deputy, freedom fighter, exile, partisan, orator and yes, author. Angelique Mouyis’ oeuvre is an important addition to our understanding of his music. And of course, a book about Mikis is also a voyage into modern Greek history and modern Greek culture. Author’s biography ALSO PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH Nick Papandreou, author of Mikis and Manos: A Tale of Two Composers Angelique Mouyis was Coffee Table Books born in Johannesburg, Mikis Theodorakis: My Posters South Africa in 1981 to (bilingual, paperback) Angelique Mouyis has performed a valuable service to the composer and to serious lovers of Greek music by writing about the “other” Theodorakis, a man whose large and impressive body of work in many different Greek-Cypriot parents. In Mikis Theodorakis: My Posters genres deserves better recognition. 2007, under the (bilingual, collector’s edition, supervision of Prof. Jeanne hardcover) Her study is an important contribution to the understanding of Theodorakis’ music, a subject which has

II HOOAI:FNIGGEC NHSMUSIC HIS IN GREECE FINDING THEODORAKIS: MIKIS Zaidel-Rudolph and Prof. Greece Star & Secret Islands been largely neglected by musicologists in his own country, and which deserves to be better known in all its Mary Rörich, she (bilingual) brilliance and abundance by music lovers all over the world. graduated with a Master’s Degree in Music Magical Greece (bilingual, Composition with distinction at the University paperback) Gail Holst-Warhaft, Cornell University of the Witwatersrand, with a research report Magical Greece (bilingual, collector’s edition, hardcover) entitled Mikis Theodorakis and the Articulation A meditation on the perplexity of Greece, the oldest nation but the youngest state, of Modern Greek Identity. She also completed The Hotel Grande Bretagne examined through the lenses of a polymechanous artist, a genuine Odysseus. in Athens an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts as a composer in May Dr. Maria Hnaraki, Ethnomusicologist & Director of Greek Studies, Drexel University Modern Living & Health 2008. Angelique is the recipient of a Southern Cretan Music: Unraveling African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO) Ariadne’s Thread Mikis Theodorakis and his music are far more than a national treasure for Greeks; they are the quintessence post-graduate studies scholarship as well as the Cretan Healthy Diet – Truths of the experience of being Greek. And, to the world at large, they are the very figure of Greece – of its Ernest Oppenheimer Overseas Scholarship for & Secrets history, of its dreams, of its sorrows. the Performing Arts. In 2003 and 2006, she was selected and funded to attend the New Economy, Finance & Business Guides Antonis D. Papagiannidis, Journalist Music Indaba Composition Workshop at the Managing Employment Grahamstown Arts Festival, where several of Relations in Greece her compositions were performed. Her songs Following the Nereids: Sea As a South African of Greek descent, Angelique Mouyis finds herself drawn into the heart of modern Greek cultural have been heard at venues such as the Dance Routes and Maritime Business identity, an identity that has been created, crafted and passionately theorized by Mikis Theodorakis. While she Factory in Newtown, Johannesburg, the The Business of Olympic Games gives due credit to the composer’s much loved Zorba the Greek music, Mouyis also pays homage to the composer’s Zipper Factory in New York, New York, Sponsorship lesser known oeuvre, bred of an astounding creative force immersed in Greek history, thinking and myth. Mouyis’ Goodspeed in East Haddam, Connecticut and Greece After 2006 (bilingual) book has the energy and resonance of Theodorakis’ own project and also the rigour of modern musicology. Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Thessalonica – A Business Guide Massachusetts. Angelique continues to be (bilingual) ANGELIQUE MOUYIS Mary Rörich, Professor, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg inspired by Greek culture and theatre music and hopes to continue exploring these areas in ISBN 978-960-8386-98-3 both her music compositions and in her writing.

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MIKIS THEODORAKIS FINDING GREECE IN HIS MUSIC ISBN: 978-960-8386-98-3

Author: Angelique Mouyis

Production: KERKYRA Publications - economia PUBLISHING Publication Coordinator: Fani Karafylli Editor & Photo Editor: Maria Adamantidis Book Design & Layout: Rana Mourati - atelier KERKYRA

Distribution:

KERKYRA Publications S.A. 6-8 Vlahava street, 105 51 Athens, Greece Tel.: 0030-210-3314.714, fax: 0030-210-3252.283 www.economia.gr, [email protected]

Book cover artwork by Paško Cvjetković (2002).

Photos on pages XVI-XVII are from Alexandra C. Vovolini’s personal collection. The concert poster on pages 96-97 is part of the Mikis Theodorakis Archive, kept at the Music Library of Greece of the Friends of Music Society and is reproduced by permission. Stills from Zorba the Greek on page 103 are published by permission of the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation. All other photographs published by permission of the Margarita Theodorakis Archive.

The publisher has made every possible effort to locate the creators of unidentified photographs and images up to the printing of this work. In the event these creators become known after publication, then the publisher is willing to take any rectifying action deemed necessary.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, whether in its original form or in a translated or adapted version, without the publisher’s prior written permission. MODERN GREEK CULTURE

Mikis Theodorakis FINDING GREECE IN HIS MUSIC

Angelique Mouyis

I dedicate this book to Mary Rörich, without whom this would not have been possible. Table of Contents

Publisher’s Note

Alexandra C. Vovolini ...... x Foreword

Gail Holst-Warhaft ...... xi Preface

Maria Hnaraki ...... xiii

Photographic Mosaic ...... xiv

Aknowledgments ...... xvii

Introduction: Theodorakis Goes for Gold ...... 1

Chapter 1. MODERN GREEK IDENTITY: HISTORY, POLITICS AND THEODORAKIS ...... 4

The Historical Negotiation of Modern Greek Identity ...... 6

Language and Identity ...... 13

Theodorakis: The Modern Greek ...... 14

Music ...... 20

Byzantine Music ...... 21

Western Art Music in Greece ...... 21

Demotic/Folk and Popular Music ...... 23

The Rebetika ...... 23

Chapter 2. REIMAGINING THE GREEK THROUGH THE POPULAR ART SONG ...... 26

Poetry and Text ...... 39

The Birth of the Popular Concert ...... 41

VIII Chapter 3. MYTHOLOGISING THE MODERN GREEK: THEATRE, METASYMPHONIC

MUSIC AND LYRIC TRAGEDY ...... 44

Contemporary Greek Myth: The Song of the Dead Brother (1962) ...... 47

Metasymphonic Music: Axion Esti (1960) ...... 54

Operas and Symphonies: Taking the ‘Popular’ Out of Popular Art? ...... 66

Symphonies ...... 67

Laik Lyric Tragedies: Redefining Opera ...... 70

A Place for Opera Today? ...... 73

Chapter 4. A ‘UNIVERSAL MAN’ IN SEARCH OF HARMONY ...... 78

A Search for Universal Harmony ...... 80

Origins of a Universal Harmony ...... 81

Towards the Sacred Centre Through Marxism and Christianity ...... 84

Identifying the Artist and His Art ...... 87

Chapter 5. ZORBA TRANSFORMATIONS ...... 96

Zorba’s Beginnings ...... 98

Perceptions of ‘Zorba’ ...... 102

Zorba’s Dance - the Music ...... 104

Beyond Words ...... 106

Zorba Transformations ...... 106

Zorba Dance Remix ...... 107

Reflections of ‘Theodorakis’ in his Zorba Ballet Suite ...... 108

Mikis the… Zorba? ...... 111

Conclusion ...... 112

Notes ...... 116

Bibliography ...... 122

Index ...... 126

IX PUBLISHER’s NOTE

erkyra Publications are proudly launching their Modern Greek Culture series with Angelique Mouyis’ Mikis Theodorakis: Finding Greece in His Music, the abridged version K of her Master’s degree dissertation entitled Mikis Theodorakis and the Articulation of Modern Greek Identity. Discussing the renowned composer’s oeuvre, Ms. Mouyis, a South African Greek, simultaneously inaugurates what we believe will be an exciting array of books that will illuminate various facets of contemporary Greek culture, from arts and architecture to crafts and cooking. Already, Maria Hnaraki’s Cretan Music: Unraveling Ariadne’s Thread, published in 2007, foreshadowed what would eventually become a firm belief in the necessity for such a series. Foreigners’ perceptions of 20th and 21st century Greece are fragmented at best –indeed, Mikis Theodorakis himself, a towering figure in modern Greek culture and of an undisputed international acceptance as composer, is still in some respects not fully appreciated. Our new series will help form a fuller picture of Greek society as it has evolved from the early 20th century to the present. Naturally, Mikis Theodorakis is the ideal example for any discussion of modern Greek culture. Greeks have marched and celebrated, chanted and mourned at times of upheaval, of feasting or of sorrow with the music of Theodorakis sounding in the background. The joys and the sorrows of everyday life, the great historical moments of Greece, personal moments and collective experiences alike have been enriched by it. People all over the world have known Greece – the torments and the glories of the country, its people and its scenery – through Theodorakis. More than any other cultural experience the music of Mikis, one of the very few people that Greeks have always called by his first name, has come to embody Greece and the sense of belonging together of its people. A man truly ‘larger than life’, whose massive work became worldwide famous, Mikis Theodorakis expresses the many aspects of the Greek identity in a unique way.

Alexandra C. Vovolini Publisher

X FOREWORD

f there was a Nobel Prize in Music, it would undoubtedly have been awarded to Mikis Theodorakis. He has been a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, and is probably I responsible for the fact the poet Odysseus Elytis won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979. Elytis’s long poem Axion Esti, set to music by Theodorakis, became very popular in Scandinavia and other parts of Europe as well as in Greece. Born in 1925, Theodorakis is a towering figure in Greece’s musical and political life, and despite his successive imprisonment and torture in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s as a communist, is now revered by Greeks of all political persuasions. Given his prominence, it is surprising that this man, whose music, political activity and deep engagement with literature and the arts in Greece has not received more attention by scholars of modern Greece. One reason may be the sheer magnitude of his output, which includes over a thousand popular and art songs, dozens of symphonic works, operas, oratorios, film and theatre scores, poems, autobiographical writings, political writings, and musical analysis. Few scholars are able to engage with the full compass of Theodorakis’ work, and many, even in Greece, are unaware of the extent of his achievements. No doubt there will be many studies written about him after his death, but while he is still actively engaged in revising his own scores and even composing new works, it is gratifying to see a serious new study of his work appear in English. Angelique Mouyis did not grow up in the period when Theodorakis was a symbol of resistance to the 1967-74 dictatorship, a political exile, or the leader of a youth movement dedicated to the political martyr Grigoris Lambrakis. What drew her to his music was a composition Theodorakis himself was less engaged with than he was with many of his other works: the film score for Zorba the Greek. The identification of Greeks, especially diaspora Greeks, with Zorba was something she wanted to understand. Growing up in South Africa as a member of the emigrant Greek community, Mouyis noticed the intense feeling Theodorakis’

XI MIKIS THEODORAKIS: FINDING GREECE IN HIS MUSIC

music evoked in the Greek community and set out to investigate it. Unlike many other admirers of the Greek composer, Mouyis was musically trained to analyze what she heard. As a composer with a special interest in theater, she began to study the works of Theodorakis, including the most neglected of his compositions: his operas. Theodorakis composed five operas, all of them requiring the full resources of a major opera company. His first opera, Kostas Karyotakis was composed as a reaction to the political and financial scandals of the Papandreou regime during the 1980s. In the following decade he wrote a trilogy of operas based on ancient tragedy. Ironically, the decision to write the operas was a response to the success of his Zorba Ballet in Verona. Delighted by the success of the ballet, the composer decided to write three operas inspired by Verdi, Puccini, and Bellini. It was not easy for a composer in his eighth decade to persuade a major opera company to undertake performances of his works, least of all in his home country. Medea was premiered in Bilbao, Electra in Luxemburg, and only the third opera, Antigone, in Greece. Despite favorable reviews of his works abroad, and successful productions in Athens of Antigone and of a subsequent comic opera Lysistrata in 2002, these works are not well known in Greece or abroad, and Theodorakis continues to be better known as the writer of Zorba and of many popular songs than as a ‘serious’ composer. Angelique Mouyis has performed a valuable service to the composer and to serious lovers of Greek music by writing about the ‘other’ Theodorakis, a man whose large and impressive body of work in many different genres deserves better recognition. Her study is an important contribution to the understanding of Theodorakis’ music, a subject which has been largely neglected by musicologists in his own country, and which deserves to be better known in all its brilliance and abundance by music lovers all over the world.

Gail Holst-Warhaft Cornell University

XII PREFACE

any are those who have tried to capture in words the essence of legendary Mikis Theodorakis. Mrs. Mouyis’ work is unique, however, as it evolves around – literally and M metaphorically – a Greek Zorba, addressing the following: 1. Can an artist influence human thought? If so how? 2. Who is Greek and how can Greeks sustain Greekness in today’s global world? Here is a meditation on the perplexity of Greece, the oldest nation but the youngest state, examined through the lenses of a polymechanous artist, a genuine Odysseus. Mikis Theodorakis turned the Greek identity ‘confusion’ into a harmonious musical synthesis: an amalgam of Apollonian and Dionysian elements. After all, Zorba, who made him worldwide famous, is nothing else but a fable about the mind and the body; a marvelous composition of the East and the West. Mrs. Mouyis re-discovers Mikis Theodorakis, an archetypal giant who may yet be one of us. Through his exemplary and prolific artistic works Hellenism proves to be an eternal symbol of peace, freedom and enlightenment. Yet Mrs. Mouyis’ work is not only about Greekness, but humanity in general, as Mikis Theodorakis’ career and life prove that, knowing and understanding where one’s roots stem from, is significant in the Socratic terms of ‘knowing thyself’ and, at the same time, in the notion of a self-catharsis taught by the ancient Greek tragic masterpieces. Therefore, the book you now hold urges us all, citizens of the world, to re-imagine ourselves, mythologize our beings, follow the path of Mikis Theodorakis, and, using the art of music as a thread of knowledge, become conscientious citizens via the means of a newly conscious identity.

Dr. Maria Hnaraki Ethnomusicologist &Director of Greek Studies, Drexel University Author of Cretan Music: Unraveling Ariadne’s Thread

XIII Mikis Theodorakis is a fascinating and indefatigable raconteur and this mosaic of 2009 shots captures him in a variety of moods and activities, including welcoming publisher Alexandra C. Vovolini and author Angelique Mouyis in his Athens home in 2009 (top left). Though smoking is a long-forbidden pleasure, the composer finds some comfort in keeping his favourite cigars close by.

XIV XV

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank My family and friends for their support. My Niko for his undying support and continuous motivation. My sister Elena for all of her encouragement and help especially in the final stages of writing the original research report. My father Achilleas for giving me the unforgettable opportunity of meeting Mikis Theodorakis for the first time at the International Symposium for Music and Universal Harmony in Crete and for allowing me the gift to dream. My mother Dia for helping me translate endless Greek text and for always making me dream big dreams. Romanos Publishers for providing me with masses of research material. Mrs. Alexandra C. Vovolini and the entire team at Kerkyra Publications for making this book a reality, especially editor Mrs. Maria Adamantidis.

I would especially like to thank Rena Parmenidou for her infinite patience, always responding to every question and query and keeping me in touch with the work of Mikis Theodorakis. Mary Rörich, my first advisor and editor of the original concept, for believing in me and inspiring me to write what I never thought I could. Mikis Theodorakis for answering all of my questions and inspiring me for a lifetime. I would also like to thank my alma mater, the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where I first started this research and wrote the original report for a M Mus (Composition).

Angelique Mouyis

XVII

INTRODUCTION THEODORAKIS GOES FOR GOLD

he air is filled with anticipation, agitation even. There are only a few seconds left of the second half. A final basket lifts the entire stadium to its feet, roaring, applauding, cheering t its heroes. The hundreds of people who have gathered to support the Greek women’s basketball team cannot contain their pride and exhilaration. ‘Yes! They’ve won! We’ve won!’ The familiar sound of the bouzouki rings out from the stadium loudspeakers. There is no need for an introduction. As one person and as if controlled by an unknown force, the crowd puts its hands together: ‘Dada….dada….didi-dada…’ As the tempo increases, so does the rhythm of the clapping; faster and faster, intensifying in dynamic level and escalating in energy. As the music becomes a fast dance, Greece’s team knows that there is only one thing to do – they link arms, form a circle and begin the hasaposervikos, their dance of victory, right there, in the middle of the basketball court. This is just what the spectators want – a tangible, ‘Greek,’ celebration of triumph. You may already have guessed the identity of the piece of music that spurred the crowd and players on: Mikis Theodorakis’ ‘Zorba’s Dance.’ Time and time again, this music was played at the 2004 Olympic Games, intended to excite the spectators (and the athletes), invariably bringing them to their feet. This is music that has gained a life of its own; a life over which its own composer no longer has control. When I was asked about the prevalence of Theodorakis’ music at the Olympic Games in Athens 2004, there was one simple answer: It was everywhere. Theodorakis’ music resonated at the opening ceremony, along with that of Manos Hadjidakis. As a volunteer and spectator at the Games, I heard it in the many stadia, as well as in the outer domains of the Olympic complexes. I invariably caught ‘Zorba’s Dance’ while watching an Olympic event on television. Even the Official Olympic CD features eighteen of Theodorakis’ popular songs sung by different artists. Not only was I bombarded by his music at Olympic events, but on a tour to Delphi (a ‘non-Olympic’ event), our tour-guide offered us the choice of music: either the latest interpretation of what ‘ancient’ Greek music sounded like, or the music of Greece’s ‘national’ composer, Mikis Theodorakis. What does this actually tell us about Theodorakis’ music? Is it part and parcel of what it is to be Greek? Does it define the style of Greek music? Or encapsulate Greek spirit? The fact that all the songs on the Official Olympic CD were composed by Theodorakis strongly suggests that he is

1 MIKIS THEODORAKIS: finding GREECE IN his MUSIC

synonymous with both Greek identity and Greek musical expression. My quest is to find out how this has come about.

y own experience as a South African of Greek descent is that Mikis Theodorakis’ music has without question become part of Greek identity. One cannot speak about Greek m culture without speaking about music, and one cannot speak about Greek music without invoking Theodorakis. As for my own experience of Greek music, I think it is necessary to mention where I stand. My parents are both Greek-Cypriot in origin – my mother was born in Cyprus and moved to South Africa at twelve years of age, while my father, whose parents were Cypriot-born and bred, was born in Johannesburg: so I always say that I am ‘one-and-a-half’ generation South African. Although I grew up in Johannesburg, my parents always played Greek music in our home and my grandfather sang Greek songs at the piano. So from a very young age, the sounds of Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis were familiar to me, even if I did not know who composed the music. I also attended a Greek school in Johannesburg where I learned the Greek language and culture (Greek dancing, singing, literature, history, religion) – I always admired the Greek spirit because it was constantly present in my environment and part of me. So as a Greek of the diaspora, Greek music and culture hold an extra special place in my heart, as anyone of us who yearns to keep our cultural heritage alive and an active part of our identity. I will admit that my experience of ‘Greekness’ has affected the way I look and experience the material at hand, and furthermore, it affects the way I understand it. The material moves me in an indescribable way because of the important and special place it has held in my environment throughout my life. On this journey of the life and work of Mikis Theodorakis, I have tried my best to be as objective as possible, but at the same time I caution the reader that my admiration of the Greek culture and spirit may sometimes compromise this objectivity. At the same time, it is this very admiration that has compelled me to delve deeply into the life and work of Mikis Theodorakis. My love for the Greek spirit also brought me to volunteer at the Athens Olympic Games in 2004. While I was in Athens, I talked to many people, young and old, from students to security guards, volunteers to professors. They reconstructed a gigantic figure for me, describing Theodorakis as a god, a brilliant, amazing man, about whom I would find masses of information for my research. Masses of information I did find, but strangely enough little of it is seriously academic. The truth is that Theodorakis has provided me with hundreds of popular songs and other works to analyse, songs that remain close to the heart of the Greek people. However, it was only when I began researching his work that I learnt that Theodorakis is also a Western art music

2 Introduction: Theodorakis Goes For Gold

composer. Some people I spoke to were as surprised as I was to hear this. Others would quickly remark: ‘Theodorakis is a communist, you know!’ Responses to these different aspects of Theodorakis’ creative personality and experience suggest an ambivalence: he is obviously a potent symbol of Hellenic culture, a legend who has inspired people throughout the years; at the same time, there is a sense of dislike for, or rather misunderstanding of, ‘the communist,’ the leftist, ‘the one who says he is a socialist but who has made a fortune.’1 Nevertheless, Theodorakis continues to be acknowledged as a man who fought for Greece, who rose against the military dictatorship and who struggled for justice. He is undoubtedly a national hero. But he still seems to be misunderstood in some ways. A music student I met at the Games remarked that it is not Theodorakis that is Greece’s national composer, but Manos Hadjidakis. Theodorakis was simply a political composer, she argued, part of the past. Her reasoning was obviously based on the fact that Theodorakis composed music during an important political period in Greece’s history, a time when Greece was trying to find a stable political/cultural identity. (This period is marked by the Greek civil war between 1946-49, and the period of the military dictatorship, commonly known as the Junta, from 1967-74.) Theodorakis was politically active then, imprisoned and exiled for his beliefs; his music was banned. Does this explain why he is still revered in the Greek community, why we hear his music everywhere even without knowing who he is, and why he has become a hero for the Greek people? What about the music itself, the way it seems to move the Greek spirit and to bear some relation to Greek society? Are the above statements valid observations, and if so, why is his symphonic music so different? And why is it mostly unknown? Drawing on contemporary identity theories, such as those of Martin Stokes and Simon Frith, my aim is to interrogate the construction of modern Greek identity in Theodorakis’ music. In Chapter One, I unravel the complex webs spun by history and culture to shape the modern nation, and the ways in which Theodorakis’ political and musical life have intersected with these webs in the twentieth century. In Chapter Two, I discuss the establishment of the Popular Art Song as a powerful agent of modern Greek identity. Chapter Three examines major moves in Theodorakis’ advancing of popular art forms and hence his own renegotiation of modern Greek identity – theatre, ‘metasymphonic’ music and ‘lyric tragedy’ are genres that I discuss. Chapter Four explores Theodorakis’ inner world, his beliefs and perspectives. Chapter Five discusses the phenomenon of Theodorakis’ Zorba as the all-encompassing representation of modern Greek identity. I hope that this journey will reveal some of the many faces of Theodorakis and Greece and, in so doing, will ultimately uncover some of the secrets to our own identity.

3 Chapter 1

Theodorakis marching with the French Communist Party in Paris on Labour Day, May 1st, 1970. MODERN GREEK IDENTITY HISTORY, POLITICS AND THEODOR AKIS MODERN GREEK IDENTITY HISTORY, POLITICS AND THEODORAKIS

‘The present-day Greek’, wrote the editor of a newspaper in insurgent Greece, ‘is not reborn, as is commonly believed; he is born. He is the child of a famous and proud father, possesses the same features and constitution, the same functions, almost the same intellectual powers; in short, he is the living image of the father, a lion’s cub. To grow and become like his father, he must have the same upbringing, the same conditions, those at least which are in accord with the spirit of the present century.’

Geniki Ephemeris tis Hellados, 20 Feb. 1826 2

Understanding modern Greek identity is a complex issue. It involves understanding the concept of Hellenism as well as the meaning of what it is to be Greek in this day and age: namely, a multi-dimensional, multi-layering reaching back to the ancient Greeks. In this chapter, I will attempt to unpack these layers and create a picture of modern Greek identity through an examination of key points in Greece’s (modern) history. Thus I trace the main events that have led to what we have come to know as present-day Greece, both geographically and culturally, while the history of language is uncovered in order to illustrate the ‘identity crisis’ of modern Greece. I then place Mikis Theodorakis within this historical frame. In the final section of this chapter, I examine the role and development of music in modern Greece, and hence its changing identity as it was influenced by, and in turn influenced, its social and cultural context. I locate Theodorakis within this framework and establish his very close bond with Greek cultural identity and the reciprocal role his music has played in defining it. This will provide the foundation for the chapters that follow.

The Historical Negotiation of Modern Greek Identity

The complexity of modern Greek identity lies in the fact that only in the past thirty years has it been able to mould itself without the pressures of external forces: from the 1400s to the 1800s, Greece was under Turkish rule. Greek independence in 1821 was followed by a turbulent sequence of foreign kings, dictatorships, population exchanges via the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1919, Greek civil war (1946-1949), Italian and German occupation and, finally, the Junta

6 Chapter 1 Modern Greek Identity: History, Politics and Theodorakis

(1967-1974). This young modern nation, that has struggled to survive and also retain its identity in the five hundred years until after the Junta, has attempted and, I believe, managed to preserve as well as connect with her ancient Hellenic roots. However, it is obvious that modern Greece is not simply a continuation of the ancient nation, although the latter is and always will be part of the modern conception (no matter how often scholars dispute this fact). In order to understand modern Greek identity, its origins and creation, one has to look at key points in Greece’s history. How is a sense of nation created? John Connell and Chris Gibson propose that nation-states have always been socially constructed3. Modern Greece is no different. A sense of ‘nation’ or rather, an ‘imagined community’ as Benedict Anderson puts it, is created through cultural means such as language, music, national artistic traditions, religion, ethnic identity as well as visual symbols (such as flags, emblems, crests, currency).4 Observing these cultural expressions and historic movements will reveal how the Greek nation has been shaped. But where does one start? In his Reading Greece, David Mason poses the question ‘What is Greece?’, and also asks at what point in history one should start exploring the Ikaria, 1947: Mikis Theodorakis, concept of ‘Greece.’5 In my attempt to right, with fellow political exiles in this Aegean sea island. understand and research modern Greek

7 Mikis Theodorakis is a man of many definitions and an inexhaustible supply of talents: poet, musician, composer, - CULTURE GREEK MODERN conductor, political activist, deputy, freedom fighter, exile, partisan, orator and yes, author. Angelique Mouyis’ oeuvre is an important addition to our understanding of his music. And of course, a book about Mikis is also a voyage into modern Greek history and modern Greek culture. Author’s biography ALSO PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH Nick Papandreou, author of Mikis and Manos: A Tale of Two Composers Angelique Mouyis was Coffee Table Books born in Johannesburg, Mikis Theodorakis: My Posters South Africa in 1981 to (bilingual, paperback) Angelique Mouyis has performed a valuable service to the composer and to serious lovers of Greek music by writing about the “other” Theodorakis, a man whose large and impressive body of work in many different Greek-Cypriot parents. In Mikis Theodorakis: My Posters genres deserves better recognition. 2007, under the (bilingual, collector’s edition, supervision of Prof. Jeanne hardcover) Her study is an important contribution to the understanding of Theodorakis’ music, a subject which has

7896089 386983