Cultural Politics and Populist Uses of the Ancients

Abstract

Populism is a discourse made up of a specific signs, techniques, strategies, and truth claims that set in motion certain ways of talking about "the people" (laós). This discourse has served to regulate Greek culture for nearly a century. It offers the story of an indigenous organic community struggling to express itself authentically and to survive against outside threats. The populist investment in the ancient past happened in two successive stages.First, demotkists (like Psiháris) appropriated all aspects of the national past, including classical Hellas, for a Roméic present. Then modernists reached directly without the mediation of institutions.2 With unremitting criticism, authors as diverse as Marios PlorÃ-tis, Dimitris Ma-

Sacralising the Past

“…Also, we would not wish to imply here that Acropolis would evoke the same feelings to all visitors (Greeks and non-Greeks).The term Romios was destined to have a complex social biography in more recent years. AsLeontis (1991) has shown, one of its derivatives,Romiosini, was appropriated by intellectuals who advocated at the turn of the twentieth century the introduction of Demoticism -the change of the official language of the State from Katharevoussa (purist) with its archaic elements, to Demotiki (the language of the people), the language of Romiosini. More recently the term was appropriated by modernist poets and intellectuals (like Seferis and Elytis).…”