Minor Field, Major Territories: Dilemmas in Modernizing Hellenism

Leontis, Artemis

doi:10.1353/mgs.2010.0163

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…This "imaginative territory" was defined by a formula that included "any land associated with Greek history or the Greek race." 14 The ancient past was revived in the form of "neo-Hellenism," 15 which adopted the principles and ideals of the classical Greek civilization, and then became the dominant ideology in the construction of modern Greece, its society and space. In parallel to Yalouri's discussion that history was the strongest instrument of the nation-making project in Greece, in selecting the right city to be the capital of the new nation, "the choice was made not so much because of Athens' geographical position, nor for any other practical reason.…”

Section: The Nineteenth Century Nation-making Project (In General) and The Case Of Greece (In Particular)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Local Performance in the Construction of National Identity

Gür¹

2012

Journal of Urban History

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In this article, the author studies the local response to the nation-building process that constructs society, its space, and history, by focusing on the particular case of Greece in the nineteenth century. How local inhabitants actively participated in this process is discussed in the example of the Plaka district on the northern slope of the Athenian Acropolis. The author argues that mutual relations among modernization, Hellenization, and living tradition constructed modern Greece as a new nation in the nineteenth century. The official efforts toward Hellenization and modernization with the emphasis on classical antiquity gave rise to the emergence of alternative tendencies that were shaped by the local inhabitants according to the way they perceived society and experienced space. The author's focus in this article, then, turns to nineteenth-century houses in Plaka as a folk expression of the official neoclassical style to discuss the local performance in the construction of a national identity.Keywords urbanism and architecture in Greece, national identity, neoclassicism, nineteenth-century nation building in Greece, nineteenth-century houses in Plaka, AthensIn this article, I question how the local responds to the dominant processes that combine in the formation of a national identity, the society, and its space, and how it becomes both a part and a result of the nation-building process. This will entail an investigation of the processes embedded in the formation of a society and its history, and their reflections on spatial-architectural practices. In particular, I focus on the nation-building process undertaken in Greece in the nineteenth century and the active participation of its inhabitants in this process, as exemplified in the Plaka district on the northern slope of the Athenian Acropolis.Understanding the multiple processes that combine in the building of a society, its history, and space by drawing on the tools of architecture is significant in a discussion of local performance in the construction of a national identity; and architecture can be considered not only a at SETON HALL UNIV on April 4, 2015 juh.sagepub.com Downloaded from

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Section: The Nineteenth Century Nation-making Project (In General) and The Case Of Greece (In Particular)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Local Performance in the Construction of National Identity

Gür¹

2012

Journal of Urban History

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“…For a definition of "reterritorialization" and the related terms, "territory" and "deterritorialization," together with a discussion about their usefulness for analyzing modern Greek cultural representations of Hellenism, see Leontis (1990).…”

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Cultural Politics and Populist Uses of the Ancients

Leontis¹

1991

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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" (laÃ³s). 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 PsihÃ¡ris) appropriated all aspects of the national past, including classical Hellas, for a RomÃ©ic present. Then modernists reached directly without the mediation of institutions.2 With unremitting criticism, authors as diverse as Marios PlorÃ-tis, Dimitris Ma-

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Ion Dragoumis and “Machiavelli”: Armed struggle, Propaganda, and Hellenization in Macedonia and Thrace (1903–1908)

Kaliakatsos¹

2013

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Dragoumis was baptized, politically and ideologically, in the waters of one of the most violent nationalist conflicts in the modern history of the Balkans. During the Macedonian struggle, he adopted an aggressive and uncompromising nationalism with a dominant, in principle, anti-democratic and anti-Western character. Armed struggle, forcible or peaceful Hellenization, boycotting, propaganda, total mobilization of the state machine and “civil society,” conquest, and the complete sanctioning of power politics were the main features that formed Dragoumis’s political ideas and suggestions with regard to the accomplishment of Greek claims in Macedonia and Thrace. The legitimizing criteria and arguments he suggested varied according to the audience and the particular moment of their formulation. Overall, they reflected the inconsistent, irrational, and anachronistic character of Greek nationalism, which, owing to the unfavorable ethnographic, political, and diplomatic position of the Greek side, could only resort to an invented past, to the “superiority” of the Greek culture, and, finally, to social Darwinism, in order to justify its claims.

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Minor Field, Major Territories: Dilemmas in Modernizing Hellenism

Cited by 3 publications

References 16 publications

Local Performance in the Construction of National Identity

Local Performance in the Construction of National Identity

Cultural Politics and Populist Uses of the Ancients

Ion Dragoumis and “Machiavelli”: Armed struggle, Propaganda, and Hellenization in Macedonia and Thrace (1903–1908)

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