Greek life in town & country

Front matter

EX BIBLIOTHECA

FRANC. BABINOER

EXBIBLIOTHECA FRANC. BABINGER

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. National Characteristics ... ... ... i

V. Feasts and Ceremonies ... ... ... 85

Chapter I National Characteristics

When we talk of the Greeks, it is necessary to draw a distinction between the two and a half millions of Hellenes who live within the frontiers of the Greek kingdom and the considerably larger number who are scattered over the Turkish Empire, Roumania, and almost every part of the world, and are called by their free brethren ' the outside Greeks.'

The present book is exclusively concerned with the inhabitants of Greece proper; the little country which, after losing its independence for nearly twenty centuries, was constituted into a kingdom seventy-five years ago, and which, though still confined within unnatural limits, has since then been twice enlarged.

Who and what are the inhabitants of this classic land, which stretches from Tempe to Tainaron, and from the Ambrakian to the Pagasaian gulf? The answer to this thorny question is to be found in the medieval history of the country. The idea, with which some of the Philhellenes went out to Greece during the War of Independence, that the country was still inhabited by ' Plutarch's

I B men,' and the theory of Fallmerayer, now as dead as its author, that the inhabitants of modern Greece have ' not a single drop of genuine Greelc blood in their veins,' and that ' the Greek race in Europe has been rooted out,' are equally erroneous. The truth appears to be, that despite the great Slavonic immigration which undoubtedly took place in the dark ages of Greece, the Hellenic race gradually assimilated and Hellenised the immigrants. Here and there we find traces of the Slavs in the names of such places as Vostitsa, the mediasval name of Aigion, Charvati in Attica and Charvati near Mycenre, and Velestino, the birthplace of the heroic Rdgas and the scene of the modern battle. Occasionally one finds in the modern language such obviously Slavonic words as dobros, meaning ' good ' (I remember that my landlady in Andros always used to say that the weather was dobros), and one meets Greeks called Dobroyannes ; but even the vernacular speech does not contain any considerable Slavonic element.

The Greeks themselves repudiate with the utmost warmth the idea that they are Slavs ; and to ardent Hellenes the theory of Fallmerayer is as hateful as it was welcome to zealous Panslavists. When, last year, through an indiscretion of the Italian Foreign Office, a most undiplomatic report on Greece and its people, based on that scholar's hypothesis, and drawn up by the Italian Minister at Athens, was discovered at Naples and published in Greece, the popular indignation was such that the Minister was recalled. The Greeks are justly tenacious of their Hellenic descent, and nothing is further from their desires than to be represented as in any way, however remotely, connected with their hated rivals, the Balkan Slavs.

There are few phenomena more curious than the continuous existence of the Greek race through all the vicissitudes of two thousand years. Modern research has now shed light into the dark places of mediaeval Greek history^ and we know now that, alike under Byzantine governors, Frank princes and dukes, Venetian baillies, and Turkish pashas, the Greeks went on transmitting their rehgion, their noble language, with the admixture of some inevitable foreign elements, and their ancient traditions from one generation to another. It always seems to me that the average Greek of classical times must have had most of the characteristics of the modern Hellenes. I say advisedly ' the average Greek,' because, owing to the circumstances of our classical education, we are unconsciously led to believe that all the ancient Greeks were men of extraordinary genius — a mistake as absurd as to suppose that all the contemporaries of Shakespeare were men of his standard. I suspect that the average Athenian, whom Aristophanes knew and drew, was not very different from the modern frequenter of Zacharatos' cafe and the Constitution Square. The Kleon of the satirist and of Thucydides had his counterparts in Athens during the war of 1897; the 'wily Odysseus' of Homer has many a representative in the Greek islands to-day.

Even in small details the resemblance is striking. While travelling in the interior, one is always accosted by every Greek whom one meets with the question, ' Where do you come from ? ' just as in the ' Odyssey ' the traveller is always confronted with the demand, ' Who of men and whence art thou ? Where are thy city and thy parents?' No men, and few women, are so curious as the provincial Greek. No sooner has he made your acquaintance, than he administers a long string of questions about your nationality, profession, family, object in travelling, place of residence, probable duration of stay, and so forth, and administers these, sometimes awkward, questions in the most abrupt manner, so that, short of a point-blank refusal to reply, there is no escape. I remember how, on the only occasion when I declined to answer a question, my refusal created great indignation, for the Greek regards it as his right to know all about the stranger. If you have a wife, he will ask in what year you were married, and how many children you have ; if you are a journahst, he will ask what newspaper you represent ; if you have any piece of luggage which strikes his attention, he will ask how much you j)aid for it. Once, on the way up to Volo on the steamer, a young Greek whom I had invited into my cabin insisted on knowing the price of all my belongings. On another occasion, at Argos, I stopi)ed to ask the way of a Greek woman ; with the same breath she told me the way and asked whether the lady with me was my wife or sister.

If the stranger be engaged in making a purchase, however small, the curiosity of the natives becomes intense ; they are eager to hear him speak Greek, eager, too, to learn how much he is going to pay. Nineteen persons once collected to see me make a bargain for a carriage from the Pirreus to the ferry opposite Salamis ; at Salona twenty-nine bystanders watched me buy three lemons for ten lepta^ or less than a penny ; a negotiation for horses at Sparta filled the street; the arrival of my wife and myself at Andritsaina brought the entire population out of doors. When staying in a country inn, as soon as one has left one's room the innkeeper's female belongings often invade the apartment, and ransack one's luggage out of sheer curiosity. Returning on one occasion rather earlier than usual, we found our room full of people, who were not in the least embarrassed by our presence, and who withdrew only after a strong hint. At monasteries, I have known the monks invade my apartment at the most inconvenient hours, to see what I was doing ; and an entire household once turned out to see a friend of mine take a bath ; curiosity had been aroused by his inexplicable desire for a large quantity of water ! It must be confessed that this intense curiosity is at times very tiresome, and at first one is inclined to resent being catechised as to one's affairs. But the Greeks regard this painful process as only a way of showing a polite interest in the stranger's welfare, and are perfectly willing to impart similar information about themselves. It has never occurred to them that in ' Europe ' such a system of interrogatories would be regarded as the height of impertinence.

The extreme poUteness and hospitaUty of the Greeks in their intercourse with strangers make travel in their country more delightful than anywhere else. A foreigner receives all over Greece as a matter of course the best place at public shows, and is at once requested to step to the front with a polite cry of Oriste (' This way, please '), if he shows any bashfulness. If he has to wait at a station, the station-master or the clerks will ask him to take a seat in the office. On steamers he has the best cabin placed at his disposal ; if all the cabins chance to be full, some courteous Greek will at once offer to vacate his berth in favour of the stranger ; if it be a day voyage, as likely as not the captain will place his own cabin at the foreigner's disposal. All Greeks, rich and poor, are alike in this respect. I remember on one occasion how, during a voyage among the Cyclades, the officers and engineer of the little steamer invited us to share their meal, going voluntarily without a large part of their food rather than that we should have no lunch. In one of the islands I have frequently observed a still more curious form of hospitality, that shown by tradespeople whose business it is to sell liquor, and who yet insist on ' treating ' the foreigner free of cost, or at least giving him something extra as a present. In every island the children offered us flowers, without expecting payment or begging for money. In only one case were we asked for bakshish — a practice which I have heard Greeks deplore and discourage in their offspring, and for which they have to employ a Turkish word, so foreign is it to the Greek character. Even at Athens, where strangers are common, the post-office clerks will invariably serve the visitor first, and he is always invited to the front at a big Te Deum in the cathedral. In the country, the well-todo tradespeople, whose manners are admirable, will put you up in their houses when there is no inn, feed you on the best of what they have, and disturb their rest in the night in order that you may catch your steamer in the small hours of the morning. Under such circumstances the only recompense possible is to send a small present to the children of your host. In the islands, the poorest peasant will ask you into his clean and tidy cottage, give you cognac, coffee, and a glass of water, after the invariable Greek fashion^ and offer you walnuts, which he will crack for you, or whatever else may be in season. Poor, threadbare, village priests wuU implore you to accept their liospitality, and at every monastery the stranger is welcomed, fed, and lodged to the best of the monks' ability. After a course of venal Swiss hotel-keepers and gold-laced porters, Greek hospitality^ which gives freely and asks nothing in return^ is, indeed, a blessed thing.

The intensely democratic feelings of the Greeks are especially striking to Englishmen with their aristocratic ideas. Class distinctions do not exist in Greece; one man may be better educated, or richer, than another, but that does not prevent the more ignorant or the less affluent from treating the other on absolutely equal terms. Snobbery is a quality almost unknown among the Greeks, hence one of the main difficulties of governing the country. Titles are prohibited by the Constitution, and although the Corfiotes still use their old Venetian prefixes of nobility at Corfu, they are described as plain Mr. and Mrs. at Athens. At Andros, the old families, who called themselves Arc/iofites, still exist, but are dismally poor, ' poorer than the man who walks behind the mule,' as it was put to me ; and most of the Athenian Archontic families, who formed a separate class in Turkish times, used the Byzantine double eagle on their monuments,* and were alone permitted to call their sons Alexander, are now extinct. Thus, socially and politically alike, Greece is as good an example of absolute democracy as can be found anywhere. One is expected to shake

* There is an Archoti's tomb with a double eagle on it at the Monastery of Kaisariane.

in Town and Countryhands with servants, guards, porters, and peasants, who may at times address one in the ceremonious form of * your worship,' but who not unfrequendy lapse into the familiar second person singular, and always behave as persons of equal rights and equal duties. I remember that once, at Megara, the small boy of the refreshment room where we had been sitting, climbed up into the train at the last moment and offered us his hand, which we warmly grasped ; a luggage porter at Lavrion gave us a similar token of friendship at parting.

Democracy in Greece is, however, far more agreeable socially than it would be in England, because of the admirable manners of the people. Your muleteer sits down to dinner with you, and talks and behaves like a gentleman ; he may offer you, as once happened to me, an introduction to his brother, who is a barrister in the next town. /This incident is an excellent example of how society is composed ; one brother studies and becomes a lawyer, the other does not study and remains a peasant ; both are agreeable companions, the peasant perhaps rather more so, because less spoilt by European culture than the barrister.

One unfortunate result of this extreme democracy, so firmly engrained in the Hellenic character, is the disinclination to obey a leader, and the consequent tendency to split up into cliques and groups. The Venetians truly said, ' Every five Greeks, six generals.' Again and again the daily life of Greece shows examples of the impossibility of forming clubs, companies, or anything which requires co-operation and the subordination of the individual to the whole. Two Greeks will do badly what each separately will do well. Like all democratic peoples, ancient and modern,/ the Hellenes have an intense distrust of one another, and this is an immense hindrance to the development of the country. For this reason Greek companies cannot be formed to exploit its universal resources, and such matters as that must be left to foreigners. Jealousy, so characteristic of democracies, is another Hellenic trait ;

Greek I.iic

and in the hypercrilical atmosphere of Alliens it would be almost impossible for any native writer to obtain general recognition during his lifetime. Like most very critical persons, the Greeks are extremely sensitive to criticism, not only of themselves, but of their country. No one abuses the institutions of Greece so much as the Greeks themselves ; but they justly resent the unfavourable remarks of a foreigner.

There is one question upon which the Greeks are peculiarly sensitive — that of the language. There arc in Greece two forms of Greek, that written by the newspapers and spoken, with some modifications, by the educated classes, and the vernacular, which contains a number of Italian and Turkish words, and dispenses with the more elaborate grammar of the elegant language. The former is called the katharci'ousa^ or ' pure ' language, the latter the dcmotike^ the ' popular,' or, more scornfully, the chydaui, or ' vulgar ' idiom. Between the partisans of these two forms of Greek there rages a war which knows no mercy. No subject, not even the Bulgarians, arouses such fury in an assembly of Greeks as this. Not long ago, two professors became so excited, owing to a difference of opinion on the language question at Zacharatos' cafe, that they fell upon one another with their sticks, and had to be separated by the spectators. I have seen one worthy Greek beside himself with indignation at the mere idea of any one preferring the vulgar to the pure speech. The ' Gospel Riots ' of November, 1901, which led to the fall of the first Theotokes Ministry, largely arose out of the indignation of the students and others at the translation of the New Testament into the vernacular, and I have heard almost uneducated people express strong opinions in favour of keeping the text of the Gospels in the original Greek. In November of 1903, Athens was convulsed, because the ' Ore'steia ' of .^schylus had been adapted and presented at the theatre in a modern Greek version by M. Soteriades, which was considered to contain vulgar expressions. Professor Mistriotes, a familiar figure at

Athens and an apostle of purity in language and beauty in form, delivered an incendiary speech, the students marched out in defence of yEschylus, a riot took place, in which an innocent onlooker from Alexandria was killed, and the Ralles Ministry, in order to prevent worse disorders, forbade any further performances of the offending trilogy, which the students had threatened to interrupt, on the ground that it was nothing less than sacrilege to distort the pure language of the tragedian. Professor Mistridtes was, indeed, threatened with proceedings for inciting to a breach of the peace; but he retorted by accusing two of his colleagues, Professors Ldmpros and Polites, of injuring the language, and thereby the national interests, by introducing new phrases in their writings and lectures.

Shortly afterwards, the news that an essay on the language question, by Professor Krumbacher, of Munich, the eminent Byzantine scholar, who holds unorthodox views about modern Greek, was about to be translated and published in the Marasle library, caused a fresh ferment. The amusing part of this controversy is, that the very same persons who denounce the vulgar language often use it themselves in their unguarded moments, and even when arguing heatedly in defence of the pure speech. The papers represented Professor Mistridtes himself as using colloquial phrases to his sick daughter, when she suddenly called out from her bed to her affectionate father that she was very ill. The voice of nature had triumphed over the voice of literature. A distinguished Greek historian, who writes, and strongly supports, the pure language, has used common words when talking en deshabille with me, and I know another Greek, whose language is one mass of colloquialisms and Turkish words, yet who is one of the most zealous opponents of the vulgar tongue ! Some Athenians, who know little of the country, will even go so far as to say that ' every one now talks the pure language.' A visit to North Euboia, where many Turkish phrases are to be found, to the Cyclades, where the long Venetian influence has left traces upon the language, to the Ionian Islands, where for the same reason the islanders interlard their Greek with Italian phrases, or to any of the villages in Attica, where a dialect of Albanian is still spoken by the older people, would suffice to dispel this pleasant illusion. Yet there is no doubt whatever that the katharevousa is gaining ground, and it is, I believe, destined to prevail. Buchon remarked, as far back as 1840, that, immediately after the reconquest of their freedom, the Greeks began to purify their language, and he noticed how rapidly the process had proceeded. But since his time, and especially during the lastdecade, the j^rogress has been much more rapid. All the school books are written in the pure idiom, practically all the newspapers — except one or two unimportant prints — are published in more or less pure Greek, and the compulsory military system is a powerful force for disseminating that form of the language. Since 1894, the extremely vulgar language used by M. Psichdres, a Greek who lives in Paris, and who is one of the chief advocates of the vernacular in literature, had the effect of producing a strong reaction in favour of the pure tongue, which had been somewhat losing ground till his extravagances of diction disgusted people.

One of the greatest difficulties which faces the literary exponents of the vernacular, men like M. Psichares and M.Palamas, is, that the peasants, whospeak it, havenaturally a very small vocabulary, mainly composed of words for simple things. Consequently, as soon as the writers leave dialogue and come to description, they have to invent words, often not Greek at all, to express their ideas, their phraseology thus becoming more artificial than that of the most extreme purist. Moreover, while the cultured Greeks naturally prefer the pure language, the newly educated, proud of their attainments, like to use the more elaborate grammar and the longer words of the katharevousa, especially before strangers. Peasants have again and again used to me the classical, rather than the vernacular, words for common objects of daily life — for it is there that the difference between the two forms of the language is most marked. But it must be remembered that, with all their differences, they are both Greek. The Greek language has never been dead ; there has never been any period from the time of Homer to the last number of the As(y when Greek, in some form or other, was not a living, spoken language. Some classical scholars, who know little about mediaeval Greek literature, are apt to describe the kathar'evousa as a wholly modern, artificial growth. Such a statement is only partially true. Modern Greek is the legitimate descendant of medieval Greek, as that was of New Testament and classical Greek. A modern Greek scholar can read without difficulty such a work as the ' Chronicle of the Morea,' which was probably written in the first half of the fourteenth century. \Vhat Frenchman, without long previous study, could read the old French romances of the same period? So, not without reason, the modern Greeks always regard themselves as of the same speech as the ancients, even though they have lost the ancient infinitive, middle voice, dual number, and optative mood. ' I have no feeling for Latin,' a very clever Greek once said to me, ' but the Greek classics are always at my pillow ; I feel, as well as understand, them ; they are my own language.' For that reason the Greeks very properly resent the gratuitous advice about their language given to them by learned but pedantic foreigners, usually Germans. No foreigner, however good a classical scholar, can feel the niceties of Greek like a native ; and it is surely as absurd for the professors of Germany to dictate laws of syntax and pronunciation to the Greeks as it would be for the same gentlemen to teach us how to govern our colonies.

For my part, I think that both the pure language and the vulgar have their merits. The former is more elegant, the latter more forcible and more vigorous. The former would aim at ignoring all foreign influences, the latter preserves those interesting traces of Latin and Turkish

II rule which, like the Frankish towers of the Morea and ihe crumbling mosques of Tliessaly, are an integral and romantic part of the history of Greece. When we consider how careless most Englishmen are about their own language, it is impossible not to admire the zeal of the Greeks for a pure speech ; but this is apt to make them pay more attention to the style than to the matter of their literary productions. When a Greek author has declaimed to a circle of friends a passage of his new book, the highest praise that can be bestowed upon it is to say, ' ^\'hat beautiful language ! '

The fervid patriotism of the Greeks is a trait wliich has marked influence upon all their political opinions. Almost all, who have not lived in the sobering atmosphere of cynical Europe, believe in the ' Grand Idea ' of a Great Greece, which shall comprise the scattered forces of Hellenism in the Levant. Greece has made enormous pecuniary sacrifices for her ' enslaved ' children in Crete, and, in a less degree, in Macedonia. Two years ago at Athens money was readily forthcoming in subscriptions for the Macedonian Greeks, and again and again the starving Cretan refugees have been fed by Athenian charity. Athens owes most of her fine public buildings to the splendid munificence of the Greeks who have made money abroad. The National Library, the Observatory, the Zdppeion, the Stadion are instances. The Greeks of Epiros are si)ecially remarkable for their generous contributions to the capital of the race, especially in the department of education. There have been examples of Greeks, like the brothers Zdppa, who have remained single in order to 'marry the nation' and endow her with all their worldly possessions. The late M. Syngros has earned the title of 'the national benefactor' by his gigantic endowments of every kind, and to have those three magic words inscribed in gold letters on his white marble statue is the dream of many a rich Hellene. For the ' national benefactors ' have a pardonable desire to let their fellow-countrymen know what great things they have done for the cause of Hellenism, and the plastic Greek language lends itself to elegant formations, embodying the name of the donor in the title of the institute which he has founded. This form of recognition takes the place of baronetcies and peerages in our system of rewarding philanthropists. The lavish generosity of the ' outside Greeks ' has, perhaps, had one disadvantage— that of inducing the free Greeks to rely too little upon their own exertions. A good result is, that the Hellene from abroad is not disposed to give large sums to Greece, unless he has some security that they will be well administered. I heard of such a case not long ago. As elsewhere, patriotism in Greece in its extreme form becomes Chauvinism, a disease which absolutely incapacitates its victims from seeing any but their own view of international politics. On the Macedonian question most Greeks are Chauvinists ; they are only wilHng to hear their own side of that difficult racial problem, and they are, with rare exceptions, so strongly prejudiced against the Bulgarians, that argument is hopeless, and the philosophic politician who thinks that there may be something to be said on both sides is apt to find himself labelled as a Bulgarophil.

On this particular question, as in their patriotic views generally, many Greeks are hable to lose all perspective. You will hear politicians talk about Alexander the Great, and base arguments on his Macedonian realm, as if he were a contemporary of M. Delyannes, and I once listened to a very hard-headed currant merchant from Patras solemnly denouncing Demosthenes as a bad patriot and a traitor to Greece, because he had called Philip of Macedon • a barbarian,' and thereby injured the Greek argument that all, or most, of the Macedonians are Greeks. A similar lack of perspective leads many worthy Hellenes to believe that Europe in general and Great Britain in particular are constantly interested in their affairs. It is hard to persuade them that the advancement of Hellenism is not the first of British interests.

and that our colonial policy is now of more concern to most Britons than the Eastern cjuestion.

On the subject of Greek honesty Europeans are too apt, in my opinion, to judge of the whole Greek nation by the cosmopolitan inhabitants of big cities — a mistake committed by the Roman satirists in their time. In my numerous journeyings about Greece, I can only remember one outrageous attempt at extortion, and that at a place spoilt by tourists. The country people are, in my experience, extremely honest, often refusing to take money for services rendered, and usually charging small prices, or at any rate willing to take them. For the Oriental practice of asking a higher figure than the vendor intends to accept merely represents ' the higgling of the market.' Even a long argument over the price to be paid leaves no rancour behind it ; the Greek regards such a process as the natural way of doing business ; and, when it is over, he will ask you to take a cup of coffee, or offer to show you the sights, just as if you had accepted his first proposal without demur. Where, however, the stranger is assisted by a native in making a bargain, he usually does worse than if he relies upon his own unaided efforts. The native naturally leans to the side of his fellow-townsman, with whom he has to live all the year round, rather than to that of the stranger, whom he will probably never see again, and it is not always easy to demur politely to his judgment. I have never had anything stolen by Greek servants. I have had my belongings ransacked from motives of curiosity, but have never found anything missing.

Besides the Hellenes, there are several other races represented in Greece. Of these the most numerous is the Albanian, which forms a large and valuable element of the population, which made the last great stand against the Turks before the conquest of the Morea, and furnished some of the most heroic combatants to the cause of Greek freedom. As is natural, we first hear of the Albanians in Akarnania and Aitolia, the Greek provinces nearest to their own country, whence they emigrated across the Gulf of Corinth to the Peloponnesos. Their first appearance there was in the latter half of the fourteenth century, when Manuel Kantacuzends, Despot or Governor of the Byzantine province which took its name from Mistra, gave them lands in the centre and southwest of the peninsula. A little later, under the Despot Theodore Palaioldgos I., 10,000 Albanian families took up their abode in the Peloponnesos. In Thessaly they were able to dispute the ground with the Wallachs early in the fourteenth century, and a hundred years later they were welcomed as colonists in Attica by Antonio Acciajuoli, Duke of Athens, who wished to repair the ravages made by plague and Turkish invasions. During the Turkish rule in Athens we find them settled in the vicinity of what is now the large military hospital ; when Hadji Ali fortified Athens at the time of the great Albanian raid into Attica in 1778, the gate which he made at that point was called ' the Albanian gate ' after this colony, and Albanians still live in that quarter. At the present time a large part of Attica is inhabited by that race; the names of such villages as Spata, Lidsia (a corruption of Liosa), Liopesi, and Boua are Albanian, At Eleusis, the birthplace of ^schylus, the population is Albanian, speaking both Greek and a very corrupt Albanian dialect, quite different from the language spoken in Albania itself, but unable to write Albanian. Perhaps the reason for this may be that given to me by an Albanian from Spetsai. There is no written Albanian language, he said, because, according to the story, a man wrote the letters of the Albanian alphabet on the leaves of vegetables, which he put upon his donkey. When, however, he was not looking, the ass ate the leaves, letters and all ! * The children at Eleusis, and in other Albanian settlements, are, of course, taught Greek in the schools, but their parents still talk their mother tongue to