Greek Society in the Making, 1863-1913: Realities, Symbols and Visions

254 Pages·2018·64.644 MB·English

by  Philip Carabott (editor)

GREEK SOCIETY IN THE MAKING,
1863-1913
Centre for Hellenic Studies, THING’S
King’s College London J\^College
LONDON
Publications 3 Founded 1829
GREEK SOCIETY IN THE
MAKING, 1863-1913
Realities, Symbols and Visions
edited by
Philip Carabott
First published 1997 by Ashgate Publishing
Reissued 2018 by Routledge
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THE CENTRE FOR HELLENIC STUDIES,
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Contents
Editor’s Preface vii
A Note on References Cited ix
Acknowledgements x
About the Contributors xi
I Social groupings and latent class antagonism
1. Class structure and class antagonism in late nineteenth-
century Greece
Christos Hadziiossif 3
2. Social solidarity on the periphery of the Greek kingdom:
the case of the Workers’ Fraternity of Corfu
Grigoris Psallidas 19
3. ‘All for one and one for all’: anarchists, socialists and
demoticists in the Labour Centre of Volos (1908-1911)
Li to Apostolakou 35
4. Ioannis A. Valaoritis: the life of a typical Greek nineteenth-
century bourgeois?
Helen Gardikas Katsiadakis 55
II Images and symbols
5. The excavations at Olympia, 1868-1881: an episode in
Greco-German cultural relations
Suzanne Marchand 73
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VI CONTENTS
6. The nation and the individual: social aspects of life and
death in Greece (1896-1911)
George Margaritis 87
7. Social gatherings and Macedonian lobbying: symbols of
irredentism and living legends in early twentieth-century
Athens
Basil C. Gounaris 99
III Facets of modernization
8. Literacy and unredeemed peasants: late nineteenth-century
rural Crete faces education
Kalita Kalliataki Merticopoulou 115
9. Illusions and realities at the end of the nineteenth century:
an attempt to construct a railway line on the island of Syros
Christos Loukos 131
10. Voluntary associations and new forms of sociability: Greek
sports clubs at the turn of the nineteenth century
Christina Koulouri 145
11. Feminist awareness and Greek women writers at the turn
of the century: the case of Kallirroe Parren and Alexandra
Papadopoulou
Maria Anastasopoulou 161
IV Undercurrents of change
12. Secularization and the Greek Orthodox Church in the
reign of King George I
Vasilios N. Makrides 179
13. The changing language of political contention in the era of
King George I
Katerina Gardtkas Alexander 197
14. Regularization and resistance: urban transformations in late
nineteenth-century Greece
Eleni Bastea 209
Index 231
Editor’s Preface
Traditionally, historical writing on the emergence and development of
modern Greece has concentrated on ‘getting the facts right’ and assessing
the paramount role of foreign powers in the moulding of Greek society.
Treatises on foreign policy, studies on the Megali Idea and irredentism,
descriptive accounts of military confrontations and ‘momentous’ events
(e.g. the Battle of Navarino in 1827 or the Goudi coup of 1909),
monographs on the ‘great men of history’ and their heroic deeds (usually
uncritical of their subject matter) abound. Notwithstanding their scholarly
value, such works tend to view domestic processes as the end product of
exogenous factors (whether military or economic), while indigenous forces
are treated as static, a-historical actors, whose potency in effecting changes
or influencing the course of events is minimal when compared to that of
politicians, generals or diplomats, Greek and foreign alike.
In recent years, however, Greek historians, most of whom have studied
abroad, have branched out into new fields of inquiry. Their aim has been
to overcome the limitations of this tradition of historical writing as an
instrument of political practice and to question the validity of firmly
established views with regard to the nature and content of Greek
historiography. Keeping abreast with historiographical developments in
western Europe and the United States but aware of the inherent obstacles
of perfunctorily applying theoretical models to the Greek case, they have
produced innovative monographs on the economic, social, and intellectual
history of modern Greece, at either a local or a national level.
The papers in this volume, which derive from a conference held at
King’s College London in September 1995 on Greek Society, Politics and
Culture in the Era of King George /, 1863-1913, constitute an eloquent
attestation of this new genre in Greek historical writing. The traditional
emphasis on political and diplomatic history is replaced by an examination
of the dynamics of social forces and groupings and an assessment of the
underlying currents of the internal structures of Greek society. Most
analyses revolve around the challenges of modernity and the claims of
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viii EDITOR’S PREFACE
tradition as these were disseminated in - experienced, as well as opposed
by - a society in the making. Using a wide array of sources and being
informed by scholarly studies on similar processes in contemporary
Europe, contributors examine several expressions of the fundamental
changes that characterized the period from the 1860s to the first decade
of the twentieth century. A period which, perhaps more so than other
epochs of modern Greek history, has not been the object of thorough
historical research. This is accounted for partly because it was a relatively
peaceful period, partly because the pace of change and its impact were
slow in taking root, while in some cases the processes which heralded
these changes either remained incomplete or were concluded only during
the ‘golden era’ of Venizelism, and partly because until recently access
to pertinent archival sources had been rather limited.
This collection of essays makes no claim to completeness. Nor does it
proffer the definitive account of the changes, whether patent or latent,
which marked the transition of Greek society from the nineteenth to the
twentieth century. It does, nonetheless, succeed in casting light on
hitherto neglected aspects of the period, putting forward a number of
critical and often revisionist interpretations, and offering more than a
glimpse of society from below. As such, the volume if reflective as well
as constitutive of the innovative trends shaping contemporary Greek
historiography on modern Greece.
Philip Carabott
Kings College London
February 1991
A Note on References Cited
References to sources have been harmonized throughout the volume and,
in the case of published works, the ‘author-date’ system has been
employed. The author’s name and the date of publication are cited in the
text or notes and, where the author is unknown (i.e. Stenographische Benchte
Uber die Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichtstages), a clearly identifiable short
title is used, followed by the date of publication (i.e. ‘Stenographische
Berichte’ 1880). Full bibliographical details of all published works cited
can be found in the References Cited section at the end of each
contribution.
IX