2021 marked the bicentenary of the beginning of the Greek struggle for independence. Beyond the timeliness of its publication, this book offers readers far more than a celebratory history. This volume of essays brings together studies on aspects of language, identity, and cultural transfer in the context of encounters between different European literary traditions, exploring modalities of reception, the mediation process, and the roles and motives of the actors involved, whether individuals, groups, institutions, or the print media. It thus offers new perspectives in the field of cultural history.
Cultural circulation has long been regarded as a fruitful area of investigation, not least in assessing how cultural transfers have contributed to the construction of national identity and its depiction in the public sphere. In the Greek case, philhellenism, defined historically as either a political or a transcultural movement, together with its resilience over time, has been much discussed in conferences, workshops and research projects. These have typically addressed definitions and dynamics of philhellenism, from different perspectives, such as European perceptions of the modern Greeks, Greece's relationship with Europe and with European cultural production, and the impact of all this on the formation of Greece's national image. This volume approaches the subject from a different viewpoint: ‘the image(s) of Greece emerging through the pages of [the European] press’ (p.15). Whilst print media, and in particular periodicals with their potential to reach wider readerships, have emerged as effective cultural mediators and facilitators for the transmission of ideas to various social and national entities, the question of how the European press stood in relation to Greece has not been sufficiently addressed to date, and, as the editors point out, this collection of essays seeks to address this very issue.Footnote 1
The essays in this volume focus on the second half of the nineteenth century, when the romantic philhellenism created by the Revolution had already ceased to be in the spotlight in the West.Footnote 2 The editors’ Introduction offers an explanation for this shift in Western interest. Philhellene writers, poets and novelists had given way to scholars of Greek language and culture, and to Hellenists and Byzantinists who travelled to Greece to participate in excavations and to staff foreign archaeological schools. Equally enlightening is Marilisa Mitsou's essay which explores the reverse trajectory, namely how foreign literature was investigated in the Greek periodical press of the nineteenth century.Footnote 3
This book sheds new light on the subject of cross-cultural and inter-cultural mediations and the cultural impact of the mediators’ networks. It aims to enhance our understanding of cultural interactions, cultural transfer, and cultural dynamics, as well as the agenda of cultural mediators in the European press, as represented here by Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. These countries were not randomly selected for study. The fact that most of the volunteers who fought with the Greek revolutionaries during the struggle for Greek Independence originated in those states indicated a solid pre-existing background of philhellenic romanticism and sympathy for Greece and its national cause. The authors analyse the role of journals, periodicals and newspapers in the dissemination of literature and culture, and all the individuals and mechanisms involved: writers, journalists, booksellers, editors, translators, scholars, travellers, and diplomats. The book highlights the role of these agents, the institutions and associations that connected them, and the specific projects in which they were engaged in order better to understand Greece, its culture and its people. By gathering these studies in one volume, the editors provide fresh observations and generate valuable new questions for further investigation.
The contributors, all experts in their fields, offer both the specialist and the general reader an insightful, richly documented and rigorous analysis. Although the authors have previously written and published extensively on aspects on these topics, the book contains a great deal of new scholarship and also sheds new light on earlier research.
Six of the nine chapters in the book are in English, the remaining three in French. The reader may distinguish some methodological differences in the approach to cultural exchanges depending on the language in which the text is written. The predominance of English allows a new English-speaking readership access to debates hitherto found principally in French.
Identities are constructed and then continually reshaped. This relational concept of identity stands in opposition to an essentialist conception of ‘national character’ or national consciousness. The renegotiation and reinterpretation of the agents and mechanisms involved with the formation of identities in a comparative perspective through the prism of cultural transfer theory can reorientate research into new areas of scholarship. This was evidently the intention of the editors, as is indicated by the title, and by combining previous scholarship with a wealth of new information, it succeeds in doing so. The carefully researched studies in this well-structured and engaging collection are an indispensable addition to the existing literature on cultural meditation and the historical process of identity construction. The volume is highly recommended.
