In 1975, one year after the restoration of democracy in Greece, the government made a historic decision regarding the Greek language: Modern Greek – by which I mean the simple, everyday language as it is spoken today by all Greeks who have enjoyed an elementary school education – was adopted as the official language of the state. With this decision we embarked on the definitive solution of one of the longest standing controversies of modern hellenism: the language problem, which has tormented the Greeks for centuries.

Every language one can think of, probably including those of preliterate societies, contains learnedisms – very roughly what the French call mots savants. In the case of Modern Greek, learnedisms are traditionally attributed to the influence of katharevousa. This may or may not be entirely true: much depends on one’s definition of the term katharevousa.

1. The Greek language has remained during its long history remarkably stable in respect of its morphology, syntax and lexicon, as has been commonly observed. The conventional wisdom on the matter is that Greek has been particularly subject to conscious archaizing.

The first time André Gide heard the name of Cavafy was during his visit to Greece, in April 1939. He was talking to Dimaras, Theotokas and Seferis when the conversation turned to the poet of Alexandria. Gide asked what kind of poetry Cavafy wrote. ‘Lyrique’, Dimaras replied. ‘Didactique’, corrected Seferis. Later on Dimaras read ‘The City’ to the group. After the end of the reading Gide turned to Seferis and said: ‘Je comprends maintenant ce que vous vouliez dire par le mot didactique…’.

‘Helen’, a poem based on an ancient legend, belongs to Seferis’ collection Log Book III; written in 1953, it was published in 1955. Although it has been repeatedly dealt with by critics there is still room for further discussion. In the present article, after a brief survey of the ancient Greek tradition of the legend that Seferis employed, the following aspects will be considered: the poem’s structure, borrowings from relevant ancient Greek sources, the blending of ancient Greek myths with elements drawn from later Greek culture, how Seferis portrays his heroes, the poem’s relationship to the Cypriot political situation of the 1950s, and, finally, the ideas expressed in the poem.

In a recent book, Mario Vitti has described Kosmas Politis as ‘emotionally the most highly charged novelist’ of the Generation of 1930. Vitti also points out that Eroica is ‘compositely organized down to the minutest detail’, despite the author’s assertion that he wrote each instalment ‘on the presses’. In an attempt to account for the ‘magical’, ‘poetic’ quality of Politis’ writing as pointed out by Greek critics, Vitti investigates Politis’ use of irony and of the interior monologue.

Ekphraseis of gardens occur in only two of the five extant classical romances, those of Achilleus Tatios and of Longos, but in Byzantine romances they are almost de rigeur: indeed of the only three that eschew the theme two, Phlorios and Platziaphlore and Imberios and Margarona, are basically Frankish rather than Byzantine while the third, Theodore Prodromos’ Rhodanthe and Dosikles, closely follows Heliodoros’ Aithiopika, a classical romance that does not contain a description of a garden.

The subject of formulaic repetition in early demotic Greek verse has often been raised, but till recently has not been seriously studied. In two articles, one on Imberios and Margarona and the other on the Chronicle of the Morea, we have tried to take the first steps in such an analysis.

The Anastenaria is a ritual involving trance and possession which is performed in several villages and towns in northern Greece. It is a ritual system of psychotherapy which is often effective in treating illnesses that in Western psychiatric terms would be considered psychogenic in nature. This paper focuses on the rôle of the dance of the possessed Anastenarides in the therapeutic system of the Anastenaria. I hope to show that this dance contributes to the therapeutic effectiveness of the Anastenaria because it provides the Anastenarides with an opportunity to experience a cathartic release of anxiety, to structure this cathartic experience, and to transform a state of anxiety, suffering, and illness into a state of joy, power, and health.

An analysis of the position of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) during the Greek-Italian war is interesting not only because it involves a hitherto unsolved puzzle – how and why the KKE’s General Secretary, Nikos Zahariadis, wrote his ‘three letters’ – but also because, it involves background factors that help explain how the KKE emerged, during the occupation period, in possession of an invaluably useful ‘patriotic’ image. Such an image, obtained from Zahariadis’ ‘first’ letter, undeniably facilitated the party’s successful efforts to build up the country’s largest liberation movement (EAM) and, through this movement, to come close to capturing power during the years 1943-4.

The Greeks were among many national and racial groups to inundate the Intermountain West at the turn of the century and in many parts of it were the largest group of workers. Payrolls and newspaper reports, the many self-sufficient ‘Greek Towns,’ large chapters of Panhellenic Unions, and the early establishment of Greek Orthodox churches give us cause to believe that the 1910 Census represented only a portion of Greek immigrants. The men were constantly moving and census-taking was haphazard.