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Nation and Class in the Karaghiozis History Performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Extract

Karaghiozis—Greek shadow puppet theatre—is a performance which developed in Greece over a period of a hundred fifty years, using local character types, costumes, and dialects, folk anecdotes, contemporary events, topical humor, themes and motifs of classical, hellenistic, and Byzantine origin, Greek legends, songs, and dances. It is modelled on a fourteenth-century Turkish prototype, Karagoz, which itself finds its roots in fool lore and the classical mime (the dominant form of entertainment in the eastern empire from the fourth century B.C. to 1400 A.D.). The Turkish performance was introduced into occupied Greece possibly as early as the seventeenth century (the time of the consolidation of the Turkish hold over Greece). It had certainly appeared by 1809, at which time the traveller John Hobhouse records the earliest known date of the Turkish performance in Greece.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1978

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References

1 Hobhouse, John C., A Journey Through Albania and Other Provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to Constantinople During the Years 1809 and 1810 (Philadelphia, 1817), I, 159160Google Scholar.

2 Mure, William, Journal of a Tour in Greece and the Ionian Islands, With Remarks on the Recent History-Present State-and Classical Antiquities of Those Countries (London, 1842), II, 216Google Scholar.

3 See for full quote, Laskares, N. I., Istoria tou Neoellenikou Theatrou (Athens, 19381939), I, 138139Google Scholar.

4 See Myrsiades, Linda Suny, “The Karaghiozis Performance in Nineteenth Century Greece,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2 (1976), 8397CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Anonymous, , E Stratiotike Zoe en Elladi (1870; rpt. Athens, 1970), p. 107Google Scholar.

6 Bires, Kostas, “O Karankiozes: Elleniko Laiko Theatro,” Nea Estia, 5 (1952), 1069Google Scholar.

7 The hunch-backed, bald-headed fool hero was a phallophoric figure in Turkish Karagoz until the nineteenth century. The phallus was replaced in Greek Karaghiozis sometime in the early part of the nineteenth century with a long arm articulated in several places.

8 Philaretos, Giorgios, Euvoia, No. 198, 1 Nov. 1879, p. 4Google Scholar, as quoted in Spyros Kokkines, Antikarankiozes (Athens, 1975), p. 7.

9 Ibid., in Kokkines, pp. 6–8.

10 Geor-Gos, , “Kalamatianes Eikones: Karankiozitis,” Pharai, No. 56, 14 July 1896, in Kokkines, p. 10Google Scholar.

11 Ibid., in Kokkines, p. 12.

13 Ibid., p. 13.

14 Pharai, No. 53, 23 June 1896, p. 3, in Kokkines, p. 16, note 11; see also Pharai, No. 51, 9 June 1896, p. 2, in Kokkines, pp. 15–16, note 11.

15 Phouros. No. 264, 7 Nov. 1900, p. 2, in Kokkines, p. 13.

16 Phos. No. 9, 24 June 1901, p. 1, in Kokkines, p. 14.

17 See Phos. No. 85, 20 May 1901, p. 2; and Phos, No. 94, 17 June 1901, p. 2, in Kokkines, p. 14.

18 Bires, Kostas, “Ellenikos o Karankiozes,” Theatro, No. 10 (July-Aug. 1963), 1314Google Scholar; Rota, Vasiles, “O Karankiozes Berdes,” Theatro, No. 10 (July-Aug. 1963), 31Google Scholar.

19 Polites, Photos, “O Karankiozes,” in Ekloge apo to Ergo tou (Athens, 1938). II, pp. 147, 209Google Scholar; Rota, 31.

20 Moustaka, Giannes, O Karankiozes Omeros sto Chaidari kai ste Germania (Athens, [1945])Google Scholar. Moustaka's play is the only surviving printed text of an occupation performance. One tape survives; Avraam, Sta Nichia tou Gestampo (In the Claws of the Gestapo), recorded by Mario Rinovolucri in 1969, for the Parry Collection, Center for the Study of Oral Literature, Widener Library, Harvard University.

21 O Karankiozes ston Polemo kai sten Antistase,” Epitheorese Technes, 22 (1965), 270272Google Scholar.

23 See Kostas Manos, autobiographical tape, Parry Collection, 1969; Speliades, Veatrike, “O Michopoulos Mila gia ton Techne tou,” Epitheorese Technes, 22 (1965), 96Google Scholar.

24 Spathares, Soteres, Apomnemoneumata (Athens, 1960), pp. 146147Google Scholar.

25 Dino Theodoropoulos, autobiographical tape, Parry Collection, 1969.

26 Phone tes Patridos, 16 January 1949, as quoted by Thanases Photiades, “O Karankiozes Makronesiotes,” Anti, 10 January 1976, p. 29.

27 Spathares, p. 117.

28 For one view of this question see Danforth, Loring M., “Humour and Status Reversal in Greek Shadow Theatre,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2 (1976), 99111CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Thessaloniki in northern Greece had a sizeable population of eastern Jews which the Germans removed to camps for extermination.

30 Ianaros, Markos Botsares, Parry Collection, 1969.