Between the Temple and the Palace
Christine Philliou, Professor of History, UC Berkeley, September 2023
Modern Greek Studies, like Modern Greece, is full of paradoxes. Vassilis Lambropoulos elucidated so many of the paradoxes inherent in both in his first book, Literature as National Institution: Studies in the Politics of Modern Greek Criticism. One of this book’s basic premises is that literature–and especially the interpretation or criticism of literature–became an institution in and for Greece, necessary for establishing and preserving the political order. The Greek literary canon did not spring naturally or spontaneously from the outbreak of revolution in 1821 or from the establishment of the Greek Kingdom in 1832; rather, it was the product of a selection process, carried out by scholars and critics in their historical and political moment. Lambropoulos goes on to make many profound points and arguments that unfold from that premise, but we need not go any further to see the parallel with history-writing and historical canon formation in independent Greece. The formation of a canonical, national history was certainly necessary to the creation and maintenance of political power in Greece–that point is hardly new, but it is one that is surprisingly difficult to fully develop the repercussions of. Our job, whether as students of literature or history, is not to take for granted this canon–whether literary or historical. Rather, it is to find ways to get outside of that canon in order to gain insights a) on the process of its creation; b) on the processes and relationships that have gone invisible for their uselessness (un-usability) to the project of political power; and c) on the nature of political power and authority both in Modern Greece and in Modern Greek studies.
What is left out? That has been a perennial question since the Cultural Turn of the 1970s and 1980s at least. And it is the logical question that follows from foundational studies such as that of Lambropoulos. Once we make the realization that no canon–literary or historical–is a given, we open up endless lines of inquiry: why this and not that? We can respond to that question in very obvious ways–minorities of various kinds are left out of the political order, as they are left out of the national imagining, whether that imagining is enacted through literature or history. Jews. Muslims. Vlachs. Roma. Albanians. The Ottoman past. More on that below.
We can also respond in less obvious ways, which may lead us to even more productive insights on the project to create and sustain an independent state of Greece, and on the experiences of those with an ambivalent relationship to that project in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and beyond.
Tatoϊ: the anti-Acropolis…
Let’s take the Acropolis. The shining star of Athens. More than Syntagma and Omonoia Squares, the center around which the city is oriented, and the highest point of the ancient city. The pride and joy. The symbol of the ideals of learning, light, democracy, of the achievements and values of classical Athens, now inhabited anew by modern Greeks. The national imaginary of itself. Its Byzantine and Ottoman accretions long ago stripped away by German Philhellenes to leave the austere and unchanging icon atop Athens. Witness to all the paradoxes unfolding around it but never succumbing to them. Transcendent. We all know what the Acropolis is and what it means.[1] It is the starting point and sine qua non of Modern Greece, whatever its struggles and contradictions have been in the last two centuries.
Now let’s take a place that is in many ways the very antithesis of the Acropolis: Tatoϊ.
The strangest experience I have had in Greece was visiting Tatoϊ. It is hard to reach–traffic, distance, windy roads, charred trees are visible evidence of recent wildfire destruction. You pass through the wealthy, old-money suburbs of Athens–Kifissia, Ekali. And then you arrive at a makeshift parking lot, along a narrow road where many people have parked, you see families walking somewhere. There is no proper entrance, no grand sign proclaiming what this place is you have arrived at. You cannot quite orient yourself, can’t figure out where you are. It almost feels like a non-place. And you feel a faint shame for being there. Your companions, to the left on the political spectrum, visibly uncomfortable and annoyed at being there with you, as if they have betrayed some moral code by showing up, and showing up-acknowledging the existence of this place–is tantamount to some kind of veneration.
There is one little stone structure, like a tiny house, that has been fixed up–what looks to have been an old guard booth which is now an information kiosk and mini-museum of Tatoϊ, with a small exhibit and timeline of Tatoϊ in Greek and English for visitors to explore. A sign that Tatoϊ is going somewhere in someone’s imaginary? It is. You see families with kids ambling up the dirt paths aimlessly. They seem to be appreciating the fresh air and open space, and while this is not made for them, they seem to feel there is something to enjoy here. Some are Greek and some seem not to be. They seem to be free of the emotional baggage of my companions, which I realize I am absorbing without understanding it. The mood is neither somber nor celebratory. Another blank in the effort to interpret this place and its meaning. Unmowed grass knee-high just off the makeshift footpaths. The buildings, with the exception of the tiny house-turned-information center, are not there to be seen, understood, or entered. They are just there. There is a building, situated atop a slight hill, which looks like a main residence, not unlike some late nineteenth century villas I have seen in California or in Europe. But overgrown with weeds, closed off with corrugated tin. The swimming pool long empty of suitable water, now half filled with rain water, maybe? Can’t quite see inside to know for sure. The gardeners’ quarters and the greenhouse, past the half-ruin of the main house, in a state of aggressive decay, with the windows all shattered and the walls half standing. You can see the outlines of an attractive chalet-like building, maybe palace-like in its grandeur, or maybe more modest. Something that would, and should be a nice villa-turned-hotel in Switzerland or Austria. Too bad. Why isn’t it a nice hotel? A museum? A wedding venue? Is the furniture still inside? Did they leave in a hurry? You keep going, since you aren’t allowed into the main house (palace?) whether for safety reasons (it is falling apart) or for legal/privacy reasons (who does all of this belong to anyway and are we really allowed to be milling around? There are no clear signs prohibiting or welcoming visitors), and as you walk on you see lots of other structures–an old gas station and car repair shop. A kitchen complex. Lots of land that could be a beautiful series of gardens. Not deliberately destroyed. And not deliberately maintained or repurposed, clearly for many decades. Just left. Left out. Some nice wildflowers which must be of value to someone.
Tatoϊ, we find out when we look hard, was the summer residence, and later the main residence for the royal family of Greece. I cannot say Greek royal family because it is not accurate. Greece has been a Republic three times: 1821-1832; 1923-1935; and 1974 to the present. For the rest of the time—i.e. 1832-1923 and 1935-1974—it was a Kingdom. The first time it was a Kingdom, it was under Bavarian Prince-turned King of Greece Otto, and then, as of 1863 under George I and his successors of the Danish Glucksberg Dynasty. With the exception of a few historians who have dedicated themselves to adulatory accounts of the royal family, the history of this family and of the monarchy, and more important the meaning of this family and monarchy, is disconnected from the history of the Greek “nation.[2]” This makes perfect sense in one way–given that a monarchy was bestowed on Greece precisely in an age when the idea of a nation-state with self-determination was unfolding. The monarchy does not fit with a now-canonical Greek imaginary of self-determination. Even though it was there, alongside; just outside; presiding over Modern Greece almost since its inception (Bavarocracy, etc). And it had its supporters, even among Greeks. I maintain that we still do not know what to make of that.
We can have a long discussion about why this is so–the monarchy was not just a foreign body from the start but was ultimately associated with the authoritarian periods of the Greek 20th century–from the Metaxas dictatorship to the junta. It was finally expunged in 1974 with the restoration of the Republic and democracy. These are historical facts. But the remnants of that history remain—literally as well as figuratively—and their meaning is unresolved. We talk about the National Schism, between Venizelists (Republicans) and Royalists, but rarely do we stop to consider the full import of that schism; the meaning of the monarchy for its supporters; or the ways this very history has remained unintegrated into the canonical history of the Greek nation–much like Tatoϊ stands apart, unintegrated into its physical surroundings and cultural-historical structures of meaning and memory today. [3]
New Directions into the Past
So yes, the new directions for Modern Greek Studies lie in the past, even and especially the Ottoman/Post-Byzantine past, but not just because it has been neglected or ignored. Because the Ottoman past is a whole terrain on which to explore the unresolved meanings of experiences that were “Greek” but were far from canonical, and were even anathema in many cases. Separate canons, itinerary and historical, Turkish and Greek, have formed which leave out huge swathes of human experience. Our job as scholars is to consider what has been left out, why it has been left out, and what we gain by considering the meaning of experiences that never received the light that was shone by the canon(s) of modern Greece and Turkey.
The Greek communities of Constantinople/Istanbul in the Ottoman period are a perfect showcase for my point about spaces of unresolved meaning for Modern Greece (and Modern Turkey), and Modern Greek Studies alike. In one sense, for Modern Greek Studies, their significance is like the Acropolis. Constantinople signified/s the dream of an empire restored, and now, in the last century (since 1922), the ultimate failure of that dream. Nevertheless, the City has an iconic, transcendent, transhistorical meaning which served as an organizing principle for modern Hellenism, up to a point, and always also in competition with the symbol of the Acropolis itself—here I am referring to the competing visions of a Modern Greek identity bound to pre-Christian, Classical Athens, in contention with one bound to a Byzantine, Christian, imperial vision.
In another very important sense, though, the Greek communities of Istanbul/Constantinople are like Tatoϊ: their actual historical experience, embedded in and enmeshed with the larger, Ottoman city of Istanbul, with their economic and professional activities cutting across confessional communities, their horizons quite different from their Athenian counterparts, and their complex and tortured allegiances as the Ottoman Empire unraveled and they struggled to remain in their homes and in the Ottoman imperial orbit make them seem foreign, even threatening to the Greek national imaginary.[4] They were and are anything but transhistorical or transcendent–they are casualties of history and one cannot understand them without a careful study of the history which made, and destroyed them. It is this complexity and ambivalence of meaning that we are striving to explore in our collective endeavor which we have named “İstanΠόλις.” Who were the actual Greek Orthodox and/or Greek-speaking (not always coterminous) residents of Istanbul (or of “Istanpolis,” if we take the title seriously and ascribe a counter-imaginary to them, one which was hybrid, perhaps, or at least divided) and what were their historical and social experiences? How do the answers to these questions shift and proliferate when we read about them through the lens of Ottoman state documents, alongside Greek narrative and other kinds of sources?
I end with a plea. And that is, let us not study the neglected, left out, hybrid for the sake of it. Let us study particular cases of these phenomena with the goal of finding meaning, and lack thereof; of never losing sight of the question and problem of canons, and the perennial need for canons. Let us move forward, back to the past, while keeping an awareness of our need to make meaning in our present moment in the forefront of our discussions. We may need different things from the past now than we did in the 1950s, or the 1850s. How are we changing? How are our questions changing? And how is the past and the meanings we ascribe to it changing?
[1] This is not to say that the Acropolis has been free of contestation, nor that its contestation and the process of its construction of meaning have not been subjects of fascinating recent scholarship. See, for example, the works of Stathis Gourgouris, Suzanne Marchand, Eleni Bastea, and Yannis Hamilakis about the politics and meanings of the ancient past and archaeological excavations in modern state-making. In this essay I am focused more on the place of the Acropolis in the popular, and international imaginary of Greece today-lying at one extreme on a spectrum of meaning.
[2]Kostas M. Stamatopoulos. Τατοϊ Περιήγηση στον χρόνο και τον χώρο. Athens: Εκδόσεις Καπόν, 2019.
[3] There is, in fact, a long and complicated legal conflict between the Greek sate and the former royal family regarding Tatoϊ and other properties, which dates back to the disestablishment of the monarchy in 1974. See Kostas M. Stamatopoulos, Τατοϊ—Περιήγηση στον χρόνο και τον χώρο. Athens: Εκδόσεις Καπόν, 2019 [Tatoϊ: A Tour in Time and Space]. The emphasis in this essay is on the symbolic and cultural meaning of Tatoϊ, but it must be understood that this reflects, and is inextricable from, the unresolved question of legal ownership of Tatoϊ. After all, the current Parliament building in Syntagma Square was the Royal Palace until 1922, and only came to house the Parliament in 1935—the history of the Parliament building holds an equally fascinating set of issues but in the case of the Parliament, one can hardly make the argument that the current meaning of the Parliament building is unresolved. Syntagma is in fact the central square (or one of two) in central Athens, a symbolic show of the fact that the Constitution, and the Parliament, have thoroughly and unambiguously superseded the monarchy. This is to say, then, that Tatoϊ is not the only vestige of the monarchy today, but it is a particularly vexing one, the symbolic significance of which has been left hanging, so to speak, for the historian and for public memory in Greece.
[4] This comparison surely seems bizarre, even enervating at first glance, but that is part of my point. When we stop to consider the comparison more carefully, we also see that both Tatoϊ and the Greek communities of Istanbul/Constantinople were (and are still in the national imagination) also both bound up with spaces, histories, even polities that threaten the now canonical notions of Greek national self-determination: they both are associated with monarchy, albeit two very different monarchies. It is, understandably, difficult to palate that the historical experiences of Greeks under monarchy had depth and are worthy of study (as if study, like the act of visiting Tatoϊ, is tantamount to veneration).
September 2023