ROAD RAGE

My tresses having acquired the consistency and style of an over-excited hedgehog, it was that day that I chose to traipse down to the Russian hairdresser near my office, only to be brusquely informed that she is no longer accepting appointments: “Be like Tolstoy,” she growled. “Grow a beard. Write a novel.”

“I prefer Zoshchenko,” I opined.

“Zoshchenko Soviet rubbish,” she snapped. “No facial hair.”

In his Sportsman's Sketches, Russian literary giant Ivan Turgenev deliberately subverted the ancient Greek pastoral genre in order to make scathing commentary about social inequality in Russia. He had taught himself Greek as a child and was fluent in the language. His beard, I observed, while not as long as Tolstoy’s was luxurious and perfectly coiffed.

“Turgenev western decadent rubbish,” she snarled. “Come back when you have beard and book.”

Searching my brain for a response, I was interrupted by a telephone call, which illustrated to me why thinking in Greek and translating in English when your significant other derives her origins from outside the tribe, can lead to infinite misunderstandings:

 “I’ve arranged for you to give your aged aunt a lift to the doctors. She is waiting. Where are you?"

"I’m sure you haven’t told me.”

“You should already know. She has an appointment every Thursday.”

“How was I supposed to know? By smelling my fingers?"

What?"”

Θα μυρίσω τα δάχτυλα μου, actually comes from the Olympic Games and the Greek precursor to the TAB. Punters betting on the outcome of certain events would seek tips from Oracles. The priests would did their fingers in laurel oil and smell them in order to inhale the fumes. They would then fall into a trance and predict the outcome of the event, a practice only discontinued when Plutarch wrote: “Seeing a Greek of nowadays trying to emulate his noble ancestors is ridiculous, like watching a little boy trying in his daddy’s boots and putting on his daddy’s garments.” This is because Plutarch never met my good friend, pagan archpriest Savvas Grigoropoulos.

Hellenisms constantly impinge upon my spoken English. Many is the time when my wife will turn to me and say:

“I want to go to the shops.”

“No stress. Do whatever you want. Cut your throat.”

What?"”

«Κανε ό,τι θες, κόψε το λαιμό σου,» sounds a lot more innocuous in the village Greek that constitutes my mother tongue, as does « Πέταξες την πορδή σου» instead of “You threw your fart,” (or you cast your fart, for increased dramatic effect), «Είσαι ανάμεσα στα πόδια μου», instead of “You’re in between my legs,” and «Ο κόσμος το ‘χει τούμπανο κι εσύ κρυφό καμάρι,» instead of “The world maintain it as a drum and you as a secret pride.” In like fashion, when seeking to indicate that something that has just been uttered causes you to care not a jot, use of the literally translated “I will make my cat cry,” (θα βάλω τη γάτα μου να κλάψει) does tend to diminish the dramatic intensity of the situation and exposes one to the risk of having the RSPCA called upon one. When all is said and done, it is best not to open up one’s mouth at all, lest one be labelled uncouth, boorish and downright barbarous.

Two choices immediately presented themselves to me. I could attempt to bribe my way out of my transgression by the offering of weregild, compensation for murdering my wife’s painstakingly constructed impression of my reliability. The Emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes once presented his wife with an imperial crown purchased via revenues generated from the imperial chicken farms.  Though my temperament does share an affinity with that of my fowl friends, I am possessed of insufficient means to husband their resources to such glorious effect.

My favourite Byzantine Leo Choirosphaktes, on the other hand, whose name means pig-slaughterer, an official, scholar and writer, who rose to high office under Emperor Basil I the Macedonian and served as an envoy under Emperor Leo VI the Wise to Bulgaria and the Abbasid Caliphate, was the first Byzantine official to exploit his position in the public service in order to open up a lucrative side trade in gourmet cumin and fennel sausages which cornered the Byzantine market, introducing ἀγρόν to τρύβλιον or χωράφι to πιάτο centuries before Neil Perry was even a twinkle in his Varangian ancestors’ eyes.

Sighing, I raced to the car, hoping against hope that I could beat the traffic and make it on time without causing an accident. Oedipus Rex of course is the first recorded story of a tragedy caused by road rage. Productions of Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex” were of course banned in England until 1910 on the basis they might “prove injurious” and lead “to a great many plays being written... appealing to a vitiated public taste solely in the cause of indecency.” Spectacular pile-ups in which chariots were destroyed and the charioteers and horses were incapacitated were known in ancient times as a ναυφραγία, (a "shipwreck"). There was no danger of that happening on my route, given that our elected dynasts’ explosion of infrastructure construction has resulted in slowing anything moving within their jurisdiction, to a languid crawl.

It was while remaining stationary in my vehicle for over twenty minutes that I received notification of my success in securing a rare book I have been seeking for an age in order to complete my compulsory annual Continuing Professional Development Accreditation: a French 1714 law book intended for edification on the juridical aspects of impotence, along with an assurance that I had entered the process of imminent delivery. Emitting a triumphant ululation, I decided to share my good fortune with my wife who, listening in silence, curtly referred me to Lucian of Samosata and to the poet Mnesimachos, before urging me to make haste as my aged aunt had begun to open all the drawers in the saloni, ostensibly as part of an offer to cpolish our non-existent silverware.

In his: “On the Ignorant Book-Collector,” Lucian had this to say about people of my own ilk:

“Once a dog has learned to chew leather it can’t stop. Another way is easier: not buying any more books. You are sufficiently educated, you have enough wisdom. You have all of antiquity nearly at the top of your lips.

You know all of history, every art of argumentation including their strengths and weaknesses and how to use Attic words. Your abundance of books has given you a special kind of wisdom and placed you at the peak of learning. Nothing stops me from messing with you since you enjoy being thoroughly deceived.”

Mnesimachos is responsible for my favourite expression to denote would-be, know it alls with delusions of grandeur: «φασιανὸς ἀποτετιλεμένος καλῶς», that is a well plucked-pheasant. I began to crave roast pheasant, a dish that I have only ever seen in Robin Hood movies, speculating as to what artifices must be employed in order to prevent it from drying out in the oven. The trick, as in everything that pertains to the organised Greek community, must be in the basting.

Of course, I ascribe the inability to express joy at such a fortuitous happenstance to envy, a multi-faceted emotion, given that the divine Aristotle distinguishes between multifarious models of the product:

τὸ νεμεσᾶν is the pain felt at someone's undeserved good fortune.

φθόνος is the pain we feel because someone possesses something good, not because we necessary want that thing but because they have it. Ἐπιχαιρεκακία on the other hand, comes not from pain but from pleasure felt at another's misfortune.

It could be worse of course. Envy is one thing, but downright malice quite another. Take Hecuba of Troy on Achilles after the death and desecration of Hector, as narrated in the Iliad:

“I wish I could set my teeth in the middle of his liver and eat it.” This is one Greek expression that loses nothing in translation and one that I was close to appropriating for myself when I finally arrived home after an hour, only to be informed by aged aunt that the appointment was actually for the week after next, but not to worry, we have all had a lovely time.

“Some guy came to the door with a package.  A book or something,” she informed me. “But I sent him away. He was probably a burglar trying to gain entry. Never let a ξένο into your home.”

I glanced at her enormous hands, clasping her souvenir Koala key chain from the Sydney Olympic Games, remembering that Koalemos, son of the goddess Nyx was the Greek god of stupidity and foolishness.

«Τρεις λαλούν και δυο χορεύουν,» I muttered, as I sat down to write, toying with the idea of penning a Greek version of Crime and Punishment, only to dismiss it sure in the knowledge that my Russian hairdresser considers Dostoyevsky a dissolute reprobate.

“What did you say?” my wife asked smiling.

I did not bother to translate.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 29 June 2024

HYBRID MARGIN-DWELLERS: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF DIGENIS AKRITAS.

 

It was on the fringes, where the legends of the hybrid hero, half-Romaic, half Saracen Digenis Akritas survived, for in the “heartland” he had largely been forgotten. His memory lingered in the marginal areas, the liminal spaces where our identity was forged in relation to the Others. On Pentadaktylos mountain in Cyprus, which according to legend, Digenis grasped in his gigantic fist in order to make an imagination-defying leap into immortality. On Mount Psiloritis of Crete, where his foot made an indelible imprint upon the rock after landing, (and we remember of course that the presence of deities in the pagan Near East was traditionally depicted by a footprint) bards twisted his feats into verses and wove them into song. On the mountains of Pontus, where he fought and made love to Amazons in their traditional homelands, his war cries mingled with their death throes and pants of ecstasy in the drone of the kemenche, marking the uttermost extent of Hellenism. It is from them that tales of the Hybrid hero’s exploits were passed down to us, alloyed with long lost tales of the Trojan War, of Heracles, the Argonauts, Thebes, that were never truly forgotten.

Significantly, is the son of the Syrian Emir Mousour and the Cappadocian princess Irene who will become the quintessential Romios and paragon of our race. It is he, Digenis, who once threw a large rock across Cyprus in order to keep off the invading Saracen ships. The rock was hurled from the Troodos mountains and landed in Paphos at the site of Aphrodite's birthplace, known to this day as Petra Tou Romiou (the Rock of the Romios). In this way, it is the legendary hero’s dual identity, his hybridity, that renders him the archetypal Romios, the poster boy of Romiosyne, who fears no one, constitutes an elemental force, fights and defeats dragons, subverts the prescribed social order by abducting the daughters of his betters, earns himself a depiction in Saint Catherine’s church in Thessaloniki where he is depicted fully armed tearing apart the jaws of a lion and condescends only to grapple with Death as his ultimate foe, “on the marble threshing floor” to whom he gives a run for his money and who has had form, having already defeated Heracles, the tale inspiring a Russian bylina or folk ballad about Anika the Warrior.

 Most likely, it is because he is the personification of our early emerging identity that fittingly, he chooses to end his days, not in the lands where Greek is spoken, but rather, in his father’s country, building for himself a luxurious palace on the Euphrates, again a liminal space, in the land of the two rivers, Mesopotamia. Hybrid heroes such as Digenis have no ghetto mentality, nor the need to flock to the like-minded or the blinkered conformists for protection and validation. They can articulate and defend their identity wherever they are, to whosoever they encounter. They are both the prototype and the ultimate of the Modern Greeks.

Save for the songs, it was only in the nineteenth century that manuscripts containing the entire Digenis epic were discovered, again on the margins of Hellenism, the first being in Panagia Soumela monastery of Trapezounta in Pontus in 1868 and the oldest surviving manuscript being retrieved from Grottaferrata monastery in Italy, a home of Greek learning where Greek hymnography flourished there long after the art had died out within the Byzantine Empire and whose affiliation with Rome propagated an alternative version of Hellenism.

It is therefore fitting that the “Educational Institute Hellenism of Anatolia: from the Aegean Sea to Pontus” saw fit to hold over the past weeks, an extensive exhibition entitled “In the Footsteps of Digenis Akritas” in what is now arguably the most geographically marginal extent of Hellenism: Australia. The brainchild of passionate educators Yiota Stavridou and Simela Stamatopoulou, the Institute has a two-fold aim. The first is to ensure that the rich and diverse history, culture and traditions of Hellenism in Asia Minor, whose physical presence came to an end with the tragic events of 1922, survive and are not forgotten. Rather than being an obscure undertaking, attempting such a task from the remoteness of the Antipodes makes absolute sense, if one considers that Hellenism in Asia Minor developed in dialogue with other cultures, linguistic and religious traditions, drawing its vitality from its hybridity and its receptivity to adaptation and mutual exchange, much in the same way in which our own people in multicultural Australia have developed a convivial version of Hellenism that is at its best when it is outward looking, all embracing and inclusive. The sheer diversity in experience of our people within the various regions of Asia Minor exhausts stereotypes and defies generalisations, providing subtle instruction in how to resist the efforts of those who would preside over us to typecast and compartmentalise our very existence. In the study of Asia Minor, therefore, are the keys for our future.

The second aim, is, having drunk deeply from the bottomless font of Asia Minor memory and tradition, to be able to draw the requisite lessons that will enable us to fashion a version of Hellenism that is in communication with that of the Motherland, but which is also comfortable in its own skin, able to converse with and contribute to other discourses within a shared cultural tapestry while creating its own relevance and asserting its own identity.

Viewed from this perspective, the Institute’s focus on Digenis Akritas, is inspired. Cappadocia, his maternal homeland, is the place where centuries later, his descendants, the Karamanlides would articulate their identity in their own unique way. Having lost facility in the Greek language, they consciously chose to render their language, Turkish, in Greek script. At a time when fluency in the Greek language is rapidly declining within Greek communities in Australia, when intermarriage with other communities is common, when academics and community leaders throw their hands up and proclaim “the end of the Greek community as we know it,” and propagate linguistic, racial and other criteria for membership into an ever diminishing fold, it is through the study of the experiences of those who have been there before that we discover the tools for our own survival and the construction of an identity narrative that can graft itself onto its surroundings and thrive.

All these things were furthest from my children’s minds as they returned from their school excursion to the exhibition. Instead, I was treated to tales of treasure hunts, of dances, of a superhero who could leap tall islands in a single bound. We chuckled as they tried to remember the lyrics of the Cretan lay of the Death of Digenis, which their teachers had taught them, collapsing into laughter as I attempted to teach them the Cretan pronunciation. Next, they endeavoured to recreate that song on their violins. But it was only when my eight year old daughter, whose mother was born by the banks of the Euphrates, turned to me and said: «Μπαμπά, είμαι κι εγώ διγενής,» that I was able to appreciate how profoundly significant “Hellenism of Anatolia’s” exhibition actually is.

“We all are διγενείς, Akrites following in the footsteps of Digenis,” I responded. “Every single one of us.”

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 22 June 2024

 

EXILES

 

It was while driving to one of the outer suburbs in order to visit a client, marvelling at the extraordinary spread of the urban conglomeration that is our city, narrowly dodging a kangaroo that bounded across the road, and admiring all the MacMansions dotting the horizon, gleaming white like teeth in the cranium of a dead man, registering surprise at the one proudly flying a PAOK flag from its balcony, that I recalled the verses of Constantine Cavafy’s poem, “Exiles.”

“It goes on being Alexandria still.

Just walk a bit along the straight road that ends

at the Hippodrome

and you will see palaces and monuments

that will amaze you.”

I have similar feelings while walking down Lonsdale Street, which is never the Lonsdale Street of today, but the one in which Antipodes restaurant, where I would sit for hours over a bowl of avgolemono soup discussing Greek current events with friends and passersby, is open for business, a mushroom cloud of tobacco smoke is billowing from inside Medallion Café, smiling students are cascading down the stairs of the RMIT Greek Centre, elderly members of the community are shuffling towards Hermes Travel Agent, in faux protest at the fact that they are being somehow forced to book flights for a six month stay in the motherland, and the same customers, clutching their bank-books tightly and looking around nervously are walking into Laiki Bank in order to ascertain how much interest their bank balance has earned them since yesterday. In those days, it took a good half hour to walk from the Russell Street end to Swanston Street, on account of all the people one would meet along the way. Now, the walk is markedly brief in duration, and yet:

 

“Whatever war-damage it has suffered,

However much smaller it has become,

it is still a wonderful city.”

 

I am able to point to the exact spot where I stood twenty years ago, when spontaneously everyone rushed to Lonsdale Street in order to celebrate Greece’s victory in the European Cup. The next day, I took my books and my files with me and spent the day working from Medallion, intermittently glancing up at the television screen in order to observe the interminable long triumphal procession of the bus conveying the victorious Greek team from the airport to the centre of Athens, stopping only to answer the questions of other dozing denizens such as: “What are you reading?” and “How do you see the future of the Greek community.”

 

“And them, what with excursions and books

And various kinds of study, time does go by..”

 

These at least have not faded with time. Open social media, or consult the print media and one will find a plethora of announcements and advertisements for plays, lectures, wreath laying ceremonies, and other cultural events. Their quantity seems to have increased with time, even as the number of attendees decreases. One attends and greets the same people as last time. The elderly among them shrug their shoulders: “Eh, we came to pass the time. Δεν βαριέσαι, it gives us something to do. I haven’t seen so and so for a long time. Do you think he is ok? Strange that he is not here. He always used to come.” The interstitial time loop we appear to be trapped in is set at one minute before the end. We attend and augment our knowledge and out studies time and time again, believing always that this time, may be the last.

 

“In the evening we meet on the sea front,

the five of us (all, naturally under fictitious names)

and some other Greek of the few still left in the city.”

 

One can only carry with them throughout their life a sense of ennui about the fact that they use their baptismal name and the proper Greek version of their surname as a pseudonym, while an Anglicised bastardisation of both is registered as an “official” name. Nonetheless, we sit, my friends and I, of diverse interests and walks of life, united only in the metamorphosis of our names and our propensity to converse with each in Greek in Port Melbourne, ruminating over inherited memories of ships arriving at these shores, spilling our collected ancestors on the quayside. The eldest among us remind us of a time when Greeks abounded in the area. Their traces are still there, behind walls and closed doors, at the pharmacies and the supermarkets, if you look closely, if only cared to look.

 

“Sometimes we discuss church affairs

(the people here seem to lean towards Rome

and sometimes literature.

The other day we read some lines by Nonnos:

what imagery, what diction, what rhythm

And harmony!”

 

Among us is what can only be described as an Orthodox fundamentalist. According to him, we are all papists because apparently the Patriarch and all who serve him are in thrall to Rome, which as we all know is a harbinger of the Antichrist and a sign of the End Times. Another of our brethren, though Orthodox, has had his children received into another denomination so as to ensure their continued enrolment in their local high school, which matters not, since its all the same and the differences between the rival franchises all revolve around money anyway. We shy away from discussing the key players of the day, because it is urgent that the Monophysite controversy be resolved in our lifetime.

 

When we do read literature, we argue to what extent literary works written by Greeks in English can be considered “Greek.” We engage in disputation as to whether it is the cultural constructs imposed by the dominant ethnic group in our country that inform the manner in which the narratives of ethnic minorities such as our own are created or whether they are an authentic expression of the communities from which they have arisen. Nonnos, a native of Panopolis absorbs us as he did Cavafy, not only because like us, he was born in a region that marks the southernmost extremity of Hellenism in his day, but also because he wrote what is possibly the last great epic of late antiquity, the Dionysiaca, consisting of 48 books at 20,426 lines in Homeric Greek and thus looms large as a powerful terminal point, or at least as a Metabole, which coincidentally is the title of his poetic paraphrasing of the Gospel of Saint John, into an entirely different age.

 

“So the days go by, and our stay here

is not unpleasant because, naturally,

it is not going to last forever.

We’ve had good news: either something

is afoot in Smyrna, or in April

our friends are sure to move from Epirus.

So one way or another, our plans are

definitely working out,

And we’ll easily overthrow Basil.”

 

Scholars tend to agree that Cavafy set his poem in an Alexandria that had ceased to be dominated by the Greeks, was Arab-ruled and in which Greek cultural influence, was waning. It is a topos of decadence and of decline. The exact historical period still invites argument, with some contending that it is set early in the reign of Basil I of the Macedonian dynasty, a few years after he murdered the Emperor Michael, around the time of the Photian schism, hence the reference to Rome, around twenty years after the Arab conquest of Egypt. This Alexandria then, would still have retained its Greek cultural characteristics, even as they would begin to erode under the city’s new rulers, and the exiles’ admission that life is not too bad would make sense since they were able to live a similar lifestyle as that to which they were used to at “home,” can thus be paralleled by newly arrived members of our own community whose exile from the motherland is softened by the commonalities in the elements of life style within our portion of the Diaspora.

Other scholars contend that the poem in fact is set in the 1330’s during the reign of Basil of the Empire of Trebizond, the mentions of Smyrna and Epirus referencing the time after the Latin sack of Constantinople in 1204 which resulted in the emergence of three rival versions of Byzantium, the Empires of Trebizond and Nicaea, as well as the Despotate of Epirus. Basil purged high ranking nobles from his court, hence the possible need for exile.

Viewed from this perspective, the exile seems gratuitous and far-fetched. The exiles could have easily escaped to a closer successor kingdom, to Georgia, or to the West. Instead, they have deliberately chosen to settle in one of the furthest and at that time, culturally most foreign to them, regions of their world. One cannot help thinking that this is a self-imposed exile, that its rigours and sadnesses actually bring pleasure and that there is a masochistic element to Cavafy’s sarcasm of all of those who maintain that they are compelled to live on the margins but would never tear themselves away from them, when the right opportunity arises. Nostalgia, the pain of desiring a return is the opposite of what seems to be happening here. Rather, this is Nostophilia, when the desire for return, with all of its exquisite contradicitions, brings pleasure.

 

My own grandmother’s intention was to remain in Australia for five years, work hard and then return to her village. She never did, even though her entire mental world continued to revolve around that village until the day she died. One of our brethren, not able to endure the prospect of dehellenisation, resolved to abjure his comfortable lifestyle, return to his parents’ village, enlist in the army and then carve a life out for himself among his own people. He lasted a month.  As for me, who in my youth contrived time and time again to seek out opportunities to relocate to Greece, a country my father does not remember, only to pull back at the last minute, I eke out my existence, entrench my realities in a language that is ceasing to be spoken, ensconce myself in the sweet pleasures of the books and poems of my exile and bide my time awaiting the overthrow or the overcoming of all our fears, anxieties and neuroses. For as Cavay reveals in his last line: “And when we do, at last our turn will come.”

 

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

 

First published in NKEE on Saturday 15 June 2024

IN THE STASIS CHAMBER: THE TERMINAL DECLINE OF MODERN GREEK STUDIES

In the building hopefully accompanying these words, over the course of three years, Anna Chatzinikolaou, lecturer in Modern Greek Studies at Melbourne University, changed my life and that of all my classmates, forever. Through her, we learned that Modern Greek was not just the conjugation of verbs in a plethora of tenses, nor was it an arcane field of study with little relevance to the modern world, but rather, a singular stance and perspective on life itself and we were infused and enthused with her devotion to it.

Entering her bolt-hole of an office, crammed with stacks of books that appeared as if they were ready to topple over her and us, enveloping us with their words, we could not tell whether she or those tomes, formed the underlying, fundamental state or substance that supported all of her reality.

Anna Chatzinikolaou taught us to accept nothing, think critically, engage in microscopically close reading with the precision of a demented Nordic surgeon but to embrace everything, «για εύλογους λόγους», as she used to quip with an enigmatic grin. This is the reason why instead of indulging in the usual pursuits that absorb the attention of newly emancipated university students, we could be found huddled together between lectures, deconstructing Eggonopoulos’ surrealist masterpiece “Bolivar,” and trying to make sense of his cryptic expostulation: «Μπολιβάρ, είσαι ωραίος σαν Έλληνας», reciting Ritsos’ “Moonlight Sonata” in the most stentorian tones possible or attempting to write an absurd play in the style of Giorgos Skourtis’ «Οι Νταντάδες».

Always animated, always ready to give of herself and share her knowledge, Anna was and remains, the guardian angel of Greek letters in Melbourne. When non-Greek students studying Greek who had won scholarships to study in Greece could not afford the airfare, she would pay those fares out of her own pocket. Unlike some other Greek "academics" who viewed their vocation as a source of profit, Anna's approach to her profession was imbued with conviction and she gave selflessly of herself.

Some of her students reciprocated by singing songs under her window seeking lyrical extensions for assignments. Others, by inducting her into their homes and hearts. The fact remains that at least two generations of Modern Greek tertiary students emerged from her capable hands, ready and able to engage with the Hellenic World. Many of those have made lasting contributions to the Greek community and the broader Greek world.

In a society that worships the new and makes a cult of the now, in a Greek-Melbournian community that has effectively abandoned its erstwhile conviction in the principal of quality Greek language tertiary education, in favour of gimmicks, stunts and slogans, it is easy to forget people like Anna.

But we should not. Without people like Anna, our community, even in its decline, would undoubtedly not be a tenth of what it is. Nor would we, her many students. It is the height of folly that we have living among us, such gifted individuals and, in the self-satisfied torpidity of our community’s winter, are unable, unwilling or indifferent to harnessing their powers for our benefit.

In the Deisis Iconostasis of Greek tertiary education, on the left-hand side, sits Anna Chatzinikolaou, holding in her arms, her students. On the right, sits Professor Vrasidas Karalis, wearing a hair shirt and yelling: «Μετανοείτε», to the ingrates who have forgοtten or do not appreciate their invaluable contributions to our life and learning.

This is because, for all of my effusiveness, I did not go on to engage in post-graduate studies in Modern Greek. Granted, I poured all my love and passion into the study of the subject, even attending lectures after the completion of my degree, but I did so from having the privilege of studying a double degree, and I commenced my professional career in the law immediately after my graduation.

For all their genuine love for Modern Greek, none of my classmates went on to higher studies in the field, except for the stalwart Steffie Nikoloudis who is now charged with steering the LaTrobe Modern Greek Language Programme through troubled waters with singular success. While some went on to become distinguished academics in other fields, the general consensus was that while life-changing, one could not make a viable living as a scholar of Modern Greek, all the tertiary teaching positions being largely taken with limited scope for further study. There existed no scholarships or bursaries or foundations (except for one whose collapse was spectacular) which could support a new graduate while undertaking research and within our own community, one which prided itself when I first entered university on having Modern Greek taught at five of the state’s tertiary institutions, there seemed to have been little thought given to the viability of the programmes it had fought so hard in the seventies to introduce, or indeed their relevance to Greek-Australians in general. Considering that most of us do not have the luxury of engaging in tertiary study purely for pleasure, it is not unreasonable to assume that students will choose a field of study that will actually facilitate earning them a decent living, rather than occupying the deepest darkest recesses of the Retreat, pining over the demise of Apodimi Kompania and the manner in which the Athens Polytechnic Generation sold out, while seeking a life partner whose father was a successful builder and owned a number of investment properties in Malvern East.

When I first entered university in the mid-nineties, like many other Greek-Melbournians, I had previously chosen to study Modern Greek in years 11 and 12. The work was challenging, as it was assumed that we had a proficiency in the language but many who would otherwise not have chosen the subject did so because it was widely known that credits existed for the language that would enabled one to boost their tertiary entrance rank. These incentives no longer confer advantage to such extent, and most community secondary education facilities have by and large failed in the task of having their students achieve a standard of Modern Greek sufficient for them to undertake academic studies in the field, even if a future for them existed in it. Thus, there is limited opportunity for secondary educational institutions to feed students into Modern Greek studies programmes to any meaningful extent, especially considering that less than two hundred students studied the language at VCE level in Victoria in 2023.

For reasons pertinent or not, we as a community, have turned our backs on the Modern Greek language and for all our bluff and bluster, can conceive no practical use in its academic study. is axiomatic that administrators of tertiary institutions would eventually realise this and in a field where education is business, seek opportunities for profit elsewhere. If anything, we should marvel that we lasted this long, in no small part due to the superhuman efforts of visionaries such as Anna Chatzinikolaou and others like her.

Dr Patricia Koromvokis, Lecturer in the Modern Greek Studies Program at Macquarie University is another such visionary. One can read with interest about her work in developing and implementing impactful initiatives and international collaborations that showcase innovation in the field of humanities, teamwork, critical thinking, and effective communication skills with various stakeholders to promote the role of the Greek language in the diaspora and to build long-lasting academic bridges between Greece and Australia. Or one can feel, in the timbre of her voice and her intense gaze when she talks about her students just how passionately, how fervently she loves the Modern Greek Language. Dr Koromvokis’ work up until now, especially her superhuman efforts to stop the inevitable and to make lasting contributions to the development of her students has been supported by a community Foundation, but even that has not been sufficient to deter Macquarie University from announcing that the programme, along with the teaching of Italian, Russian (the language of a world power) and Croatian will be discontinued.

There is no point lamenting over the demise of something we have no use for. Our modus operandi in this regard is pitifully always the same: Rally around each other, engage in intense lobbying in order to save any given Modern Greek Studies programme, and then, having achieved a temporary stay of execution, publish a photo of the main protagonists in the local media, and promptly forget all about it, until the next crisis. As successful capitalists, some of us may even turn our hand at funding the maintenance of collections of archives, holy relics of Greek programmes long gone, and which no one ever studies, for the prestige this confers upon us. What we seem to desire then, is not a vibrant, dynamic academic component to our community, but rather a form of stasis, with Modern Greek studies arrested just before the point of death, in the hope that at some time in the future, the knowledge will exist to thaw it out and cure it of its ills, whilst we wear its existence, after Brezhnev, as a medal upon a moribund uniform and promote it as an community achievement.

Let us honour and remember the contributions of our academic luminaries who raised our expectations and excited our aspirations. Let us lament the demise of Modern Greek from Macquarie and wherever else it is scheduled to expire. The certainties of the world in which it was possible to entrench Modern Greek within the Australian tertiary sphere no longer exist. Instead, considering that the generations that will come after us will possibly not have the opportunities that we foolishly took for granted, let us engage in true debate and soul-searching as we explore collaborations and seek alternate ways to support students passionate about the Modern Greek language and culture in Australia. If, at least, that is what we truly want.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@gotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 8 June 2024

INTO THE MOONLIT VILLAGE – THE BATTLE OF CRETE

Austrian historian Robert Musil has observed that “there is nothing in this world as invisible as a monument.” Despite their intended purpose to commemorate, memorial artworks and monuments often have a brief period of relevance before their explicit significance fades, leaving them as mere landmarks, decorations or conceits. Art of this nature is designed to prompt viewers to remember; however, it frequently becomes forgettable or even invisible. This tendency for commemorative art to lose its impact over time can be attributed to various factors, such as conflicting agendas, collective decision-making, and compromised artistic vision. It is also plausible that the act of forgetting is an inherent aspect of commemorative art, serving as a form of built-in obsolescence.

Commemorative art aims to ensure that we remember an important event or person by depicting an element of that person or event through artistic representation. However, this goal of perpetual remembrance contradicts the natural functions of the human mind. Freud suggested that forgetting is a crucial part of the mourning process, where it is necessary to endure the painful act of remembering, store memories consciously, and ultimately reach a point where forgetting is possible. Forgetting is not a failure of memory but a characteristic that allows people to move forward with their lives. As a physical embodiment of memory, a memorial can support this gradual process by providing a way to revisit the experience of loss in a controlled and manageable manner, with the memorial serving as a container for the memory.

This is how I see the book “Into the Moonlight Village- the Battle of Crete.” It is a piece of commemorative art, in the form of poetry, in English and in Greek translation and visual art, causing us to remember a most important event in our combined Greek and Australian histories, the Battle of Crete.

The poet, Poli Tataraki in seeking inspiration from this epic event, is partaking of a culture of memory that stretches right back to the beginning of the genre, right back when a blind bard sought the help of the Muses to commemorate another epic battle, requesting: “The wrath sing, goddess, of Peleus' son, Achilles, that destructive wrath which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans, and sent forth to Hades many valiant souls of heroes, and made them themselves spoil for dogs and every bird;”

This is thus a very Greek practice and the poet consciously or subconsciously overlays and or positions her poetry within the framework of the classical tradition. The very title itself suggests this: “Into the Moonlit Village,” suggesting a process, a movement into somewhere (whereas the Greek translation «Στο Φεγγαρόλουστο Χωριό» is more ambiguous, στο meaning towards, into but also at – so that connotations of position exist on many levels simultaneously), reminds us that the queen of Crete, Pasiphae (whose name means “Eater of All,” a fitting title for War if there ever was one), wife of the bloodthirsty King Minos, was worshipped on Crete as a Moon Goddess. Consequently, from the outset the poet is connoting that there is something particular primal about war. It is an element, like the titans, which unfortunately is inextricably attached to the Cretan world. The lunar element is one that the poet will return to repeatedly throughout the work. In the poem “In Rethymno” for example, the soldier seeking to evade the “enemy” which “prowls” the earth” is described as lucent, in Greek: «διάφεγγος».

These mythological links exist throughout the work which is interesting because if one reads the poetic and literary responses to the Battle of Crete emanating from the Greek world, references to mythology are few and far between. These works will be in dialogue with the Holocaust of Arkadi, they will reference the continuous and bloody battles for Cretan independence, which as we know came quite late, but they are distinctly light on mythology. It could be argued that the poet’s heavy drawing on Greek mythology reflects a uniquely Australian, or Greek-Australian approach to the Battle of Crete. We know that Greek mythology forms an important component of Western culture and that it is via the complex process of western appropriation of elements of Greek classical culture that support was given for Greece’s aspirations of emancipation and statehood. In the diaspora, the process by which Greek culture is appreciated by the West is also subconsciously absorbed and replicated, replacing other traditional perspectives, or critiqued by, or otherwise informs the writing of Greek Australians.

Manifestly, the poet is very conscious of this process. Evidently, the poet is very conscious of the fact that the event she is trying to commemorate involved not only Cretans in the narrow sense, but also Australians, British and New Zealaders and we can thus conclude that in making use of symbolism derived from Greek mythology, she is consciously endeavouring to find and to utilise a common vocabulary that can be employed as a means of inclusion within her discourse,  reflecting an immensely generous vision.

Thus, Daedalus makes his  appearance in “Daedalus Wept” where the poet contrasts the “long walk down the gangway,” with the tortuous twists and turns of the great inventor’s labyrinth, fraught with danger at every turn, a fitting metaphor for war if there ever was one, but hinting always at the possibility of escape and liberation. Daedalus, of course, the legendary inventor of man-made fight, would have sufficient cause to regret his decision in the light of the Nazi airborne invasion of Crete.

In the poem “In Iraklio,” recourse to mythology is made in order to examine the futility of war and the hubris which characterises those who deign to wage it as aggressors: “As antiquity joins the din….. How many times must Icarus die?” Like the hapless hero of Greek mythology, when the warnings of the wise are not heeded,  tragedy will ensue again and again. Thus the mythologic motif allows the reader to regard the Battle of Crete in a broader anthropological context. The poem is also interesting in the manner in which some of its terms can have different connotations in Greek rather than English. Her use of the term of the “Bull’s eye,” for example, is masterfully ambiguous since we can choose to interpret this as a target or rather as the gaze of the Minotaur, a symbol of the horror of war in popular culture, as evidenced in such paintings as Picasso’s Guernica, also has the same effect, whereas in Greek it also connotes a type of stone.

In “At Phaleron,” a poem inspired by the experience of Melbourne-born Dimitri Zampelis who was killed in action outside Mournies in 1941, it is Minoan history that is employed as a motif to juxtapose the bounty and life-abounding nature of Crete as embodied by “blue dolphins cavorting with fish,” a common decorative motif in the palace of Knossos against the prospect of Hitler assuming the alabaster throne of Minos, a long-gone king of an extinct civilisation. The poignancy here is in the reflection of how many have, as a result, become: “forever lost to the soil of Crete.”

The Angel of Nuremberg on the other hand conflates motifs from the early history of the Greek world with the Old Testament juxtaposing the gender-ambivalent but convivial Lily Prince, being absolutely gorgeous while immured and perpetually parading “in a diadem of peacock feathers” against an Australian who utters his own adopted ceremonial, the haka, before being forced to wrestle with the angel of Death.

“Stragglers in Imvros Gorge,” continues this dextrous and ambiguous historical perspective, describing a Homeric katabasis, via which “soldiers retreating march with ghosts of martyrs…defeated souls in the twilight, following the masses down a canyon,” descend as psychopomps into a labyrinthine psychological Underworld. This is not Elysium, nor is it Paradise but rather an emotional Tartarus from where no escape is apparent and: “hearts will sink.”

The accompanying linocut images by artist Michael Winter may predate the poems by fifteen years but they too, are a product of the artist’s response to his trip to the island and his discussions with its local inhabitants about the wounds left by the Battle of Crete. Nightmarish figures and dismembered shapes in monochrome exist in conversation with Tataraki’s poems, forming visual poetic mediations of their own about the horror, inhumanity but also endemic nature of mankind’s insistence on destroying itself. These are highly emotive works that seek not to portray those involved in conflict as valiant or indeed to dehumanise them unilaterally, as the enemy. For example, the illustration to the poem “Churchill’s Salamander” does not depict the wartime leader as redoubtable “British Bulldog” with his characteristic and by now clichéd Victory Salute. Instead, a dark, faceless figure looms over a group of helmets which, strangely illumined in the moonlight, resemble a heap of skulls such as those depicted in Vasily Vereschagin’s famous anti-war painting: “The Apotheosis of War.”

In the accompanying illustration to the poem “Life Cycle of a Paratrooper,” a spectral, wraith-like soldier looms over a counterpart whose face is transfixed in horror. Although the paratrooper has wings, he is still fixed via ropes, to his parachute which appears to be stuck in a tree, suggesting that for all his fearsomeness, he is merely a marionette, manipulated at the behest of higher, darker, nefarious powers, of which he himself is a victim.

The most absorbing image in the collection in my view, is the companion to “The Angel of Nuremberg.” Two soldiers with distorted faces hold each other. They are mirror images of each other, both white and black, save that the soldier with black wings looms over the prone soldier with the white wings. We cannot tell if he is trying to choke him, cradle him in his arms or both. There is no right or wrong here, enemy or friend. In the topography of Death which Michael Winter’s depicts so starkly, there is no room for Manichaean dualism, for nationalism or ideology. Instead, there is only an omnipresent chiaroscuro Thanatos that saturates the eye until it hurts.

For those seeking further information about the particular events informing the writing of the poems, there is a useful and rather extensive appendix which provides historical information and which augments the reader’s appreciation of both the poet and the artist’s art.

“Where smoke will rise one day, from slaughtered partisans, doused in petrol/ Remember the villages of Kedros/ Remember Gerakari,” the poet enjoins us as Michael Winter’s emaciated and care-worn Promethean phantoms look down upon a landscape as rugged and as long-suffering as there are.

We can do aught else.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

Dean Kalimniou will launch “The Moonlit Village: Into the Battle of Crete” an artistic collaboration between Poli Tataraki and Michael Winters, on behalf of the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne, the Cretan Brotherhood of Melbourne and the Greek Australian Cultural League on Sunday, 9 June 2024, at 2:30pm at the Greek Centre.

First published in NKEE on Saturday 1 June 2024