Modern Greek folk songs

Το βιβλίο αυτό ξεκίνησε όταν ένα μπαγλαμαδάκι αποφάσισε να μας διηγηθεί μια ιστορία. Το μπαγλαμαδάκι έζησε πολλά χρόνια, ταξίδεψε, είδε τον κόσμο γύρω του να αλλάζει, αλλά πάντα είχε μια μαγική απλότητα· όποιος το έπαιρνε στα χέρια του τραγουδούσε μόνο αλήθειες. Μπαρμπα-Γιάννη λέγαν το αφεντικό του, μαραγκός στο επάγγελμα και ερασιτέχνης μουσικός... Η αφήγηση εκτυλίσσεται με φόντο τον Πειραιά, την ιστορία της Ελλάδας, των πολέμων, των αγώνων, και συνάμα των τραγουδιών που γεννήθηκαν μέσα σε αυτές τις συνθήκες. Το μπαγλαμαδάκι προσκαλεί τους νέους σε ένα ταξίδι στον κόσμο του ρεμπέτικου. Σε αυτή τη δύσκολη εποχή που ζούμε, είναι ακόμα δυνατόν τα ρεμπέτικα τραγούδια να κάνουν τα «πικρά» της ζωής «γλυκά»;

In lieu of an abstract, following is an excerpt from the article: "Folk ballads were initially taken up by composers through the mediation of poets and writers, they gradually were selected from the original by the former. This process will be
followed and discussed through three selected (albeit representative) works of the sort: the songs of the “Bridge of Arta”, the “Dead Brother”, and the “Maiden and Death”. All three works correspond to three different kinds of music: opera, incidental music for theatre, and ballet. They also reflect the historical events of the period, i.e. the Balkan Wars
(1912-13) and World War I, the Catastrophe in Asia Minor and the Refugee influx to Greece (1922-1923), and the breakout of II World War and the Italian Invasion (1938-1940)".

Αφορμή για τη συγγραφή της παρούσας εργασίας αποτέλεσε η σχετικά διαδεδομένη εντύπωση ότι η έννοια του έρωτα δεν απαντά ως τέτοια στα τραγούδια του ελληνικού λαού. Ο έρωτας, θέμα δημοφιλές στη λόγια ποίηση από την αρχαιότητα μέχρι τις μέρες μας, θεωρείται από πολλούς ως έννοια ασύμβατη με το δημοτικό τραγούδι, που υποτίθεται ότι μιλά κυρίως για αγάπη και αγαπητικούς. Και τούτο, παρά το γεγονός ότι από τον 19ο αιώνα, τα σχετικά τραγούδια περιγράφονται σε κάποιες συλλογές ως «ερωτικά» . Η προσέγγιση που επιχειρείται εδώ είναι περισσότερο πραγματολογική, υπό την έννοια της παράθεσης και επεξεργασίας στατιστικών στοιχείων και ενδεικτικών παραδειγμάτων, που κρίθηκαν απαραίτητα για να φθάσει κανείς σε σχετικά ασφαλή συμπεράσματα. Η έννοια της αμεσότητας έχει εδώ διπλή διάσταση: από τη μία αναφέρεται στη μνεία της λέξης «έρωτας» και στα παράγωγά της (π.χ. ερωτικός) και από την άλλη, στην άμεση επίκληση του στιχουργού στον φτερωτό θεό (σε δεύτερο πρόσωπο). Από την επεξεργασία της διαθέσιμης ύλης προκύπτει ότι το πρώτο επίπεδο (της αδιαμεσολάβητης επικοινωνίας του στιχουργού με τον έρωτα) είναι πολύ πιο περιορισμένο απ’ ότι το δεύτερο (της περιγραφής των γεγονότων).

The reason for writing this work was the relatively widespread impression that the concept of eros does not appear as such in the songs of the Greek people. Eros, a theme popular in poetry from antiquity to the present day, is considered by many as a concept incompatible with folk song, which is supposed to refer mainly to love and the beloved. This happens, despite the fact that since the 19th century, the relevant songs are described in some collections as "erotic". The approach attempted here is pragmatistic, in the sense of quoting and processing statistical data and indicative examples, which were deemed necessary to reach relatively safe conclusions. The concept of immediacy has a double dimension here: on the one hand it refers to the mention of the word "eros" and its derivatives (e.g. erotic) and on the other hand, to the lyricist's direct invocation to the winged god (in the second person). The analysis of the available material shows that the first level (of the lyricist's direct communication with eros) is much more limited than the second (of the description of the events).

In works of both these composers, despite their many different pursuits and style, resulting also from their chronological distance, we can identify as a strong common feature general characteristics of exoticism. More specifically, in their works stereotype orientalistic characters, themes and styles occur, as they are established in the Western European literary and musical works of the 19th and of the beginning of the 20th century. But, since they represent the East being partly Others to the West,because Greece, then as now, was seen as a crossroad between West and East and epistemologically has been identified with an Incomplete Self, the issues of representation of power relationships, or of self-report, also of existence of other attitudes similar to Western ones are particularly interesting. Given that orientalistic Representations sought more or less verisimilitude or artistic truth instead of authenticity, the question of a possibly greater degree of authenticity of the orientalist tropes in Greek works, in conjunction with the searches of the Greek National School, then attempting to balance her orientation between West and East, is particularly interesting. Moreover, this study will be focusing mostly on songs, thus helping to advance the study of orientalism in this genre, which is still overshadowed by opera-centred researches. And, finally, as I will try to demonstrate, some of Riadis' works may have been for Papaioannou, his pupil for a short period of time, not only a connecting link with French exoticism, but also a model for the creation of at least one of his own orientalistic pieces.

The research regarding the position of the woman, namely her roles as well as the perceptions about her, is continuous and is carried out in numerous societies around the world in relation to time and space. The purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate how the complexity of the role of the woman and her multifarious nature did not allow even the modern Greek folk poet to remain indifferent towards her. He glorified her and recognized her position within the Greek society as "a blessing and a curse" for her. The Greek folk song abounds in elements - formal (patterns, symbols, figures of speech) as well as elements related to content (archetypical forms of the mother, the wife, the mother-in-law etc.), which demonstrate in the most eloquent but at the same time plain way all this complexity of her role within the time frame of the Greek society before and during Liberation.

Μέρος Α: Ιόνιο Πέλαγος, Παξοί, Λευκάδα, Κεφαλονιά.
Κεφαλληνιακά Χρονικά, τόμος 17, Αργοστόλι: Εταιρεία Κεφαλληνιακών Ιστορικών Ερευνών, 2016, σσ. 233-260.
Στο παρόν πρώτο μέρος της μελέτης καταγράφονται οι στίχοι ελληνικών δισκογραφημένων τραγουδιών που κυκλοφόρησαν μετά τον Δεύτερο Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο και αφορούν το Ιόνιο Πέλαγος γενικά,  και τα νησιά  Παξοί, Λευκάδα και Κεφαλονιά.

This paper deals with the role and treatment of folk music by the acclaimed Greek writer, Alexander Papadiamantis (1851-1911). Born in Skiathos island, he moved to Athens where he worked as an author of novels and short stories for newspapers and literary magazines. He was also active in the field of church music, as the son of a pious provincial priest, and chanted in a small church in Athens. So it goes without surprise that he used several musical images and inserted various folk songs and church hymns in his lietrary works. One of the most significant aspects of his treatment of music is their role as carriers of social meanings and messages within the communities. Most of Papadiamantis' stories are set in a provincial albeit undefined coontext, where folk songs bear a special significance on the local people as they actually did in reality in the past. The terms gnosis (knowledge) and epignosis (deeper knowledge) allude to the stages of getting to know things through the use of music, for there things that cannot be easily said but can be demonstarted by other means, such as the arts. In his works, folk songs (by means of inserted couplets and excerpts of folk peotry) is elevated to a higher status enlightening the heroes as well as the readers.

This article studies two festive occasions taking place in Kozani, a city in northern Greece: firstly its carnival rituals and secondly some theatrical plays, both carried out entirely in the local dialect. In order to examine the relationship between language and performance, this article proposes an analysis in three parts. The first section shall rapidly outline the city’s linguistic history with regard to national politics, the second shall describe the use of the dialect in the carnival rituals of the fanos, and the third shall study a historically-themed play performed in Kozani Greek.

Είναι πιθανό ότι η Ναυσικά Φλέγγα (ή δυο συναγωνιστές του Βελουχιώτη, σύμφωνα με μιαν άλλη αφήγηση) δημιούργησαν τη δική τους εκδοχή έχοντας υπόψη το τραγούδι όπως το παραθέτει ο Δ. Πετρόπουλος, αυτούσιο ή σε κάποια παραλλαγή του. Μπορούμε να συγκρίνουμε, εκτός από τους στίχους, και τη μουσική. Φαίνεται ότι ο Αλέκος Ξένος δεν «έγραψε», αλλά μάλλον κατέγραψε τη μελωδία του παλαιού τραγουδιού, για πρώτη φορά, αποδίδοντάς την σε κλασσική (ευρωπαϊκή) φόρμα. Βέβαια δεν υπάρχει ηχογραφημένη η εκδοχή του Ξένου, αλλά «ξεκινάμε» τις υποθέσεις μας από την επεξεργασία του Νότη Μαυρουδή.

The book focuses on the figure of Charos (Χάρος, Χάροντας), widespread throughout the Hellenic world, including Cyprus and the Pontus region, and belonging to folk mythology of Modern Greece. The author, analyzing Greek demotic songs, especially mirologia (dirges) and the songs of the Underworld and Charos, but also alluding to acritic cycle of alleged Byzantine origin, sets out to ascertain plausible characteristics of this enigmatic and ambiguous personage.

The research required references to different historical levels of Greek history, including Ancient Greece and Byzantium. It was also indispensable to tap into some ethnographical accounts and especially to various literary texts featuring the figure of Charos, mainly ones from Crete and the islands that for centuries were under Western European influence. Moreover, folk tradition encompasses the coexistence of the earlier, archaic elements of pre-Christian tradition mingled with Christian ones belonging to the Orthodox Church and inherited from Byzantium. All of this makes every attempt at a holistic approach to the question of Charos extremely difficult and demands numerous intertextual and intercultural interferences.
https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/xmlui/bitstream/handle/item/46152/bzinkowski_masks_of_charos_in_modern_greek_demotic_songs_sources_representations_and_context_2017.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Reviews:
https://jfr.sitehost.iu.edu/review.php?id=2276

We can distinguish two major phases in the use of a certain mourning motif in pre-revolutionary and revolutionary Greek folk songs examined: the first and oldest concerns Ottoman (including Albanian) personalities, mourned by their familiar female figures (wife, mother, etc.); in the second phase the pattern "passes" into Greek hands, to emphasize the loss of great heroes (such as Markos Botsaris and Odysseas Androutsos) not only from female but also from male lips. We can also identify a third phase of "de-escalation" of mourning from the historical-war context, through its use in family and pastoral songs. In terms of gender approach, in the non-Greek context, only in one case, laments are "masculine"; in most cases what comes out of a woman's lips are "tears and laments", while in three cases, laments have been described as "feminine". In one case the mourners' laments are "black", while the Turkish concubines (hanums) emit "Turkish laments". A Greek mother's tears are described as masculine". These differences give us information about the perceptions of each peoples about the opposite sex, the foreigner and in general the otherness and need to be studied in more detail.

In this paper I shed some light on one aspect of the Timarion, which has been rather neglected in modern scholarship, namely the motif of the katabasis to Hades and the elements of afterlife imagery. To my knowledge, this aspect of the satire has not been the subject of any separate studies and has not been treated adequately by researchers dealing with the work. However, in my opinion the question of eschatological motives in the Timarion deserves more attention, not only in the light of its affinity to other literary texts belonging to the same genre, which is rather obvious, but – strange and improbable as it may seem at first glance – regarding possible traces of popular or religious elements in the description of the eschatological landscape.

Χρήστος Μαλεβίτσης, Το Δημοτικό Τραγούδι ως περιεχόμενο της συνειδήσεως του Νέου Ελληνισμού, Νέος Ερμής ο Λόγιος, τεύχος 14, Φθινόπωρο 2016, σελ. 109-131.

Κύκλος πέντε εισηγήσεων για το δημοτικό τραγούδι στο Ίδρυμα Γουλανδρή-Χορν, το 1985, που περιλαμβάνονται στον δωδέκατο τόμο των Απάντων του Χ. Μαλεβίτση (εκδόσεις Αρμός, 2010). Εδώ δημοσιεύουμε τις πρώτες δύο εισηγήσεις, με τίτλο «Η συλλογή των δημοτικών τραγουδιών» και «Τραγική και παραδεισιακή αίσθηση της ζωής» (σ. 143-183).

RESUMEN Algunas canciones acríticas continúan aún vivas en el pueblo griego, adaptándose a las nuevas circunstancias, consecuencia de la plurifuncionalidad de la canción popular. Incluso pueden entonarse en los funerales. Ello ha llevado a la inclusión de este tipo de composiciones dentro de la categoría de los miroloyia o de las canciones de Jaros, con las que comparten motivos, temas y versos formularios. En el presente artículo se analizan las interrelaciones entre estas categorías de canciones en la región de Tracia, extrapolables al resto del territorio heleno. PALABRAS CLAVE: Canción popular neogriega, canciones acríticas, miroloyia, canciones de Jaros, Tracia. ABSTRACT «Acritic and mourning songs. Interrelationships in Thrace». Some acritic songs are still alive in the Greek people, adapting to new circumstances, due to the multifunctionality of the folk song. Even they can be sung at funerals. It has led to the inclusion of these compositions within the categories of mirológia or moirológia of the Underworld and Charos, with which they share themes, motives and verses forms. This study focuses on the interrelationships between these song categories in Thrace, that can be extrapolated to the rest of the Greek territory. KEY WORDS: Modern Greek folk songs, acritic songs, moirológia, moirológia of the Underworld and Charos, Thrace. Integradas antropológicamente en los llamados ritos de paso 1 , las cancio-nes populares de muerte se clasifican en miroloyia (μοιρολόγια 2) y canciones de Jaros (τραγούδια του Χάρου) 3. Mientras que los primeros son cantos rituales de lamento, a modo de treno, por la muerte de una persona amada, en los que se destacan sus virtudes y, a veces, parte de su biografía, o simplemente canciones tristes en boca del propio difunto o sus familiares, lamentando la pérdida de la vida y las penalidades del Mundo Inferior 4 , los segundos constituyen un ciclo temático de alegorías tradi-cionales sobre el Hades, basadas en una personificación, de origen medieval, entre-cruzadas con temas de la poesía acrítica. No están relacionadas con casos concretos,

Τα εθιμικά παραδοσιακά τραγούδια αποτελούν ένα χρήσιμο υλικό στη διδασκαλία της μουσικής. Το υλικό αυτό μπορεί να συμβάλλει στην ανάδειξη και αξιοποίηση των τοπικών μουσικών παραδόσεων, καθώς και στην αγωγή για την ακρόαση του ηχητικού περιβάλλοντος, ή ηχοτοπίου. Το άρθρο παρουσιάζει ένα μοντέλο που αναπτύχθηκε από την ερευνήτρια στο πλαίσιο του Ερευνητικού Προγράμματος «Το ηχοτοπίο στο οποίο ζούμε» (Erasmus+, 2016-2019). Το μοντέλο αυτό βασίζεται σε τέσσερις άξονες παιδαγωγικών δράσεων που μπορούν να εφαρμοστούν συνολικά ή αποσπασματικά σε κάθε σχολική βαθμίδα στην πρωτοβάθμια και τη δευτεροβάθμια εκπαίδευση. Οι άξονες αυτοί είναι: α) ο ήχος ως κίνηση, β) ο ήχος ως μέσο για ηχητική δημιουργία στην τάξη (αυτοσχεδιασμός, σύνθεση, δημιουργία ηχοεικόνων, δημιουργία ρυθμικών και μελωδικών μοτίβων, σωματικά κρουστά, κλπ.), γ) ο ήχος ως σύνδεση με το περιβάλλον, δ) ο ήχος ως σύνδεση με τον πολιτισμό.
Το μοντέλο παρουσιάζεται εδώ μέσα από ένα δείγμα εθιμικών παραδοσιακών τραγουδιών που προέρχονται από διάφορες περιοχές της Ελλάδας και αναφέρονται σε έθιμα ή λαϊκά δρώμενα, όπως: το έθιμο της αιώρας, το έθιμο της επίκλησης της βροχής, τραγούδια της δουλειάς, της άνοιξης, πασχαλιάτικα, κλπ. Θα παρουσιαστούν ενδεικτικοί τρόποι σχετικά με το πώς μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν τα εθιμικά τραγούδια ως υλικό για την ανάδειξη του προτεινόμενου μοντέλου με στόχο την αγωγή στην ακρόαση του ηχητικού περιβάλλοντος.

Hermoupolis, the Capital of Syros, the small island of the Aegean, was created after the War of Greek Independence (1821) literally from the beginning, based on the model of the Neoclassical Europe. The citizens of this New World, who were called to identify themselves in really special conditions, were seeking for their cultural identity towards the West. The seeking of their musical identity, was proved to be quite significant, because Music, as well as Language and Religion, would stand as a symbol of their Greekness.

The male totem has been energizing and guiding males, and civilization, through the ages; this has been the backbone of history. In our times, the male totem is riding majestically across all continents, staging the same act it staged in the Iliad and in klepht songs. It is alarming that while this majestic and horrific eternal torrent has been shaping civilization across the face of the earth, narrow-minded political science and sociological analyses proliferate in ignorance.

The castle and the epic of Digenis Akritis have an historical core connected to the Lakhmids (Mundhir III) and the description of his castle is a repetition of Umayyad desert castles. This reinterpretation of the Greek medieval epic calls for a reexamination of Graecoarabic relations especially on the field of the Greek folk poetry tradition.

L'introduction et table des matières, aussi bien que l'Annexe qui comprend la traduction de quelques chansons carnavalesques de Kozani du grec en français, de mon mémoire de Master 1, rédigé pendant l'année académique 2015/16 et soutenu en juin 2016 à l'Université Paris-Sorbonne (note de soutenance: 16/20).
Directrice de recherche : M. Adeline Lionetto.

The introduction and table of contents, as well as the Annex that includes the translation of some of Kozani's carnival songs from Greek to French, of my M1 Thesis, written during the academic year 2015/16 and defended in June 2016 at Paris-Sorbonne University (defense grade: 16/20).
Supervisor: Adeline Lionetto.

Cappadocian is an East Asia Minor Greek variety most closely related to Pharasiot and Pontic. Having been cut off from the rest of the Greek-speaking world after the defeat of the Byzantine army by the Seljuk Turks in the battle at Manzikert (1071), Cappadocian was increasingly Turkicized, but the Greek component preserved its essentially Late Medieval reek character. Unfortunately, our evidence for the historical development of Cappadocian is very scanty, consisting as it does of a few dozen inscriptions from the famous “rock-cut” churches of Cappadocia and the Greek poems written in Arabic script by the thirteenth-century Persian poet-scholar Rūmī and his son Sultan Walad. In this chapter I analyze new and hitherto unexplored evidence for diachronic variation in Cappadocian: Medieval Akritic songs orally transmitted hrough the ages in Cappadocia. The language of these songs, composed in the traditional Byzantine decapentasyllable or political verse, is a mixture of Late Medieval / Early Modern Greek and nineteenth-century Cappadocian, linguistically reminiscent of the AncGr epic, which also combined archaic and innovative features in a set metrical framework. Apart from loanwords and grammatical patterns borrowed from Turkish, the so-called ‘Byzantine residue’ of Cappadocian offers a unique glimpse of language variation and change in Late Medieval / Early Modern Greek.

Linguistic varieties such as female speech, foreigner talk, and colloquial language have not gone unnoticed when it comes to Classical Greek, but little is known about later periods of the Greek language. In this collective volume leading experts in the field outline some of the most important varieties of Post-classical and Byzantine Greek, basing themselves on a broad range of literary and documentary sources, and advancing a number of innovative methodologies. Close attention is paid to the linguistic features that characterize these varieties, with in-depth discussions of lexical, morpho-syntactic, orthographic, and metrical variation, as well as the interrelationship between these different types of variation. The volume thus offers valuable insights into the nature of Post-classical and Byzantine Greek, laying the foundation for future studies of linguistic variation in these later stages of the language, while at the same time providing a point of comparison for Classical Greek scholarship

Όασις, τ. 10 (2009): 62-67.
Το άρθρο παρουσιάζει τη σχέση της δημοφιλούς ηθοποιού και τραγουδίστριας Ρένας Βλαχοπούλου με το λαϊκό τραγούδι. Αν και είχε κατακτήσει κορυφαία θέση στο ελληνικό ελαφρό τραγούδι ως "βασίλισσα της τζαζ" και τραγουδίστρια του μπελκάντο, η Ρένα Βλαχοπούλου σφράγισε με την ερμηνεία της αρχοντορεμπέτικα, λαϊκά και ελαφρολαϊκά τραγούδια στην επιθεώρηση, τον κινηματογράφο και τη δισκογραφία. Το άρθρο παρουσιάζει αυτές της τις συναντήσεις με τους λαϊκούς ρυθμούς, από την πρώτη της ηχογράφηση λαϊκών τραγουδιών του Σπύρου Περιστέρη το 1952 μέχρι τις τελευταίες της εμφανίσεις σε σκηνές αθηναϊκών θεάτρων.

Η Αυγή της Κυριακής, 27/10/2013
Το άρθρο παρουσιάζει μια σύντομη επισκόπηση των πολεμικών τραγουδιών που έγραψαν οι δημιουργοί του ελαφρού και του ρεμπέτικου τραγουδιού την περίοδο του ελληνοϊταλικού πολέμου (1940-41): παρουσιάζει την προέλευσή τους και τη θεματολογία τους, τους ερμηνευτές και τις ερμηνεύτριές τους καθώς και ενστάσεις που έχουν διατυπωθεί για το "είδος" του πολεμικού τραγουδιού.