Culture
Cultural expressions and ways of life, past as well as contemporary.
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Balkan Times
Tradition is an action—a way of passing on knowledge, customs, or practices from one generation to the next, whether through speech, writing, gesture, or rhythm. The appropriate Greek term is Parádosi [Παράδοση], which literally means “that which is given” or “handed down.” This applies equally to traditional music and song, as well as to dance, all of which are encompassed by the rich repertoire known in Greece as Dimotikó [Δημοτικό]—in other words, a genre of music that stems directly from what has been transmitted by the démos, or the people.
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Typical Village
Kefalóvrysso, our Thessalian village, is a typical village. This means it fits the standard typology of Greek villages—places that do not rely on tourism for their livelihood, yet are affected to varying degrees by the economic crisis, as well as by a declining population.
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Kalarrýtes, village in Epirus
In Greek, Epirus primarily means “mainland.” But to the Hellenes, the term more specifically evokes their vast, mountainous region—a territory that, since ancient times, has proudly occupied the western slopes of the Pindus mountain range, extending down to the Ionian Sea. Italy lies just across the way, in a sense.
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A Belle Époque
Neo Faliro—situated at the start of the area known in antiquity as the Bay of Phaleron, or simply “Faliro” to modern-day Greeks—is a district on the outskirts of Piraeus whose waterfront has, since the 1960s, become something of a dead zone. Currently disfigured by its position between two marinas, three stadiums, and an urban expressway, the area has lost both its regular patrons and its very soul. Yet, a mere century ago, the now-faded destiny of Neo Faliro appeared to be something entirely different.
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Take care, master!
The writer and poet Yórgos Ioánnou was, first and foremost, an educator. His long years as a teacher—in the noblest sense of the term—even took him to Tríkala between 1956 and 1957, where he taught classical and modern literature at a private high school in this historic city in Thessaly. He has thus left us a moving account, drawn from his own experience as a young teacher during that period.
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August 1922. The Great Disaster
August is a month heavy with significance for Greek historical memory. In 1922, the country experienced what was, up to that point, its greatest catastrophe: the Greek defeat in Asia Minor and the recapture of Smyrna by the Turkish army under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk—an event referred to in Turkish historiography as the “Great Offensive.” The Greek population of Asia Minor, which had been established there for centuries—dating back to antiquity—was first subjected to widespread massacres by the Turks; subsequently, the survivors were expelled to Greece, following a mandatory population exchange and the treaty signed between Greece and Turkey in Lausanne in 1923.