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Sixty years ago…
Sixty years ago, on October 24, 1963, a telegram from the Swedish Academy announced a major event: the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Yórgos Séféris—the pen name of the poet Yórgos Seferiádis (1900-1971), who was also a diplomat. The great Greek poet received the prize “for his eminent lyrical writing, inspired by a deep feeling for the Hellenic world of culture,” according to the Stockholm-based Academy. This first Nobel Prize for a Greek, awarded in 1963, holds one of the most illustrious places in the nation’s literature..
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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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Bridges and Roads
In western Thessaly, not far from the famous Meteora, lies the village of Sarakína and its historic bridge of the same name, which spans the bed of the Piniós River. In the past, this bridge served as a transit point for travel toward the settlements of the Aspropótamos region—nestled in the Pindus mountain range, between Thessaly and the neighboring region of Epirus. “The grandeur of the multi-arched bridge, combined with the massive rock formation nearby, commands the visitor’s attention,” state promotional materials for tourists issued by local authorities. Or rather, it *used* to command it.
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The Day of No
Greece celebrates its national holiday on October 28th. This is the country’s second major annual commemoration—the first, on March 25th, honors the beginning of the revolution of the modern Greeks, or in other words, the Greek War of Independence of 1821, which sought liberation from the Ottoman yoke. Rather unusually, October 28th marks the beginning of the Second World War for Greece, rather than its end.