Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T11:12:17.296Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Karaghiozis Performance in Nineteenth-Century Greece

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Linda S. Myrsiades
Linda S. Myrsiades*
Affiliation:
Deleware County Community College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Out of the vacuum of the sparsely developed dramatic environment of nineteenth-century Greece grew a performance totally unrelated to the largely literary and western-European oriented theatre of Athens under the influence of the king and his court. It was a performance which, unlike the literary theatre, aroused the interest of the common man through its use of folk tales, anecdotes, songs, dialects, costumes and characters as the basis of its presentation. Originating in the Turkish folk form Karagöz, the Greek performance, called Karaghiozis, found its roots in an entertainment with which Greeks bom on the mainland and in other parts of the Balkans and Middle East were already familiar.

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 2 , 1976 , pp. 83 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Landau, J., Studies in the Arab Theatre and Cinema (Philadelphia, 1956), p. 25 Google Scholar. See also Pamboukis, I. T., (Athens, 1970), i Google Scholar.

2. [Editors’ note: This statement is based on Greek sources and does not take into account the extensive sources in Turkish, which remain to be investigated.]

3. Sainéan, L., ‘Les marionettes en Roumanie et en Turquie’, Revue des Traditions populaires, XVI (August-September 1901), 417–19 Google Scholar.

4. Markakis, P. I., ‘H Philologiki Protochronia, II (1944), 128 Google Scholar n.

5. Whitman, C., ‘Karaghiozes and Aristophanic Comedy’, in Aristophanes and the Comic Hero (Cambridge, 1964), p. 282 Google Scholar.

6. Loukatos, D., ‘La tradition et la vie populaire grecque dans les représentations de “Karaghiozis”’, in Quand les marionnettes du monde se donnent la main (Liège, 1958), p. 234 Google Scholar; Pamboukis, op. cit., i.

7. See Sp. Melas, Akropolis, 11 November 1952.

8. Michopoulos, P., ‘H (Athens, 1972), p. 13 Google Scholar.

9. Biris, K., Theatro, no. 10(July-August 1963), 13 Google Scholar; idtm, , Nea Estia, LII (1952), 1128–9 Google Scholar.

10. Whitman, op. cit., p. 282.

11. Dostalova-Jenistova, as referred to by Whitman, op. cit., p. 282.

12. Biris, 1065–8.

13. Ibid., 1068. Caimi, G., Karaghiozi ou la comédie grecque dans l’âme du théâtre d’ombres (Athens, 1935), p. 104 Google Scholar n.

14. LeFevre, M., Théâtre de la Turquie où sont représentées les Choses les plus Remarquables, qui s’y passent aujourd’hui (Paris, 1688), p. 321 Google Scholar.

15. Castellan, A. L., Lettre sur la Grèce, l’Hellespont, et Constantinople; faisant suite aux Lettres sur la Morée (Paris, 1811), I, pp. 76–7 Google Scholar.

16. Dodwell, E., A Classical and Topographical Tour Through Greece, During the Years 1801, 1805 and 1806 (London, 1819), II, pp. 166–7 Google Scholar.

17. Bartholdy, J. L. S., Voyage en Grèce, fait dans les Années 1803 et 1804, trans. A. du C. (Paris, 1807), II, pp. 85–7 Google Scholar.

18. Pouqueville, F. C. H. L., Voyage en Morée, à Constantinople, en Albanie, et dans plusieurs autres Parties de l’Empire othoman, pendant les Années 1798, 1799, 1800 et 1801 (Paris, 1805), II, pp. 134–5 Google Scholar.

19. See Ioannou, G., ‘O (Athens, 1971), I, pp. xix–xx Google Scholar (Introduction).

20. Pouqueville, op. cit., I, p. 76.

21. Hobhouse, J. C., A Joumey Through Albania, and Other Provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to Constantinople, During the Years 1809 and 1810 (Philadelphia, 1817), I, p. 75 Google Scholar.

22. Ibid., pp. 159–60.

23. See Vere, Aubrey Thomas de, Picturesque Sketches in Greece and Turkey (Philadelphia, 1850), p. 313 Google Scholar; Sir Temple, Grenville, Travels in Greece and Turkey Being the Second Part of Excursions in the Mediterranean (London, 1836), II, pp. 218–19 Google Scholar.

24. Sir Gell, William, Narrative of a Joumey in the Morea (London, 1823), p. 29 Google Scholar.

25. Galt, J., Letters from the Levant; Containing Views of the State of Society, Manners, Opinions, and Commerce in Greece and Several of the Principal Islands of the Archipelago (London, 1813), p. 119 Google Scholar.

26. 18 August 1841, p. 525, as quoted by Biris, ‘O 1066.

27. Ibid., 9 February 1852, p. 3. [Editors’ note: The garments listed are the hellenized forms of the following words, which are Turkish unless other derivations are given: kavuk (wadded ceremonial turban); sarīk (ordinary turban); kalpak (Astrakhan fez); serviette (towel [French]); iskefe (skullcap [a Byzantine word passed into Turkish]); fes (fez); bonnet (soft headdress without a brim [French]); piperies (? hat shaped like a pepper); capello (hat [Italian]); caschetto (helmet [Italian]); cüppe (full-sleeved and full-skirted robe); biniş, (ceremonial riding dress); çakşīr (trousers); burnuz (bournous); entari (loose robe); giubbone (tunic [Italian]); kavad (greatcoat [Serbian]); guna (fur [Slav]); potur (knee-breeches); şalvar (baggy trousers); yağmurluk (raincoat); capotta (shepherd’s cape [Italian]); sortu (jacket [Venetian]); mantello (cloak [Italian]); rasum (cassock [Latin]).]

28. Biris, op. cit., 1066-8.

29. Loukatos, op. cit., p. 234.

30. Ibid., pp. 234–5; Biris, op. cit., 1130.

31. Biris, op. cit., 1134.

32. Ibid., 1069.

33. Ibid., 1132.

34. Biris, 13-14 V.Rotas, , Theatro, no. 10 (July-August, 1963), 31.

35. Politis, Ph., (Athens, 1938), II, pp. 147, 209 Google Scholar; Rotas, op. cit., 31.

36. Politis, op. cit., pp. 147, 209.

37. Vogt, A., ‘Le théâtre à Byzance et dans l’empire du ive au xiiie siècle: I, Le théâtre profane’, Revue des questions historiques, CXV (1931), 264, 284 Google Scholar; Mavrogordato, J. N., ‘Greek Drama in Crete’, JHS, XLVIII (1928), 75–6 Google Scholar. There is only one record (a manuscript of the thirteenth-century Palatine Passion) of a performed drama apart from mimes in Greece from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries; from 1453 to 1830 Greece had no professional class of artists apart from its dancers and mimes.