Gefou-Madianou - Cultural Polyphony and Identity Formation (1999)

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Cultural Polyphony and Identity Formation: Negotiating Tradition in Attica

Author(s): Dimitra Gefou-MadianouSource: American Ethnologist, Vol. 26, No. 2 (May, 1999), pp. 412-439Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/647293 .

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culturalpolyphonyand identityformation:negotiatingtradition n Attica

DIMITRAGEFOU-MADIANOU-Panteion University

At the turn of this century, standingat the top of Hymettusmountain which separatesAthensfrom the Messogia region, Dimitrios Kambouroglou, an eminent Athenian historian andnationalist who belonged to the Athenian elite, looked toward Athens and exclaimed, "Thecityof spirit [Reason],"and then, turningtoward the Messogia region, he said, "thecountryside ofspirits [alcohol and implied debauchery]" (1959[1889], 3:97; 1920:12).1Inthis article, I explore the ways in which stereotypical representationsof a ruralmarginalgroup expressed by a hegemonic urban elite may serve as a claim by both groups on nationaltraditionas well as a basis for the subordinates' continuous or even furthermarginalization. Inthis way, a double dialectic of tradition is revealed: on the one hand, in conjunction with theirown projectof nationalismthe elite have reworked elements of the subordinates'folktradition,thus denying them a position of equality; on the other hand, the latter have employed similarchunks of folklore and elite visions in order to demonstrate their own equal participationin theprojectof nation building.This double dialectic unfolded throughout a long and eventful period that started in thesecond half of the 19th century when the Greek nation-state was still in the making andcontinues until today. As it were, the very fact that the projectof Greek nationalismwas basedon the classic Greek civilization and on the appropriationof folk models that provided linkswith the Byzantine times and the Greek resistance against the Ottomans meant that all otherimages, traditions, and practices that were not in accord with this were either rejected orbelittled. Inthis process, ruralgroups indeed offered such glorifiedfolk elements, butwere also

Over the past century the Messogitic communities of Attica have been seen by theAthenian elite as degenerate and marginalgroups because of two elements centralto their culture: the Arvanitic language and retsina wine. These elements wereperceived as undermining the elite's project of constructinga homogenous Greeknation-state based on links to the ancient Greek language, a classical spirit,and aglorified vision of the folk. This dismissive discourse has influenced the waysMessogites have viewed themselves as well as the Athenians, and hasgiven rise toa counterdiscourse. In this article, I attempt to follow the dialogue between thedominant Athenian discourse and the Messogitic counterdiscourse as these havebeen transformed over time. Arguing that traditions and identities are not onlyconstantly invented in an ongoing negotiation process, I also seek to show howsymbolic elements can be appropriatedby differentgroups and invested with novelmeanings and significance in what Icall a double dialectic of tradition.However,Icontend, thisprocess does not necessarily improvethe subordinates'position, butmay lead to their furthermarginalization. [double dialectic of tradition, identity,nationalism, local versus national, Arvanitic language, retsina wine, Greece,ethnicity]American Ethnologist26(2):412-439. Copyright? 1999, American AnthropologicalAssociation.

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characterized by other traitsthat simply did not fit this vision of the elite thus makingthem evenmore marginal. As I will show, this trend of marginalization and hidden dependency is stillevident despite present-day conditions of intensified urbanization and economic cooperationbetween the urban center and such marginalized communities.Asthe quote inthe beginning of the articlesuggests, since the late 19th centurythe Messogiticcommunities have been representedby the Athenian elite as culturallydegenerate, uncivilized,and marginal.2This view was, and still is,3based on the Arvanitic language (known throughoutGreece as Arvanitika),which is Albanian idiom interspersed with some Greek and Turkishwords, and retsina,a popular resinated white wine. These two Messogitic cultural elements theelite saw as underminingtheir projectof building a homogeneous Greek identityfor the newlyestablished nation-state. At the same time, this negative portraithas influenced the way theMessogites have viewed themselves and their relation to Athens, as well as deepening the riftbetween wealthy and poor members of their communities. On the partof the Athenian elite,this dismissive view has taken differentformsat differenttimes with varying intensitydependingon the sociopolitical situation. There has been a constant and dynamic negotiation of definitionsin which the two groups borrow and lend objects of the present and images of the past. Theinterests and motives that condition this dialogue between a dominant Athenian/nationaldiscourse and the Messogitic one as they have been transformed over time are examined here.It should be emphasized, however, that the case under consideration has never beenexpressed or understood in terms of a "minority problem."As a matter of fact, the Arvanitika-speaking ruralcommunities in Messogia have managed to construct their identity within theframeworkof the Greek nation-state. Despite their marginalizationby the Athenian elite, thesecommunities have somehow managed to keep their language and otherelements oftheir culturewithout perceiving themselves or being perceived by dominant Others as constitutingan ethnicminority group within Greek society (cf. Schein 1975).Over the past decade an extensive anthropological and historical literature has centered onthe theme of tradition that is closely related to the concepts of identity, nationalism, ethnicity,and the making of history.4Perhaps, the most well known and influentialanthology of articleshas been that by Hobsbawm and Ranger(1983), which has inspired a series of studies on the"invention,""reinvention,""invocation,""objectification,"and "variation"of tradition.

Among such studies there are some, especially in the United Kingdom, that examine "localidentity"as this is constructed and practiced primarilyfrom the "inside,"that is, how localpeople experience and representa sense of commitment to a particular place.5 Iwould think,though, thatby doing this, these studies tend to minimize the importance of "outside"discoursesin this identity-making process and to present local communities as ifthey existed more or lessin a vacuum. Tryingto overcome this, in the presentarticle I seek to show how in the processof learningand validatingtheir identity-through socialization, educational system, in interac-tion with and in opposition to dominant groups or hegemonic discourses (statist, relig-ious)-people are continually transforming t,despite the fact thatthey (andoften the researcheras well) see identities as stable (Borofsky 1987:2). In this, I follow Barth, who has alreadysuggested thatthe critical focus of investigatingthe cultural content of ethnicity should be "theethnic boundary that defines the group, not the cultural stuff that it encloses" (1969:15), and Ialso attemptto see these boundaries as pliant and fluid (Barth1994; Strathern1981, 1982).6A consequence of this is that Icannot see identities as things that areexperienced in the sameway by all members of a community nor, for that matter,as things that are always positivelyperceived. To a certain extent, what may communicate such an impression of internalhomogeneity is Hobsbawm's concept of "inventedtradition."Hobsbawm has defined inventedtradition as "aset of practices . .. and rules ... of a ritualor symbolic nature" hat instillcertainvalues and normsby repetition, thereby implyinga "continuitywith the past"(1983a:1). Inthis

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way, invented traditions "use history as a legitimatorof actions and cement group cohesion"(1983a:12, emphasis added).I certainly agree with Hobsbawm's general thesis. However, the ethnographic example thatI analyze in this article leads me toward emphasizing another side of the problem, that ofintragroupvariabilityin relationto the objectification of a tradition. More precisely, in Messogiadifferentpopulation groups have tended to develop hierarchicallyperceived aspects of identity.This means that in issues such as national or ethnic identitythere may be a more encompassingfeeling of sameness, while in others, forexample local ties, identitycan be more personally anddiversely expressed.

Identity herefore should be seen as historicallyconstructedthrougha constant interplaywithan Other who can be either internal or external. This means that within any group of peopleidentity may have both positive and negative aspects, and, what is more, that there may bemultiple individual perceptions and definitions of what constitutes the group's identity andtradition. Itis what Taylor(1991:33-34) calls the "dialogicalcharacter"throughwhich humansare able to understand themselves and hence are able to define their identity. Identity thenshould be understood not as an object that can be defined outright,but rather as an ongoingprocess whereby relations of power, authority,and authenticityare negotiated and formulatedwithin particularsocial and political contexts, both between different groups and betweendifferent individuals within a particulargroup.In other words, an interplay between identity and tradition is carried out. Traditions areaspects of identitywithin a historical context. Following Bloch's discussion of Merina identityand how this represents the way they "think of themselves, their body, their mind, theirknowledge and their material culture as partof historywhich began before they were born andwill continue after their death"(Bloch 1992:5), Iexamine the interactionor dialogue betweenlocally based practicesof identityand external,often hegemonic discourses of national (ethnic)tradition. This dialogue takes place in a broad arena where local traditions and images of selfare in constant interplaywith outside forces and discourses in an ongoing process of identityconstruction.

Another issue is that since identities are said to be created or invented they have been oftendefined as lacking authenticity, as not being "real."Thus, while on the one hand, culturalrepresentationsare defined as productsof a particularsociopolitical context, that is, as inventedtraditions,on the other hand, it is implied that a "real" radition,history,or identitydoes exist:a premise arising from a positivistic approach and as such just as "invented." Indeed, in hisstudy of the "scheduled monuments" of the town of Rethemnos in Crete, Herzfeld emphasizesthat there can be no "real"past and that all traditionsare "invented,"negotiated, and contestedin order to meet overlapping local interests(1991:12,205). Inshort,the existence of "realpasts,"or "genuine, autocthonous traditions" s untenable. All traditionsare "invented"(HandlerandLinnekin1984; Wagner 1981 [1975]:51).

Wagner (1981 [1975]) seeks to trace invention back to its symbolic origins. He emphasizesthat all culture is invented by the development of social symbols7-language, education,ritual-which make it comprehensible and commonly shared.8 He notes that in order tocommunicate about self in ways that are meaningful to the Otherone takes partin a dialecticalprocess that defines not only the self, butthe Otheras well. Thisprocess of communication andself-definition is a creative process that defines contexts which provide "a collective relationalbase" (1981:40) and can be defined as culture itself (1981:35-36). And though Wagner doesnot explicitly refer to the process of group identity formationhe still implies that culture is themain agent of identity.That is why his work is importantto the arguments made in this article.In the Greek ethnographic literatureon identity construction, the focus has been primarilyon gender,9 with some attention to the links between gender and national identity?1and issuesrelatedto the assimilation and identityformationamong Asia Minorand EasternThrace Greek



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refugees of the 1922 war between Greece and Turkey.1 It is only relatively recently that theemphasis has shifted to ethnic groups and to the political negotiation of national versus localidentities.That was due to the post-1989 increased movements of ethnic groups (ofGreekoriginas well as non-Greek economic migrants)into the Greek state, the recent realignments in theBalkans after the collapse of formerYugoslavia, and the conflict raised over the "Macedonianissue,"12as well as the proliferating iteratureon European diversity and issues of multiple andimagined identities.All these developments have revealed with increased intensitythe problems inherent in thehistorical basis of Greek national identityand, more specifically, the manner in which the fluidand highly germane concept of ethnic identity has been perceived by the nationalistdiscourseas a frozen and absolutely fixed entity. A number of recent studies, both historical andethnographic, have dealt with these issues and have approached the various versions of identityconstruction on a more diverse and fluid basis. Thus,the conception of Greeknessas an organicwhole thatencompasses the Greekethnos, 3 the state and the GreekOrthodoxy in one boundedunityhas proven to be particularlyproblematic, especially in what concerns religiousminoritiesin the context of the Greek nation-state (Pollis 1992), the study of GreekJews (Abatzopoulou1997), orthe content analysisof the Greektextbooks on the issue of national identity(Frangudakiand Dragonas 1997).Other studies have shed light on the official Greek historiographyby showing the way inwhich traditionmay be seen as a key element in the nationalistic folklore for the constructionof culturalcontinuity, as well as the way in which ethnic identity has been directly affected bythe process of nation-building (Karakasidou1993, 1997b; Mackridge and Yannakakis 1997).Yet, others have managed to show the interrelationsof ethnic identity construction not only atthe local and national levels, but also at the level of a transnational or global arena (Danforth1995).14 Lastly,a number of other articles have focused mainly on the local level and on theculturalprocesses throughwhich multiculturaland polyphonic groups have been adopted quiteeasily and were gradually assimilated into the local communities in Greek Macedonia sincethe beginning of the century (Agelopoulos 1993, 1997; Cowan 1997), or have resistedintegrationby presentingsome elements of their distinct identity(Karakasidou1997a;15Voutira1997).

What all these studies have shown is a pluralismin the ways local groups have managed theiridentities in relation to other local groups and the Greek state (or even globally), and havecontested a number of terms and concepts-from "locals" (dopyi) versus outsiders (xeni) toGreekness versus national identity-which for a long time have been taken for granted. Also,these studies have contested the manner inwhich boundaries and relationsamong ethnic groupsare perceived and experienced locally, as well as the manner in which the national discoursehas influenced their construction and management of identity.Inagreement with the logic of the above studies, I intend to explore the interplaybetween adominant group that traditionally championed the nationalistic discourse and a subordinateruralcommunity that in certain respects did not quite "fit" n the elite's vision. ParaphrasingHobsbawm (1983a:14), the study of "invented tradition"cannot be adequately investigatedwithout careful attention to the study of nation building.

setting the stage: Athenians and MessogitesIn 1991 I was doing fieldwork in a semirural community in the region of Messogia,1625kilometers from Athens, where the population consists mainly of descendants of Albanian-

speaking Orthodox Christians who migratedfrom regions which today constitute Albania andsettled in Attica between the 14th and 16th centuries.17Inthe late summer of that year, Iwasinvited to a young informant'sname-day celebration. Inthe casual and merryatmosphere of



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Athanasia'shouse, young people from the area had fundrinkingretsinawine or whiskey. Manyof them were professionals or students at Athens University.The hostess herself was a lawyerpracticing in Athens. In the small hours of the morning one of the guests, Athanasia's cousinSotiris, put on a tape with Arvanitic songs, so he announced. Athanasia was surprised by thefact that some of her friendsand cousins knew the tunes already, and though she did not expressanything openly, I could see that she was feeling uneasy with the situation. As she put it, theneighbors might be disturbed by the loud music. In the meantime, the tape continued to playand had created an atmosphere with several people humming the tunes. Only a few couldunderstand what the words meant, while others asked Sotiris for translation;this he offeredinstantly. Everybodydanced in a way similar to the Kalamatianos,a popular Demotic Greekdance. I was amazed. Although Iknew thatthese people were "Arvanites," also knew that thiswas something they did not really display openly. LaterIfound out that Sotirishad bought thetape in Omonia Square, the most central place in Athens.Incidents like this, Irealized, had been takingplace quite often at thattime, especially amongyounger people,18and although some of them sensed thatthey were doing somethingthat couldcreate consternation and worry among older residents, it did not seem to bother them verymuch. With some of the local schoolteachers and other educated members of the community,however, things were slightly more complex as they were absolutely opposed to any expressionof Arvaniticculture,althoughthey themselves knew that language much betterthan the youngergenerations. The reasons for this became clear to me later.A few months before Athanasia'sparty,the crisis in southeasternEurope promptedmigratorymovements into the Balkans and tens of thousands of Albanians crossed the border, most ofthem illegally, to look for work in Greece. The majorityof them settled in Attica, the vast plainthat surroundsAthens, and more particularly n the area of Messogia where they were offeredwork in the fields. As Iwas able to observe, the Albanians could communicate with the localseither in Greek-since most of them had a rudimentaryknowledge of the language-or, andmost often, in Arvanitika.A short time later, when Greece got involved in the "Macedonianissue"-that is, the dispute between Greece and the FormerYugoslav Republic of Macedoniaregarding mainly the symbols and the name Macedonia itself-the local Messogites seemed(ostensibly, as will be seen) to have "forgotten"not only their "Arvaniticculture" but also thelanguage itself (Gefou-Madianou 1993a). As far as I can say, they stopped conversing inArvanitika at parties like Athanasia's as long as the crisis lasted-although they occasionallyused the language at home. A year later, at a conference organized by the Messogitic localfolklore society, an Athenian social scientist who made reference to the Albanian-speakingpopulations of Attica (i.e., the Messogites) angered the local mayor and other notables fromthecapital who retorted that there were no Albanian-speakingcommunities in Greece. In a wayhe was right in that Arvanitika is not widely spoken today, and, in any case, the Messogiticpeople have not felt themselves nor been seen by the state as a minority.19Such events made clear to me why Kambouroglou's1889 words, mentioned atthe beginningof the article, were still alive in the minds of the Messogitic people who knew the very wordshe had used and tried to refutethem in my conversations with them. Implicitly,there was anissue concerning their local identity and its relationto the Greek national identity, a problemthat was not always voiced directly there nor, perhaps, felt in the same way or with the samedegree of intensity by all members of the communities. As will be seen, this problem hasalwaysbeen there since the establishment of the Greek nation-state and since Athens became thecapital of Greece in 1834, encapsulating the ancient Greek spirit that focused among otherthings on Greek language. Undoubtedly the geographical proximityof the Messogitic commu-nities to Athens, the administrativeas well as ideological center of gravityof Greece, exacer-bated their situation as their linguistic and other distinctive characteristics were all the moreevident in their contrastwith those of the Athenians. Being furtheraway fromAthens,Arvanitika



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speakers in other partsof Greece were not as likely to experience the ambivalence and evendiscrimination experienced by the Messogites both in terms of severity and frequency.Until the 1950s, the economy of the Messogitic communities was largely self-sufficient andthe social life self-contained. Land ownership, however, was based on unwritten claims thatwent back to Ottoman times and thus most of the population was almost entirely dependentupon and vulnerable to Athenian merchants, politicians, and administrators Gefou-Madianou1992a). High levels of povertyand illiteracy,the lack of infrastructure, nd the late introductionof national insurance schemes also contributeddecisively to the subordination of the Messogitesto the Athenians. With the dramaticpostwarexpansion of Athens, which by the 1960s includedmore than one-third of the Greek population, trade relations between the Messogitic commu-nities and the city became stronger. This opened up the local economy, rationalized vinecultivation and retsina wine production, and made many families wealthier than ever before.Thisdependency, however, hasalways been there symbolically. As a consequence, the pettytradersfrom the Messogia who took their cartsof hay, vegetables, must,or wine to Athens wouldoften be ridiculed for their red noses, alcoholic breath, and poor command of the Greeklanguage. Itwas not uncommon forthem to be diagnosed as alcoholics as soon as they enteredan Athenian hospital for whatever reason. Truly,the Athenians have also been drinkingwine,but allegedly in a more moderate fashion (cf. Allen 1985). And then, as faras we know forthe19th century, they did not drinkonly retsina but other types of wines fromPeloponnese, as wellas beer. In a sense, this may have its significance for the argument as it alludes to the fact thatthe Messogitic wine producerswere not the main providersof wine forthe growing capital city;for this they had to wait until the 1930s.20It is only recently that these extreme distinctions between Messogites and Athenians havebeen considerably moderated-albeit not fully obliterated-as not only many Messogites areliving in Athens and many Athenians buying land in or near the villages of the Messogia.Moreover, retsina itselfhas acquired a positive social and political significance. Largely hroughthe expansion and growth of tourismand the Greek tourist industry,retsina has acquired a newcachet and has been identified as the characteristic Greek wine. Inaddition, since formalizingits relationship with the EuropeanCommon Market (now the European Union [EU])in 1981,Greece has been able to participate in the European and broader international markets withsuch "culturallyauthentic"productsas feta cheese and retsina,although at least for the second,its European phase was curbed in the late 1980s. To a largeextent thatwas due to the entrancein the EU of Spain and Portugaland subsequent pressureon Greece to increase the productionof quality wines (i.e., wines officially classed by the EU as Vins de Qualite Produits dans uneRegion Determinee or v.q.p.r.d [Gefou-Madianou 1992c]). Despite these positive changes,Messogites are still likelyon occasion to express feelings of inferiorityn relation to the Atheniansas if they were still living in Kambouroglou's "countryside of spirits."

Greek national identity and the challenges posed to MessogiticcommunitiesThis web of interlockingattitudes and practices that bringstogether the Messogitic commu-nities and the Athenians, while at the same time keeping them apart, can only make sense if itis placed within the wider political frameworkof nation building and identity articulation inGreece. Arvanitic language, retsina wine, the ancient spirit of Hellenism and the Greeknationalistprojectarebroughttogetherby history,a historyof modernAthens,of modern Greeceand Greek national identity.

the roots of the problem Greek national identity is a productof 19th-centuryconstructionof national identity rooted in a trulyancient past and a glorified version of the "folk."Negating



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novelty, this national identity invented a tradition based on what was defined as the authentichistory of Greece. In fact, Greece was the first southeastern European country that revoltedagainst the Ottoman Empire n 1821 and won its independence in 1830. Duringthe firstyearsof its existence the newly formed constitutional monarchy was placed under the "guarantee"of the "ProtectingPowers," Britain,France, and Russia (Clogg 1992:47). The Western powershad supported the Greek revolution, viewing the Greeks as the living ancestors of Europe'scivilization. Feeling compelled to live up to this image, the Greek intellectuals of the early andmid-i 9th century sought to prove themselves as "Greek"as the Europeans'conception. Intheearly years of independence, the issue at stake was the construction of a single nation, a singlestate, which would unifythe culturallydiverse, polyphonic and scattered Greek people withinthe Ottoman Empire (Clogg 1992:48; Herzfeld 1987:102; Kitromilides 1990:43; Kofos1990;104; Skopetea 1988:55, 96-98; Tsauossis 1983:16-17). What was needed was a senseof nationhood based on a common history, language, and folk images that could encompassall the people included within the original boundaries of the state and those perceived asappropriatefor inclusion in the future;in other words, a shared sense of Greek identity.2'This was accomplished throughthe constructionof an ancient common pastand an inventedtradition (cf. Anderson 1991:42; Hobsbawm 1983b:264). If the European and the Westernworlds' heritage was based on ancient Greek culture, as their inhabitantsclaimed, then theGreeks clearly had an "ancestral"rightto this heritage for the creation of their new modernnation-state (Herzfeld 1987:53).22 Similarly,this heritage helped to define them as a distinctethnic group in relationto other groups that had been or were still under Ottoman rule. Inthatsense, Greece served as the geographical location for Europe'sreified cultural heritage, as theland that gave birth to philosophy, democracy, and liberty, all of which were central to theproject of European modernity. Viewed this way, the land of Greece embodied the tradition,the pure Spiritof Western Civilization (see Tziovas 1985:265; Sant Cassia and Bada 1992:5;see also, Herzelf for a discussion of why modern Greeks are still considered "imperfectEuropeans"[1995:219]).23 This spirit,this tradition was cloaked with the folk costume of the19th-century ordinary Greek peasant who fought against the infidel Turkto regain control ofhis ancestral land. Itwas his image and folk practices that were wedded to the ancient wisdomand traditions that the white marbles of Attica exuded. It was to such kind of people that thevision of the elite was addressed or, to put itthe other way round, it was such people who couldcarrythe implications of the elite's vision. Interestingly, his vision was occasionally carriedtosomewhat extreme manifestations as, for example, the firstKingof Greece, Otto, of Germanorigin, who was installed by the Great Powers in 1833 wearing a fustanella (pleated skirttraditionallyworn by Greek men).24But on the whole, the glorificationof the folk followed theless extravagant, but equally ambitious, avenues of the Greek Folklore Studies. Based onGerman romanticism, Folklore Studies were established as an academic discipline by themid-19th century (Herzfeld 1982:13, 53).This view was most clearly promulgated by the educated Greeks of the diaspora in westernEuropesince the 18th century, in particulara group known as the "Fanariotes,"25 ho admiredthe Greeksof the classical period along with their language and philosophy. Deeply influencedby the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, they, and other elements of the diasporaintelligentsia,26 presented and promoted Greece as the land of the oppressed descendants ofthe ancient Greeks who were desperate for liberation. Not only did they stress the essentiallyGreek nature of European civilization, thereby influencing Europeans to support the Greekrevolution, but they also played a crucial role in the pre- and postindependence intellectualrevival of Greece. In their works they argued that the fundamental spirit of ancient Greekheritage had survived foreign invasions and subjugationto be passed down fromgeneration togeneration in the form of a Greekway of life, thought, and language that permeatedthose wholived on the land of the ancient Hellenes.



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Language was perhaps one of the most sensitive aspects of the emerging national identity,since the Greek of the 18th and 19th centuries was quite different than that spoken by theancients.27 Discussions by scholars and politicians alike dealt with the degree to which thespoken everyday language should be "purified" o resemble the ideal ancient Greek of Platoand the Attic dramatists.Such people maintained that since language defines cultural identity,and since the inhabitantsof Greece all spoke some formof Greek, they did exhibit a commontradition and sense of history that effectively made them a nation. Moreover, some of themsupported the view that the prime determining characteristic of the Greek people during theOttoman period was the Greek language in the context of EasternOrthodox Christianity.28 twas for this reason that the personification of the Greek folkthatwas mentioned above, that is,the Christianpeasant/fighterwho was clad in a "traditional" ostume, had to understand thelanguage of the Church and had to speak an identifiable idiom of Greek. Of course, that wasnot at all simple. The whole issue echoed similar arguments propounded by Europeanphilhellenes who had conceived and presented an idealized image of Greece based on ancientGreek heritage and language that in practice was not spoken by the ordinary people with adegree of fluency. Itwas againstthis backgroundthat katharevousa,29 literary"purifying"ormof language close to ancient Greek, was thought worthy and was declared to be the officiallanguage of the state.The geographical focus of this cultural heritagewas embodied in Athens, which became thecapital of the newly independent Greece in 1834. This choice symbolized the orientation ofthe new state toward the classical past, for even the name of Athens directly linked the thensmall-town capital of 2,500 inhabitantswith the glorious ancient city (Politis 1993:75).30 TheAcropolis of Athens, with the shattered marble remains of its Parthenon, overlooked the newcity and representedthe only indisputableethnic symbols at hand. Hellenism, finally, had foundin Athens its new ethnic center (SantCassia and Bada 1992:14; Skopetea 1988: 251).31 Andthose who came to settle in Athens, and especially those intellectuals of the diaspora who wereto make up the newly formed Athenian elite (SantCassia and Bada 1992:23),32saw themselvesas bearers of this spirit, responsible to uphold and representit.33It was this heritage that manyof the Athenian elite, of which Kambouroglouwas an illustriousmember, sought to define andimpose on a multicultural and polyphonic city and indeed on a multicultural and polyphonicnewly constituted Greek nation.34 Inthis attemptthey came eventually to criticize those whospoke languages other than Greek, such as the Arvaniticspeakers incommunities aroundAttica.This sensitivity to language was belatedly aggravatedwith the publication of Jacob PhilippFallmerayer'sinfamous work (1860) in which he contested the ancient heritage of the modernGreeks, choosing to focus on the perceived effects of a Slavic legacy. For hatreason he arousedoutrage among the Greek intellectuals, since by questioning the "purity" f the Greek race, thatis, their Greekness, he also challenged the very reason for the existence of Greece as a newnation-stateand, consequently, the Greeks'Europeanorientation(Skopetea 1988:172). Thoughuntil then the Greekness of the Arvanitic-speaking populations of Greece had not beenquestioned, with Fallmerayer'spublications this graduallychanged, and in the closing decadesof the 19th century their existence was completely negated. This negation was also reinforcedby the rise of the irridentistprogramof the Megali Idea(GreatIdea)(1844-1922), which aspiredto unite, within the bounds of a single state with Constantinople as its capital, all the areasassociated with Greek historyor the Greek race and to embrace all Orthodox Christians of theex-Ottoman Empire(Clogg 1992:48).35At the turn of the century, then, the combined forces of Fallmerayerand the Great Idea hadbrought to the fore the question of who were the real Greeks. Since the founding precept uponwhich the new nation had been built was the Greek language, it was implied that real Greekswere only those populations who spoke this language and thus could identifythemselves withtheir ancient roots. Obviously, fromthat perspective the Arvanitic-speakingcommunities of the



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Messogia were in an inferiorposition as their language, Arvanitika,was an Albanian idiom witha mixture of some Turkish and Greek words. This language raised the question of the veryheritage upon which the new nation's identitywas being forged. Even vernacular Greek, withits Turkish and Slavic influences, was condemned since language had to be and indeed was"purified"with the advent of katharevousa (Herzfeld 1987:53-55; Mouzelis 1978:136).For the Arvanitic-speaking populations of the Messogia, however, language was not thedefinite criterion of their Greekness. For hem, attributessuch as adherence to EasternOrthodoxChristianity,a sense of localism, and ties to the land and kinship,attributes hat had long servedas cohesive forces within the Ottoman Empire, provided a sense of ethnic unity and identifiedthem as Greeks. They felt they could trace their ancestry back many generations and still befound to inhabitthe same land: Attica.And, indeed, there is enough historical evidence to provethat such populations were inhabiting Athens and the surrounding villages in the Attica basinworking as farmersor as mercenaries for the Dukes of Athens long before the establishment ofthe Greek nation-state and the declaration of Athens as itscapital (see Ducellier 1994; Jochalas1971; Panayiotopoulos 1985). Accounts by travelersof the 18th and early 19th century notetheirpresence among othergroups inthe area (Pouqueville 1820:20). So, too, inworksby Greekwritersof the mid-1 9th century, Arvanitic-speakinggroupswere described as one among manythat made up the Greek nation-state (see, forexample, Byzantios 1953 [1836]).

Many of these groups identified with the Greek nationalists and actively participated in the1820s war of independence not as separate groups, but as Greeks, clearly distinguishingthemselves from the non-Orthodox (Muslim) Albanian populations. Although they couldcommunicate with the Ottoman Turkish-Albanians who were fighting against the Greeks(Skopetea 1988:188-189), they were not identified nordid they identifythemselves as Albani-ans, calling themselves "Arvanites"nstead.36When the warforindependence was over in 1830,these Albanian-speaking Orthodox Christians were embraced as citizens by the newly estab-lished Greek nation-stateas they constituted a significant percentage of the population and thearmed forces. Afterall, in terms of appearance, too, the Arvanites were indistinguishable fromthe rest of the population. The aforementioned folk image of Greek peasantry fitted themperfectly. Ironically perhaps, it was then that the dismissive attitude based on language that Idiscussed earlier made itselfdistinctly felt: whatever integration here was it had to be based onthe "fact" hat these populations were Greek, nothing more, nothing less.

the recent past An element that complicated the mattereven more was the success of othernationalistic movements throughout the Balkans which, among other things, resulted in theestablishment of the states of Serbia in 1882, Bulgariain 1908, and Albania in 1912. Until thattime the Albanian-speaking populationsof Greece were "nationallyhomeless," something that,despite the problems presented above, facilitated their identification with the Greek State(Skopetea 1988: 187-188). Now their position became even more precariousas they could beeasily identified with the newly established state of Albania, at least as far as language wasconcerned. A change for the worst is clearly reflected in parliamentarydebates of the period,in circulars of the Ministryof Educationand in universityspeeches. And though some scholarsand politicians thought differently,forthe majoritythe dominant issue was language.Those speakers of Arvanitikawho were living in or near the capital came under greatercriticism since their presence allegedly embodied the infection that contaminated the purityofthe ethnic heritage.37Thus, some decades later,during the dictatorshipof August 4, 1936, thecommunities of Arvanites sufferedvarious forms of persecution at the hands of the authorities,though during the 1940s their position improved somewhat as their members helped otherGreek soldiers and officers serving in the Albanian front. Later,during the 1950s, 1960s, andearly 1970s, especially duringthe yearsof the military unta(1967-74), their lotwas undermined



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once more as the Greek language, and especially katharevousa during the junta, was activelyand forcibly imposed by the government as the language of Greek nationality and identity.At the same time, however, a shift in emphasis can be discerned from the political and ethnicaspect of the Athens-Messogia relationshipas it became more commercial. No longer viewedas a threat to national cohesion or a diluting element to the nation's character, the Arvanitesinsteadwere seen merely as backward, narrow-minded,drunken peasants whose language andwine culture reflected their unenlightened, ignorantstate.And in a sense, it is true that up to the 1960s the Arvanitic communities of Messogia wereessentially endogamous communities of subsistence agriculturalistswhose main product waswine. Eventoday, although the communities are in close contact with the GreaterAthens areaand its modern urbanculture, the ownership of houses and vineyards, the cultivation of grapes,and the production of retsina wine constitute the core elements of Messogitic identity (Gefou-Madianou 1992a). Should a Messogitis cease to own even a small vineyard norto produce evena small barrelof wine for household use he would cease to be considered, even in his owneyes, a trueMessogitis-though he mightstillacknowledge hisorigins. Equally,for women sucha core element of theirMessogitic identity is the sweet wine (glyko krasi),which is exclusivelyproduced by them (see Gefou-Madianou 1992a:121-123).Thus, similarly with the past, thevines and nurturingof the fermenting must are very importantcomponents of the Messogites'identity. They drinkthe wine they produce on all occasions: at festivals, as medicine, to ensuremale progeny, inChurchrituals,as food. And as the supremeexpression of commensal relations,men drinkretsinain coffeehouses and in their cellars (Gefou-Madianou 1992a).

Houses, family barrels, and vineyards, and even each separate vine plant (koutsouro),areclosely associated with the male line. Though kinship is traced no more than seven degrees,vineyards go deeper than thatsymbolizing the family'sas well as man's identity.They constitutethe link with their ancestors and with the land where those ancestors lived, farmed, and areburied. Men personalize theirrelationshipswith theirvineyards, givingthem names that indicatewho in the family first created them. These associations between land, ancestors, vineyards,and the production and consumption of wine are furtherreinforced by the Messogites' notopenly expressed belief-yet occassionally practiced-that love making in the vineyards bynewly married couples confers blessing and prosperityto their household, and it is closelyassociated with fertility and male progeny (see Gefou-Madianou 1992a:125). Vineyards,houses, barrels,and wine arethe elements throughwhich Messogites experience and symbolizekinship, birth,death, production and reproduction, and self. Inshort,these are the symbols thatembody and express Messogitic identity.

This being the case, what we are faced with is the double dialectic of traditionmentioned inthe beginning of this article: an interlocking relationship of two antithetical visions of the Selfand the Other. The result is a paradox-the Arvanites are what the Athenians accuse them ofbeing, but for different reasons than the Athenians perceive; especially today, when many ofthem have been educated and acquired close linkswith the Athenian establishment, they cancriticize their critics in a manner that reveals the existence of a counterdiscourse based on thesevery central elements of language and retsina wine. So once more, and for purposes quitedisparate from those of their author, Kambouroglou'swords "thecity of spirit [Reason]and thecountryside of spirits"has come to sound to their ears as a bitterindictment of people who areproud of themselves and their culture.

from Arvanitic to Messogitic tradition: a counterdiscourseOne of the first impressions I had while in the Arvaniticcommunities of the Messogia wasthat many people consistently complained that the Athenians treated them as if they wereinferior. Many of my informants over the age of 65 described their humiliation during theirnational service when they were assigned the lowest-rankjobs, remembered their school days



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when many teachers believed them slow because their fathers were regular retsina winedrinkers,38 r how, when visitingAthenianhouses, they were asked to take off theirshoes beforeentering so as not to sully the living-roomfloor. Such instances might take place even today,albeit more rarelyand in a more refinedway, as contacts between Messogites (or residents ofthe area)and Athenians have become obligatorynow that Messogia has been converted into amore or less integral part of the capital's expanding economy and polity.39At any rate, thisintegration has followed the time-honored model of patron-client relationship, with manyAthenian merchants serving as godfathersto their clients' families (see Tsoukalas 1984:52-53;1996:65-68).

But as greater numbers of Arvanites have started receiving more than just a rudimentaryeducation, they have become increasingly aware of and sensitive to such attitudes that,significantly, they link to and specifically focus on Kambouroglou's earlier-mentioned words.To a certain extent, it is these words that provide a basis for their counterdiscourse. Moreprecisely, after World War II a heroic discourse developed aiming at closely linking theRevolution for Independence in 1821 with the origins and historyof the Arvanites. In anotherparticularlypoignant illustration of the double dialectic of tradition,this time from the point ofview of the subordinates, a number of educated individuals, retired school teachers, and civilservantshave been publishing books that focus on local Arvanitic traditions the rootsof whichwent back to ancient, Byzantine, and in some instances even preclassical periods as well (seeGerondas 1984; Hatzisoteriou 1971; Kollias1983; Papanikolaou 1947; Soteriou 1951, 1956;Tsingos 1991[1939]). Biographies of local Arvanitic heroes have been written: heroes likeMitromarasand his troops who revolted againstthe Ottoman Turks n 1771, or Marcos Botsaris,a hero of the Greek Revolution of 1821, as well as lesser-known heroes like Yiannis Davaris(Hatzisoteriou 1971, 1973; Yiotas 1990). This heroic revolutionarydiscourse-Arvanites havea long historyas warriorsand mercenaries-aims to prove the Arvanites'"Greekness,"whichcounters Kambouroglou's dismissive rhetoric. After all, having repeatedly fought against theOttoman Turks and having helped save Athens and the city's monuments, they feel they havethe right o declare themselves even more "Greek" han the Athenians, who were urbaniteswithno knowledge of guns and fighting.At the same time, in the context of this heroic discourse the Messogitic communities havealso developed a systematic search for antiquities in the area. Temple walls, cemeteries, andinscribedmarble vases found intheir fields stand as evidence thattheirpresent-daycommunitiesare in some manner linked with those of ancient Greece. In this spirit the agrotowns ofMarkopoulo, Koropi,and Keratea trace their origins from the ancient Demos of Agnounton,Kropia,and Kefale respectively (Antoniou 1985:57-59, 1991:56; Papanikolaou 1947:17-19;Soteriou 1951:27). And many toponyms have been changed from Arvaniticlanguage to ancientGreek or Byzantine names. Thus, the village of Liopesi has been renamed Peania, from theancient Demos of Peania, Koursalashas become Koropi,and so on (Hatzisoteriou 1973:317).In this climate, some Arvanites invested the Greek Orthodox Church saint, Dionysis, withadditional meaning. Indentifyinghim with the ancient Greek god of wine and entertainment,Dionysos, they suggest that he-Saint Dionysis as they call him-actually planted vines andmade the firstwine in the area. Others have sought to prove that ancient Greek had its originsinancient Illyria which was roughlywhere Albania istoday) tracing,forexample, the etymologyof Poseidon, the ancient Greek God of the sea, to the Illyric(Arvanitic) tem words Potis (water)and Dan (Mother Earth).Poseidon was thus "the one who brings water to earth" (Kollias1983:163).

Despite all this, the period afterWorld War IIhas witnessed a decrease in spoken Arvanitika.The growth of the educational system and the reduction of illiteracy, coupled with the spreadof mass media were the most importantcontributingfactors. The national school system hasplayed an importantrole in educating the children of the area, and through them the whole



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family, in Greek national history as well as in ancient and modern Greek language. Yet thisformal educational system has notonly served to make the populations of the local communitiesparticularlyaware of the valued symbols of the dominant national discourse. Through thedevelopment and internal dissemination of the regional heroic discourse by the educated elite,the local population has also come to adopt or at least be aware of its "heroic past."Itshouldbe noted, however, that this local heroic discourse has been mainly expressed throughwritten,literaryworks created to represent Arvanites in a more acceptable and positive light to thoseoutside. Thus from inside the Messogitic communities, this heroic discourse is viewed andaccepted in differentways by the different local, "inside"groups.Well-off Messogitic families, both large land-owners whose vineyardsgo back many genera-tions and the more recently prosperous families who draw substantial income from localbusinesses, were the firstto adopt, albeit gradually,this heroic discourse, thereby nationalizingtheir tradition.Thisoutwardly directed discourse has been associated also with the future livesof their children who are receiving higher or universityeducation, and thus expect to acquirea different lifestyle, preferably in Athens. They avoid speaking the Arvanitic language, at leastin public, and ceased calling themselves Arvanites,choosing ratherto refer to themselves andtheir tradition as Messogitic. The language their parents spoke is no longer identified asArvanitika but as Vorio-EpirotikanorthernEpirotic).Similarly,the bilingual Arvanites of Atticaclaim to be Vorio-Epirotes-Illyrioi r Dorian-Epirotes(Hatzisoteriou 1986:432), tracing theirorigins back to distant ancient and mythical times.Most significantly, this discourse has been associated with progress and modernization.Though the wealthy outwardly directed Messogites continue to be involved with intensive andsystematic vine cultivation, they choose to sell theirgrapes to largewineries for the productionof standardizedretsina and nonresinatedqualitytable wine that, as has been mentioned earlier,is more competitive in the EU market. Many keep a small vineyard and at least one of theold-style barrels for household consumption (Gefou-Madianou 1992a). They have adopted anurban mentality, rejecting everything that is considered to be backward and parochial. This ismanifest in the ways they have built and decorated their homes, in the way they dress, in therecreational activities they choose to pursue, and in the eagerness with which they buyapartments in expensive areas of Athens as dowries for their daughters. In this context, theyhave begun referring o their village as a city and are in favorof the construction of a new roadthroughMount Hymettusthat will connect Athenswith Messogia, thus makingthe lattera virtualsuburb of the capital (see also Sutton 1988). Moreover, the fact that many Athenians from the1980s onward have bought land and built weekend homes in the region has only contributedto the wealthy Messogites desire to emulate them. And it is not only these Athenian weekenderswho have moved into the area opening itup to outside influences. Beginning inthe 1970s largenumbers of internalmigrantsfrom other regions of Greece have settled in the area looking fora better future near the capital. These migrantswork in Athens and constitute a large partof thelabor force in nearby factories. Today, these "foreigners," s the locals call them, constitute fullyone-third of the total population of the Messogia. The once closed, inward-lookingcommunitiesare becoming increasingly more integratedwith and influenced by the capital and the largerGreek nation-state.

These changes have been accepted by the wealthy Messogites, who have put some of thesedevelopments to their advantage, mostly through their involvement in the production ofstandardized wines, as well as the real estate market. By contrast, those less well off, the"self-made" household owners with small plotsof vineyard lands, have reactedquite negativelyto this influxof outsiders. They consider themselves "true"Messogites, forthey were born andstill live in the region and are still actively involved in the vine cultivation and retsina wineproduction, rejectingmodern methods. They see themselves as the rightfulowners of the villageand view the newcomers ("foreigners") s the ones who have broughta number of unwelcome



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changes to theircommunities, seriouslythreateningtheircharacter. Inconversations,these localpeople express a sense of loss, a deterioration of values and way of life. Older people, especially,express distress:"Weused to know everyone in the village. Everybodysaluted you inthe street.Now, you go in the square and it's full of strangers."These villagers also remark that thedistinction between city and village is less markednow as houses, shops, and factories line themain road from the Messogia to Athens. As they say, "Youdon't know anymore where the citystops and the countryside with vineyards begins. We used to be pure, vineyard cultivators andretsinaproducers. Now, people who move to Athens sell theirvineyardsand strangers destroythem to build houses instead. We don't know what we are anymore."

Together with the weekend homes of wealthy Athenians in the village, all these businessfacilities can be seen as embodiment of a furthermarginalizationof Messogia, this time in termsof space.In reaction to such changes, these less well off Messogites have developed a romanticdiscourse that turns inward, to the history of their villages. This discourse is based on theirvineyards. As "trueMessogites" they nostalgically describe the old days when Messogia wasexclusively a region of vine cultivation and retsina production. Their representations differstrikinglyfrom those of rich Messogites, for they are based on locality, land, each individualvine plant and its cultivation, and the hardships of past life. The term "trueMessogites" hasachieved symbolic status. But as such it has also achieved a compelling moral force in thestruggleof the Messogites to maintain control over their vineyards. One informant,now in hisseventies, who still produces his own retsinawine, butwho used also to work in the vineyardsas a wage laborer with his brother,told me,

We wereworking n thevineyardsromsunrise o sunset.Our food was a piece of bread,olives,andretsina.Wewereworkingrygopatiharvestingndpressinghegrapes n thesameday]whenmybrotherdied. Hewentdown to themust ankandwaspoisonedbythefumes.He lefthiswifeand childrenwithno money,no socialsecurity, o pension;nothing.Butmysons and his worked ogether ndwe keptmyfather's ineyard.We didn't ell it. Nowpeoplefromoutsidecome anduproot ur ather's inesinorderto build heirvillas.When they referto their own communities, these less well off Messogites experience a senseof belonging "inside."They contrast this with the term outside when they referto Athens or the

non-Messogitic world. This "inside"world refersspecifically to those people who belong to orclaim kinshipwith the vine cultivatorsand retsina-producing Arvanitic-speakingfamilies. Thistype of village endogamy in Messogia among this population has remained high as long as thevine cultivation and wine production followed the traditionalways of production. Today, withthe introduction of bottling facilities and standardization processes, this practice has beenreduced in intensity and scope (Gefou-Madianou 1992c). "TrueMessogites" have to a certainextent preserved the virtue of a closed network of relations (friendshipand mutal assistance)among the retsina-producingfamilies. They usually refer o this by saying "we are one hundredcousins in the village with the same surname,"an expression that has both genealogical andsymbolic overtones. These "trueMessogites"view theirvillage as a clean, hospitable, welcom-ing place, where people know how to drink and have fun. Their katoyia (cellars) andcoffeehouses are unique places where producers share retsina wine and achieve transcendencethrough kefi, a state of merriment and cheerfulness usually associated with the consumption ofalcohol. The outside world belongs to the skliades ("bourgeoisie" n Arvanitika),hat is, to thosewho they feel look down upon them: Athenian merchantswhom they view as exploiting them,bureaucratswith whom they have difficulty in communicating, and weekenders and touristswho are threateningthem with the changes they bring. Inshort,"trueMessogites"consider theAthenians to be sly merchants, with an educational superioritythat provides only a superficialveneer that maskstheir essential immorality.They reverseinthis manner the accusation of moraland cultural inadequacy to accuse in their turn the Athenians of a type of modern, urban moraldegeneracy.



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The well-off Messogites, while agreeing in the first instance with this view of Athenians, areincreasingly adopting and identifyingwith many of the bourgeois Athenian values in a bid foracceptance. For this reason, well-off Messogites use the "inside"/"outside"opposition in abroader and more fluid sense. Although, as vineyard owners and retsinaproducers, they belongto the "inside" world of the Messogites, they also belong to the "outside"world through abroader network of relations, both in Athens and abroad. Moreover, in contrastto the less welloff Messogites, their vested interestsin loans forthe systematic cultivation of the vineyardsandstandardized production of wine necessitates close ties both with the ministries in Athens andEUoffices in Brussels (Gefou-Madianou 1992c). But, in a sense, these are two branches of thesame monetary as well as moraleconomy since both groups,the more affluent and the less welloff, construct their self-image vis-a-vis each other and the Athenian outsiders in terms of thepolitical significance that vine cultivation and retsinaproduction have acquired at the presentjuncture.On the one hand, well-off Messogites are interested in preserving this image of authenticitybecause through tourism(and the publicity it brings)an increase in their wine sales is observed.Through "tradition"they proclaim their reputationas "a pure wine-producing village" and inthisway push the Greek wine industry owardmore standardizationand areable to secure loansfrom the EU. In other words, they apply modern economics to an invented hegemonicwine-growing tradition.40If anything, through them, as well as through similarly successfulproducers from other regions, Greece is seen as a wine-producing country on a parwith therest of Southern Europe and France. On the other hand, for the less well off Messogites whocannot compete at the level of industrywith the more affluent members of their communities,the situation is different. Not only are they marginalized in space by invading Atheniansas hasbeen suggested earlier, but they are also marginalized in an economic sense by their moreaffluentcovillagers. At least in this relatively pure form, this is a new seam of marginalizationthat did not really exist before. Still, though, these less well off Messogites recognize inthemselves another streakof significance that ties them to the polyvalent symbol of contempo-raryretsina: are they not, afterall, the "true"bearersof the Messogitic retsina"spirit"?Aretheynot those-nay, the only ones-who continue to be "traditional"vine-cultivators and retsinaproducers as they have always been, those who continue to strive to live up to their traditionas "true Messogites," maintaining their forebears methods of vine cultivation and retsinaproduction so as to give retsina its cherished "traditional"halo?

So, despite these two distinct and separate centers of tradition,what in the end linksboth thewealthy and the less well off Messogites, those illiterate and educated, younger and older, aswell as those living in the village and those visiting regularly, is the retsinawine and the careand cultivation of the vines. Throughthem the Messogites construct their present by referringto a past associated with ancestral vineyards (koutsoura)and wine production. And this worksat two levels: first, hrough itthey areable to claim autochthonous rights o the land;and second,at another level, through the commensal consumption of wine and the exchange relations itentails (kerasma)they recreate the authenticityof their community's spirit. Throughcontinuedcultivation of the vineyards and productionof Messogitic retsinain the manner of their parentsand grandparents,the Messogites have kept their "tradition" nd their identityalive. Butat thesame time, and with a sense of irony perhaps, these core elements are also what linkMessogiato Athens.

the spirit of Athens and the spirit of Messogia: negotiating traditions andappropriating symbols

In what has preceded I have shown how the Greek national and the Messogitic identitieshave been constructed and transformedover time as separatebut also interactiveentities. Now



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Iexamine in more detail what could be called a conjunction of symbols used in the creationof each of these identities in the process of thisconstantdialogue between Athens and Messogia.Of course, it has already been shown thatthis dialogue brought togethertwo partnerswho wereunequal: on the one hand, the Athenian elite whose hegemonic/national discourse imaginedan identitythat facilitated the creation of a new nation-state based on an ancient culturalpast,and in this way they negated what the Arvanitic communities of Messogia representedwhile,on the other hand, as a result of this hegemonic discourse populations of these communitiesbecame conscious of themselves, thereby creating their own identity in conjunction with theone imposed upon them from the outside.It was within this ongoing dialectical process that Athenians again turned to the Messogia(among other areas) in search of an authentic folk Greek tradition-the double dialectic oftradition revisited.The rapidurbanizationprocess beginning in the 1960s resulted in a massivegrowthof the population in Athens by 1980. Formany Atheniansthis contributed substantiallyto a sense of alienation in termsof identity.4'Greece's entry into the EUin 1981 furthererodedtheir sense of identity, and the search for an authentic folk Greek tradition became morecompelling. EUmembership secured Greece's status as a Europeannation, but it also precipi-tated a new awareness of the need for a culturaldistinctiveness, a trend also evident throughoutEuropewith the increasing interest,promotion, and glorificationof ethnic and cultural identitiesin the wake of the homogenizing forces of the EU.Thequest forauthenticityand distinctivenessis often based on "ethnic anxiety" as Fisher(1986) calls it, reflecting a threatexperienced byWestern populations in the postmodern world, a threatstemming fromthe gradual homogeni-zation of society "by the erosion of public enactment of tradition, [and] by loss of ritual andhistorical rootedness"(1986:197). Athenians and the Greekstate, through its various organiza-tions and ministries(TourismOrganization and the Ministryof Culture), in their search for anauthentic tradition,looked to the rurallifestyleof Messogia, accepting and idealizing it in orderto create a new version of an authentic Greek culture in line with the changing views in Europe,a version stressing the old and durable, "an authentic tradition." Itseems that the ideas andideals of the older folklore studies were still prevalent,albeit in more subdued ways.This trend became stronger in the 1980s with the then-government'spolicy of decentraliza-tion and development of local administrations.These gave opportunities to local populationsto invent (or, should I say, re-invent)their identities in an attemptto express their ethnic andcultural distinctiveness without underminingtheir essential Greek national identity. InAtticaanArvanitic League was created along with a number of local cultural associations aimed topromote Arvanitic culture and tradition. The discourses assumed by these groups wove togetherthe local heroic and romanticdiscourses mentioned earlier. Itwas at this time too that Botsaris'Greek-Albaniandictionary, compiled in 1809 (Pouqueville 1826, as referred to in Jochalas1993:38-39), was finally published by the Athens Academy in 1980 (Botsaris1993 [1809]).Even the Messogites living in Athens began to appreciate their Arvaniticorigins. They contrib-uted financial support to the local associations and sponsored folklore publications as well asthe plans for a wine museum. Their attitudetoward the Arvanitic language began to change aswell and was no longer openly dismissive. This was evident especially among the educatedyoung Messogites, who, perhaps feeling more secure in their social position within widersociety, have rediscovered their grandfathers' anguage in a period when multiculturalismandthe term "ethnic" have become tokens of a Western-flavoredpostmodernitythat has reachedGreece of late.42Such people began to show an active interestin their past, attend lecturesthatdescribe and extol their Arvanitic traditions,and listen to tapes with Arvaniticsongs in socialgatheringslike Athanasia'spartymentioned earlier.43Also, they began to appreciate the retsinathat theirparentsproduced and drank-together, that is,with whiskey and other importedspiritsthat had graduallybecome symbolic of Greece's newly found affluence.



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Inthis climate, Messogitic retsina,one of the key characteristicsof which the formerdismissiveAthenian discourse had been constructed, came finally to be embraced by Athenians as asymbol of Greek identity,and thusMessogitic "backwardness"became emblematic of authenticGreek tradition. Already by the 1970s it had become fashionable for middle- and upper-classAthenians to produce homemade retsina kept in a barrel in their cellars. In this metaphorical"tavern,"as it was called, they would invite their friends to eat anddrink,imitating he Messogiticcommensal katoyia gatherings of the past (see Gefou-Madianou 1992a). Similarly, in thenumerous taverns of Plaka, the old city of Athens, at the foot of the Acropolis, amongst tourists,neon signs, and fer-forge (cast-iron)chairs, retsina would be looked upon as the authenticsymbol of Greekness. Butthis retsina is not quite the same as the Messogitic one. Rather,it is atype of "traditionally"produced wine that has been divested of its historically sanctionedcultural attributes and has been thrown into the world of commodities: commensality has beenturned into consumption (Gefou-Madianou, 1992a).It seems then that Messogites have finally gained the spirit they were missing-the lack ofwhich had marginalizedthem foryears-but only by inflection. A weapon used in a negotiationof identity, as retsina wine has been, came to be employed by both sides and thus became afloating symbol in a shared sea of meanings.44Besides, retsina now had political, ideological,and economic significance, for in the negotiation process of modern Greek identitywithin theEU it could serve as a currency with both national and European value-despite its beingovershadowed by quality table wines.All this can be seen in the way the Messogia region as a wine-producing locality has gainedpublicity and importance. Traditionalpractices in the production of retsina have been revital-ized and grape-harvestcelebrations and wine festivals have been introduced or reintroducedin the local communities. Sightseeing visits for tourists aimed at offering an experience oftraditional life by spending one day in an "authentic village" have been organized by theHellenic American Union and other such groups. These excursions include a visitto a traditionalMessogitic house with a loom, retsina-producing equipment, and katoyia, as well as visits toworkshops of the remaining coopers in the area. For its part,the Ministryof Culturesupportsthe establishment of a wine museum inthe area,while a widely readSundaypaper, Kathimerini,has repeatedly published articles on the life historyof a large Messogitic family that has beenproducing wine for three generations. The grandfatherwas a traditional retsina producer;thefather a systematic cultivator and retsinatrader,and the grandson is an oenologist educated inFrance, owner of a modern winery in the area where a number of differentwines are produced(Hatzinikolaou 1993, 1994). Inmany respects, this may be seen as an isolated example, but atthe same time it points toward the existence of a trend.

Messogites who were formerlylooked down upon because of theirproduction and consump-tion of retsina are now praisedfor it.The once deorgotary appellation, "wine-producingvillage"(krasochori),has now become a claim to authenticitythroughthe employment in common withthe Athenians of retsina'smultilayered symbolism. Thus, both the Messogites and the Atheniansconstantly invent and reinvent theirtraditionsin part by defining and redefiningwhat modernityand rural ife are;what the role of retsina is in the construction of the country'sEuropean mage;who the authentic vine cultivators and retsinaproducers are; how the inside gives meaning tothe outside and vice versa.

But one could argue that from another point of view, this idyllic picture hides a sleight ofhand at the level of representations.As retsina has become useful and profitablefor the Greeknation-state and for the tourist industry,at the same time it expresses a situation in which themajorityof the Messogites do not really control their economic interests and the manner inwhich they are represented. The implication of the machinations of mechanized wine produc-tion, as well as the image production that springs thereof, has indeed turned them intocommodities, a spectacle of tradition"appropriately"wedded to the needs and prospect of a



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southern European state in the process of modernization. This, more than anything else,illustrates the point I have introduced at the beginning of the paper concerning the furthermarginalization of subordinate communities through the process of inventing tradition. AsHerzfeld has argued (1997a:160), elites encourage the construction of stereotypes that offer abasis for both contesting and reproducing relationsof power at the local level.45

conclusionInthis article Ihave attemptedto show how in an ongoing process of negotiation between adominant national discourse and a regional counterdiscourse, symbolic cultural elements are

appropriatedby both sides and are imbued with new meanings and political significance. Thisleads to a constant invention of traditions and identities that become intertwined at differentnodes of social hierarchies, not only at the level of semiotics and representations,but also atthe level of material exchanges.

In the course of the 19th century, the emerging Athenian elite imagined an ancient Greekheritageas the sole basis upon which the new nation-stateof Greece could be constructed. TheAttica plain of Athens with itsAcropolis, the language of Plato and other ancient philosophers,and the Byzantine blend of Graeco-Christiancivilization were the cornerstones of that project.At the same time, this project entailed the negation and marginalizationof conflicting culturaltraits that characterized a number of groups located within the topos of the new nation thatdetracted fromthe purityof this construct: non-Greek languages, non-Orthodox religions, andeveryday practices. One such group comprised the Arvanitic-speakingand retsina-producingcommunities of the Messogia region, a short distance from the capital city of Athens. Indeed,these two elements of differentiation,the non-Greek Arvaniticlanguage and retsinawine, wereused by members of the Athenian elite as the basis of a dismissive discourse in which theMessogites were presented as drunkardsand backward peasants whose distinctly differentidentity undermined the cohesiveness of the Greek nation-state.

Being thus marginalized, the Messogites gradually developed a counterdiscourse that in anumberof ways sought to prove what forthem had always been true,thatthey too have alwaysbeen as Greek as the Athenians. Traditions were invented, Arvanitic language was mildly ormore forcefully suppressed and locally produced retsina became one of the principal tablewines for the growing population of the capital. Geographical proximity to Athens becamecultural proximity.Lately,however, the way in which this culturalproximitywas realized has reversed itscourseas the Athenians came to embrace retsinaand became more tolerant-at least at an academic

level-toward the Arvanitic language. And if the latterdid not become a celebrated traitofmodern Greek characterthe former did and very much so: throughout Europeand the Westernworld Greece is known for its retsina wine. This has had a profound impact on the way theMessogitic populations have begun to see themselves. Retsina has now become not a sign ofdifference, but a bond of similarityand acceptance. Chunks of folk culture and elite visionshave finally become joined issue in this double dialectic of tradition and contest betweensubordinates and urbanelite.

This raises some importantquestions. Isthis the same retsina as in the past?Has this been thesame retsina for all those concerned? The answer to both of these is no. Although retsina in theMessogia is kept in barrelsto be consumed by men in the coffeehouses and the katoyiain orderto achieve transcendence, it has been subtly transformed.At the beginning of the century thisretsinahad significance forthe local populationonly as an embedded aspect of the local culture.With the dismissive discourse retsina and its consumption assumed a different dimension.People became conscious of and hadto deal with the negative associations that retsinaassumedjust as lateron they were conscious of and dealt with its valued aspects. Similarly,the retsina



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consumed in the taverns in Plaka does not carrythe same symbolic load, nor does it serve tonegotiate between the same groups of people as the retsina consumed inthe Messogitic katoyia.This core characteristic of Messogitic and later Greek culture, retsina, which seems to haveremained unchanged over the years, has been continuously reinvented through its interactionwith Athens and the world beyond.

Butdoes not this fluidity,one may ask, give us a sense of an underlying inauthenticityand atthe same time-to use a term Ihave employed earlier-a sense of furthermarginalizationof theMessogitic communities? Can we not assume that this invention and reinvention of retsinaquestions Messogites' as well as Athenians' cultural authenticity and paves the way for theformer's integration into the latter's cultural milieu and expanding economy? Iwould tend toagree with this. On the one hand, traditions that are symbolically created (Handlerand Linnekin1984:286) are not inauthentic; rather, all traditions are invented, and this very process ofinvention is the creative process throughwhich cultures and cultural boundaries are constantlynegotiated. On the other hand, in this process of negotiation, as in every negotiation, things arelost and other things are gained. It is evident that the Athenian elite has not remained contentwith its own ancestral spirit, but has sought to embellish it with the spiritof Messogitic wine.But in doing so, it has kept itsown version of nationalism and culturalcontinuity in a dominantposition and has commodicized those from whom it has borrowed elements of the folk. Fromtheir side, some of the Messogites have been drawn closer to the dominant discourse and itsbearers, but the majorityhave not managed to attain what in theireyes is their rightfulpositionin the process of modernization of the Greek nation-state.

notesAcknowledgments.Earlierersions f thisarticlewerepresented t the 3rd EASA onference nOslo inJune1994 in a workshopentitled"Tradition nd MoralCreativity"nd in a seminarcalled "Issues nContemporary nthropology:Memory, dentity, radition,"rganizedbytheDepartmentfAnthropologyat UCL n November1995. I have benefited romdiscussions hat tookplaceon bothoccasions. Morespecifically, wouldlike o thankM.Bloch,K.Hastrup,A. Kuper,D. Miller,N. Redclift,M.Rowlands,Ch.Tilley,andCh. Torrenortheirpenetratingommentsandsuggestionsorimprovement.would also liketoexpressmygratitudeoG.GeorgiosAgelopoulos,.Allen,I.Antonakopoulou,M.Herzfeld,M.lossifides,E.Kalpourtzi,G. Makris,P. Millett,E.Papataxiarchis,h.Veikou,and the anonymous eviewers or theAmericanEthnologistorprovidingnsightfulommentsandcareful riticismsf the text.1. In Greek, "IChora tou pnevmatos ke i chora tou oenopnevmatos." In the Greek language the wordspirit pnevma) s closelyconnectedto Reason, ntellect,education,as well as religiousreasoningandspirituality. nfortunately,hepun spirit/spiritsoes not comeout well inEnglish.Moreprecisely,heterm

pnevmais used by Kambourogloun this andotherworks of his (see, forexample,1959[1889], 1:10;1959[1889], 2:11; 1923:157) interchangeablyith the terms"Hellenic pirit"Elliniko nevma),"Hel-lenic/Athenian spirit"(Elliniko/Athinaikopnevma), and "Hellenism"(Ellinokotita).Fora similaranalysis ofthe concepts "national oul,""Hellenicspirit"and "Hellenism"n Greek texts with an ethnocentricorientationtthe turnofthe19th andthebeginning f the20thcentury, eeTziovas1985.ThewordChorawith a capitalc meanscity, capitalcity, state, nation-state,while chorawith a lower-casec means ageographical rea,a localdistrict,egion, erritoryVostantzoglou988:84,92).Bothwords,however omefrom the same root,choros,which meansspace, area,room.The wordchoriates peasants), y whichKambouroglousedto calltheArvanitic-speakingommunitiesurrounding thensderives rom he wordchorio village),whichalsocomes from he same root.Kambouroglou1852-1942) in his Istoriaon Athinonwroteextensivelyaboutthe Albanian-speakingpeasantsAlbanophonoushoriates)ftheMessogia egion,who hadstigmatized tticawiththeirbarbaricnames andtoponyms 1959[1889],3:96).He describes hem as roughandvulgar, nhospitable,ntrepidwarriors,contrasting hem to the hospitable,amiable, sensitive, and smooth-tonguedAthenians(1959[1889],3:98-99).Athenianswere consideredby Kambouroglous superior ompared o the Mes-sogites or"their oice,their ook, heposeoftheirhead, hestructuref theneck,everythingwas notonlydifferent, utabsolutelyheopposite rom hoseof theAlbanian-speakingeasants"I oniton,to vlema,ithesis iskefalis, kataskevioulemou, apanta tanou monondiafora, lakatapliktikosntithetapota tonAlbanophononhoriaton]1959[1889],3:100).In act,KambouroglouonsideredMessogiteso be "inferiorbeings,somethingbetweenanimalsandhumans"katoterasaxeosonta,os ti metaxi oon keanthropon](1959[1889],3:177).Adismissive ttitudeoward heArvaniticanguagewasalsodisplayed, mongothers,by Gennadios 1926[1854]),Lambrou1896), and Sourmelis1862);but Kambouroglou as the most



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extreme and has proved more influential. It is his argumentsthat many modern authors from this regionattempt to refute (see, for example, Hatzisoteriou 1971, 1973, 1986; Kollias 1983; Papanikolaou 1947;Sotiriou 1951, 1956; Tsingos 1991 [1939]).2. This portraithas been and still is accepted by the Athenian population at large notwithstanding itsdramatic change in composition throughoutthe lastcentury,as the Athenian elite's dominant discourse hasso much pervadedtheir articulationof difference and creation of stereotypesthat other disparitiesstemmingfrom locality,historicalties or places of origin have been minimized. This is so, aswill be seen later,becausethe Athenian elite has traditionallyseen itself-and is seen by others-as the "purestrepresentatives"of theGreek national identitythatwas constructed in the 19th centuryduringthe nation-building process. Thus,although the expansion of Athens has brought many ruralpopulations to the capital and has created diverseand often contradictoryidentitiesof "Athenians" see, forexample, Faubion1993; Panourgia1995), Iwouldfeel comfortable in the following pages using the terms Athenians and Athenian elite interchangeably intheir relation to Messogites.3. For he problemof verb tenses and the all too common slippage intoan "ethnographic present,"whichI have tried to avoid here, see, among others, Davis 1992 and Dubisch 1993:284.4. See forexample Anderson 1991; Byron1986; Cohen 1982, 1985; Gellner 1983; Handler 1986, 1988;Hanson 1989; Keesingand Tonkinson 1982; Linnekin1983, 1990, 1991; McDonald 1990; Mewett 1982;Sahlins 1983; Thomas 1992; Tonkin et al. 1989; Vermeulen and Govers 1994.5. Such as Byron 1986; Cohen 1982; Mewett 1982.6. Inthis I follow Barth'smore recent work in which he maintains that "todaywe are more able, if wetry, to conceptualize culture as flux in a field of continuous, distributed variation"(1994:30). I also followStrathern's1981 and 1982 seminal works in examining boundaries and identity as fluid and in constantinteraction with "outside"discourses. Ialso follow JeanComaroff'sview of identityconstruction as a processof indigenous resistance against "outside"hegemonic forces of colonization (1985:24-25) and especiallyas an indigenous reaction against the colonization of consciousness (Comaroffand Comaroff 1992:235).Forsimilar studies focusing on women, descendants of slaves and peasantgroups, see Boddy 1989; Makris1996; Scott 1985, 1990.7. This idea is elaborated on by Turner,who suggests that this invented culture is represented throughmultivocal symbols that are "semantic molecule[s] with many components" (1979:239).8. On the other hand, Hobsbawm, who has actually introduced the concept of invention of tradition,interprets t as emerging ex nihilo. He maintains that a sharedfeeling that did not previouslyexist is created,and because of this, that is, because of the very fact of its creation, this shared feeling is experienced ascommon consensus (1983a, 1983b).9. See, forexample, Bakalaki1994; Campbell 1964; Dimitriou-Kotsoni1993; Du Boulay 1986; Dubisch1986, 1995; Friedl 1962, 1967; Gefou-Madianou 1992b; Herzfeld 1985, 1986; lossifides 1991, 1992;Loizos and Papataxiarchis 1991; Papagaroufali 1992; Papataxiarchis 1991, 1992; Seremetakis 1991;Skouteri-Didaskalou 1991 . Also forthe studyof gender-specific basis of social protestand resistancethroughthe analysisof death laments and the constructionof identities,see Caraveli1986; Danforth1982; Herzfeld1993; and Seremetakis 1990, 1991.10. See Herzfeld 1982, 1987; Dubisch 1993.11. For ethnographic research in Greece on the construction of identities as they emerge in thenegotiationof culturalsymbols that are crucial and meaningfulforthe unityof communities with populationswho areGreekMacedonians, refugeesfrom Asia Minor,or easternThrace,see Cowan 1990; Danforth1989;Gefou-Madianou 1985; Hirschon 1989; Michalopoulou-Veikou 1997.12. The "Macedonian issue" concerns the relations between Greece and the FormerYugoslav Republicof Macedonia as the latteremerged afterthe disintegrationof Yugoslavia.13. See also Herzfeld 1982:13, where the author argues that in the context of 19th-century Greeknationalism ethnos was taken to as a synonym of the "people" (Volk).14. A new element that Danforth brings in this work is the detailed presentation and analysis ofbiographical material. This approach has been later adopted by Van Boeschoten (1997) in her analyses oforal accounts and the examination of collective memory of civil war in a northern Greece region.15. These interaction processes may also be described as national enculturatrion where the role ofwomen as cultural mediatorshas been particularly mportant(Karakasidou1997a).16. The article is based on intensive fieldwork carriedout in the Messogia region from 1988-91 andintermittentperiods fromthen until today.17. Arvanitic-speakingcommunities exist in a number of regions in mainland Greece and the islands.Forhistoricaldata see Ducellier 1994; Jochalas1971; Panayiotopoulos 1985. Forethnographic analysisseeAlexakis 1988, 1993; Oeconomou 1993; Toundassakis 1995; Tsitsipis1992; Velioti-Georgopoulos 1996.18. This was aided by the politicalclimate of the 1980s, which allowed the expression of local "cultures"and "identities" in more open and "different"ways than before, and this was adopted by many localcommunities in Greece including Messogia. Thisprocess had been initiatedwith the fall of the military untaand the restorationof democracy in 1974.19. See also Mavrogordatos,who refers to them as "The Arvanites of Old Greece and especially Attica:Albanian-speaking Greek Orthodox villagers, with a long-standing Greek national consciousness"(1983:265). Karakasidou1992, 1993, 1997b), indiscussing the ethnic identityof Slavo-Macedonian groupsin GreekMacedonia, seeks to show how the nation-buildingprocess has negativelyaffected existing patternsof local culture. See also Danforth (1995) for a detailed analysis of the Macedonian conflict in its



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transnationalimension.However, he Arvanitic-speakingommunities f theMessogiaregionpresentadifferentcase since they have not felt themselves or been perceivedas anythingother than Greekcitizens-despite theirArvaniticanguageandculture.20. Afactor hatcontributedo it was thegrowingpopulationf thecapital, speciallywiththe influx fone andone-halfmillionAsiaMinor efugeesn the1920s andearly1930s and theconsequent ncreasenthe numberof tavernas.Athenians,however,viewed themselvesas drinkingmoremoderately.CertaingamesplayedbytheMessogites,uch as gettingAtheniansnebriated,ended o exacerbate heAthenianview that heMessogiteswerethemselvesheavydrinkers; hereas nfact,astheybelieved, heyknewthe"secrets"f retsina ndhow toprotecthemselvesromgetting runk. t houldalso be noted hatAthenians,andespecially heelite,were morelikely o drinkbeer,a habit ntroduced y KingOtto and his Bavarianadvisors ndmilitaryfficerswhentheyarrived n Greece n 1833 (Skaltsa 986).21. Actually,heconstructionf a singleethnoswas implicitnthisproject.Fora discussionof thetermethnosin Greece see Just 1989:71, 85). Fora culturaldefinition f ethnos,see Lekas1992. And fortheinterelations etweenethnos, heGreekChurch, ndthestate, ee Stewart 996.22. Herzfeld's eneral hesis on Greeknational dentity nd itsrelationshipo the buildingof modernGreeceandthe Greeknation-statesparticularlyermaneo thissectionof myarticle 1982,1987).Forananalysisof the reasons hatexplainthe modernGreek dentity risis,see Tsaoussis1983. Fora criticaldiscussion fGreeknationald

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Gefou-Madianou - Cultural Polyphony and Identity Formation (1999)