Da Lagkadikia al Mediterraneo: gli spazi delle migrazioni in Grecia

The geopolitical upheavals affecting the Middle East and North Africa at the beginning of the 21st century have created an arc of instability around the Balkan Peninsula, causing serious consequences for all the countries in the area as regards migration flows. Due to its peculiar geographical position, Greece has thus found itself at the forefront of the so-called migratory emergency, which has involved the European Union (UE) in the last few years. The Dublin Regulation first and then the closure of the borders, following the agreement on migrants between the UE and Turkey in March 2016, have made Greece a sort of first reception hotspot for the whole Eastern Mediterranean, giving rise at the same time to new Balkan migration routes managed by human traffickers. Historically a hinge between East and West, today’s Greece constitutes the ideal starting point to interpret in a multi-scalar perspective both the weaknesses of the paradigm on which the so-called ‘Fortress Europe’ is based, and the geographical variety of problematic ‘living spaces’ that recent migratory phenomena have contributed to build over time.

Walk the Wall Athens: An Experiential Walk in the City

Athens is a historic capital widely known for its legacy left to Western civilization and its publicly recognized and well-studied monuments of world heritage. But what do we really know about the Athenian antiquities that have been integrated into the city’s modern canvas? In how many ways can the urban landscape of Athens be re-introduced to the modern traveler? Walk the Wall Athens is a bilingual mobile application that allows the user to wander, literally and metaphorically, through the streets of Athens in order to explore the traces of the Themistoclean city wall and to recover this important monument from oblivion. Just as the ancient city wall surrounds Athens as a historical chain that crosses all the neighbourhoods of the modern city’s historical centre, the route provided by the interactive map of the application introduces the visitor to the layout of the modern Athenian metropolis. Through a walk on the remains of the ancient fortification, the application Walk the Wall Athens attempts to spark the interest and excite the curiosity of the Athenian traveller of the 21st century, introducing him to a journey of 2,500 years of history.

Immaginare la Grecia oggi, fra stereotipi e contro-narrazioni (street art e flânerie urbana)

“Greece doesn’t exist” was the provocative title of Michel Grodent’s essay (2000), suggesting the need to overcome all prejudices and stereotypes around the image of Greece. Is this perspective of de-construction possible today? This paper focuses on some specific cultural attempts, following this direction. After a brief overview of the different positions, from enthusiasm to disappointment (idealization, touristic image, the myth of Zorba, financial crisis), it explores two examples of counter-narratives: street art, as an alternative response to hegemonic discourse, and urban flâneries. In particular Christos Chryssòpoulos’ interesting works (Flashlight between Teeth, 2012 and The Flâneur Consciousness, 2015), where text and photography form a dialectic pair and show the present of Athens through its material objects. In both cases, wall-writing and literary photobooks suggest a new gaze – an “apocalyptic” one, according to the etymological root of the word – which reveals throbs, details, microcosms and new perspectives capable of destroying certainties and preconceptions.

Terra di civiltà e di barbarie: rappresentazioni cinematografiche della Grecia degli altri, tra autenticità e mistificazione

Talking about Greece nowadays does not only mean becoming aware of the immense cultural, social, and linguistic heritage which characterizes the country, but also accepting the huge change which is affecting the nation. The paper focuses on the international cinematographic account on Greece in order to explore the spectrum of non-Greek visions concerning Greek life, history, culture, and traditions. The work is aimed – through the analysis of both American and Italian movies – at outlining stereotypes and authentic elements of the foreign movie industry’s representation of “Greekness”, browsing some of its most typical leitmotifs. In this respect, noteworthy examples are: the ancient myth; the brutality of war; the cultural misappropriation; the tourism business. The article deals with these issues in an attempt to define possible future developments and points for reflection.

Education Inequalities and Political Behaviour of the Young in Greece in the 2010s 1

In this paper we briefly address two issues related to the living conditions of youth in Greece and the way these conditions have changed during the 2010s. The first is about the educational trajectories of young Greeks which are leading to less promising prospects in the labour market and become increasingly unequal and socially selective during the crisis. The second issue is the political response of young Greeks to the crisis. There is evidence that they have been actively mobilized against austerity measures and, at the same time, they have increased their participation in the political system, both in confrontational and institutional politics. Inequalities are increasing and social mobility prospects for the young people are deteriorating. Their political response, however, is an outcome depending on many other factors with the politics of parties attractive to youngsters’ aspirations during the crisis being among the most important.

Atene, 1940-1943: italiani e greci nei Quaderni di Ghiorgos Theotokàs

Born and raised in Constantinople, in 1922 Ghiorgos Theotokàs moves to Athens to study Law. After his graduation, he spends two years between Paris and London to complete his education. Afterwards, he returns to Greece and leads a group of young intellectuals who try to renovate the cultural environment in Greece during the years after the Asia Minor campaign and the defeat of Greece after the Greco-Turkish war (1922). Theotokàs writes essays, articles and novels, but his diaries are very important sources not only about Theotokàs’ personal life, but also about the political and cultural climate of those times. Reading through the Τετράδια Ημερολογίου (1939-1953) we can learn a lot of information about the social, political, and cultural aspects of Greece and about the relations between Greeks and Italians after the fascist invasion.

Sagapò e Soldatesse: la Grecia degli invasori

Among the many authors who covered the Italian military occupation of Greece (1940-1943), Renzo Biasion and Ugo Pirro still stand out as being the most influential. Their books, halfway between memoir and fiction, tell the stories of soldiers living their youth in a dreamy yet dangerous world, where all men have been deported as war prisoners, and everyday products such as gasoline display Homer’s alfabet. The antifascism of Sagapò (1953), which inspired the Academy Award-winning film Mediterraneo (1991), and Le soldatesse (1956) lays therefore in the rediscovery of a common heritage, both ancient and modern.

“Trascinando muli e sofferenze”: la Grecia lontana di Mario Rigoni Stern

This article aims to analyse the reasons for the unexpected absence of Greece in Mario Rigoni Stern’s works about the Italian military campaign against Greece during the winter of 1940-1941. As a young soldier, Rigoni Stern fought in that terrible war in the Albanian mountains, close to the Greek line, and recounted those events many years later. I focus in particular on Quota Albania (1971), in an attempt to show that the novel is not only a memoir, but rather a Bildungsroman, in which he recounts his personal life, his disillusionment with Italian disorganisation and the difficult conditions he endured, the cold and hunger. Furthermore, I would like to explain that the surprising indifference to Greek events is linked not only to the author’s narrative intention, but also to the fact that in the final battle Rigoni Stern did not go to Greece, and never returned thereafter. On the other hand, his unfamiliarity with the Mediterranean justifies the lack of descriptive details of the Greek landscape.

Che ci vado a fare in Grecia?

In this paper my aim is to show that the physical impact of today’s Greece is extremely important for the classicists: by experiencing the Greek landscape, climate, nature they are enabled to better understand the ancient texts and, in some case, to find new solutions for old problems. The discussion focuses in particular on the island of Syros (the homeland of Eumaeus) and on the canal of Xerxes in the Mount Athos peninsula.