Contemporary Greek Research Articles

Contemporary Greek typeface design: A study on Greek designers’ perspectives

This study examines the contemporary landscape of Greek typeface design, focusing on the pivotal role of Greek designers in shaping and advancing this typography element. Utilizing various qualitative research methods, including comprehensive interviews and thorough thematic analysis, this study extracts rich insights from 12 prominent Greek typeface designers. Through this rigorous examination, it elucidates the designers’ perspectives, methodologies, and the various challenges they encounter while creating Greek typefaces. The findings illuminate a profound and notable progression within Greek typography, largely propelled by the dedicated efforts of contemporary Greek designers who actively contribute to crafting high-quality typefaces garnering recognition on an international scale. This research significantly enhances our understanding of the evolution of Greek typography and its intricate position within the broader global typographic landscape. By delving into the unique methodologies and creative processes employed by these designers, this study offers a comprehensive and nuanced perspective on the current trends and potential future directions within Greek typeface design. Furthermore, it provides valuable insight into the cultural and historical influences that shape the designers’ work, enriching the broader context of their contributions to the field. Ultimately, this research intends to contribute to the advancement of Greek typography and highlight its enduring relevance and profound influence within the global typographic landscape.

The poetics of mourning or loss: a study in Angeliki Sidira’s poetry

ABSTRACT This study aims to present lament in contemporary Greek poetry as it emerges through Angeliki Sidira’s poems. The poetics of mourning allows poets to highlight a multitude of other themes around death (existential anguish, illness and therapy, social anguish and protest). Angeliki Sidira is the main contemporary Greek representative of the subgenre, connecting lamentation and rage through a feminine perspective and domestic poetry. Her poetry opposes the traditional image of a woman in poetry and replaces her at home as a mother, wife and daughter. Sidira’s poetry expands the way in which the dynamics of the feminine can be understood, through the pain of loss and its place in the home; it offers new ways of reading the relationship between emotional life and the broader social and political contexts that have shaped gender perceptions. Poetics of mourning or loss abandon the elegiac praise of the dead highlighting memory and pain. The autobiography of a female writer is an act of liberation, as it reveals political aspects through personal experience and social gender roles.

Curatorial Dissonance and Conflictual Aesthetics: Holocaust Memory and Public Humanities in Greek Historiography

Despite the increasingly diverse societal landscape in Greece for more than three decades within a context of migration, understandings of its fragile histories are still limited in shaping a sense of belonging that is open to ‘otherness’. While Greek communities have utilised history as a pathway to maintain identity, other parallel histories and understandings do not resonate with ‘Greekness’ for most, such as the case of Greek Jewry. Critical historical perspectives can benefit from tracing ‘re-membering’ as a feminist practice in the reassessment of societal values of inclusivity. Histories of violence and injustice can also include elements of ‘difficult histories’ and must be embraced to seek acknowledgement of these in promoting social change and cultural analysis for public humanities informing curation and curricula. Between eduscapes, art heritage spaces, an entry into contested and conflictual histories can expand a sense of belonging and the way we imagine our own connected histories with communities, place and nation. Greek Jews do not constitute a strong part of historical memory for Greeks in their past and present; in contrast to what is perceived as ‘official’ history, theirs is quite marginal. As a result, contemporary Greeks, from everyday life to academia, do not have a holistic understanding in relation to the identities of Jews in Greece, their culture or the Holocaust. Given the emergence of a new wave of artistic activism in recent years in response to the ever-increasing dominance of authoritarian neoliberalism, along with activist practices in the art field as undercurrents of resistance, in this intervention I bring together bodies of works to create a dialogic reflection with historical, artistic and feminist sources. In turn, the discussion then explores the spatiotemporal contestations of the historical geographies of Holocaust monuments in Greece. While interrogating historical amnesia, I endeavour to provide a space to engage with ‘difficult histories’ in their aesthetic context as a heritage of healing and social justice.

The Contemporary Foster Care Legislative Framework in Greece: A Review of its Assets and Weaknesses

This review comprehensively analyzes the contemporary Greek legislative foster care system according to N4538/2018, exploring all the relevant international agreements such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights, that influenced its enactment. It highlights the rights and protection afforded to children in foster care, detailing provisions from the Hague Convention on the Rights of the Child and European legislation. It explores thoroughly the recent legislative reforms in Greece, including the establishment of the National Council for Foster Care and Adoption. It emphasizes the development and adherence to National and Special Registers for minors in the modern Child Protection System, as well as the implementation of Individual Family Rehabilitation Plans. It reveals that the recent legislation framework has many advantages but also a few weaknesses that could be amended. The legal procedures and criteria for placing minors in fostering in Greece, and the required criteria to ensure that foster parents meet the necessary guidelines to protect the best interests of children are discussed. This paper also examines the legal and procedural steps required to link children to foster families, the arrangements for supervision of foster parents and the consequences of fostering in cases of non-compliance. It is also proven that social workers play a key role in all stages and procedures of the application of the institution of foster care since they have taken up the main responsibilities for its implementation, prior, during and after the children are placed in foster parents. The article concludes that there is an imperative need for informed policies and practices that will ensure the adequate care and protection of minors in the foster system, recommending a synergy of legal, institutional, and educational strategies to optimize the welfare of foster children and support foster parents.

Palmscaping Athens

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the role of plants in the formation of urban landscapes. With the conviction that ‘Nature’, or better plant elements, participate substantially in the shape of urban landscapes and social identities, a new reading of the contemporary Greek landscape is proposed, seeking the tools of this reading in the Palm tree. Palms, in their majority, are considered as tropical trees, in the sense that they originate from tropical and subtropical regions. However, today Palms are found all around the world, which proves that they are great travellers. The perpetual journey of plants has deeply reformed alimentary and agricultural practices all over the world. The introduction of new plants in the new ecosystems, changes their evolution, their inflorescence. At the same time, a new balance is to be found on a social level as well. Transplantation of plants in different cultural environments changes their content, their social role and they are called upon to play a new role there. Since antiquity, Palms have been returning to the Greek territory, either as a seed, a fruit, a tree or a myth. The presence of the Palm tree seems to characterize the Greek landscape, especially since its re-introduction during the era of Palingenesis, the era when the new Modern Greek State was established. Palms have been introduced into the Greek landscape several times, each time in a different way, under different cultural and socio-economic conditions. It seems that the Palm tree in Greece can abolish, renew or enrich its conceptual content and manages to be an active element in the contemporary landscape. In some cases, it dominates the city, becoming not only part of the cityscape, but also part of its social identity and history.

The Historical Politics of the Contemporary Greek Society

The aim of the study is to examine the contemporary politics of memory in Greece in the early 2020s. The author analyzes the role and place of various ideological trends in modern Greek social thought, defining them as factors in the development and transformation of memorial culture and the collective historical memory of society. The novelty of the study lies in addressing the current stage in the development of the historical policy of the Greek society in the context of an objective lack of interdisciplinary research. The article is based on the principles of interdisciplinary historiography on memory studies. The author uses the achievements of the memorial turn and intellectual history to analyze Greek politics of historical memory and memorial culture. The article reveals the importance of factors of weak institutionalization of memorial culture in the context of significant politicization and ideologization of historical memory. The article shows that social activists as agents of the politics of memory in modern Greek society make a significant contribution to the development and transformation of memorial culture, the spectrum of memorial practices of Greek intellectuals varies from nationalism to liberalism, the participation of intellectuals in memorial politics impacts the parallel co-development of various competing forms of historical memories and versions of memorial cultures. The research suggests that the role of society in the historical politics of modern Greece will increase, and the intellectual community will remain among the active participants in the collective memorial politics.

Vocal Psychotherapy with traumatised Greek clients

The purpose of this article is to describe my personal music therapy journey and my work in Greece with two individuals with psychological trauma, following Austin’s Vocal Psychotherapy model. Vignettes from sessions with two female clients who have experienced trauma are presented and examined through the lens of the theoretical foundations and the approach of this voice-based model of music psychotherapy. I examine trauma, its origins and its connection to the Ancient Greek drama, and how this is reflected in the contemporary Greek family. Trauma symptomatology is then analysed and explored, as well as its implication for dealing with the obstacles that inhibit growth and change. Using two case studies as examples, methods from Vocal Psychotherapy such as “Vocal Holding” and “Free Associative Singing” are presented. The descriptions illustrate the procedure through which the clients gain access to their feelings, memories and sensations so that unconscious material can become conscious and the processing of obstacles can lead to individuation allowing space for their true voice to emerge. Further analysis is done based on countertransference and the ways that I integrate my Greek origins within the Vocal Psychotherapy model.

The endless potentiality: A century and a half of Greek oil aspirations (and what often becomes of them)

This article focuses on select instances of the history of Greek petroleum geology, spanning over 150 years of -mostly failed- oil exploration attempts. Firstly, we focus on the pre-WWII period, and show how early Greek petroleum geologists formed their expertise during successive periods of crisis and war. We then venture into the re-emergence of Greek hydrocarbon aspirations after the 2010 “Greek crisis”. Following relevant contributions, we approach Greece as a country where hydrocarbons display material effects despite their physical absence. We portray contemporary Greek petroculture as a mixture of popularized petroleum geology and tacit geopolitical calculation. Finally, we show that the post-2010 Greek hydrocarbon policy is less motivated by hydrocarbon aspirations and more by a long-standing Greco-Turkish rivalry in the Eastern Mediterranean.

A step back, a leap forward: tradition, heritage, and visions of a new postcolonial self in the Greek Cypriot popular music of the 21st Century

ABSTRACT In the contemporary Greek Cypriot popular music scape, we witness various and varying instances that feature cultural heritage elements: the frontman of a hard rock band performing in a vraka, the traditional male trousers; a trap song making references to lefkaritiko, a traditional lace; a metal band opening their album with an acapella tsiattisto, a traditional oral poetic style. This paper discusses these and other instances by placing them in the wider historical and political framework of the Republic of Cyprus. Distinguishing between tradition and heritage, as well as place and space, it suggests that the creative turn to the cultural past of Cyprus can be interpreted as a redefinition of the modernisation and decolonisation process of the Republic of Cyprus, which is accomplished through an inward look that emphasises the geographical and cultural particularities of the island. This inward look, it is argued, speaks back to the historical process of decolonisation that was defined by external references (attachment to the motherland(s), desire for Westernisation, and opposition to the ‘Other’). The decolonisation process, itself the cause and effect of conflict and sentiments of ethno-nationalism, defined the identity of postcolonial Greek Cypriot subjects.

POLITICAL IMAGE OF UKRAINE: ANALYSIS OF FAKE INSTRUMENTATION IN HYBRID WARFARE (BASED ON GREEK MASS MEDIA MATERIALS)

This article examines the processes of transforming the political image of Ukraine against the backdrop of the armed conflict with Russia. All the information used in this study has been selected from contemporary Greek mass media, scientific, and expert-analytical works from 2014 to 2023. The relevance of this research is based on the assertion that mass media serves as a tool in conducting hybrid warfare, either destroying or weakening the authority of a particular state, creating a negative image of political institutions or politicians, thereby causing social and economic tension and subsequent societal fragmentation. The aim of the article is to investigate the toolkit for creating and promoting fakes in Greek media as an element of hybrid warfare in the context of highlighting the peculiarities of Ukraine’s political image perception during the military aggression from the Russian Federation. The following methods were employed in the preparation of this article: analysis, synthesis, abstraction, cultural and systemic methods. This combination of methodological tools ensured the integrity of the study in elucidating the role and place of fakes in the context of conducting hybrid warfare. The authors provide numerous examples of political narratives and pro-Russian propaganda employed to erode the trust of the Greek population in Ukrainian politicians and ordinary citizens, fabricating a significant amount of false information in Greek mass media, as well as in scientific and expert-analytical works. The researchers attempted to reveal the ambivalence of societal perception regarding Ukraine’s position in the European integration processes and to identify the events and decisions of the Ukrainian authorities that contributed to the negative imaging of Ukraine in Greece. To achieve the stated objective, the authors of the article addressed the following tasks: delineating the stereotypical perception of Ukraine’s political image from the pre-war period to the active phase of the armed conflict, elucidating the binarity of image content, and identifying image characteristics against the backdrop of military aggression from Russia.

“Sharp of taste”: the concept of acidity in the Greek system of natural explanation

Acidic substances were known for thousands of years, and their macroscopic-sensory characteristics were reflected by words in most ancient languages. In the Western canon, the history of the concept of acidity goes back to Ancient Greece. In Greek, the word associated with acidity from its early literary references was ὀξύς (“sharp”), and still in contemporary Greek the words “sour” and “acidic” have the same root. This paper makes a short presentation of the appearance of the abstract concept in the works of Plato and Aristotle and relates it, on one side to the already existing theological-philosophical tradition, starting with Hesiod´s Theogony and on the other, to the then available to the Greeks organoleptic experiences of sourness-vinegar and sour milk.

Contemporary Greek prose: An anthology; Contemporary Greek poetry: An anthology

The review discusses two anthologies of contemporary Greek literature (prose and poetry), comprising works of the authors distinguished with the country’s State Prize for Literature in the years from 2010 to 2018. The two books succeed in capturing the multidimensional character of Greece’s modern life and literature in small forms (short stories, novellas and poems). The first anthology features short stories and novellas by fourteen authors. The second contains works by twenty poets, each represented by five poems. While some authors were rewarded for their literary debut, others received the prize for lifetime achievements. Thanks to the anthologies, characterised by a diversity of subjects, artistic methods and poetic messages, the Russian audiences can join in the polylogue between classics and avant-gardists, realists and surrealists, and gurus and novices, as well as broaden their knowledge of the latest developments in a literature rooted in ancient history that remains unique and inspired through the oeuvre of its masters.

An unexpected demographic regime: The western necropolis of the Greek colony of Himera (Sicily, Italy) (550-409 BCE)

We present the results of a paleodemographic assessment of 2865 graves excavated in the western necropolis of the ancient Greek colony of Himera in Sicily. Himera provides an outstanding opportunity to understand the demographic dynamics of Ancient Sicily as it was abandoned and never repopulated, thus offering a completely intact record. Not only has a remarkably large sample been collected and is currently under study, but historical sources allow to precisely date the years in which the city's necropolises were used. Children under the age of 5 were typically buried in pots, meaning that the number of children who died at ages 0 and 1–4 can be reliably estimated. Such data on child death is very rare in paleodemographic studies. Thanks to these exceptional characteristics, together with the application of demographic methods already employed in previous studies (Barbiera et al., 2021) and a comparison of our results with other contemporary Greek necropolises, we can discern a plausible mortality regime for Himera. Our analyses reveal that in the western necropolis of Himera (mid-6th to late 5th century BC) the mortality of children and young people was relatively low, and likely compensated by a more pronounced mortality of adults. Life expectancy at birth was plausibly between 25 and 30 years of age. These findings are further supported by data from the Greek cities of Metaponto and Akraiphia, as well as preliminary results for the eastern necropolis of Himera (late-7th to late 6th century BC).

Memories of Asia Minor in Contemporary Greek Culture: An Itinerary by Kristina Gedgaudaité

Reviewed by: Memories of Asia Minor in Contemporary Greek Culture: An Itinerary by Kristina Gedgaudaité Aimilia (Emilia) Salvanou (bio) Kristina Gedgaudaité, Memories of Asia Minor in Contemporary Greek Culture: An Itinerary. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. Pp. xvi + 252. Hardcover $109.99. The first thing one notices when taking Kristina’s Gedgaudaité’s book in one’s hands is the cover image: a cartoon, showing a suitcase lying all by itself behind barbed wire. The suitcase is made of people, tightly woven together and indistinguishable from one another, all dressed in the same clothes, clearly in despair. [End Page 151] A small self-made bag that one of them carries gives a hint that they are refugees. At one of the suitcase’s corners, a child lends a helping hand to one of the refugees. By doing so it starts to untangle the human skein. People are about to be seen and their voices heard. The cartoon is actually named “Suitcase: Refugees” and was drawn by Oleksiy Kustovsky in 2016 at the peak of the refugee crisis in Europe. The cover image prepares the reader for an engaging experience: Gedgaudaité’s book is not another study about the past, about what happened in 1922 and the Greek-Turkish exchange of populations, but rather a book about memory, meaning-making, and the understandings of the past in contemporary culture. It is also a book about the way experience becomes intertwined with memory and finds its way in post-memory, cultural memory, and historical culture. The book consists of seven chapters, each of which covers a different aspect of the contemporary cultural memory of 1922 in Greece. The first chapter, “Memory Work and History in the Making,” serves as an introduction and sets the scene for what will be discussed later. It historicizes the emergence of the relevant cultural memory, focusing on the 1930s, 1960s, 1990s, and 2010s, and it emphasizes that it was only after the 1980s, and especially after the 1990s, that this memory was infused with the voices of the refugees’ experience. The second chapter, “An Introduction to the Histories and Legacies of the Greco-Turkish War and the Memory Studies Toolbox,” discusses the historical framework of 1922 and its special place in contemporary historical culture in Greece. It also sets out the theoretical and methodological framework of memory studies upon which subsequent analysis is based, drawing from, among others, the work of Caruth (1996), Hirsch (1997), and Erll and Rigney (2009). The third chapter, “Affective Alliances in the Greek History Wars,” is dedicated to the analysis and interpretation of the history wars that broke out in Greece in 2006–2007 over how historians approached aspects of the Asia Minor Catastrophe. Gedgaudaité states that this controversy was so important that it became engraved in public memory and in many ways shaped the conceptualization of 1922 in the years that followed. On the basis of this observation, Gedgaudaité proceeds to her fourth chapter, “Fragmented Pasts, Postmemory and the ‘Grandchildren of Lausanne’,” which focuses on the aesthetics and practices of family memory, especially that related to the third generation. Here, the author fleshes out her argument that a traumatic conception of the past has reached most of the refugees’ grandchildren through narratives and recollections of everyday life. Gedgaudaité proves her point through a discussion of Soloup’s graphic novel Aivali, in which Antonis Nikolopoulos (Soloup) reflects on the way that the cultural memory of 1922 (on both the Greek and [End Page 152] on Turkish sides) shaped his experience of a journey he made between Lesvos and Aivali. He shows, as Gedgaudaité explains, how fragments of memory can be assembled to give voice to a self-reflective history. The two subsequent chapters, the fifth and the sixth, are respectively titled “Smyrna in Your Pocket” and “Framing the Futures of Memory.” They articulate and are structured around the notion of “portable memory,” and they provide, in many ways, the book’s most original contribution. Their main argument is that the Smyrna Catastrophe has become the lens through which Greeks approach the uprooting of their co-ethnics from Asia Minor in the framework of contemporary historical culture and that the cultural memory of...

Divergent democracy: Notes on a mediatised affective activism renewal of feminist and anti-fascist struggle in contemporary Greece

While the shackles of austerity continue to shatter the remnants of once dignified, and now, mostly dehumanising lives, for most Greeks who have suffered decades long of economic and social crises, the rapid rise of the far right and its incipient racist and xenophobic discourse has had a profound impact on the country. This paper attempts a twofold objective: on the one hand to contribute to the global feminist dialogue by making visible and vocal the case of Greece, and, on the other to advance a plea for a current consciousness raising era in Greece as regards particularly contemporary youth who can transform instances of despair into action and social change by adopting feminist principles in their everyday lives. I draw on the representational politics of far-right fascist discourse and individual behaviour articulated and depicted in contemporary Greek films, and its gendered and xenophobic normalisers, to contextualise an interdisciplinary feminist analysis of such phenomena in contemporary Greece.

‘Signs of the times’: Prophecy belief in contemporary Greek Orthodox contexts

This article examines the structure, content, and function of widely circulating prophetic narratives in contemporary Greece and Cyprus. Prophetologists play a key role in recycling and disseminating prophecies through traditional and modern means of communication in an attempt to explain conditions of crisis and to promote conservative moral values and nationalistic aspirations as salvific remedies in the public sphere. Their highly politicized prophetic discourse blurs the differentiation between religion and politics that characterizes secular modernity. But at the same time, the use of modern media and secular strategies for sacred purposes have unintended secularizing effects on the religious field. Finally, the article explores the reasons why prophecy belief finds fertile soil for proliferation in these countries.

Pre-Pregnancy Adherence to Mediterranean Diet and Risk of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: A Prospective Cohort Study in Greece.

Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) is a growing epidemic affecting pregnant women and their offspring. This study aimed to identify the relationship between adherence to a Mediterranean diet (MD) before conception and the risk of GDM in a contemporary Greek pregnant cohort. A prospective cohort of pregnant women was recruited at the routine first trimester visit. Nutritional intake was evaluated using a population specific validated food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Pre-pregnancy adherence to MD was derived using two different scoring systems, the Mediterranean diet index score (MDS), and a modified version. Adjusted odds ratios (aOR) were computed using multiple logistic regression models for each score derived. Of 743 participating women, 112 (15.1%) developed GDM. The MDS index showed that scoring 5-9 points (high adherence) was associated with a lower GDM incidence (aOR: 0.57 95% CI (0.32, 0.90), p = 0.02), while the modified MDS index showed no significant association for any level of adherence. Pre-pregnancy consumption of "meat and derivatives" and "fatty meat and processed meat" was associated with a higher risk of GDM, with both scoring systems (p = 0.008, p = 0.004, respectively). A higher adherence to a MD pre-pregnancy, especially with less meat consumption, may have a protective effect on the occurrence of GDM.

Greeks in Hungary : from the Orthodox Greek merchants to the refugees of the Greek Civil War

The current face of the Greek community in Hungary was undoubtedly shaped by the political refugees who arrived in Hungary due to the Greek Civil War and their descendants. However, this Greek community recognises the legacy of the Greek merchant diaspora of the 18th and 19th centuries, which played a decisive role in the modernisation of Hungary as its own heritage. Therefore, I will briefly describe what this heritage consists of and how contemporary Greeks relate to it. I will then review the history of the resettlement of Greek political refugees in Hungary, with a particular focus on Greek children who arrived in Hungary without parental care. I will present their forced departure from Greece, their arrival in Hungary, their settlement, and their integration, partly based on archival materials and mainly on life history interviews.

From Nasser to Arafat and Ibn Salman; the Greek pro-Arabism revisited

This study revisits the evolution of contemporary Greek–Arab relations from a geopolitical perspective. For a number of reasons – inter alia, her lack of a colonialist past – Greece has been time and again associated with a strong pro-Arab reputation. Greek pro-Arabism survives to this day; however it has undergone dramatic changes in terms of content, rhetoric and objectives. In fact, the once staunchest European supporter of the Palestinian cause and ‘pariahs’ like Qaddafi, Arafat and Hafez al-Asad, is now firmly aligned with Israel and the Gulf monarchies. By adopting a longitudinal approach, this article highlights the drivers and the constraints of the Greek pro-Arab policies diachronically and investigates the current convergence or divergence of interests between Athens and its new Arab friends.

Ecclesiology of Ioannis Zizioulas Through the Prism of “Liturgical” and “Therapeutic” Ecclesiology

Contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologian, Ioannis Zizioulas, is certainly one of the most prominent theologians of the modern times considering his great work as well as the depth of his thought. Although his work explores a spectrum of theological ideas, this paper brings his ecclesiology into light from a point of view of “liturgical” and “therapeutic” ecclesiology, which Zizioulas recognizes within the eastern tradition as two types of ecclesiology that are intertwined and therefore cannot be separated one from the other. Thus, this paper examines Zizioulas’ work in the context of the contemporary Greek Orthodox theology and puts forward his interest and view on ecclesiology with an aim to illustrate the “liturgical” and “therapeutic” dimension of ecclesiology that is present in his work and thought which are based fairly on patristic theology. Along these lines, this paper presents his ecclesiological concept right through the prism of “liturgical” and “therapeutic” ecclesiology.