Reviewed by: The British Council and Anglo-Greek Literary Interactions, 1945–1955 ed. by Peter Mackridge and David Ricks Foteini Dimirouli (bio) Peter Mackridge and David Ricks, editors, The British Council and Anglo-Greek Literary Interactions, 1945–1955. London: Taylor & Francis, 2018. Pp. xii + 262. 2 figures. Cloth $144.00. The entire course of modern Greek history has been subject to foreign interest and the tight grip of great power politics. The extent to which cultural institutions have played a role in buttressing exogenous political agendas has been a topic of intensifying research focus, at least since the term "soft power" entered our lexicon to refer to propaganda in its most subtle variety (16n10). The volume of collected essays The British Council and Anglo-Greek Literary Interactions, 1945–1955 partakes of this scholarship and comes as an indispensable complement to the growing number of studies that systematically engage with American cultural sponsorship in Greece during the Cold War, and especially since the country passed from the British to the American sphere of influence with the Truman doctrine in 1947. (Bournazos 2017; Lalaki 2018; Lialiouti 2018). The subject of the volume is the British Council, one of the pillars of British cultural diplomacy in Greece as this took shape after the 1930s. The Council's status fluctuated over the course of the twentieth century: founded in 1934, it ceased its activities during the Occupation, strengthened its position in the postwar period, and gradually declined due to the Cypriot armed struggle against the British in the 1950s. Its activities were largely educational: they revolved around English language teaching and intellectual exchange through sponsored visits abroad and scholarships, as well as milestone initiatives in the world of letters, such as the establishment of the Byron Chair of English Studies at the University of Athens in 1937 and the launch of the prestigious periodical Anglo-Greek Review in 1945. But, beyond its educational mission, the Council was connected to the overall British presence in Greece, and particularly to its efforts to promote British values and exert influence abroad during turbulent times. Edited by Peter Mackridge and David Ricks, the book consists of thirteen chapters, which vary in length as much as they do in focus. Whereas the British Council's preeminence in twentieth-century Greece is a topic that [End Page 460] recurs in earlier works on relations between Greece and Britain, this is the first study to adopt the Council as its subject matter. It brings together a mosaic of perspectives, ranging from long, in-depth pieces about the Council's history to short commentaries about overlooked or anecdotal aspects of its activity. Most chapters draw on archival material, correspondence, diaries, and literary works to reveal hitherto unknown information about the lives and activities of key members of the Council, often as a way to chart the changing relationship between Britain and Greece in the mid-twentieth century. Frequent allusions to ideas of Anglo-Greek "friendship" and the delicate fabric of interpersonal contacts between representatives of the two countries showcase the ways in which cultural bonds were orchestrated, crucially affected by the Greek political backdrop, integral to the intellectual networks that developed at the peak of Greek modernism, and framed by the internal workings of an institution that enjoyed cultural prominence. The book's main focus is the Council's most "fruitful" period (1945–1955, with its "Golden Age" during 1945–1947), during which close links were fostered between British officials and intellectuals and Greek writers and artists (3). In his introduction, Peter Mackridge demonstrates that the Anglo-Greek interactions galvanized by the Council were rooted in the interwar period, as major figures of the Generation of the 1930s—George Seferis, Odysseas Elytis, George Theotokas, George Katsimbalis—collaborated with the itinerants Rex Warner, Lawrence Durrell, Patrick Leigh Fermor, and Robert Liddell to shape the contours of Greek modernism and, later, to provide impetus to the Council's "chief literary organ," the vastly influential Anglo-Greek Review. Following Mackridge's overview of the history of the modern Greek state, which is essential in contextualizing these cultural liaisons, the first chapter by Robert Holland also offers historical background and a critical analysis of the longstanding...
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Dec 13, 2023
Sheryl Reimer-Kirkham + 12
Open Access
