Georgia Gotsi and Despina Provata (eds.), Languages, Identities and Cultural Transfers. Modern Greeks in the Press (1850–1900). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021, Pp. 270.

Abstract

2021 marked the bicentenary of the beginning of the Greek struggle for independence. Beyond the timeliness of its publication, this book offers readers far more than a celebratory history. This volume of essays brings together studies on aspects of language, identity, and cultural transfer in the context of encounters between different European literary traditions, exploring modalities of reception, the mediation process, and the roles and motives of the actors involved, whether individuals, groups, institutions, or the print media. It thus offers new perspectives in the field of cultural history. Cultural circulation has long been regarded as a fruitful area of investigation, not least in assessing how cultural transfers have contributed to the construction of national identity and its depiction in the public sphere. In the Greek case, philhellenism, defined historically as either a political or a transcultural movement, together with its resilience over time, has been much discussed in conferences, workshops and research projects. These have typically addressed definitions and dynamics of philhellenism, from different perspectives, such as European perceptions of the modern Greeks, Greece’s relationship with Europe and with European cultural production, and the impact of all this on the formation of Greece’s national image. This volume approaches the subject from a different viewpoint: ‘the image(s) of Greece emerging through the pages of [the European] press’ (p.15). Whilst print media, and in particular periodicals with their potential to reach wider readerships, have emerged as effective cultural mediators and facilitators for the transmission of ideas to various social and national entities, the question of how the European press stood in relation to Greece has not been sufficiently addressed to date, and, as the editors point out, this collection of essays seeks to address this very issue.