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GreekReporter.comGreece"The Crisis Harbingers": How Greek Authors and Philosophers Described Post-Dictatorial Greece

"The Crisis Harbingers": How Greek Authors and Philosophers Described Post-Dictatorial Greece

The crisis has invaded all aspects of life; the political system, public discussions, the everyday life of the Greek people. The many faces of the crisis in the fields of Greek literature and Greek letters are being revealed through the pages of the new issue of “Diavazo” journal, which includes an article entitled “The Crisis Harbingers”. The article is a short but precise journey through the past sixty years of happenings in Greece.
There might have been many Greek authors who have elaborated on the Greek debt crisis in the past year (including Petros Markaris, Ioanna Karistianni, Sotiris Dimitriou, Nikos Panayiotopoulos, Yiorgos Xenarios, Makis Karayiannis, Giorgos Dendrinos) by criticizing the Greek reality with humor and caustic demeanor; however, none of the authors of “Diavazo” believe that the current situation popped out of nowhere, or that no artist or philosopher in Greece had not seen it coming.
Looking back into the literary works of prose writers of the pre- and post-dictatorial era, Lefteris Kalospiros highlights four stories as examples, which in a nutshell describe Modern Greek decadence, as this began in mid-war times and ended in dirty 1989. The four works belong to Dimitris Hatzis (The end of our little town), Menis Koumantareas (Glass Handicraft), Alexandros Kotzias (Fantastic Adventure) and Maro Douka (At the bottom of the image).
The strong denial of any change, both on a personal and collective level, the egoistic use of any public authority or power, the easy and groundless business profits and the moralistic exercise of vice are some of the key features that emerged in the early ‘50s  to the late ’80s, as depicted by the four completely different writers.
Besides the authors of these four prose works, there are several other authors who have underlined the same issues in the past two decades, such as Rea Galanaki, Yiorgis Yiatromanolakis, Nikos Themelis, Dimitris Nollas, Alexis Panselinos, Petros Markaris, Filippos Filippou, Andreas Apostolidis, Petros Martinidis, Vassilis Gouroyiannis, Telemachos Kotsias, Vassilis Tsiabousis, Christos Chartomatsidis, Aristidis Antonas, Amanda Michalopoulou, Ioanna Bourazopoulou, Christos Oikonomou, Dimitris Sotakis and Thanasis Himonas.
Poetry has also forecasted the dangerous consequences that will follow the fearful events of the crisis. Through the revolutionary and anti-conformist voice of Lefteris Poulios, the society of outrageous individualism is being portrayed and criticized. Yiannis Doukas, a poet of the younger generation, writes in “Diavazo” that Lefteris Poulios presented “the long journey of a consciousness transformation relating to the contemporary social displacements and transmutations”.
In this issue of “Diabazo”, N. Panayiotopoulos, Ioanna Bourazopoulou and M. Karayiannis examine the ways writers can employ their crafts from now based on their writing experience. All three of them conclude that prose will rise again in Greece and will focus again on the current unresolved problems of the society, given of course that the writer never forgets to include in his work his own fears and thoughts, through the creation of  characters and the format of his writings.
Two Greek philosophers who have excelled abroad have also foreseen the current crisis. According to Nikos Tangoulis’ relevant article in “Diavazo”, Kostas Axelos had traced the inability of the Greek society to adjust to Western rationalism and technology since 1955, while Panayiotis Kondilis pointed out in 1991 the historic absence of the middle class in the country.

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