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Carnival and urban space in Athens, 1834–1940
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2023
Abstract
This article explores the spatial dimensions of Athens' carnival and their change in the course of a century. It is based on two polarities: first, that of the old city and the new city, which was related to the contrast between traditional and modern culture in the celebration of carnival. Both the old city and traditional culture were increasingly undervalued and denounced until the inter-war years, when nostalgia for old places and practices developed. The second major contrast is that between the centre of Athens and its periphery. There was a strong tendency towards the concentration of carnival events and crowds in the centre of Athens until the 1900s. This development is correlated with the reinforcement of the middle class and its cultural hegemony. A new autonomy of the neighbourhoods of the popular classes in the inter-war period did not result in the revival of popular carnival culture.
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References
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44 An important factor in the delay in the domination of this model in Athens was the construction of apartment buildings originally intended for middle-class wallets, set in central areas with high land prices: M. Marmaras, Η αστική πολυκατοικία της μɛσοπολɛμικής Αθήνας (Athens, 1991).
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46 Ibid., 87–92.
47 By 1907, we read that itinerant vegetable-sellers may survive, ‘but he who plays a role in the neighbourhood is the neighbourhood greengrocer’: Akropolis, 11 Dec. 1907.
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51 Efimeris ton syntechnion, 3 Mar. 1891. The relationship between the flourishing of Montevideo carnival and the disparate nature of the celebrations is highlighted in McCleary, K., ‘Ethnic identity and elite idyll: a comparison of carnival in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay, 1900–1920’, Social Identity, 16 (2010), 497–517CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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54 Skrip, 7 Feb. 1901; Esperini Akropolis, 14 Feb. 1900; Estia, 17 Feb. 1914. Kosti's reminiscences refer to roughly the same years: ‘as soon as the pre-Lenten carnival period began, masqueraders began to flock in from every part of the Capital’: C.Ν. Kosti, Αναμνήσɛις ɛκ της αυλής Γɛωργίου του Α΄ (Athens, 1948), 23. N. Gerakaris, Σɛλίδɛς ɛκ της συγχρόνου ιστορίας (Athens, 1936), 40, stresses the presence of ‘guttersnipes’, ‘wide boys’ and ‘women from the neighbourhoods’ at the first parade in 1887.
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58 Social and political changes, namely the rise of a Signoria dominated by aristocrats, were also expressed spatially in the carnival of Renaissance Venice: Bertrand, G., ‘Venice carnival from the middle ages to the twenty-first century: a political ritual turned “consumer rite”?’, Journal of Festive Studies, 2 (2020), 77–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 85.
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63 Akropolis, 22 Jan. 1915.
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65 Castells, The Urban Question, 228.
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68 Patris, 30 Jun. 1916. See also the description by Ilias Lazanas, ‘Η δική μου γɛιτονιά, τα Πιθαράδικα’, in Y. Kairofyllas and S. Filippotis (eds.), Αθηναϊκό Ημɛρολόγιο 1999 (Athens, 1999), 143–5, of the neighbourhoods of Athens in the inter-war period: ‘Each of them a small, self-sufficient village.’
69 P. Horn, Το Φιντανάκι (Athens, 1921; 1992 edn).
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72 These are often described as being in decline (e.g. Ethnos, 5 Mar. 1924, and Vradini, 12 Feb. 1925), and references to their inter-war performances are accompanied by comments that nobody follows them through the streets as people used to do: Proia, 3 Mar. 1929, and Vradini, 10 Feb. 1931.
73 Eva, 23 Feb. 1924.
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