Τρίτη 9 Απριλίου 2013

Greek immigration USA and influence on music and films


1. The influence of the immigration on the music 

The music genre dealt with the Greek immigration was Rembetiko, means the music of the outsiders. It was the urban music that reflected the harsh realities, including also the immigration. The urban subculture of rembetiko included the poverty, illness, crime, labour, alienation, drinks and drugs. The cities where rembetiko became famous were Asia Minor, Athens, Piraeus, and Thessaloniki. After the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) many people immigrated to USA, because of the population exchange. Also in 19th century American companies had recorded Greek music performed by immigrants. The first American Greek recording enterprises made their appearance in 1919. From the mid 1920’s there are many recordings that could be classified as rembetiko. 
The American recording companies helped the preservation of the genre. Especially in 1930’s, when in Greece there was a dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas, who outlawed rembetiko and again in 1960’s with the dictatorship of George Papadopoulos. A notable example of American recording studios preserving the more bold expressions of some these rembetiko songs is the record album: "Otan Kapnizi O Loulas", translated as "when the hookah smokes." This album was recorded at the United States by Apostolos Nicolaidis, and could not be recorded in Greece because the songs all contain references of smoking hashish and of the experience of being under the influence of these. 
One of the most famous songs ever to those who don’t know rembetiko is the song “Misirlu”, recorded in New York in 1940, in the vocals was Tetos Dimitriades, in clarinet Dave Tarras. The composer said to be Michalis Patrinos (1927) in Athens or the ottoman Jew, Abraham Levi. Tetos Dimitriades belonged to the American recording company, RCA Victor (Orthophonic). Other important Greek singers in USA were Achilles Poulos, Koula Antonopoulou (Vlahou), Marika Papagika, Amalia Vaka, Sotiris Stasinopoulos, Leonidas Smyrnios, Georgos Katsaros, etc. Moreover some important musical instruments’ players were Loukianos Kavadias (piano), Hierotheos Shizas, Harilaos Piperakis (Cretan Lyre), etc. 
One famous singer was Rosa Eskenazi, she went to America and married by “fake (white)” marriage with an American citizen, a common practice of the period because it was forbidden to stay there and sing . 
Many Greek composers of rembetiko travelled transatlantic to make music festivals of rembetiko for the immigrants. These travels took place especially between the World War 1 and the World War 2. The conditions of travelling were very harsh because of the transportations of the period. 
Some characteristic song titles about the Greek immigration in America are: “America” (1933), “Damned America” (1940), “Be always good the uncle from America” (1947), “The Kiriakos’ departure to America”, “You Burned me America”, “Mother, don’t send me to America” (1934), “Karagoz in America” (1930), “Bezos in America” (19370, etc . 
Some other songs about immigration are: “Damned immigration” (1959), “From little child in foreign land” (1936), “For your love I went to foreign lands” (1934), “I finally returned back from the foreign land” (1956), etc . 
In general these songs (rembetiko) included all the pain, sadness and poverty of the common immigrants who had to travel to America for a better life and have the opportunity to gain money and return back to their family. 


2. The influence of immigration on the movies

In this chapter we will discuss the movies and filmmaking which affected from the Greek immigration to America. It will be contain only Greek filmmakers. We have to add that many Greek-Americans financed filmmaking with other subjects, for example: “On Bosporus waves” (1934). 
The film “Three Greeks from America” (1927) was one with theme the exactly the Greek immigration. The director and scriptwriter was I. Triantafillis and there was financial support for the production of the film by the state. Unfortunately, the film destroyed during development. 
The film “Dollars and dreams” (1956) was a comedy about a Greek American who return to Greece because he have to find a person called Mr. Papadopoulos. During his search, he puts an announcement in the newspapers. After that, hundreds of people call him and say that their names are Papadopoulos and ask about the legacy from America. 
The film “The aunt from Chicago” (1957) is also a comedy. The Greek American aunt comes from Chicago; she is very energetic and clever. Her brother in Greece is very conservative and old-fashion. She uses the American way and achieve with her clever and quick decisions to conduct good marriages for her nieces and also for her. 
 The film “Fanuris and his family” (1957) was directed by Dimitris Ioannopoulos. Fanouris is a person who is expecting the financial aid from his brother, named John from America. He expects this money because he wants to conduct a good marriage for his other sister. John and his wife came from America, but finally they don’t want to help financially. 
The film “This girl has an uncle” (1957) was directed by Kostas Andritsos. Uncle Jimmy comes from America and achieves to solve all the problems of his niece, named Violet. All her sentimental and financial problems are solved by him. 
A famous drama was the “Dark Odyssey” (1961). It was directed by William Kyriakis and Radley Metzger. A passionate Greek sailor seeks to get revenge upon the Greek who seduced and raped his sister, and then sailed to the US. She was so traumatized that she committed suicide. The brother follows the rapist to New York. Once there, he jumps ship and sets out to find him. In New York he meets and becomes friends with a Greco-American girl who tries to talk him out of getting revenge. He does not listen. Soon he finds his quarry and kills him. He then escapes from the police and tries to re-board his ship. The girl tries to convince him to turn himself in. They struggle with a gun and it suddenly fires. The vengeful Greek is killed.
The famous director Elia Kazan directed the film “America America” (1963). He was inspired by the life of his uncle. He describes shocking images of the American life in modern America. Kazan does his personal criticism through his film to America and its moral principles. He focuses also in the McCarthyism period. He presents an image that has nothing in common with the famous “American Dream”. 
Gregory Markopoulos considered as one of the most important artists in the American underground experimental cinema. Some movies of him are: “Psyche”, “Galini (Silence)”, Twice a man”, “The Illac Passion”, “Enieos (United)” . 
One other film is the “Letters from America” (1972). It presents to us many beautiful cart-postals, photographs and newspapers of the period. 
After the Greek dictatorship of 1974, the Greek cinema started to express one more bitter sense about the Greek Americans and their culture. The majority of the immigration flow of 1900-1924 didn’t live now, so their children considered to be more Americans than Greeks. 
The film “Ok my friend” (1974) directed by Marios Retsilas and the production was by Paris James and Wilson Cherry. The film is a comedy – adventure. One singer goes to America believing that there can make a career. Instead of that he gets into a strange drug case. Finally he achieves to make a lot of money there with the help of his manager. After he involves into strange situations with mafia and crime, he finally decides to take his money and returns back to motherland. 
The film “Jack the Rider” (1979) directed by Jimmys Dadiras. It is a comedy. Many famous actors of the period play a role here. One member of Mafia (Don Cornilio) prepares in plans a big robbery. Finally his plans will not achieve because of the arrival of the famous American gagster, called Jack. 
The film “Blue Nights” (1986) directed by Andriotis Costas, is a psychological adventure. One immigrant student forced to abandon his studyings because of big financial and personal problems. But he stays in America. He is totally outlaw and out of society. The environment around him is not friendly, but harsh for these kinds of persons. We see how his life has been totally wrecked. 
The film “The brides” (2003) directed by Pantelis Voulgaris is a very famous film in modern Greece. It is social drama. The music composer is Stamatis Spanoudakis. One American photographer in the year 1922 travels to America. With him on board there are 700 Greek brides, they to travel to America because there will get married. The photographer gets in love with one of the brides. She comes from a small Greek island called Samothraki. Unfortunately, their love has an end: when the travel ends. 
The film “The Journey: The Greek American Dream” (2007) directed by Maria Iliou. There is also in a book edition by the Museum Benaki Athens. 

REVIEW OF “CRESCENT AND STAR" AUTHOR: Stephen Kinzer


The writer of this book, Stephen Kinzer, is also the writer of other books of this kind (non-fiction books), and he always works on complicated political issues, like the situation in modern Turkey. He has gained a lot of experience from his job as a journalist of a serious American newspaper. In this book “Crescent and star”, he tries to provide some explanations about the roots of the problem of the political situation in modern Turkey. 
This book has been translated into other languages; the edition I read was the Greek one. The most important things he discusses in his book are: 1. the role of Kemal Ataturk (at the past and now), 2. The role of the military in the Turkish politics and society,  3. The role of religion and Islam in Turkish society, 4. The political parties in Turkey, 4. The freedom of press, 5. The problems with the “neighbors” and the Kurdish Question. Kinzer is also adding other everyday characteristics and habits of the life in Turkey; this makes the reading so pleasant. 
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is the political and military leader that he has tainted the history, the present and the future of Turkey. He created a nation and a state from the ruins of Ottoman Empire. The influence of his political thought is still alive in Turkey after his death in November 1938. 
Kemalism tried to achieve the instauration of a western type secular state. The ancien regime and the caliphate were Ataturk’s first foes. After these he was the first President of the Turkish Republic and his programme had caused many radical and modern changes inside the state, like western time of school, introduction of Latin alphabet and a new language, western dress code, etc. 
After his death (1938) the military took his leading role, became the institution that made all the decisions about the society and also became the “guardian of the Turkish democracy” against all interior and exterior enemies.  However, military kept Turkey in a political line of isolationism. He fought against every religious fundamentalist tension and tried many times to fill the gaps of the political leadership (government – politicians). This kind of intervention happened in the past by the military, was an anti-democratic and illiberal reaction which happened in the name of restitution of “democracy” in Turkey.
 “Turkism” conceived “turkishness” as the only possible ground for political unity. This notion is totally opposite of the notion of “Ottomanism” and the idea of “ottoman citizenship”. The authoritarianism of the 1930’s prompted Turkish nationalism to deny the very existence of ethnic communities other than Turks in Anatolia. The Settlement Law of 1934, a privileged text of Turkish nationalism of the 1930’s, resisted by two large-scale Kurdish rebellions in 1925 and 1930, the new regime embarked on solving the Kurdish question by means of an extensive settlement law. It’s having been clearly pronounced that the ultimate aim of the law was the Turkification (assimilation) of non-Turks, the text produces the impression that those intended to be assimilated were some tribal people having no ethnic identity . Military forces had an important role in this procession. 
But from the other side, nowadays military forces are the most reliable institution in Turkey, but with a bloody past. The hanging of the Prime Minister, Adnan Menteres (1960’s), in addition, the torture of many persons, after the military coup of 1980’s and also of many Kurdish guerrillas, in 1990’s, are some state violence and  crimes made in the name of “Kemalism”.
Everything, every ideology seems to be against Kemalism has the fate of destruction (Religious fundamentalism, communistic tensions, and Kurdish nationalism). This fact had caused a lot of fear and lack of trust of the “others”. There is a kind of intolerance against the spread of ideas. The sense of the “devlet” is something very annoying for the democracy, the liberty of the speech and the human rights in Turkey. The sense of the “devlet”, from the one hand, is something, over every personal right and also, over the laws of the state. The “devlet” and the “istiklal” are two opposite concepts. “Istiklal”, from the other hand, is the independence, the liberty and the progress of a nation. This fact is very strange; the second was what Ataturk was dreamed about, a nation of progress and of westernization, but his descendances had gained quite the opposite. This is the main thesis of the book. 
For many years, there is the non-existence of public space in Turkey, the basic cradle of social movements over the world. There is an informal censorship in the books, in the press and in the films. Many persons had exiled, or murdered or imprisoned about their thoughts and their writings. The most important element of democracy is always the freedom of speech and the liberty of press, in Turkish Democracy there is not. 
We have to think about the crucial role of the army in the last decades of Ottoman history and in the first years of Turkish Republic. We may identify a possible continuity . The institution of army seems that didn’t change. It is always above society and acts independently of it. Turkey has a tradition in the military coups (see Young Turks Revolution in 1908). In the history there is never a total break with the past. 
Another serious subject is the kemalism against Islam and religion. Mustafa Kemal by his experience against the Sultan formed the aspect that religion is enemy of logical thinking and also of national dignity. After his death, it seemed impossible these aspects to change from this descendants. 
One interesting event which is described in the book is the support of the military forces to the fundamentalist leader Necmettin Erbakan in 1973. We have to underline that Erbakan’s parties belong to the sphere of anti-kemalist Islam . That happened because of the fear of an increase of the leftists in Turkey. This was a kind of strategy, but it still is a support of an Islamic party from the Kemalists. In addition the history of the religious politics in Turkey is in fact the history of Erbacan’s parties . 
The military forces were opposed against the Alevies (this sect supports a more tolerant Islam toward the other ethnic and religious groups), who at the beginning of the Turkish democracy, support Mustafa Kemal and his model about secularism. The result of these actions was the turn of Alevies to the left parties. 
Another subject which Kinzer discuss is the biggest scandal in modern Turkey, the “Susurluk” (1996). This scandal shocked the public opinion in Turkey, revealed a connection between the government (and Prime Minister Tansu Tsiler), the armed forces and the organized crime, including state sponsored assassinations.  All these caused by chance, by an unexpected car accident. The public reaction was big, many protests happened and for the first time in the Turkish history, the military was responsible. 
Another bloody subject was about the illegal and quasi-governmental organization, called Hezbollah. It caused many deaths of Kurdish by torturing. This organization was again a brunch of the military forces of the state. Turkish Hezbollah arose in 1980’s and believed as a reaction to PKK. 
The most difficult subject to discuss in Turkey is the Kurdish issue. Kurdish is the larger minority group in Turkey. The Kurdish large scale revolts happened in 1925, 1930 and 1938. After the foundation of the Kurdish workers party (PKK) in 1978, and between the years 1984-1999, military forces and Kurdish guerillas engaged in an open war. The direct reaction of the military was against the Kurdish separatist movements. After the arrest of the PKK leader Ocalan Abdullah, there is a decline in PKK attacks. The situation in Turkey is better than in the previous years. In the book Kinzer presents a very optimistic point of view, about the new realism of the Kurdish. After 1990 there is a new logic of national conciliation between the Kurdish and the Turkish people. I disagree with this view; I believe it is not so realist. And also, he contrasts the Kurdish issue with the Palestinian issue, giving more chances to the Kurdish to solve their problems. I will add some more points later. 
Kinzer also talks about the relationship of Turkey with their neighbors, for example with Greece. He focuses on the event of the big earthquake and the instant help from Greece. That was one more time that the state and the military forces, couldn’t help the helpless victims of the earthquake. The analgesia of state was obvious. Everybody was asking “Devlet nerede?”, “Asker nerede?”. Also in this point I don’t believe that common Greek and Turkish hate each other, but I believe that the state and the mass media many times try to renew this hate from its ashes.

Περιοδικό Επτάλοφος


Το Περιοδικό Επτάλοφος του Δημήτρη Νικολαΐδη (1869-1870;)



Τα πρώτα βήματα στη δημοσιογραφία, του Δ. Νικολαΐδη, ξεκίνησαν στην εφημερίδα Ανατολικός Αστήρ, όμως η σημαντική εκδοτική πορεία του στην πρωτεύουσα της οθωμανικής αυτοκρατορίας, ξεκίνησε εκδίδοντας το περιοδικό Επτάλοφος. 
Το περιοδικό κυκλοφόρησε κατά το έτος 1869 έως το 1870. Ο υπότιτλός του ήταν «μηνιαίον απάνθισμα των εκλεκτόρων της Ιστορίας, της Φιλοσοφίας και των Επιστημών», και εκδιδόταν από τον Νικολαΐδη με τη σύμπραξη διαφόρων λογίων. 
Οι συνδρομές του ήταν ετήσιες (από 31 Ιανουαρίου έως 31 Δεκεμβρίου), οι συνδρομητές της πρωτεύουσας πλήρωναν 30 φρ., στις επαρχίες του κράτους 40 φρ., και η τιμή έκαστου φυλλαδίου στην πρωτεύουσα ήταν 15 γρόσια. 
Το περιοδικό τυπωνόταν στο τυπογραφείο του Επταλόφου, οδός Πεμπτοπάζαρου, αριθμός 25. 
Στο τεύχος α’, του 1ου έτους του περιοδικού (1869)  , ο εκδότης Δ. Νικολαΐδης αφιερώνει μερικές σελίδες για να μας πληροφορήσει για ορισμένες βελτιωτικές αλλαγές που επιθυμεί να κάνει στο περιοδικό. Αναφέρει πως είναι μια μεταβατική περίοδος που βιώνει ο ελληνισμός και ότι χρειάζεται ορισμένα «μέσα» για διέλθει αυτή την εποχή, αυτά τα μέσα είναι η παιδεία, ο τύπος, η πνευματική ανάπτυξη, οι τέχνες και οι επιστήμες. 
Έπειτα, επιδιώκει να κάνει μία σύγκριση με τον Ευρωπαϊκό Τύπο. Στην Ευρώπη «την ανάγνωσιν του λαού ικανοποιεί ο περιοδικός τύπος…έκαστον δ’ εξ αυτών έχει ως ελάχιστον όρον συνδρομητών περί τας τριάκοντα περίπου χιλιάδας…», σε μια μεγαλούπολη όπως είναι η Κωνσταντινούπολη, αυτό λείπει παρά πολύ, αναφέρει ο ίδιος, κυκλοφορεί μόνο ένα περιοδικό. 
Αναφέρει πως, ο  Επτάλοφος, είχε πολλές ελλείψεις όμως αυτό δεν θα έπρεπε να είναι καθοριστικής σημασίας γι’ αυτόν και ρίχνει το βάρος και στην έλλειψη της επιθυμίας των συνδρομητών του. 
Οι αλλαγές που θα ακολουθήσει θα γίνουν με γνώμονα: α. το γαλλικό σύγγραμμα της «Αναθεωρήσεως των δύο κόσμων» (Revue des deux mondes) και β. με την συνένωση του Επταλόφου με την έκδοση της Ελληνικής Βιβλιοθήκης. Πιο αναλυτικά αναφέρει πως, από τα 10 τυπογραφικά φύλλα που θα εκδίδονται, τα 8 θα είναι αφιερωμένα στο περιοδικό και τα 2 στην Ελληνική Βιβλιοθήκη, εννοώντας έργα κλασικά του Πλούταρχου, Αριστοτέλη, Πλάτωνα, Λουκιανού κ.α. Ακόμη η έκδοση θα περιλαμβάνει καταχωρήσεις διδακτορικών διατριβών και μετά από επιλογή δημοσιεύματα από την «Αναθεώρηση των δύο κόσμων», τη «Βρετανική Επιθεώρηση» και τη «Σύγχρονη Επιθεώρηση».