Kristina Gedgaudaitė is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at the University of Amsterdam. She has published a monograph based on her thesis titled “The Memory of Asia Minor in Contemporary Greek Culture” by Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies Series (2021). Previously, she was a Mary Seeger O'Boyle postdoctoral research fellow at the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, Princeton University. Her research interests fall within the fields of 20th century Greek literature and culture, cultural memory, migration, comics and graphic novels.

Kristina Gedgaudaitė spoke to Rethinking Greece* on how representations of the Asia Minor refugee experience in popular Greek culture have changed through the decades, on her work on Soloup’s graphic novel Aivali, on why the graphic novel is an apt format to represent a difficult historical past and finally on the educational project Greek Studies Now.

Your most recent research project focused on the memory of the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) in contemporary Greek culture. How have representations of Asia Minor refugee experience changed in popular culture through the decades? Was there a turning point when refugee memory found its place in Greek history?

The memory of the Greco-Turkish War always played an important role in Greek culture, yet this role has not been the same over the period of the last hundred years, as it changes shape in accordance with the needs of the communities by which it has been invoked. To illustrate this point, my book Memories of Asia Minor begins from the testimony of a refugee woman, Marianthe Karamousa, recorded by the Center for Asia Minor Studies; at a certain point of accounting her hardships, she laments that these experiences do not find a place in history. The testimony is recorded in 1962, that is forty years after the war, the same year when many commemoration ceremonies were held across Greece. It is also the year that some of the works that are today regarded as most prominent on this subject were published, such as Aivali, My Homeland by Fotis Kontoglou or Bloodied Earth (transl. Farewell Anatolia) by Dido Soteriou. Yet this refugee still felt that her experiences lay outside history, even at the moment of narrating those experiences for the historical record to the interviewer of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies. The testimony was published in the first volume of the Center for Asia Minor Studies' collection The Exodus in 1980; the decade of the 1980s can indeed be regarded as the moment when refugee experiences assume great significance in the public sphere. All this happens at a transnational conjuncture, when a human rights discourse is on the rise and there is increased attention to individual stories that lay claim to these rights. Yet, while certain experiences, such as the exodus from Smyrna become watershed moments in the history of the Greco-Turkish War, others, such as those of Turkish-speaking Christians that left Greece, never obtain the same visibility. In this context, the focus of my project is on the role memories of Asia Minor come to play in present-day Greece.

What is the role of memories of Asia Minor in contemporary Greek culture? How do they connect to Greek society’s current hopes and fears?

I view cultural memory as a toolbox, which can indeed provide tools to position oneself in history and to address the present in a certain way, be it to assume a distinct cultural identity, to provide a template for responding to present-day issues, or to advocate for recognition and social justice. The two examples of this process I focused on in my research are the history textbook edited by the team led by Maria Repousi and the 2015-2016 response to the currently ongoing refugee crisis. Both attracted wide public attention, albeit in different ways: the former leading to outcries of outrage, while the latter – to solidarity. Perhaps one could say that the underlying premise of my work was that we need to take such emotions seriously, to understand where they come from and where they lead.

It was also important for me to foreground that while memories operate within certain social, cultural and political frameworks, the meaning that they take on is ultimately determined in an encounter with others. During my research, I witnessed a number of occasions when cultural works dealing with refugee memories deemed alternative visions were embedded in the national culture, and vice versa – the works that were considered as reflective of nationalist discourses served as a meeting point for diverse viewpoints to emerge. Hence taking into account encounters with memories was important for showing that contingent futures of memory emerge from established views and openings to difference.

How does your work on Asia Minor memories connect to current global debates over contested pasts and refugeehood?

While this is not a new phenomenon, the declared refugee crisis in 2015 brought this issue to the foreground of European politics. Returning to the case of refugees from Asia Minor in this context, offers an interesting point of departure for considering what meanings of refugeehood persist when the initial sense of emergency and crisis that led to it are long gone.

Looking into the ways in which contemporary identity politics intertwine with questions about the past, and how claims of ownership over this past inevitably come endowed with specific demands for the future, resonates strongly with debates taking place in other global contexts, be it on exclusions and inclusions that characterize commemoration practices or the role of migratory heritage within national culture. Finally and importantly, the compulsory population exchange between Greece and Turkey served as a blueprint for executing a number of other displacements, most notably after World War II, and exploring those links offers a vantage point for viewing the legacies of war in the global context, beyond Greece and Turkey. I have made some steps in exploring the latter in my most recent work. 

Your current research project deals with Greek comics and graphic novels. How did you get from researching memories of Asia Minor to comics?

Just as I was starting my research project on memories of Asia Minor, as part of my doctoral dissertation at the University of Oxford in 2014, Soloup’s graphic novel Aivali was published. I found it very engaging and particularly reflective of the ways in which the grandchildren of refugees relate to their cultural heritage. Just think of your own family memories: rarely they come as a full story, and much more often – as fragments, prompted by something in our everyday. It is then our task to piece those fragments together. This is a process which is often facilitated by delving into the archive to fill in the gaps in the story as well as a journey of return to the homelands of one’s ancestors. This is exactly what we see happening in the case of Soloup’s Aivali, but also other recent works on the topic.

The graphic novel is a particularly apt format to represent what dealing with a difficult historical past and what tis entails, which can be seen from the proliferation of such narratives across the globe. Graphic narrative is built around a number of tensions; between word and image, between single image and page as a whole, between representing and exposing the process of mediating representation. What is more, they often break down linear historical chronologies and as a result mange to expose history as a process with long lasting consequences beyond the event itself. The capacity of the comics medium to render history is what caught my initial interest and eventually led me to the wider exploration of comics and graphic novels as a means of artistic innovation and social critique in contemporary Greece, first conceived while on a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University, and currently continuing within the framework of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie individual fellowship, held at the University of Amsterdam.

You are one of the coordinators of the project Greek Studies Now. Could you tell us more about this project? What are the stakes for Modern Greek Studies in the current cultural conjecture?

Greek Studies Now started as an initiative between the University of Oxford and the University of Amsterdam in 2020, with Durham University joining as a third institutional partner in 2023. Yet from the very beginning it served as a network bringing together colleagues across different universities and career stages. The key question that this network addresses is how Greek studies can offer a vantage point for critical engagement with wider global contexts and debates. Over the course of three years since this network’s inception, the topics that were addressed in this framework ranged from eco-criticism to the trial of the Golden Dawn, from AIDS commemoration to Albanian-Greek identity, and much more. At the core of the network’s activities lies an invitation to think contrapuntally – weaving connections across topics, contexts, and disciplinary boundaries. Most importantly, I believe this kind of critical engagement with the present also invites reconsideration of one’s own role and positionality as a researcher. While this is certainly a much wider call, I see more and more colleagues who are active participants in the network activities to think through and engage with their research topics in various ways beyond academia.

Read also from Greek News Agenda:

Rethinking Greece | Emilia Salvanou on the Greek-Turkish population exchange after 1922 and the making of Greek refugees' memory

Reading Greece: The Asia Minor Catastrophe in Modern Greek Literature

* Interview to: Ioulia Livaditi

The post Rethinking Greece | Kristina Gedgaudaitė on representations of the Asia Minor refugee experience in popular Greek culture appeared first on Greek News Agenda.

Twenty-four rebetes [rebetiko musicians], fourteen complete songs, verses and stanzas from other thirty-five songs and their stories are featured in the graphic novel “Rebetiko.History and Protagonists” written by Nikos Koufopoulos. The book that has recently been translated to English by Evita Lykoy, tells the real stories of the people of rebetiko music in three hundred pages of comic strips -designed by fourteen colorists and Illustrators. A work that required a lot research, but above all, a labor of love.

"All the stories in the book are true, obviously," says Nikos Koufopoulos, himself a rebete for nearly 40 years, in an interview to Sofia Mandilara for the Athens and Macedonian News Agency. "Some of the stories were already known to me because I play rebetiko. Starting from that, it took me about one and half to two years to research the scirpts, and in total, we were been working on the book as a team for about three and half years. Koufopoulos believes that the book only covers the basics and "if someone wants to get more involved, an ocean will open up in front of them to swim in. We only selected some stories. Graphic novels allow you to tell stories. You can use humor, be a tease, or talk more emotionally. It's like going to the cinema, viewing images frame by frame."

The sources of the book are bibliographic as well as testimonies of musicians, scholars of rebetiko music and also record-collector friends, as Koufopoulos points out: "all those who had worked before me". The graphic novel’s illustrators, young people and mostly graduates of the School of Fine Arts, had also to do their share of research in order to accurately depict the era of each story. "I was teaching beginners bouzouki and guitar and of my students, was an illustrator. I call him up and say "Nikola, are you in to make a comic about rebetiko?" He says "how many pages are you talking about?" I tell him "Rebetiko is a big subject, 300 pages". He tells me "I can't do it alone". So one started to bring in others and that's how the team of fourteen illustrators and colorists came into being," explains Koufopoulos.

Among other things, the book was written to answer the question ‘why rebetiko?’ "How can this music endure for 100 years and still be great and move people, as if it was written yesterday? I play rebetiko because my little soul opens up. Other music does it too, when it's good, when it's honest. This is why I wanted to talk about what has given me joyful and emotinal times for so many years," says Nikos Koufopoulos.

"Rebetiko came from popular and marginalized social strata. Through the prisons he came out, through the hashish dens. From people who were on the fringes of society - and of course poor. They sang to express themselves. They wrote neither for glory nor for money," emphasizes Koufopoulos, who believes that this is why rebetiko and folk songs speak deeply within us. However, he believes that music genres like rock & roll and hip hop can do the same because "something that is great speaks to many different people, in many different ways. He has something to say to everyone."

"Rebetiko is still alive" comments Nikos, adding "I see new kids who play beautifully. You're hearing swashbuckling players with a high level of skill and an emotion that means there's something about this song that makes them want to keep playing it.'' He believes that it does not matter if we have recognized as much as we should the contribution of rebetiko to our cultural identity because "rebetiko does not force you to go to it. It's not loud, nor is it flashy. it doesn't rush and it doesn't provoke. It's just there waiting for you. If you feel the need to sing it or listen to it, it will give you its greatness generously. Either in joy or in sadness. It will speak to your soul as it has done so well for 150 years now. And it continues"."People listen to rebetiko when they go out to the taverns, so we all grew up with it. It exists, like it or not, we heard it, it's in our DNA. Memories are awakening. The time comes when we make the choice and there is the power of rebetiko, always pure.” Koufopoulos concludes.

The Rebetiko.History and Protagonists graphic novel takes on a trip the world of rebetiko song and its protagonists. To the Mourmourika songs of the prisons. To the hash dens of Piraeus. To the amanes of Smyrna. To the Cafe Aman. To the zeibekiko songs of Troumpa. To Vourla. To Volos. To Chania. To America. To Istanbul. To Smyrna. To the prohibition on bouzouki and the rebetiko song. To censorship and... Barbara. To the prohibited songs and the rebetika of the Occupation. To the lecture of Manos Hadjidakis on the rebetiko. Listening to the heartfelt sighs of Markos Vamvakaris, Giannis Papaioannou, Vassilis Tsitsanis, lovan Tsaous, Dimitris Gogos (Bayanderas), Stelios Keromytis, Spyros Peristeris, Vangelis Papazoglou, Panagiotis Toundas. To the melodies of Dimitris Stergiou (Bebis) and Manolis Chiotis. To the voices of Roza Eskenazi, Sotiria Bellou, loanna Georgakopoulou, Marika Ninou. To the lyrics of Eftichia Papagiannopoulou. To these and many more creators of the rebetiko song.

The fourteen illustrators and colorists that collaborated with Koufopoulos for the graphic novel are: Nikos Papamihail, Eva Mourtzi, Panagiotis Tsaoussis, Vleseed, Kalli Dolcetti, Giorgos Kollias, Ioanna-Joni Kordoroupa, Thanasis Papantoniou, Kamaris, Christos Pittas, Kostas Pliatsikas, Foivos Pikazis, Spyros vangelos (SEA) Armenis and Anna.

Read more on rebetiko music via Greek News Agenda: 

• Greek music and festivals recognized as UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage
• Rebetiko music: From the margins to the mainstream
• Book of the Month: Rebetika – Songs from the Old Greek Underworld
• "Rebetiko" Art Exhibition in Athens

I.L.. Translated from Sofia Mandilara's article for the Athens and Macedonian News Agency, all pictures from Rebetiko.History and Protagonists.

The post Graphic Novel “Rebetiko: History and Protagonists” appeared first on Greek News Agenda.