Juicio emblemático a Montesinos y la corrupción en el Perú:
IV. Las excepciones y restricciones al principio de publicidad del juicio
Taking the previous chapter’s conclusion as a theoretic base, this sub-chapter deals with the progression of the concept of cultural identity towards national identity and establishes the markers of a uniting feeling of selfhood in a national context.
The English corpus features several instances of a conscious use of England or Britain as a nation in its pastoral poetry. Finding markers or creators for this attitude is therefore easier than for the ancient Greek corpus; the concept of national identity was, naturally, very far away from the minds of individual Greeks of the Hellenistic period. However, if the concept of national identity is turned away from a modern ‘nunc pro tunc’ attitude and towards that of a united perception of 3rd-century-BC Greek cultural sphere, identity-establishing elements can be determined.
Social psychology defines a nation as
“a group providing an object of emotional attachment and identification for individuals. One acquires group-specific cultural symbols, shares in the past of the group, learns to view events from the perspective of the group, and adopts attitudes, values, behavioural standards and coping strategies characteristic to the group.”237
This vagueness in definition in the study of nationhood unfortunately remains. For this dissertation, a nation will be regarded as a grown social group according to the standards of collective memory, cultural memory and cultural identity, based on the following definition by Anthony Smith:
“[…] the continuous reproduction and reinterpretation of the pattern of values, symbols, memories, myths and traditions that compose the distinctive heritage of nations, and the identification of individuals with that pattern and heritage with its cultural elements.”238
Since the “heritage of nations” is a controversial phrase used for the connection of Greek city states, his definition must be altered slightly; he does so himself for the term “ethnic”, when he identifies six characteristics shared by members of the same ethnic group, namely a collective name, common descent, shared history, distinctive shared culture, association with a specific territory and a sense of communal
237 László 2014:40. 238 Smith 2001: 18.
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solidarity.239 All these markers build on the common ground of collective and cultural memory. Following this concept, Hertel sees the creation and acquiring of cultural and national identity as an active progress developing from individuals performing in its context.240 Whitmarsh agrees: “Identity is now seen […] as something actively constructed and contested […].241”
Generally, scholars working on the concept of nationalism and nationhood can be divided into two camps, namely ‘modernists’ and ‘traditionalists’: the first “regard the nation as a quintessentially modern political phenomenon”242 whereas the latter “believe that nations began to take shape long before the advent of modernity”243. Even though the modernist approach usually prevails in this field of studies, “cultural continuities between premodern and modern nations”244 can be pointed out. The modernist position relies on specific factors to explain nationhood such as democratisation, revolutions, mass media or industrialisation, concluding that must be a modernist product.245 Traditionalists, on the other hand, argue that nation and nationhood existed before modernity and list England, Sweden, France and the Dutch Republic among the countries which “took the form of a national cultural and political community from a very early stage […].”246 Seton-Watson also distinguishes between old nations (“[…]those which had acquired national identity or national consciousness before the formulation of the doctrine of nationalism.”247 such as the English, Scots, French, Danes and Russians) and new nations, “for whom the two processes developed simultaneously.” 248 (such as Germans, Italians, Norwegians and
239 Cf. Smith 1986: 22 ff.
240 “National identity is not an essence one is born with but something acquired in
and through performances.” Pfister in Pfister & Hertel 2008: 9.
241 Whitmarsh in Goldhill 2001: 87. 242 Jensen 2016: 10.
243 Jensen 2016: 10. 244 Jensen 2016: 10.
245 Cf. Jensen 2016: 13. Reynolds’ “Rise of Nations” deals with the modernist approach
in Hutchinson&Smith 1994: 137-140. Among others, Armstrong researches nations before the emergence of the term nationalism in Hutchinson&Smith 1994: 140-147. For further information on Renaissance nationalism see Esobedo 2004.
246 Cf. Jensen 2016: 13. A recent publication by Caspar Hirschi understands nationalism
with the help of linguistic phenomena, analysing “national honour” and “national freedom” as key concepts. Hirschi then argues that nationalism underwent three phases from its originating phase one, Catholicism in 14th century Europe, over to growing forms of nationalism in the Renaissance to the final phase of modern nationalism. (Cf. Hirschi 2012: 78 ff.).
247 Seton-Watson in Hutchinson&Smith 1994: 134. 248 Seton-Watson in Hutchinson&Smith 1994: 134.
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Catalans). He argues, however, that all nations, old and new, have long and brilliant histories and a cultural consciousness249. This dissertation takes on the position of the perennialists “who argue that nations may have existed for a long time but not always in the same form”250. Contextually, they are related to the traditionalists. Since an equal base must be found to reproduce, compare and analyse the development of the national identities as portrayed in the bucolic poetry of Hellenistic Greece as well as the pastoral poetry of early modern England, this approach is most relatable and applicable. Doing so, the advancement from collective to cultural and finally national identity can be reconstructed and understood.
This concept of cultural continuities plays an important part in the research Azar Gat, who challenges the modernists’ approach to the term and meaning of “nationalism”. He argues:
“Nations and nationalism are not primordial. Nonetheless, they are rooted in primordial human sentiments of kin-culture affinity, solidarity and mutual cooperation, evolutionarily engraved in human nature. These attachments, permeating social life and extending beyond family to tribe and ethnos, became integral to politics when states emerged millennia ago.”251
According to Gat, cultural identities and continuities are not only human and primal; he also claims that “[…] ethnic and national identities are among the most durable, and most potent, of cultural forms.” 252 He stresses the continuity of these emotions and developments when he says that “ethnic and national affinities have deep roots in the human psyche, and they have been among the most powerful forces in human history.”253 Gats passionate presentation of the traditionalist position to the issue of nationalism proves very useful for the application for the topic of this dissertation: they argue in favour of the existence of a Greek identity which can then be further developed to the concept of cultural and national identity.
In 1983, Benedict Anderson developed the concept of a cultural identity to the concept of “imagined communities”: he argued that modern nations function as imagined communities whose members may not know their fellows but share a mental image of their (national) 249 Cf. Seton-Watson in Hutchinson&Smith 1994: 134 f. 250 Hadfield in Jensen 2016: 49. 251 Gat in Jensen 2016: 31. 252 Gat in Jensen 2016: 31. 253 Gat in Jensen 2016: 44.
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community. According to Anderson, these images are spread through the media, be it mass media, books, newspapers or magazines.254 This can be transferred to the early modern period, where prints of the bibles and catechisms circulated in all levels of society and united people with a common cause.255 The transfer to ancient Greece is not as straightforward and requires caution - this does not mean, however, that contemporary literature does not bear witness for cultural continuities: after all, the Hellenistic period saw the establishment of various literary collections of manuscripts and the erection of enormous libraries, allowing the categorisation and distribution of literary works in the Greek language. Moreover, the importance of oral transmission of culture has been a concept never neglected in classic philology, where the transmission and reception of poetry was for a long time guaranteed without writing and Homeric epic presents only the best-known exemplification256.
It is important to point out, however, that all scenarios based on Anderson’s theories rely on the understanding of a common language. This is a notion shared by many other authors such as Kim Middel and János László who focus on the importance of language as a marker for national identity257. Other bonding elements are the mass cultural forms of religion and its rituals and traditions as well as epic – and these elements spread into towns, countryside and villages alike.258 As will be seen later on, Herodotus shares these views.
Several scholars draw attention to the importance of a shared enemy or foe for the building of a new imagined community or social group and focus their research on the impact of conflicts or warfare, since “national self-images were usually constructed by opposing them to images of foreign and hostile nations.”259 Important scholars of this field are (among others) Manfred Beller and Joep Leersen.260 All
254 Cf. Anderson, Benedict 1983: 7 ff.
255 “William Tyndale had translated parts of the Bible into the English vernacular as
early as 1525 […].” Hertel 2016: 123.
256 Although the written word plays a crucial word as both witness and provider of
shared identity, scholars warn of over-interpreting its influence; Gat mentions “the illiterate masses in premodern societies are mute in the written records […]” (Gat in Jensen 2016: 33.) but still includes them in his research by judging them for their actions, such as their co-operation in warfare to protect a collective freedom (Cf. Ibid.).
257 Among other publications both in Jensen 2016: 109 and Jensen 2016: 235. 258 Cf. Gat in Jensen 2016: 33.
259 Jensen 2016: 21.
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these markers contribute to the creation and composition of national identity and they vary depending on the context: in Hellenistic Greece and early modern England, different markers have varying impact.
For the aim of this dissertation, narrowing the term of the “nation” must and can be avoided. Its discussion does not revolve around the question whether there was national identity in the selected periods of time but rather in how far the chosen poetry displayed and influenced the self-image of the individual and the collective to support national identity-building.
GREEK NATIONAL IDENTITY:
As mentioned in the introductory paragraphs of this chapter, the scholarly position towards national identity in ancient societies is even more divided than towards medieval or early modern equivalents due to its increased temporal distance to the 18th and 19th centuries which the modernists use to pinpoint the beginning of nationalism. First it must be repeated that an analysis of national identity in the ancient Mediterranean must be completely detached from the ‘nation’, since the term did not exist in ancient Greece. Cultural continuities and communities, however, prevailed and so did cultural markers and triggers. Irad Malkin shares this uneasiness with the term ‘national’ and decides to use the term ‘collective identity’261 after explaining that there may be numerous Greek identities such as their political identity, civic polis identity, ethnos identity, colonial identity, intra-Hellenic and pan-Hellenic identity. Another way of focussing on the cultural identity of collective entities in the Greek language area is by using the term “ethnic identities”. It is problematic to unite all Greeks under the blanket-term of one ethnicity, but “ethnic” allows the introduction of several cultural markers in a group’s shared identity since “Ethnicity is dependent on myths, memories, values, and symbols. Often relating to an idea of a beginning in time (whether or not through an eponymous ancestor), a place of origin […].”262 Moreover, ethnic groups are social groups rather than biological whose construction of identity is primarily
261 Malkin 2001: 3 f. 262 Malkin 2001: 16.
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discursive and requires literary evidence.263 The applicability of “ethnic” rather than “national” identity as terms for the Greeks shared cultural identity could therefore be argued for.264
One of the most extensive research projects on Hellenistic identity was conducted by Katerina Zacharia and resulted in the impressive volume Hellenism – Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity.265 More research on the subjects was done by Edith Hall266, Simon Swain267, Jonathan Hall and Irad Malkin. According to Zacharia, Ἑλληνισμός (Hellenismos, Hellenism) was first used by Strabo and the grammarians to describe “correct Greek” and then evolved into “Greek habits” and finally “Greekness” or “Greek culture”.268 Historian Johann G. Droysen used the term to describe ‘the fusion of Greek and oriental’ and hence associated it with the Hellenistic period; a time period of ultimate dispersion of Hellenism when Alexander and his army as well as his successors spread into distant oriental places.269 Zacharia warns that it is the image of Hellenism from a Roman point of view, namely an utopian community of intellectuals, which predominates the modern mind. The contemporary perception throughout the history of Greek identity, however, was very different.270
When Theocritus, Moschus and Bion composed their poetry in the 3rd and century BC, they could already look back on a century-long process of thinking, finding and creating identity. Greek language, religion and rites can be dated back to the second millennium BC. In the archaic period, Panhellenic institutions, religious festivals or athletic competitions such as the Olympic games (the first were held in 776 BC) are documented which prove cultural traditions surpassed
263 Cf. Hall 1997: 2. Smith agrees: “Ethnic identity is not a ‘natural’ fact of life;
it is something that needs to be actively proclaimed, reclaimed and disclaimed through discursive channels.” (Smith 1986: 182).
264 This opinion is shared by Hall: “Faced with a situation in which genetic,
linguistic and religious boundaries were seldom coterminous, and where no single one of these could stand as an objective set of criteria for defining the ethnic group, scholars fell back on the idea of the ethnic category as a polythetic set of shared cultural forms – that is, a set of cultural attributes where the appearance of any one single attribute is neither necessary nor sufficient on its own to define the set.” (Hall 1997: 23). 265 Zacharia 2008. 266 Hall 1989. 267 Swain 1996. 268 Cf. Zacharia 2010: 1. 269 Cf. Zacharia 2010: 2. 270 Cf. Zacharia 2010: 3.
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the borders of individual poleis271. Zacharia also mentions the rise of mutual enemies, such as the Persians, as triggers for the establishment of a mutual feeling and acceptance of what Ἑλληνισμός was and as helpers to “crystallize ideas of ‘the fatherland in danger’”.272 Flower also argued in this direction and dedicated an article to his discussion of 4th century panhellenism. He works out that in his work Panegyricus, Isocrates distinguishes Athens and Sparta from the barbarians and describes this panhellenism as “ideology of a united Greek crusade against Persia.”273
In the eighth book of Herodotus’ histories, an anonymous Athenian gives a speech on how no Athenian will ever make peace with the Persians. He lists four characteristics of Hellenism, namely blood, language, religion and customs (“[…] αὖτις δὲ τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν ἐὸν ὅμαιμόν τε καὶ ὁμόγλωσσον καὶ θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι ἤθεά τε ὁμότροπα […].” Hdt. Hist. VIII, 144. 2274). This list is crucial, since it shows that already in the time of the Persian wars a concept of the markers for Hellenism existed and appeared to be commonly accepted, appreciated and shared. Shared blood, language, religion and customs are the markers of this imagined community, to use Anderson’s terms, and if these common grounds make out a Greek, they provide guidelines for establishing members of this community.
The Persian war and the Greek image to distinguish themselves from the other influenced and supported the emergence of a Greek consciousness, as
“The formation of identity is a process of self-definition in opposition to other identities; it relies as much on differences from others as on similarities within a group.”275
This is why some scholars go as far as describing the Persians as “the whetstone against which a common Greekness was sharped.”276 Malkin calls the development during the Persian War as a shift from a ‘we’
271 For further information on the identity-providing impact of athletics and festivals
see van Niif in Goldhill 2001: 306-335.
272 Cf. Zacharia 2010: 4.
273 Flower 2000: 65 f. Flower collects different kinds of evidence (poetic and
historical texts from e.g. Isocrates, Simonides, Herodotus, Euripides) to prove 5th-
and 4th-century panhellenism. (Cf. Flower 2000: 66). 274 Edition used: Wilson 2015.
275 Whitmarsh in Goldhill 2001: 87. 276 Malkin 2001: 7.
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to an ‘us’ identity.277 The ‘we’ identity focusses on cultural differences, whereas the ‘us’ identity centres on similarities. For the distinction of ‘us’-Greeks from non-Greeks, the concept of the barbarian was pivotal.
Since the Greeks’ fondness of binary oppositions, dichotomy and antitheses can not only be substantiated in the creation of their syntax but also in cultural spheres, this division of the world into “Greeks” and “Barbarians” (non-Greeks) is hardly surprising.278 The construction of a Greek identity against the image of a barbarian can start out simple: a barbarian is someone unable to speak the Greek language and therefore does not possess the same ability to reason or think like a Greek. Further interpretations see the barbarians as having ‘lack of control, bloodthirsty behaviour, and self-indulgence over food, drink, and sex.”279 Their presumed inability to reason made the barbarians slaves to Greeks, but also slaves to their vices, passions and lusts – at least according to Greek perceptions. It soon becomes obvious that the concept of the barbarian provides a projection surface for every possible evil and that this view is neither detailed nor impartial. However, the thesis “that the Greeks, like the Jews, discovered their ethnic identity as Greeks through the confrontation with Persia”280, is widely accepted by scholars.
The Persian war, or more precisely, Aeschylus’ Persae, are used by Grethlein to highlight the importance of memory and memorials and their influence as cultural identifiers. As mentioned before in the chapter of collective identity, memorials play an important part in a social group’s collective and cultural memory. In terms of national identity-finding, they work as reminders of shared values. Since the Greek literary landscape saw a rise of Greek historiography with Herodotus and Thucydides, scholars usually mention the new genre as a key element in the Greeks’ distribution of shared cultural memory. Grethlein challenges the argument that historiography was the primary
277 The ‘we’ identity focusses on the active involvement in sharing or performing
cultural duties such as genealogies, rites, shared sacred place and history as well as the exclusion and selection of differences between individual Greek poleis and intra-Hellenic social groups. An ‘us’ identity, “recognizes the regard from outside in relation to which the ‘we’ identity becomes an object; in the specific circumstances of threats and wars, differences could be smoothed over and identities homogenized.” (Malkin 2001: 7.).
278 Cf. Zacharia 2010: 25. 279 Zacharia 2010: 26. 280 Zacharia 2010: 26.
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medium of memory production and conservation in classical Greece and emphasises the role of poetry, drama and oratory as they reached a broader audience and actively shaped the Greeks perception of their past.281 Aeschylus Persae give a unique glimpse into the memorial and interpretation of past events. The play was first performed in 472 BC and staged the Persian defeat in Salamis eight years prior. The plot is focalised by the Persians, the enemy, and sets the battle of Salamis in the light of glorified past, or as Grethlein uses Easterling’s term, in ‘heroic vagueness’.282
This narrative technique offers unique interpretations of not only history, but also historic perceptions of “us” and “others”. Grethlein's analysis of the Persae shows how far the already introduced dichotomy of Greek vs Barbarian and Friend vs Foe can be challenged in tragedy283, as he claims that “[…] a close reading of the Persae with the assistance of Aristotle’s reflections on reception suggests that the Greek audience was invited to feel pity for their