31 flaTtaS&KT], A la , To eipr\f}iKd npdxvno xov AyyeXov ZuceXiavov Kai tj AeX<pnct] n poan ddeia( The A dolescen t M o d e l o f A g g elo s Sikelianos a n d the D elph ic A ttem pt), p.p.92-3.
creation o f a new artistic production equivalent in its importance to that o f Ancient Greece.
Within this context Sikelianos was not interested in ‘reviving’ the ancient glory, again a nineteenth-century Greek ideal, but to culturally appropriate Ancient Greece within Modem Greek culture in such a way that it was based on and emphasised his concept o f ‘the unity o f the Greek culture’. This appropriation would lead to an artistic production that could be recognised as ‘Greek’. Such a production would be transmitted in the
Greek language, would express the Greek Geist and would convey the ‘universal
principles o f Life’ not only to Greece, but also to the whole world. It is within these principles that he understood tragedy since for him Ancient Greek tragedy consisted o f a Greek form o f art, w hich expressed in a complete way th e ‘universal p rinciples o f Life’. A nd i t i s m y c ontention t hat th e s tyle o f t he p erformances w as based o n t his ideological concept o f the unity o f the Greek culture and o f what a ‘Greek artistic
product’ meant for Sikeliands. Within the framework o f this view there were no
boundaries set between the several phases o f what is considered to be ‘G reek’ culture. One phase was used in order to illuminate the other underlining the perception o f the entirety o f what is regarded as ‘G reek’ culture as an ‘organic w hole’.
In that sense the Sikelianoi’s performances o f Ancient Greek tragedy followed the principles upon which M odem Greek culture was constituted during the period because even the aesthetic emphasis on Ancient Greece, which is apparent in the style o f the productions, took into consideration and was approached through the cultural unity o f Ancient and M odem Greek culture. Thus it is my contention that their work in tragedy
expresses a fundamental change o f concept from the nineteenth-century ‘devotion to the Ancient Greek ancestors’. It is not M odem Greek culture that has to be ‘m odified’ so as to approach and ‘reproduce’ the principles o f Ancient Greek civilisation, but it is Ancient Greek civilisation that approaches, illuminates and legitimises M odem Greek culture. And at the same time Ancient Greek civilisation is itself legitimised by M odem Geek culture as an exclusively ‘purely Greek’ culture. This is the fundamental principle o f the cultural appropriation o f Ancient Greece by M odem Greece, which formed the basis o f all productions o f ancient drama from 1919 onwards and allowed the constitution o f the aesthetic style/s o f the performances to draw from the entirety o f what was considered to be ‘Greek’ culture. The Sikelianoi’s productions established this principle, as I will argue in this and the following chapter.
One o f the most notable examples o f how Aggelos Sikelianos perceived the unity o f Greek culture is his concept o f religiousness, which was expressed as a basic aesthetic principle o f the productions; the Sikelianoi’s approach to tragedy was based on the rendering o f the religiousness o f the genre. To this end contributed not only precise signs within the performance, especially those signs that signified a correlation between the personae o f Prometheus and o f Christ in Prometheus Bound, as I will explain later, but the fact itself that the chorus sang and danced. The idea was to create the atmosphere o f a ritual, a ritual that could be recognised as ‘purely G reek’.
The ‘Greekness’ o f the ritualistic atmosphere stemmed from Aggelos Sikelianos’ concept o f ‘religiousness’, which was inseparably linked with his notion o f
“essence” o f hellenikotita, but it was the fact that he was Greek that allowed him to feel and to interpret religiousness in the particular way that he did. Religiousness was for Sikelianos the most basic principle towards a w ay o f life that would be in harmony with the universal principles o f Life, Nature and God, initiating man in the m ajor demand for
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Life . Sikelianos’ religiousness, however, was not bound to a particular God or to a particular church. It was in a sense a construction o f his own religion that took the form o f a mystical contact with a divine Eternal Being. In the course o f Greek history and culture this divine Eternal Being had assumed many names, the most prominent o f which were Dionysus, Apollo, and Christ. For Sikelianos all three o f them revealed to man the path towards his/her completion. Thus they reflected the same pow er and they used common symbols, wheat and the v in e .33
The starting point o f Sikelianos’ concept o f religiousness is to be found in N ietzsche’s
The Birth o f Tragedy. Sikelianos’ concept o f religiousness implies the distinction
between Dionysus and Apollo as Nietzsche explained it. N ietzsche’s concepts are, however, renegotiated in the frame o f Sikelianos’ ‘Greekness’. Where Nietzsche sees a “tremendous opposition in origin and aims” between the ‘A pollinian’ and the ‘Dionysian’, Sikelianos emphasises their secret unity, as manifestations o f the same Eternal God and adds to them the Christian Orthodox Christ, forming thus a new Holy
32 na7ia8&KT|, A la , To efprjfiiKO npdxvno xov AyyeXov I i k e X i o v o v k o u rj AeXcpucrj n poan ddeia( The adolescen t m o d el o f A g g elo s Sikelianos a n d the D elph ic A ttem pt), p. 81.
33 One o f the best exam ples o f this internal unity and durability o f the eternal sym b ols o f D ionysus- Bacchus, A p o llo and Christ is best expressed in the poem «A i(5vvoog - lT ioobg» (“D ionysus-C hrist”), in: « H 2uveC6r}ori IKorngw ( “The C onsciousness o f Faith”) ”), TlpoXoryoq axr\ ^coff (P ro lo g u e to Life), AvpiKOQ Biog(L yric Life), vol. Ill, p. 213. See page 107 and footnote 1 in the sam e page.
Trinity.34 The concept o f unity itself can also be traced back to N ietzsche’s ‘D ionysian’ perception o f ‘the unity o f man and nature’. It is my contention, however, that Sikelianos’ ‘nature’ is Greek and thus the unity o f N ietzsche’s ‘man and nature’ is transformed in his thought in the ‘unity o f Greek man with Greek nature’ incorporating and emphasising the unity also o f Greek culture. The implicit link o f this concept must, I think, be sought in the faint survival o f Giannopoulos’ initial influence on Sikelianos.35
Following Nietzsche, Sikelianos favoured the state o f ‘Dionysianism ’. Actually the perception o f the world being in a state o f ‘Dionysianism’ consists o f an essential part o f his habitus. Contrary, however, to Nietzsche’s concept it was the state o f ‘Dionysianism’ that led Sikelianos to action.36 In this state he saw him self as a new Orpheus and felt impelled to initiate the Greeks and the world in a new way o f life that would lead to their completion.37 As a “prophet, a priest and an athlete” he felt he had to share his perception o f the world.38 The world Sikelianos perceived, however, being in a s tate o f ‘ Dionysianim ’ w as v ery d ifferent f rom t he o ne N ietzsche p erceived a nd i t consisted o f the essence o f Sikelianos’ hellenikotita. It is a world that did not make him
34 See N ietzsch e, Friedrich, The Birth o f T ragedy a n d the C ase o f Wagner, Kaufmann, W alter (trans.), N ew York: V intage B ook s, 1967.