Selections from Two Lectures by Nicolaos M. Panayotakis

Panayotakis’s extensive research material and collections have now been catalogued and boxed in order to be shipped from Venice to Athens. Below are two excerpts that indicate his view of Greece’s heritage and identity—passages relating to articles that have appeared in JMGS. The first is from «∏εριπ°τειες τ∞ς ’Eθvιϰ∞ς μας ταυτότητας», published in ∏αλίμηστοv 4 (June 1987):205–212, the second, published in ANTI no. 645 (10 October 1997):44–48, is from «Bεvετία ϰαι Kρήτη», the inaugural address that he was scheduled to deliver on 1 October 1997 in Crete at the international symposium on Venice and Crete.

Tribulations of Our National Identity

“The most decisive component in the structuring of our national identity has been language, the language that, as Seferis writes, is ‘our common nature, born when we were born.’ The Greek language, even more than Orthodoxy, is the foremost characteristic of our national identity. In ecumenical and multiethnic Byzantium, the Greek speaking populations, even when not in the majority, nevertheless constituted the basic trunk and leading class. The Greek language was dominant in Byzantium as the state language and as the language used by a large section of the population. Byzantines may not have liked to be called “Eλληνες but they all knew that they spoke ‘Eλληνιϰά. The Byzantine intelligentsia were firmly conscious of the fact that they were the guardians and disseminators not only of the language but also of the cultural goods carried with it. If they had not been conscious of this fact, few of the texts from Greek antiquity would have survived. From Southern Italy to the plains of Pontus and from the Danube to Crete, sometimes inside and sometimes outside Byzantine borders, there was never a group not speaking Greek. They were the descendants of people who spoke Greek during the ancient, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. The geographic diffusion of these Greek speaking populations was bound to lead to linguistic differentiation, sometimes important and large, but never to a degree leading to incomprehension among those speaking the same language. It would be a serious neglect on my part not to underline a fundamental factor that secured the survival and the maintenance of this language: the continuous reference, throughout the Middle Ages, to an official, formal (λόγια) language whose main bearers were the state, the Church, and the intellectuals. In all of our history this highbrow tradition has been as valuable as the popular tradition that is currently advanced as the quintessence of our national identity. In my opinion, the former is more valuable because of its continuity throughout the centuries, a continuity lacking in our popular language and culture. The main characteristic of our popular language is its polymorphism and fluidity. Thus it is inconceivable that we shall ever be able to trace our history and find our real cultural and national identity if we cut ourselves off from our formal tradition. This danger exists in the current silly, incoherent era in which we live.

“To conclude, I wish to stress that a new interpretation of the terms ‘Hellenic’ and ‘Christian’ is badly needed. If by the term ‘Hellenic’ we referred to the Greek language and not to Greek antiquity, if by the term ‘Christian’ we meant the Orthodox tradition that is woven into all phases of our national life, and if we considered these two elements to be the main connecting factors in our civilization, as they truly are, without showing them off as standards of nationalist fervor or symbolism, then we could find a way to counter the insecurity of our puzzling era.

“… We are a small nation, rightly proud of our historic past; we do not wish to beautify this past, or to alter it, discard it, or sentence it to death. This country has a historic past whose deep roots lie in medieval Hellenism, the Hellenism of Byzantium.”

Venice and Crete

“One of the most important outcomes of the unfortunate Fourth Crusade was the formation of the Venetian colonial empire. This resulted in the first real encounter of the Latino-Italian and Greek-Byzantine civilizations, bringing about a harmonious synthesis that had never been...