Language and National Identity in Greece, 1766–1976 (review)

The subject of modern Greek identity has been ably treated in English language studies published by social scientists such as Michael Herzfeld, Anastasia Karakasidou, Paschalis Kitromilides, Robert Peckham, and Victor Roudometof, and humanists such as Stathis Gourgouris and Gregory Jusdanis, to mention only those with recent book-length contributions. Now, Peter Mackridge has joined the group with what is a long-overdue intervention by a specialist in the study of the Greek language. His Language and National Identity in Greece, 1776–1976 is a welcome addition because it offers a comprehensive narrative history of the language question in Greece and the ways it shaped and was shaped by the evolution of Greek identity.

The role of language in the course of Greek national self-definitions has been, naturally, addressed by all major studies on this subject, yet a specifically linguistically-conscious approach such as this one is especially valuable because of the particularities of the Greek language question. In most other cases of nation-building in Europe, this question entailed two processes. The first was the projection of language as a constitutive element of nationhood, a practice generated by the ideas of Romanticism that prevailed in the first part of the nineteenth century. The second was a gradual standardization of a language that in turn functioned as an integrative element in the emergence, some would say construction, of a modern nation-state. All this also applied to nationalism in Greece, but with some important differences. Language became important in nationalist discourse relatively early, in the Enlightenment era, when Adamantios Korais employed it in his construct of continuity between ancient and modern Greece. But it is the other Greek particularity that lent the Greek language question a controversial, divisive edge: the conflict between the advocates of a more archaic pure version, the so-called katharevousa, and the advocates of a more vernacular version, demotic Greek. These two elements intersected at several moments throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but the clash between the purists and the vernacularists remained constant through the late twentieth century.

It is that conflict Mackridge sets out to describe and explain, while also noting the ways it shaped, and was shaped by, the ongoing debates and clashes over Greek identity definitions. It is a story well told, keeping faithfully and effectively to a strict chronological narrative structure. The chapter-based periodization, following a discussion of the preconditions for the language controversy, consists of an examination of an early stage from 1766 to 1804; the era of Korais, 1804 through 1830; the first half century of nation-state building, 1830 through 1880, followed by an examination of the rise of the demoticists through 1897, leaving two chapters to cover the twentieth century.

Preceding the chapters that study the language question chronologically is a chapter on the theoretical background. It is wide-ranging and may have been more usefully focused only on the literature on linguistics and nationalism that informs the author's approach rather than trying to address the entire range of scholarly examinations of nationalism, from Benedict Anderson to Anthony Smith. Their inclusion is indicative of Mackridge's intention to discuss the language question in relation to national identity rather than on its own. But the rest of the book is primarily concerned with the language controversy and intermittently with its connections with national identity, which are not always evident. In many cases, it is the various language controversy polemicists that invoke that connection, sometimes arbitrarily, in order to strengthen their case. The author, moreover, does return to the theoretical apparatus outlined in this opening chapter, proof in itself that the more general discussion of theories of nationalism is not essential to validate his own approach which relies on authors, texts and their historical context. It is enough for us to know that Mackridge endorses John Joseph's view that a social scientist such as Benedict Anderson "gives all his attention to how national identities...