Some time ago the department of literary studies at Ghent University - - PDF document

Some time ago the department of literary studies at Ghent University started a project aiming at investigating authors who failed to be successful, who were – as the initiators of the project called them rather unceremoniously – ‘losers’. Their basic assumption was that the life and work of authors that for some reason didn’t succeed in being valued by the critics and loved by the readership may be just as illustrative of literary life, predominant literary tastes, ideological approaches of literature etcetera as the life and work of successful authors. Grigor Părličev or Grigorios Stavridhis, as he called himself in Greek, would be an interesting case in point. Apart from his dazzling, but rather ephemeral and not uncontested triumph at the Athenian Poetry Contest in 1860, his literary career was a failure, and the reasons of that failure appear to be particularly revealing of the mental make-up, the aesthetic preferences and the ideological views of people in the Balkans mid-nineteenth century and more specifically in Greece. Grogor Părličev was born in Ohrid in 1830 in a family of Bulgarians (as they call themselves) and received an education in Greek – the only education that was available at that time in his native city. Having a fascination with Ancient Greek poetry and especially the Homeric chants, he acquired a thorough command of the archaizing form of literary Greek known as katharevousa. This language, which somehow connected the nineteenth-century Greeks to their ancient ancestors, was the language the jury of the Athenian Poetry Contest required the literary works submitted to their judgment to be written in. The members of the jury were deeply impressed by austere katharevousa used by Părličev, then a medical student in Athens, in the epic poem called O Armatolos with which he participated in the Poetry

• Contest. In addition to the language, as chairman Alexandros Rangavis pointed out, the jury

also particularly appreciated the fact that the events related in the poem – essentially a fight between Muslim robbers and a Christian armatolos (a kind of policeman) – took place in Albania, in a remote part of what he considered “the Greek world”, where apparently also lived ‘Greek heroes’. Părličev himself explicitly mentioned in three long footnotes to the poem, that Albanians were “nothing else save Greeks”. So, in addition to its artistic qualities, Părličev’s O Armatolos displayed all the ideological features apt to please a public captivated not only by poetry, but also by irredentist nationalism. For a short time Părličev turned into something as a “pop star”. Even after his competitor at the Poetry Contest, Professor Theodoros Orphanides, made him “admit” that he actually was a Bulgarian, Părličev did not lose the support of his “fans”. At that time Greek ideologists were constructing a Greek national identity that also included Albanians, Vlachs and even Bulgarians, as “branches of the same tree” or “members of the same family”, having their roots in ancient peoples that allegedly were related to the Ancient Greeks. Părličev too was, as a Bulgarian writing in Greek, considered by some Greek journalists as a “beloved brother”. All this being so, one may wonder why Părličev has not left a lasting trace in Greek literary history. He was almost completely forgotten. Părličev himself and many of his biographers seem to believe that the main reason is that in the late 1860s he became one of the minor, local champions of the Bulgarian national movement and a fierce opponent of the dominant Greek cultural influence in Ohrid. In fact, he left Athens, not awaiting the proclamation of winner of the 1862 Poetry Contest, although that year again he had submitted another, even more “Homeric” poem, Skenderbeis. His absence from Greece was probably

• ne of the reasons why he fell into oblivion. It was known in Athens that he had turned into a

Bulgarian national activist, but relatively little attention was paid to his “defection”. A more plausible explanation for his disappearance from Greek literary history, it seems to me, is the fact that the Athenian Poetry Contests were to a large extent a manifestation of the Athenian Romantic School, which as a whole fell out of favor by the end of the nineteenth century, due to its use of an archaic Greek, its improbable plots, its sentimentalism, briefly, very much the same factors that turned romantic literature obsolete all over Europe.

So, Părličev’s ambition to become a “Greek poet” failed, due mainly to the vicissitudes of literary taste. He also failed to become fully accepted as a Greek. In spite of the many people in Athens who were prepared to adopt him as one of them, there also existed many political and even racial prejudices which were an obstacle to his full integration. We shouldn’t forget that in April 1860 year Bulgarian activists in Contantinople one-sidedly declared their independence from the Patriarchate, which provoked strong anti-Bulgarian feelings. Anyhow, many questions remain. Why would a “Bulgarian” aspire to become a “Greek”. Why would someone (as Bulgarian historians maintain) with a Bulgarian national consciousness not only write in Greek, but – as many documents show – identify himself with the Greek nation and defend many of the Greek national aspirations. Actually, Părličev grew up in a premodern era, when people identified themselves not with an ethnic of a national, but with a religious community in the first place. That explains why the citizens of Ohrid, although calling themselves Bulgarians, had no problem sending their children to a Greek school, where they would learn the language that was generally accepted by all Balkan Orthodox Christians as a shared language of inter-ethnic and intellectual communication. However, during Părličev’s lifetime the multiethnic Orthodox Christian community went through a process of dismemberment, resulting in the emergence of various ethnic nations. During that process, Părličev too, under the spell of Greek culture, was carried away by Greek nationalism, which was particularly virulent among the students and professors of the Athenian University. Thus Părličev was not a Bulgarian who became a Greek, but an Orthodox Christian who became a Greek, just like, by the way, Părličev’s Greek contemporaries had become Greeks only recently, having possessed a basically Orthodox Christian identity for ages. The idea of the existence of a multi-ethnic Orthodox Christian cultural community within the Ottoman Empire is very dear to me and I am particularly happy that Vassilis and I obviously share the same approach. Both Părličev’s epic poems written during his stay in Athens indicate that at that time he had not yet completely surmounted the premodern, essentially religious perception of the

• world. Both poems deal with violent conflicts, O Armatolos on the small scale of a fight with

a gang of robbers, Skenderbeis on the larger scale of organized resistance against the Ottoman

• invaders. In both cases the conflict is essentially between Christians and Muslims. Ethnicity

plays no part whatsoever. Significantly, although Părličev repeatedly called himself a Bulgarian, the heroes of both his poems are all Albanians. Some of the Christian heroes in O Armatolos apparently have Slavic names, but in the Albanian-Macedonian border region Slavic names were also very common among Albanians. In Skenderbeis, the ethnic identity of the main hero is not mentioned explicitly. There is only one Slavic hero; however, he is not Bulgarian, but Montenegrin. To Părličev, they are all Christians in the first place fighting Muslims. Părličev’s preference for Albanian heroes is rather curious for a Bulgarian. Moreover, he dedicated the printed version of O Armatolos to Evangelis Zappas, “champion of the ancient glory and founder of the new Olympic games” (according toParličev), as an expression of (I quote) ”the sincere esteem that every Hellenic heart owes him”. Evangelis Zappas actually was Vangjel Zhapa, the rich Albanian trader a fierce defender of the idea that Albanians were “nothing else save Greeks”. Vassilis Maragos has done some pioneering research on Părličevs “Albanian connection” and his findings are one of the major contributions to a better understanding of Părličevs life and work his book contains. As we saw, Părličev’s failed to be become an acknowledged Greek author, but he also didn’t succeed in being accepted as a Bulgarian writer. Părličev continued writing in Greek until the end of his life. The patriotic speeches he delivered in Ohrid and other texts were

written in the Ohrid Slavic dialect, in Greek characters. He was sent to Istanbul to learn Church Slavonic, the only written form of Slavic he somehow mastered. Nevertheless, in 1870, he was invited by the editorial board of the periodical Čitalište (Reading Room) to translate the Iliad into Bulgarian. Părličev had an admirable knowledge of Homeric Greek, but he had trouble to understand literary Bulgarian, let alone he was able to produce an artistically sound translation in that language. Părličev then resorted to a self-created language, consisting of a mixture of Church Slavonic and the Ohrid dialect. It was met by authoritative Bulgarian literary critics with offensive mockery. The rejection was all the more drastic since the formation of Bulgarian standard language was still on its way and Bulgarian authors were particularly sensitive to the “purity” of the language. Părličev also abbreviated Homer’s text, which Bulgarian critics considered a violation of the rigorous criteria of professionalism they applied to literary translations. Părličev eventually translated also his O Armatolos in this self-created language, but it was never published during his lifetime. He spent the last years of his life as a frustrated and embittered loner. Except for his charming, but rather unreliable Autobiography, Părličev’s writings in Bulgarian hardly meet the criteria of belles-lettres. If he has a place in any literature, it is Greek literature and thanks to Vassilis Maragos he finally received the attention of a Greek scholar he really deserves. There have been some publications on Părličev’s Greek poems in Greece; a few years ago, O Armatolos was republished in a facsimile edition in Greece and his Autobiography was translated into Greek. There are a few biographies of Părličev, but Maragos’s is without a doubt the most penetrating and the most up to date. Magaros used a lot

• f new, unexplored sources in an impressive number of various languages, which shed a new

light on many aspects of Părličev’s life and work or confirm what we had guessed. Finally, his book also contains a revised edition of Părličev’s most important work, Skenderbeis, which is the first publication of the poem in Greece. To conclude. Părličev has been the subject of fierce discussions between scholars in Sofia and Skopje about his national appurtenance: is he a “Bulgarian” or a “Macedonian”? Greeks scholars as well have claimed Stavridis as belonging to Greek national literature. Albanians probably do not consider him to be an Albanian, but there is an Albanian translation of Skenderbeis. Părličev lived in a historical period when nations were still in the process of formations and national identities were still fluid and unfledged. It is probably rather futile to put the label of some specific nationality on him and more sensitive and justified to perceive him as a Balkan phenomenon, in which various Balkan nations have a share.