Yiannis Ritsos: A Language of Resistance (April 2020)
May 1936, Thessaloniki: A mother weeps over her son, one of many protesters killed by the police after participating in in a tobacco workers’ strike. Image taken from the Global Rights website.
The Political Faultlines of Interwar Greece
In the post-WWI, late interwar period, Greece was torn between the ideals of its successful past and a modern reality of economic disaster and political turmoil. In the Greek election of 1928, statesman Elefthérios Venizélos returned from exile and was instated in government, bringing hope of an end to political upheaval, coup, and war that had defined the 1920s.[1] A brief moment of stability seemed to rise when he restored tense international relations with Turkey in the signing of the Ankara agreements in 1930. While this paused a lengthy period of ongoing hostility between the two nations, Greece was faced with challenges from a different direction with start of the Great Depression. A poorer country, many of the domestic plans of Venizélos went up in flames during the Depression as Greek tariffs increased, agricultural exports were limited, rural poverty surged, and unemployment and public unrest began a steady rise.[2] According to Ioannis Stefanidis, “Greece’s per capita national debt was by far higher than that of any other country of south-eastern Europe,” and relied heavily on exports.[3] In part due to this high threshold debt, there was an increase in Greece’s debt and national poverty (it was already a relatively poor nation) during the Depression. This largely contributed to the increasing support of the Communist Party of Greece, and Venizélos’ fall from popularity, with anti-Venizelist factions growing in the early 1930s.[4] In March of 1935, a coup d’état attempt was led by Georgios Kondylis, who declared the monarchy restored and a plebiscite saw his brief reign as King George II.[5] Several liberals succeeded him, but in 1936 a hung parliament and a series of ill-timed deaths in Greek political networks cleared the way for Ioannis Metaxas.[6]
Metaxas was staunchly authoritarian and believed order could only be restored to Greece through complete suppression of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and liberal forces; however, this only led to brutality and different forms of resistance. Under the consent of King George II, former royalist general Metaxas rose through the power networks in 1936, from Minister of War in March, to Prime Minister in April, and then led a coup and became dictator on the 4th of August.[7] Modeled after that of Mussolini and mimicking fascist Italy, Metaxas’ government system, the 4th of August Regime, made various appeals to the public and to byzantine religiosity (such as calling his regime the Third Hellenic Civilization); however, the public remained generally apathetic.[8] Further, his attempts to forcibly remove Communist influences by exiling the liberal leaders did little to quell the critiques of Greek government and the discontent of the people. While Metaxas made superficial attempts to gain the support of the working class and strongly upheld the newer Greek traditions of monarchism and nationalism, his strong corporatist and protectionist leanings may have contributed to a dissatisfaction with his leadership. In the years leading up to World War II, greater economic strains were continuing to hurt Greek workers. In one such instance, according to Hellenic scholar Ioannis Stefanidis, “Between 1929 and 1933 tobacco exports dropped by 81 per cent and production was cut by more than half…”[9] In response to such struggles arose strikes, marches, and protests, which were met by the Metaxas dictatorship with police brutality. This inadequate response inspired writers such as Kostas Varnalis and Yiannis Ritsos to give a voice to the silenced people. A photograph of a dead protester from a tobacco strike in particular inspired Yiannis Ritsos to write his seminal poetic book, Epitaphios. Yiannis Ritsos’ Epitaphios created a new vocabulary of political resistance by claiming traditional, accessible Greek ideas such as nationalism and Greek Orthodoxy for the Left in order to bridge the gap between the working class and the ideals of the Left and to promote action amongst the people of Greece.
II. Origins of Resistance: Communism, Social Injustice, and Ritsos
While the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) played an active role in worker resistance to Metaxas, its lack of a foundation in tradition caused a gap between it and the people. The KKE was an anti-war, radical party that promoted workers’ rights, rejecting values of monarchy and Metaxas. It was not fundamentally anti-religious, but tended to be formed by a newer generation, and generally differed from some of the values of Soviet Communism to cater to Greek traditions of nationalism and Orthodoxy. Its radical leanings often came into direct opposition with the government and tradition, including its opposition to the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922, which gave it a reputation (circulated by the Greek Government) of treason and anti-nationalism despite its claim to embody Greek unity. It had a focus on action and change, with their members’ main initiatives being workers’ rights demonstrations, strikes, and worker associations. However, despite advocating for workers’ rights, its lack of sanctioning by tradition and by the government weakened its influence. The Idionymon of 1929 was legislation that directly condemned members of the radical Left, allowing for many of its main leaders to be prosecuted and/or sent into exile. Thus, despite its appeals to workers’ rights the KKE lacked fundamental connection with workers that would allow it to connect to the public. Furthermore, many of the intellectuals of Greece had had loyalties to the party’s previous form in the Socialist Labor Party of Greece. These people had lost touch with the modernized, enlarged, ‘Bolshevized’ Communist Party which was populated by the less educated sectors of society and seemed to draw on Soviet tradition while still acting upon Greek sentiments such as anti-war and anti-imperialist ideas that even overlapped with Metaxas.[10]
Poet and Leftist activist Yiannis Ritsos upheld the beliefs of the Communist Party, but uniquely integrated nationalism and Greek Orthodoxy into the Leftist framework. Ritsos joined the KKE in 1934 spoke openly in support of its values. However, in his writing, he took some of the traditional values that made Metaxas have de facto support a tradition-sympathetic nation and attempted to demonstrate that Metaxas was actually against such Greek traditions and that Communism was the real epitome of Greekness. In this way, what made Ritsos unique is that he connected the suffering of people at the hands of government to the need for people to act against government. This was done by acknowledging despair and suffering which he uniquely understood through his fundamental connection to the rural working class and everyday people of Greece (similar to contemporary Soviet Communists).[11] This made the Left more relatable to the people of Greece. This is the true significance of Ritsos: not that he necessarily had new ideas, but he used traditional language to address political issues and to propose a ‘solution’ through Communist resistance, thus combining the best elements of both Metaxas and Communism to appeal for a Communist cause during a time of social unrest.
Ritsos applied industrial resistance of the working class to form a poetic ideology that legitimized criticism of the government in Epitaphios. Modern Hellenic Studies authority Neni Pangourgiá notes that widespread industrial strikes occurred during the economic and political tumult of 1936. She describes one event in particular: “On May 6, 1936, a major strike and demonstration by tobacco workers was organized in Thessaloniki. The response of the gendarmerie was immediate and brutal…. Leaving twelve dead and thirty-two seriously wounded, all of them demonstrators.”[12] Among those killed was a youth named Tasos Tousis. A picture of his mother leaning over and mourning her dead son was seen in the paper by Greek left-wing activist and poet Yiannis Ritsos, inspiring his Epitaphios.[13] Pangourgiá goes on to say that although all the demands of the workers were ultimately satisfied, Ritsos’ poem significantly emphasized the event’s injustice and it became an emblem of Greek resistance. Despite being banned from public performance by the Metaxas dictatorship, she argues that it “circulated clandestinely, thus helping further the mystique and romanticization of the Left and of antiestablishment culture.” In this, it seems that beyond the event itself, Ritsos’ application of governmental brutality and public bitterness through poetry gave voice to the silenced masses and gave hope for further resistance.
III. Ritsos’ Epitaphios: The Language of Resistance
The early verses of Yiannis Ritsos’ Epitaphios mobilize the rhetoric of nationalism to criticize Greek political suppression. The poem is spoken in the voice of the mourning mother whose son has just been killed. In this way, Ritsos replaces the paternal, harsh figure of Metaxas with a woman, suggesting Metaxas was coopting the Greek national identity with monarchical ideas that were fundamentally foreign (of English and Ottoman influence). Giving voice to the country through this new lens in this way, the mother describes her dead son:
Broad chest, like the spread wings of the turtle dove,
upon which my bitterness and struggle would abate
Strong thighs, like partridges enclosed in your pants,
which girls would admire on the balconies at dusk[14]
Ritsos sets up the boy to have all the classical ideals: youth, strength, fertility, and masculine beauty. He is almost God-like, perhaps representing the hope of the Greek nation, or even Greece itself. In this way, Ritsos points out the irony – and even the self-destructive, anti-Greek nature – of the Greek government destroying the hope of its future, critiquing the government for killing what it claims to be a force destroying Greece (Communism and liberalism) but is actually the epitome of Greekness. In one sense, Ritsos embraces the fascist/dictatorial rhetoric of the importance of youth and paternalistic leader figure, but he also replaces the harsh paternal figure with an enraged, protective maternal figure to emphasize the exploitative nature of the Greek government. This is expounded in the following verse:
My son, what wrong did you commit? From unjust men
you sought payment for your own labors
You asked for a bit of bread and they gave you a knife.[15]
By relating the government to this anti-Greek or self-destructive sentiment, Ritsos mobilizes nationalism in a novel way to form a vocabulary of resistance against authoritarian government.
The central verses of the mother’s lament in Yiannis Ritsos’ Epitaphios mobilize Greek Orthodoxy as a tool for political protest, connecting a Leftist cause to a very Greek religious tradition. British classical scholar Peter Green notes that Epitaphios in particular draws upon deeply religious themes of the Orthodox Church. He states that Epitaphios is “simultaneously a mother’s moirológhi for a murdered striker and a variation on the Orthodox επιτάφιος θρήνος [epitaphios threnos], the ritual lament of Our Lady over the body of Christ…”[16] This created an implied parallel between the killed worker and Christ himself, combining social radicalism and Greek Orthodoxy in a revolutionary way. In the poem itself, this is made evident by the mother’s lament, as she questions how God could let such an injustice occur if he was real. She says:
Oh Virgin Mary, if you were a mother like me,
you would have sent your Angel from beyond to help my son.
And, ah, my God, my God, if you were a God and we your children,
you would feel for your wretched creatures, as I do.
…
Ah, my son, there is no joy or faith left in me,
And the last dim light of our votive candle has died.[17]
By aligning her son with Christ, Ritsos implicitly aligns those who caused his death with a sacrilegious sentiment. In this way he creates a dichotomous relationship: the side of the mother and son, or Jesus, and the side against God, or the government (particularly Metaxas). In this way now Metaxas is against both Greece itself and against God, two fundamental pillars of 20th century Greek pride. From another angle, the mother questions the validity of God, of one who would allow the hope and future of the nation to perish in such a way. While this could be interpreted literally as Ritsos questioning the absolute authority of God so sacred to the Orthodox Church, in another light he is questioning not God but the monarchy. Since it must not have been God’s will that the child die, surely the Metaxas was going against God when the boy was killed.
In the final verses of Epitaphios, the mother undergoes an evolution from anger at his death to determination to carry on his cause; in this way, Ritsos creates a resounding call to action by linking the pain of the people to a ‘solution’ of resistance to be found in the Leftist cause. He has built up the character of a mother: at first, she praises all the excellent features of her son, then she questions the injustice of God and those who killed him, and now she passes into a voice of hope. In section XVII, the poem reads:
And look, they are picking me up. I see thousands of sons,
but I am unable to leave your side, my son.
They speak to me the way you used to, and they offer me consolation,
and they have your cap, they are wearing your clothes
…
A bright palm wipes my eyes,
and, ah, your voice, my son, has rushed to my entrails.
Now you are dressed in flags. You, go to sleep, my boy,
and I am going on to your brothers and sisters and taking them your voice.[18]
In this, Ritsos fosters a transition; a proposed solution, as it were, to the mother’s mourning. Where she felt indignation at the world and at God, she realized that she can avenge her son and carry on his memory best by becoming part of the cause he died for. She recognizes the power of the crowd, and in her radical comrades, she sees him. Significantly, the powerful role is portrayed by a woman, symbolizing a departure from the paternalistic definition of monarchy that borrowed from other nations (Italy and England), and almost asserting that current government was un-Greek and resistance was to restore traditional Greek values based in the people. The Leftist suggestion of the necessity (or even obligation, as a true Greek) to rise against exploitation and fight for worker rights is uniquely combined with religious and emotional sentiment. In the final words of the poem:
My son, I’m going to your brothers and sisters and adding my rage.
I’ve taken your rifle. You, go to sleep, my bird.[19]
Ritsos glorifies anger, romanticizing Left-wing sentiments in a unique and deeply moving way intended to spark action.
IV. A New Vocabulary for Change
Epitaphios by Yiannis Ritsos gave voice to a new form of political radicalism that simultaneously embraced traditional Greek values and modern political resistance. This married the Left to Greece, allowed for the use of religion as a political tool, and promoted direct action to achieve political change. Perhaps it was for this reason that the seminal work was burned in a ceremony by Metaxas at the columns of the Temple of Zeus in Athens.[20] Ritsos himself faced persecution, being exiled and imprisoned for his controversial works, most notably Epitaphios. His connections to Communism and tradition of the Soviet example did not go unnoticed, however, and he received the Lenin Peace Prize (the highest literary honor of the Soviet Union) in 1977. His true legacy, however, is not in his official recognition, but in a conception of Leftist resistance to government (both internally in Greece and externally in World War II) as a fully Greek institution that would be reflected in later Greek movements. Epitaphios was able to speak not only to the social radicals of the era, but to the tradition-based working class as a whole and to all Greeks who felt pride in their country, loyalty to Orthodoxy, and discontent with the tumultuous economic and political conditions of the time. Perhaps for this very reason, Greek resistance outlasted the death of Metaxas in 1941, and played a role in later Greek history. In the years directly following the initial publication of Epitaphios, the Communist Party would become the backbone of Greek Resistance to the Axis occupation through its National Liberation Front. Expanded from the original conception of Communism, this movement united multiple groups across Greece in a way that may not have been possible without the reconciliation of old Greek ideals and new social movements that Ritsos proposed. Similarly, it was in part due to the rallying of the Communist Democratic Army of Greece against the governmental National Army (also backed by England) that the Greek Civil War began. Although not necessarily always aligned with the spirit that Ritsos intended, a similar language of justification for radical movement against government that Ritsos initiated became the signet for resistance across Greece, and Epitaphios the anthem of the Left. This was sometimes used to create division within the nation (as in the Civil War of the 1940s), and sometimes worked to the whole nation’s advantage creating unity against other nations such as in WWII. As it became more popular, it was republished with additional verses in the 1950s, it was transformed into a song by classic Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis in 1960 in the traditional Greek style with bouzouki accompaniment.[21] In line with the censorship of the time, the song was banned from public performance until 1974, but this did not prevent it from being performed all over Greece, further spreading the seeds Ritsos had planted in the 1930s.[22] Ritsos voiced Leftist sentiments similarly to manifestos and underground pamphlets in other countries, but to more lasting and fundamentally impactful way by engaging an oral literary tradition that was fundamentally aligned toward the people, and fundamentally Greek.
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Mother of Tasos Tousis Mourning. May 1936. Photograph. Accessed April 9, 2020. https://www.globalrights.info/2016/11/75510/.
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———. Poems: Selected Books. Translated by Manolis. Edited by Apryl Leaf. 2nd ed. Surrey, BC: Libros Libertad, 2018.
———. Yannis Ritsos, Selected Poems, 1938-1988. Translated by Kimon Friar, Kostas Myrsiades, and Athan Anagnostopoulos. Brockport, N.Y.: BOA Editions, 1989.
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Notes:
[1] Ioannis D. Stefanidis, "Reconstructing Greece as a European State: Venizelos' Last Premiership, 1928–32," in Eleftherios Venizelos: The Trials of Statesmanship, ed. Ioannis M. Kitromilides (Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2008), 193, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1r2b1d.12. Accessed 10 Apr. 2020.
[2] Ibid., 225.
[3] Ibid., 204.
[4] Ibid., 213.
[5] Sotiris Rizas, "Geopolitics and Domestic Politics: Greece's Policy Towards the Great Powers during the Unravelling of the Inter-War Order, 1934-1936," Contemporary European History 20, no. 2 (May 2011): 140-141, 147, http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0960777311000038.
[6] Ibid., 155.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Eleni Kouki and Dimitris Antoniou, "Making the Junta Fascist: Antidictatorial Struggle, the Colonels, and the Statues of Ioannis Metaxas," Journal of Modern Greek Studies 35, no. 2 (2017): 456, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/mgs.2017.0027.
[9] Stefanidis, "Reconstructing Greece," 208.
[10] Nikos Marantzidis, "Greek Intellectuals and the Fascination with Communism: The Graft That Did Not Blossom (1924–1949)," in Ideological Storms: Intellectuals, Dictators, and the Totalitarian Temptation, ed. Vladimir Tismaneanu and Bogdan Iacob (Budapest, NY: Central European University Press, 2019), 84, https://doi.org/10.7829/j.ctvs1g8th.7.
[11] Green, "Myth, Tradition," 100.
[12] Neni Panourgiá, Dangerous Citizens: The Greek Left and the Terror of the State (New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2009), 39, http://www.questiaschool.com/read/126322903/dangerous-citizens-the-greek-left-and-the-terror.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Yiannis Ritsos, Epitaphios (1936) in "Ritsos' Epitaphios: Fifty Years Later," Translated by Rick M. Newton, Journal of the Hellenic Diasphora 8, nos. 1 & 2 (Spring/Summer 1986): 5-12, Accessed April 8, 2020, file:///Users/chaidiepetris/Downloads/13_1-2_1986%20(1).pdf.
[15] Ibid., 43.
[16] Green, "Myth, Tradition," 101.
[17] Ibid., 29.
[18] Ibid., 45.
[19] Ibid., 51.
[20] Rick M. Newman, "The Epitaphios of Yannis Ritsos," introduction to Epitaphios, by Yiannis Ritsos in Journal of the Hellenic Diasphora 8, nos. 1 & 2 (Spring/Summer 1986), 9, accessed April 10, 2020, file:///Users/chaidiepetris/Downloads/13_1-2_1986%20(1).pdf.
[21] Panourgiá, Dangerous Citizens, 40.
[22] Ibid.
