The Grecanici of Southern Italy. Stavroula Pipyrou
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1979:197; Kean 2006:136). From the end of the ninth until the eleventh century Calabria flourished economically, politically, and artistically (Spano-Bolani 1979). After the fourteenth century the Greek language rapidly started receding, mainly due to political and economic instability provoked by a succession of conquests in Calabria. The decline of the Greek language during the following centuries was further associated with the abolition of the Christian Orthodox denomination, with ceremonies no longer being performed in Greek.3 The Diocese of Bova in the area Grecanica was the last to follow the Orthodox ritual to be performed in Greek until 15734 (Teti 2004:60).
At the time of the unification of Italy (1861) the Greek language was spoken in twelve villages in Aspromonte, while by the beginning of the twentieth century it was spoken in nine: Galliciano, Roghudi, Chorio di Roghudi, Amendolea, Bova, Bova Marina, Roccaforte del Greco, Chorio di Roccaforte, and Condofuri. In the 1970s German linguist Gerhard Rohlfs noted that the language was not in use any more in the villages of Condofuri, Roccaforte del Greco, Chorio di Roccaforte, and Amendolea. During the same period the area was struck by devastating landslides and floods (1971 and 1972–73)5 that provoked the evacuation and abandonment of the villages of Roghudi and Chorio di Roghudi. The displaced populations were initially scattered around the areas of Melito di Porto Salvo, Bova Marina, and Reggio Calabria. After 1988 many relocated to the newly built settlement of Roghudi Nuova near Melito di Porto Salvo. To the present day Grecanico is spoken by the elders of Roghudi Nuovo, and less so by the elderly populations of Bova and Bova Marina. In the village of Galliciano, the language is still in use even though the Calabrian dialect is now dominant (Petropoulou 1997). Referring to the considerable publicity and tourist marketing of the area within and outside Italy, Greek anthropologist Christina Petropoulou bitterly notes that “if the motive to visit area Grecanica was to find Greek speakers then the visitor will be disappointed since the language is hardly spoken anymore” (1995:152). Petropoulou refers here to the regular disappointment generated during touristic excursions to the area Grecanica by Greek nationals who expect (and regularly demand) that local populations respond to them in Grecanico.
Figure 1. Area Grecanica
Area Grecanica is known in Greece as Ta Ellinofona (the Greek-speaking areas), and the Greek public has become more familiar with the area since the visits of philologist Angela Merianou in the 1960s and the various publications that followed.6 At first these publications created an idyllic, exotic, and generally distorted picture of the populations and their living conditions. Notions of common race and kinship were put forward as important links emphasizing the relatedness between Grecanici and modern Greeks. In a nutshell, Grecanici were portrayed as the “descendants of an Aryan race” (the Ancient Greeks), who, living among the “barbarous” populations (other Calabrians), managed to preserve their “Homeric Greekness” and their “immortal Greek soul and splendor.” They were further colored as “blessedly backward” with qualities such as hospitality “unique in the whole world” and philosophical, poetical, and musical dispositions. The extremely harsh conditions of Grecanici life and the miseria (socioeconomic poverty) that plagued them before and after World War II were romanticized and ultimately mis-portrayed.
During the 1970s, from within Calabria, various publications were more inclusive in their treatment of “Greekness,” arguing for “the Greek roots” all Calabrians share and the “lost grandeur” of a “higher civilization.” Here, location rather than race, kinship, and blood, was emphasized as the connecting thread between the Greeks who colonized South Italy in the eighth century BCE and modern-day Calabrians. These arguments played a pivotal role for other local populations of non-Grecanico origin to develop substantial claims to cultural patrimony that since the turn of the twenty-first century has ignited heated debates on rights and origins (Pipyrou 2014a).
Responding to the exoticism cultivated in Calabria and Greece regarding their “origin” and “heritage,” Grecanico cultural associations founded at the end of the 1960s in Reggio Calabria engaged in profound historical constructivism in order to address what they termed the Questione Grecanica (the Grecanico Problem). Petropoulou defines two distinctive periods regarding the trajectories of the management of Grecanico language and culture. The first period—what Petropoulou (1997:243) calls the “Awakening”—refers to the 1970s and the action of the first associations on religious and linguistic matters. During this time there was a systematic effort to convert Grecanici to Orthodox Christianity.
In the 1970s a prolific collaboration between Greek monks from Mount Athos, the Greek state and the Greek-Italian college of Rome, Saint Athanasios, resulted in a considerable number of masses, baptisms and marriages following the Orthodox rites to be performed in the villages of the area Grecanica (Petropoulou 1997:216). Despite the fact that the Patriarchate of Constantinople, under whose aegis the Orthodox Church of South Italy falls, would never openly admit initiatives of organized proselytism targeting Grecanici populations,7 ethnographic evidence and an extensive monastic network between Greece, Calabria, and Constantinople highlight the effort to “convert” Grecanici to Orthodoxy. This lengthy though fascinating story goes beyond the scope of this book.
The Questione Grecanica and the subsequent salvation and protection of the Grecanico language and culture were hot political topics of local, national, and international import debated by the Grecanico cultural associations. Their policy advocated new outreach initiatives to engage with as many Grecanici as possible, both in the city of Reggio Calabria and the Grecanici villages, proposing a new ideology regarding Grecanico language, heritage and patrimony (cf. Palumbo 2003; Herzfeld 2009a, 2011b). The Grecanico language being considered superior (due to its Ancient Greek elements), the Grecanici were encouraged by the associations to embrace their roots and origins. They further aimed to initiate substantial links with the Greek-speaking populations of Puglia and to evoke an emotive response from the Greek public regarding the minority status of their “brothers” in South Italy.
During the same decade, further associations were formed in Greece with the aim to “help” the “Calabrian Greeks” who are constantly threatened morally and financially. These associations put forward irredentist propositions based on diasporic arguments, promoting Greece as the motherland and conceptually expanding the borders of the nation. As a result the Grecanici were, and still are, portrayed in Greece as Greeks of the diaspora, brothers, and “of the same blood,” but scarcely as an autochthonous Italian population.
During the 1980s, the second period of dealing with Grecanici minority politics, there was a combined effort from the public institutions in Reggio Calabria and the Grecanico associations to develop the area for tourism. Apart from the language, culture as well as music, food, and dance were advertised as exclusively distinctive and unique Grecanico products, resulting in numerous annual tourist visits to the area. Despite the general euphoria of these events, provoked by alcohol-induced high spirits and the tarantella (traditional dance) performed by exceptional local music groups, I was frequently asked by Greek nationals “why do these people not speak Greek?”8
Defining area Grecanica in purely linguistic terms is not a straightforward matter because Grecanico is spoken only in a handful of villages. Viviana Sacco (2007:70) notes that the present delineation is based on language, history, and culture, thus there are comuni Ellenofoni (with the presence of the Grecofoni) and comuni Ellenofili (friendly to Hellenic culture). In such categorizations terms such as Ellenofoni (Hellenophone), Ellenofili (Friendly to Hellenes), and Grecofoni (Grecophone) confuse matters farther and reveal deep-rooted political and sociological discrepancies. Applied liberally and interchangeably such criteria do not adequately justify the inclusion in the area Grecanica of comuni (municipalities) such as Bagaladi or Brancaleone (non-Greek-speaking in the modern era) and the exclusion of comuni such as Cardedo (Greek-speaking until the beginning of the twentieth century) (70). How far back in history do policy makers need to dig to determine inclusion in the area Grecanica? As many anthropologists have pointed out, notions such as culture, language and history are only partial sources people draw on in their quest for representation (Herzfeld 1985, 1987; Jenkins 1997; Brown 2003; Ballinger 2003; Hirsch and