Abstract
This chapter elaborates on some typical cases of the cultural theme of Kazantzakis’ mythical “Zorba” figure and presents arguments of “Greekness” produced through exposure to this myth. The versions of “Greekness”, although varying over the time, remain closely related to Greek exoticism. In the first part, we examine the influence of Cacoyannis’ movie, an exotic, Mediterranean heterotopia in the 1960s. In the second part, we focus on “vampire” nationalisms in the Balkans during the 1990s, on the occasion of Mikis Theodorakis’ concerts in Skopje. In the final part, Yanis Varoufakis is presented as a pop image and “political Zorba” of the Greek crisis.
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Notes
- 1.
On the other hand, in 2012, the world’s largest “syrtaki dance” was enlisted in the Guinness Book of World Records, with 5614 dancers gathering on the docks of the town of Volos, to join dancing with the touristic promotion of the place!
- 2.
The “Interim Agreement” between Greece and FYROM, although it moved the definitive resolution of the name of FYROM to a “politically favourable” future, it has contributed though, to the political and economic approach of the two countries.
- 3.
Zorba’s real name was Giorgos and not Alexis as N. Kazantzakis, grace to literary license, baptised him in his book (Stasinakis 2017).
- 4.
According to Garantoudis, “the most critical aspect of the post-mortem perception of Kazantzakis’ work should be named “Zorbaism”, in the sense that in the consciousness of the broad public, in Greece and abroad, the famous hero of the novel became a substitute of Kazantzakis himself” (Garantoudis 2014: 91).
- 5.
For the ambivalent appearance of the concept of “dignity” within the context of the Greek crisis (Bartsidis and Tsimpiridou 2014).
- 6.
The epitome of the collapse of the diplomatic protocol between Varoufakis and other finance ministers of the Eurogroup was on April 24th 2015—in the Riga, Latvia session—where the European finance ministers verbally attacked the Greek Minister and even provocatively removed their headphones during his speech. Shortly afterward, Varoufakis, whilst being interviewed, would admit that he was recording the Eurogroup proceedings (Hansen 2015). Varoufakis’ version of the events is presented in his book: Adults in the Room. My battle with the European and American deep establishment (Varoufakis 2017).
- 7.
The book was republished by the Blackwell Publications in 2017 with Paul Mason’s preface.
- 8.
The eminent director Kostas Gavras is working on a film based on Varoufakis’ book: Adults in the Room. One of the well-known faces of Modern Greek cinema, the actor Christos Loulis has been considered for Varoufakis’ role.
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Karavidas, K., Papatheodorou, Y. (2020). Zorba the Greek. From the “Syrtaki” Dance to the Eurogroup. In: Panagiotopoulos, P., Sotiropoulos, D. (eds) Political and Cultural Aspects of Greek Exoticism. Reform and Transition in the Mediterranean. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19864-0_7
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