Mitsakis, K.

English

Υπηρεσία Υποστήριξης Διαχείρισης και Έκδοσης Ηλεκτρονικών Επιστημονικών Περιοδικών

Book Reviews 489to situate the church’s frescoes within the general framework of thirteenth-century art. Following Dennis’ divisions of the phases of art in the XIII century, she gives an outline of the stylistic developments of the period. The fact that the frescoes in Holy Trinity Church are dated 1244 permits more definite conclusions. And so the author correctly observes that in the church’s paintings are to be found remnants of the post-Comnenian style, though the elements are also evident of the new style, as it is expressed in the almost contemporary monuments of Serbia. Quite rightly too, she links the frescoes with the analogous frescoes of the so-called monastic movement in Serbia and elsewhere. These elements arise from the artist’s deep devotion to tradition. The lack of western motifs in his work must also be attri­buted to this propensity, despite the fact that the region had been under Frankish rule since the turn of the century.One of the most interesting aspects of Holy Trinity’s frescoes is that a Byzantine artist’s work should become eponymously known—a fact which is regrettably very rare in Byzantine art. Former scholars had already formulated the sound hypothesis that the artist Ioannis must have decorated the church of St. John Kalyvitis in Psahna in Euboia (1245), and that the same workshop must have seen the production of the frescoes of St. George’s in Oropos in Attica; these have been removed from the walls and are now in the Byzantine Museum in Athens. The author comments on these ideas, unfortunately without being able to enlarge upon them, because of the lack of published studies. It is certain, however, that her study will be of significant help in the future identification of other works by this artist, at such time as other monographs on the monuments of the Peloponnese and the rest of Greece are published.According to the inscription, the artist Ioannis was of Athenian origin. However, from the facts known until now, it cannot be ascertained whether he had his workshop in Athens nor whether his hagiographie activities began there. But the religious and political situation in the Argolid and in Euboia certainly does not rule out this possibility.Finally, it must be said that Ms. Kalopissi’s work clearly shows her disposition for ex­haustive research and bibliographical data. Her study constitutes one of the most positive contributions to research into thirteenth-century art and painting in Greece.Chrysanthi Mavropoulou - TsioumiG. A. Megas, Die Ballade von der Arta-Brücke. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung, Thessaloniki 1976, pp. 204 [Institute for Balkan Studies, no. 150].This book is the German edition of the late Professor G. A. Megas’ study of the ballad “The Bridge of Arta”, which was originally published in Laographia (27, 1971, pp. 27-212). It should be pointed out from the start that the basic strengths of this study are, on the one hand, the exhaustive knowledge of the material relating to Greek versions of the song, which has been compiled in the Center for the Study of Folklore in the Athens Academy, and on the other hand, the complete presentation of the rich international bibliography on the subject.There are two parts to the book. In the first section (pp. 21-121) the author sets forth a list of the motifs of the song (pp. 21-3), a catalogue by regions of the 335 Greek versions known up to the present time (pp. 24-62), a map of the formerly more extensive Greek speak­ing region marked with the locations where the Greek versions were recorded, a detailed analysis of the motifs of the song as these appear in the various Greek versions (pp. 63-111), and finally, his conclusions (pp. 112-121), which can be briefly summarized as follows:490 Book Reviews1) This ballad is based on the old belief that in order for each structure to be solid a human being must be walled up in its foundations.2) In the Greek versions of the song the foreman’s wife is sacrificed during the building of a bridge, a structure, that is to say, which is difficult to erect and which is always threatened with collapse.3) There are seven motifs common to all versions of the song (v. p. 113). Curiously, the walling up of the heroine is not among them.4) The simplest form of the song, as it is defined above, belongs primarily to mainland Greece, the Peloponnese, to Crete, and, to a limited extent, to Epirus and the neighboring Ionian Islands.5) From this point of view. Mainland Greece and the Peloponnese could be considered the place of origin of the Greek song: however, the reference to the remote district of Aria even in the regional variations indicate that, ultimately, Epirus must be considered as its birth-place.6) Not surprisingly the song, with the passing of time, underwent many revisions and was enriched with many epic and lyrical elements. In its most complete form, it afterwards spread to all the formerly Greek-speaking regions, even to the remotest part of Asia Minor, i.e. the Pontos, Lykaonia and Cappadocia. In the variations which are found in these regions, significant deviations can, however, be observed.7) The song belongs, without a doubt, to a very ancient stratum of ballads. The fragmen­tation of medieval Hellenism after the Fourth Crusade (1204), during which time many regions fell under Venetian and Frankish rule, provides us with a certain terminus ante quern for the transmission of the song to Greek territory. The breaking off of Cappadocia from the Greek national body after the Battle of Mantzikert (1071) allows us to consider the 11th century as another definite terminus ante quern for the birth of the song in Greek territory.8) In comparatively more recent times the song has also been transmitted to the neighbor­ing Balkan peoples where it has circulated widely.9) The man who transmitted and perfected the song were the numerous Greek craftsmen, primarily from Epirus and Western Macedonia who travelled in the Balkans, as well as the thousands of Greeks who were living in the numerous Hellenic settlements and communities in the Balkans and Central Europe.The absence in its original and subsequent forms of the motif of the walling up of the foremen’s wife from the common motifs of the song remains inexplicable, particularly since Megas believes the song to be based on the idea of human sacrifice as necessary for the erection of a great structure. Furthermore, I consider the whole process of collating the basic motifs of the song an error in as much as one depends on variations which were written down in more recent times (XIXth and XXth centuries) and which represent a relatively late phase in the development of the tradition (see K. Mitsakis, Pomakic Versions of the Ballad of the Bridge of Aria, Thessaloniki, 1978).It is well-known that the various Greek versions offer a variety of names for a legendary bridge which is built during the day and is destroyed at night. Sometimes mention is made of the Bridge of Adana, sometimes of Aria, of Hellas (sic), of Larissa, of Tymavos, of Danube, of Tricha, of Manolis, of Paul, of George, etc. It is very likely that the ballad in its original fc rm was not connected with any specific bridge. Megas, therefore, accepts Epirus as theBook Reviews 491birthplace of the song, because the Epirote variations connect the bridge in the song with the Bridge of Arta. He overlooks the clearly more ancient elements which the Cappadocian variations have preserved (the fact that there were three craftsman-brothers, etc. see K. A. Romaios, The Rule of the Number in the Greek Folksong, Athens, 1963) elements which support the earlier view of S. Baud-Bovy that the ultimate source of the song must be sought in Asia Minor (Cappadocia).In the second part (pp. 125-77) the author presents and critisizes the views of the most important scholars who have concerned themselves with this subject. In my opinion this section is relatively sketchy and I feel Megas should have presented and critisized the views of other Balkan scholars more analytically, especially of those who doubt the Greek origin of the song, e.g. S. Stefanovic who puts forth the theory of polygeny (see Revue Internationale des Etudes Balkaniques, 1-2, 1934-5, pp. 188-210) and also L. Vargyas, who attempts to show that Hungary, while not being the original source is, however, the seed-bed which received and reworked on European soil the theme of the walling up of the foreman’s wife, before it began to spread to the southern Balkans: Romania, Bulgaria and through Bulgaria to Greece (see Acta Ethnographica 9, 1960, vol. 1-2).The overall manner in which Vargyas works out his theme clearly reveals a scholar who knows his work well. None the less, his faults are basically methodological ones, a strange phenomenon in so skilled and experienced a scholar. It is obvious that Vargyas has attempted to refute the established views concerning the origins of the song, an undertaking which cannot be attempted from a single point of view without a thorough study of the subject in all its dimensions. He is eager to develope a persuasive argument for the primacy of the Hun­garian role, but does not make the effort first to show why Greece, too, cannot be the seed­bed which produced this song. He refers to this problem only in passing, and even then his attempts do not carry any special weight in as much as they are based on an extremely sketchy knowledge of the Greek material. He presents himself as having a thorough overview of the spread of the song throughout the Balkans; out of the 335 Greek variations he knows and uses only 15, and these not the best.A solution to the problem is absent from Vargyas’ study. The writer almost a priori accepts the primacy of the Hungarian adaptation and attempts with a series of illustrative syllogisms to win the reader over to his side. In the end of course, he does not manage to persuade anyone; his lack of knowledge or his silence concerning basic elements casts many doubts on his claims.The Hungarian variations, as N. Iorga noted long ago, are not spread throughout all Hungary, but are centered in one area, Transylvania, that is, a bilingual area which has experienced many deep Romanian influences (see A. Fochi, Recherches comparées de folk­lore sud-est-européen, Bucharest, 1972, p. 77).In his list of the various Balkan accounts Vargyas also mentions 15 “mazedonische Fassungen", which, however, he numbers in a way that reveals they constitute a continuation of the Bulgarian variations (p. 4). Furthermore, at another point, he speaks clearly of “bulga­rische Varianten” (p. 16). An offer, in the last analysis, of very poor service to the State of Skopje.On the map appended at the end of his book he marks in great detail all the regions at one time or another the various Bulgarian versions were recorded; the present Bulgarian domain, the Federated State of Skopje, Greek Macedonia (this, of course, during a period before 1919, i.e., before the Treaty of Neilly which regulated the exchange of populations between Greece and Bulgaria at the time when a small Bulgarian minority existed in Macedo-492 Book Reviewsnia); he does not, however, give any information concerning the widespread appearance of the Greek versions in the formerly more extensive Greek speaking territory! His one excep­tion concerns two Greek variations which were recorded in what is presently southern Bul­garia. And yet Vargyas does not seem to be unaware of the relevent studies of M. Amaudoff, who shows that of the eighty some variations which have been recorded inBulgaria,fifty seven are Bulgarian and fourteen Greek (see Sbornik za Narodni Umotvereniji i Narodopis 34, 1920, pp. 247-528). As Megas observes; “Das Hauptziel des ungarischen Verfassers ist es die bulgarische Fassung des Liedes als die primäre gegenüber allen balkanischen und sogar der griechischen und als Zwischenglied aller dieser und der, ungarischen Ballade darzustellen”. Therefore the dependancy of Bul­garian accounts on the corresponding Greek ones, which Amaudoff accepts, has been a source of worry to Vargyas, who in his attempt to moderate the impact of the position taken by the learned Bulgarian scholar accepts finally, condenscendingly, a secondary Greek in­fluence on the Bulgarian song.In the end I believe that the German edition of Megas’ study comes at an opportune moment to be of value to scholarship. Only now that the very rich Greek sources are becoming the possession of the international world of scholarship, is it possible for a thorough and positive study of the many faceted problems presented by this important ballad to go for­ward, and for a deliberate or unwitting falsification of the truth to be avoided.University of Athens K. MitsakisBruno Lavagnini, 'Αταχτα Seritti Minori di Filologia Classica, Bizantina e Neogreca, Palermo Palumbo, 1978, pp. LXII-978.Towards the end of 1978, the Palumbo Publishing House brought out a large volume entitled, “Άτακτα” and with the explanatory sub-title, “Scritti Minori di Filologia Classica, Bizantina e Neogreca”. This volume contains 96 essays, both long and short, by the renowned Italian Hellenist, Bruno Lavagnini, on various ancient, medieval and modem Greek literary subjects.Lavagnini belongs to that very rare—especially nowadays—generation of scholars who have an extremely broad command over the field of Greek literature, from Homer to Cavafy, and whose work brings out the diachronic cohesion of Hellenism.Lavagnini’s book begins with a brief autobiography (see pp. VII-XXV) accompagnied by a detailed bibliography of his published works; these cover a period of some sixty years, from 1918, when the twenty-year-old researcher published his first short treatise on Pytha­goras’ “Χρυσά Έπη” no. I, to 1977 when he published his latest report on the activities of the “Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neoellinici” (no. 449). It should be noted that this Institute in Palermo is essentially the personal achievement of Lavagnini himself (see pp. IX and XXI).I must point out at this stage that the bibliographical note on 'Αταχτα does not include a critical appraisal of Lavagnini’s work, since it has already been criticised, made its mark upon the conscious mind of the specialists and taken its place in the history of Greek studies. Essentially, it introduces to the readers of Balkan Studies this monumental volume, in which

G. A. Megas, Die Ballade von der Arta-Brücke. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung, Thessaloniki 1976, pp. 204 [Institute for Balkan Studies, no. 150]

https://ojs.lib.uom.gr/index.php/BalkanStudies/article/download/5159/5188

G. A. Megas, Die Ballade von der Arta-Brücke. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung, Thessaloniki 1976, pp. 204 [Institute for Balkan Studies, no. 150]

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Υπηρεσία Υποστήριξης Διαχείρισης και Έκδοσης Ηλεκτρονικών Επιστημονικών Περιοδικών