High life
Gifted Greeks
Taki
Dear, oh dear! The last time I answered a letter to the editor was literally 23 years ago. The right to reply may be sacrosanct, but so is my right to nail the big lie, as in a letter titled 'Giftless Greeks' (Letters, 11 November). If any of you missed it, here goes: Sir: Maybe Taki could give us all a good laugh by trying to reconcile his theories of `race, intelligence and cultural' achievement with the failure of the Greeks to produce a single significant writer, artist, soldier, states- man, scientist or mathematician in the last 2,000 years.
It is signed T. Hughes-Davies, Fording- bridge, Hampshire.
My, my! This is heavy stuff. Was T. Hughes-Davies under the influence when he wrote this epistle, or did he play hooky in school? Just off the bat, little Greece has produced two Nobel Prize win- ners for literature in the postwar period, Seferis and Elytis, whereas big bully Britain needed Winston Churchill in 1953 and William Golding in 1983 to tie us. (Kipling and Shaw, an Irishman, won prewar.) To be fair, prizes are subjective, but surely a writer who wins the Nobel Prize cannot be considered insignificant even in Hamp- shire, a place I have fond memories of, having seduced a sweet young thing or two or three or maybe more in the last 30 years.
Mind you, when one thinks that, while we were building the Parthenon, writing Greek tragedy, inventing philosophy and wiping the floor with the Persians, the English were scratching their furry parts and eating roots, it is ridiculous even to answer the libel, but the gentleman from Hampshire did specify the last 2,000 years.
So here goes again: can anyone who knows the difference between Rimbaud and Rambo deny the genius of Niko Kazantzakis, of Cavafy, of Solomos and Kalvos? Of Palamas, whose funeral I attended as a six-year-old during the Ger- man occupation? And speaking of the war, what about General Alexander Papagos, the man who inflicted the first defeat on the Axis powers in 1940? Papagos and Metaxas worked out a brilliant plan that saw peasant women carrying the supplies to the front, leaving our outnumbered troops rested and eager to fight. Then Papagos attacked on all fronts, driving the Waps back into Albania and then some. Hitler was so worried by the defeat of his ally he came to its rescue in April 1941. This oper- ation most probably cost Germany the war against the Soviets, as Operation Bar- barossa didn't begin until 22 June 1941 instead of May, two months closer to the Russian winter. Had it not been for tiny Greece standing alone with Britain, per- haps Hampshire would now be a German- speaking county, not a bad thing in view of some of the English I've heard spoken in Hampshire pubs. Not to mention Velissar- ios, Justinian's greatest general, who invented mobile warfare.
Oh, yes, I almost forgot. Has England produced a Callas — the greatest diva ever? Of course not, not even close. A Dimitri Mitropoulos? (Maybe Thomas Beecham.) Even Herbert von Karajan was of Greek origin, from Florina, in northern Greece. But let's go even deeper. Plotinos, (205 AD-270 AD) was a philosopher and religious genius who transformed a revival of Platonism in the Roman empire into what modern scholars call Neoplatonism. He exercised great influence (perhaps not in Hampshire) on the thought of the Islam- ic world and on the European one until the late 17th century.
And what about Domenikos Theoto- copoulos — aka El Greco — born in Crete in 1541? He was probably the greatest painter that ever lived, portraying convinc- ingly man's struggle to reach God. (Oh, well, you Brits have Damien Hirst, so I guess that makes us equal.) Gemistus Plethon, born in Constantinople in 1355, was a Byzantine philosopher and humanist scholar whose efforts were to propagate a syncretistic system of Platonic philosophy and Oriental religion by founding academies in mediaeval Greece and Italy. He clarified the distinction between Pla- tonic and Aristotelian thought and was a seminal influence in determining the philosophic orientation of the Italian Renaissance. (If you don't believe me, look it up in the Encyclopedia Britannica.) Plethon influenced Cosimo de Medici to found the Platonic Academy of Florence `Well, I love your paint-spattered jeans.' that was to stimulate the Renaissance movement.
Enough? Let's have two or three more. Architects Anthemus and Isidore built the Aghia Sophia in Constantinople under Jus- tinian in 537, one of the world's great mas- terpieces. Ditto Sinan, 1489-1588, son of Greek Orthodox parents drafted into the service of the Sultan, who designed the three greatest mosques which in turn served as the theme for virtually all later Turkish architecture.
No hard feelings, T. Hughes-Davies, but you should hit the books.
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