Yannis Svolos is a journalist, music critic in Elevtherotipia newspaper. He is also an architect and archaeologist. Here's what he said to us about himself, for classical music and modern Greece.
As far as my love for classical music is concerned I can tell you that it all began during my childhood. I have been listening to classical music since junior high. But I graduated with a degree in architecture from the Polytechnic University in Athens. After that I earned a Masters degree in Landscape Design in America.
But we could mention many of all these things, which we are usually used to mentioning when talking about the relationship between music and architecture. Really many...
Culture, however, is the link connecting them. And culture has always been exciting for me.
During that time I also had great interest in archeology. I connected with it very early. I cooperate with the University of Athens in a number of archaeological researches. When the restoration of Epidaurus started, I applied in the competition for positions and I won. So for 10 years I was working on the restoration of the site. Though, I did not agree with the way things were done there. I gave up and I got out. I was the one who put the end.
Elevtherotipia newspaper and I have actively been cooperating since the end of 1996. Meanwhile I have been doing other things as well. There was a time when I returned to architecture. In 1995, when the center of Greek culture was created, I did some projects there. I left from there too. It seemed to me that work there was too simplified. My abilities were different than theirs. Since 2000 I am move mainly within music circles and occasionally I collaborate with fellow architects.
Frankly here's how I would identified myself - I believe I'm someone who is looking for and likes different things. I believe I am quite deep into things. My focus is culture. I believe I'm someone who cannot make peace with many things. I have always kept outside of any political formations, though of course, I have my political beliefs. I never tried to take advantage of any privileges. That's why I have often gotten in conflict with people and circumstances. I am interested in culture. And I try to have my horizons open. I believe I've achieved this.
Greece and its citizens are going through a difficult phase at the moment.
However, regarding Greece we can talk a lot. We are a new country. We freed ourselves from Turkey in 1821. The advent of classical music in the cultural life of Greece happened within the framework of its Europeanization. The urban community appeared, Western bourgeoisie and along this created were the ideological needs. Need to receive a musical and literary culture on European level.
I believe that whether Greece needed this, is matter of historical and philosophical nature. We Greeks have always had a dilemma whether we belong to the East or West. We are a country at a border. We have elements of western and eastern culture. When asked who we are, we could easily answer if we ask ourselves whether we belong to the East. Down from Greece countries are Islamic - then we could not belong to the East. This means we belong to the West, but we also have elements from the East.
Just as historians say, when a country decides to join the West - economy and management wise - inevitably such questions come to the surface. But actually it is a choice, which carries behind its consequences. If you want to belong to the West you must adjust many things to the western type of polity.
Keeping up with this is not easy.
Likewise many Greeks, who traveled to the West during the 18th and 19th centuries, became the core of the new bourgeois class here. They were immersed in both cultures and under these conditions classical music was born in Greece. When the bourgeois class was formed here, it had a kinship with the bourgeois class in the West. But our country is small, and depth in tradition of classical music was missing from the background of our history. Such was the situation with theater and visual arts. There was always a difference in phases. First things were happening in the West and then 10 or 20 years later, they happened here. Here they took a slightly different form, which helped the formation of an interesting dialogue between the two cultures.
Music and as I said classical music in specific is of great interest to me. I did about 200 shows for classical music during the 90s. They were aired on the third program of the Greek Radio.
Now, opera and classical music have been present on the Ionian Islands since the 19th century. These islands have never been under Turkish occupation. At one time they were owned by the Italians and for a short period by the British. Classical music began its birth in Greece after liberation from the Ottoman Empire. Strong music life emerges in Athens towards the end of the 19th century and throughout the war period. Composers, who have studied abroad, were creating many works. This was a healthy music life, given the size of the country. People who were creating this music back then were in constant dialogue with people from other circles of culture - as it was happening in the West. Symphonic music, opera, theater, literature, visual arts - all were in one group. Things deteriorated in Greece after World War II and after the Civil War - with the polarization of the bourgeois class to right and left. The elite of army period were forced to determine its position against the dictatorship of Metaxas. After the war populist trends came along.
Out of the blue we had a strange situation that even scientists have not yet studied. Greek Music School loses its influence, but instead the ordinary, simple song gains popularity – the music, which supports mostly the Left.
Pity…because Greek music had bad luck. Two great artists of modernism died too early. One is Nikos Skalkotas, who died in 1941 and the second is Yannis Christos, who died in 1970. Another figure from that period - Xenakis, left for France and adapted to international modernism. If these three people did not leave Greece, now things would have been completely different. Unfortunately during the 70s everything ends.
Quite an end was put to it all by the junta.
Right now we are experiencing the field of culture in a very strange way. We have bands, we have opera, choirs and so on but we are still enduring the consequences of what happened in the 70s. The result is great confusion and frustration. Right now populist culture has fallen a lot. Everything is a big sphere of problems. But this is my opinion. Others may say otherwise.
Successes and contributions of Greeks today are much more abroad than here, at home. This contribution has always started from two different places - from people who live and create in Greece and from those living and creating abroad. We have Greeks at very high positions abroad. In Greece, scientific, musical, artistic and cultural spaces are small. What our country is too, actually - with fewer people, narrow borders, but with passion and enthusiasm. Usually when Greeks leave abroad, they realize their strong desire for progress, success and development. When they are given the necessary conditions, they can create wonderful things. We have great experts all around the world, regardless of whether we are talking about computers, physics or art.
The fact is that inside the country, things are more difficult. It seems we have better communication with people from Greek history than with the current situation. From spiritual perspective Greece is currently orphaned. For a long period of time we were proud of and admiring people who were born during the war period. Theodorakis, Elitis, Seferis, Melina, Hadzidakis, Xenakis... These were people who either contributed to the development of certain ideologies and cultural currents, such as was the case of Elitis for example, or people whose names were later waved on flags in various cultural areas. Though these people left and things now are much more difficult. Things are difficult all around the world too. All traditional frameworks on which one can rely on to create and build, are now gone.
Unfortunately, today chaos is everywhere. If anyone follows what is being said in the past two months on television, what is written in the press and what people talk about us abroad, it is clear that what we are facing today did not come to us because some "bad" guy envies us because we are Greeks and wants to torture us. The economic collapse and all this panic is a process that began 10, 20 years ago. Politicians were playing their political game and people also "participated in the game” – everyone with his or her party and class interests. And today we are facing the bill due. The twist things took with strong populist trend, with the demand for easy money the dependency on them, managed to kill the very unity of Greek society. Another thing that happened to Greece is that for historical reasons we never paid off our bills to history. We never said: “OK, whatever happened, during the wars, happened”. I believe Bulgarians, Romanians and Serbs have already established a position they have adopted and have accepted it. We live with the idea that we are number one, but we are being punished, because we are a nation of winners, we are this and we are that... But the important thing is for a person to have a more earthly, healthier relationship with reality.
Very sorry for what I am about to say but I would deliberately change a quality in today's Greek – shallowness. If I could I would eradicate it. I would keep alertness, cheerfulness, and wit. But all these qualities are result of the circumstances we live in. While circumstances are such, we will have those qualities. Just like when you live in a jungle. You should always be awake and alert in order to survive. On the other hand this means a serious loss of energy. And when energy is not concentrated in one place, it is wasted. In other countries where things from historical perspective are more balanced, this energy is harnessed in correctly. It goes into development, building, etc.
With all the shocks Greece is experiencing right now, it is hard. I believe that today things are exceptionally difficult for us. This is because we went through the postwar period, when there was money, development and much more. Currently, however, we are quite powerless to what globalization brings in terms of technology, industry, sociology, culture, etc. I think one must not only be able to plunge into the soup of globalization, but also swim in it. As if there is a flood in your house – you need to be able to swim and not get on a chair and look at the water from above... Nobody can isolate neither immigrants nor ideas, nor Internet, nor the International Monetary Fund... Things are already happening and they are a fact. Talking that we exist and we are such and such is stupid... One must understand what is happening in order to know what to do.
X-raying my dreams I would say that I wish I could retire now. If you asked me a year ago what my dream was, I would answer that my dream was to contribute more in the cultural field. But now I am beginning to seek for calmness. My dreams go towards my private plans. Now I am silent.
Years ago things were different. Today Greeks look for a corner in order to hide. I believe Greeks today do not know where to hide and how to run escape. As a society we do not seek for balance now. The time for this was years ago. Now we are forced again to fight for survival - economical and cultural.
Zero certainty for the future. This crisis attacked us and pressed us to seek ways to cope with everything. Is all of this going to affect people in a good way in the future, I don’t know. We'll talk again in a year and we'll see. At the moment the right word for what is happening is "unknown". One thing though, is clear. The crisis can land us into reality with a healthier foundation, to have to deal with a healthier law of the jungle. And this is what’s positive from the whole situation.
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