MODERN GREECE: A History since 1821 - Amazon Web Services

OPPOSITE POLES IN POLITICS. KARAMANLIS VS. PAPANDREOU 201
Steriadis, who belatedly introduced the American beat generation to
Greece as a form of guarded opposition to the military regime, lost their
voice after the fall of the dictatorship. 35 Manolis Anagnostakis did not
mince words, but his bold verse found no imitators. Nicos Karouzos,
probably the most talented of his generation, was a loner with few
admirers. Kiki Dimoula made it to the Academy of Athens in spite of
her genuine ability to transform the commonplace into poetry, as did
low-key novelist of ordinary life, Thanassis Valtinos.
Music made no great strides but continued to conserve past achievements.
It was the performing arts with their ephemeral glory that will
be best remembered. Theater director Spyros Evangelatos with his
memorable Erotokritos, Lefteris Voyadjis with his many splendored repertoire,
Vassilis Papavassiliou with his Elvira-Jouvet, Constantine
Rhigos’ Dafnis and Chloe, Dimitris Papaioannou with his Medea and the
staging of the Olympic Games ceremonies in 2004, and of course, the
National Theater productions during this long period of fruition.
Furthermore, the State School of Dance has proved with its annual performances
that the Greek educational system is not totally out of commission.
Theo Angelopoulos, with his consecutive second and first
prizes in the Cannes Film Festival, remains on the top of the film directors’
pyramid.
The postwar pursuit of Greekness in art has been survived by Yannis
Moralis and Panayotes Tetsis. Alekos Fassianos, with his Mediterranean
graphics, and Dimitrios Mitaras, offer a kind of parody of that tradition.
The diaspora has not failed to surprise us: Kounelis, Chryssa, Antonakos,
Pavlos, and Takis are the better known. The art of the political cartoon
in certainly the most fertile in Greece. Underground strips, street art,
and illustrations have also become the unsung achievement of the
eighties and nineties. Of the political cartoonists, Yannis Ioannou who
lost his muse when Andreas Papandreou passed away, will be consulted
by political scientists when they attempt to decipher the strange
ways of possibly the greatest innovator in Greek politics.