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From Karagoz to Karagiozis – From the Ottoman Empire to Greece Writing about Karagiozis is like trying to catch a shadow; it slips through fingers. Having its origins in the Ottoman Empire, the Karagiozis Shadow Theater was introduced into Greece as early as at least the end of 18 th century and quite possibly earlier, as part of an oral tradition from Homer through the Byzantine Akritic cycle to folk ballads. Modeled on Turkish prototype, Karagoz, which finds its roots in the classical mime and in the Byzantine fool lore, the Karagiozis performance developed in Greece over the next centuries, using local character types, costumes, dialects, and combining contemporary events with motifs of classical, Hellenistic and Byzantine origin, and Greek legends with traditional music and dances. By 1809 we have the first reference to a Turkish Shadow Theater on Greek territory. The English traveler, John Cam Hobhouse witnessed a performance in Ioannina: “An evening or two before our departure from Ioannina, we went to see the only advance which the Turks have made towards scenic representations. This was a puppet show, conducted by a Jew who visits this place during the Ramadan, with his card performers. The show, a sort of ombre-chinoise, was fitted up in a corner of a very dirty coffee-house, which was full of spectators, mostly young boys.... The dialogue, which was all in Turkish, was supported in different tones by the Jew. I did not understand; it caused loud and frequent bursts of laughter from the audience; but the action which was perfectly intelligible was too horribly gross to be described”. 17
After the liberation from the Ottoman rule, a newspaper of the Peloponnesean town Nauplion in 1841 gives evidence for the staging of a Karagiozis performance. Identified as a unique theater genre, which was independent of the national Greek theater but remained closely related to modern Greek history and ideology, Karagiozis is a reflection of the 19 th century Greek oral culture, as an integral part of Greek history, and the expression of Greek cultural continuity and of Greek values. 18
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Page 8 and 9: Between Shadow and Light Between sh
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Page 20 and 21: Past and present, individual and gr
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Page 24 and 25: The play begins with the assertion
Page 26 and 27: The characters of the Greek Shadow
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Page 32 and 33: The Karagiozis players “Do you kn
Page 34 and 35: Having the intention to highlight K
Page 36 and 37: to the audience of traditional thea
Page 38 and 39: After World War II, a major change
Page 40 and 41: The Shadow Theatre in China The Sha
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Page 44 and 45: Hangzhou and Shanxi province, where
Page 46 and 47: References Loring M. Danforth, “T

Fifth Issue

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