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Description
A short distance from the front marble gate of the First Cemetery in Athens--the most "venerable cemetery" in Greece (Llewellyn-Smith 96)--a casual observer will notice the elaborate monuments and the long epitaphs in formal language that follows the classical tradition of praising the deceased by remembering his or her most important qualities (Fig. 1):
Rizis Athinaion Esthlon ernos enthade tymbos patroos Elenin keythei apofthimenin Ioannou Koutsogianni thygatera damarta de Ioannou Kosmopoulou Ou pontou klydon oud'anemotrofa kymata Kosmopoulon olesan Ioannin Arhiatron Basilikou Nautikou thremma Messinias euandrou alla xronos pandamator Ton de lithon Demetrios kai Kimon yioi ethekan goneusin auton baion mnem'epigignomenois (From Athenian origin, here lies Eleni, daughter of Ioanni Koutsogianni and wife of Ioanni Kosmopoulou. Neither the rocking of the sea nor the wind-fed waves caused Ioanni Kosmopoulon to perish, Chief Medical Officer of the Royal Navy, brave son of Messinia, but time. This monument was erected by Demetrius and Kimon, sons, remembering the honorable lives of their parents.) (1)
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
The language is striking for its similarity to classical Greek in both sentence structure and word choice. For instance, consider the structure of this sentence: Ou pontou klydon oud'anemotrofa kymata Kosmopoulon olesan Ioannin. (Neither sea rocking nor wind-fed waves Kosmopoulon perished John; Neither the rocking of the sea nor the wind-fed waves caused Ioanni Kosmopoulon to perish.) The direct object (Kosmopoulon Ioannin) is not only separated by the verb (olesan) but actually precedes it, which is typical of constructions encountered in classical Greek. Similarly reminiscent of classical Greek are the words (damarta "wife," euandrou "brave," olesan "they lost") and the chosen form of the words used (goneusin "to the parents," epiggnomenois "remembering").
We will not find an epitaph like this at the cemetery of Kallithea--a community in the outskirts of Athens, founded by immigrants from Turkey after 1922. Since it is not a prestigious cemetery--no "members of prominent Athenian families ... are buried here"--we do not expect elaborate monuments and inscriptions, especially considering the observation that the "nature of the ritual display depends upon family income" and social standing (Dubisch 190, 194). Instead, we find here primarily "the repetitious row upon row of sameness" (Hamscher 21). The individual identity of the deceased is usually marked with a short epitaph in the low variety (dhemotike). For example: "PAO, I love you and when I die, I want the clover symbol on my grave" (Fig. 2).
[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]
The epitaph of the young PAO fan--the PAO soccer team represented with the clover leaf is written in the low variety and has none of the prestigious lexical and syntactic choices noted in the first epitaph; in fact, it contains spelling errors (k instead of ki, trifili instead of trifilli).
As these examples suggest, "death practices make statements about the living--where and how one is buried is an important part of one's place in society" (Bennett 123). Death is "an opportunity to display wealth and social accomplishments ... to make different kinds of statements," statements about the social identity of the deceased (Dubisch 195, 189). In Greek cemeteries, the most obvious statements about the socioeconomic level of the deceased are made implicitly--in the choice of cemetery and in the spatial arrangement of the graves within a cemetery--and explicitly--in the language of the epitaph and the design of the monument. In particular, a contrastive approach between epitaphs in the First Cemetery and those encountered in the Kallithea cemetery reveals that the epitaphs serve three purposes: as markers of personal identity (including economic resources and social class); as the written, socially accepted counterpart to the traditional lament songs that have been "restricted or even banned as part of an urban, more sophisticated attitude to death" (Holst-Warhalf 9)--in fact, I argue that the epitaphs in the non-prestigious Kallithea cemetery blend the folk tradition with the tradition of lament songs, thus creating a new genre, lament texts; and as a way of expressing the non-Western aspect of Greece, with their emphasis on emotions (as opposed to emphasis on rationality which is prevalent in Western society). In what follows, then, I will briefly examine the implicit markers--choice of cemetery and spatial arrangement of the sites--which provide the background and context for a detailed examination and analysis of the epitaphs. In other words, we will explore the discourse of the cemetery as a literary text with respect to its spatial arrangement and to the epitaphs themselves.
IMPLICIT SOCIOECONOMIC MARKERS
Choice of Cemetery
As mentioned earlier, the choice of cemetery reveals "one's place in society" (Bennett 123); specifically, the more prestigious the cemetery, the more elaborate the monument and epitaph that are expected, both adhering to the classical tradition. For example, the First Cemetery--the
most prestigious in Greece--contains the "most complete collection of nineteenth and twentieth century sculpture in Greece" (Llewellyn-Smith 96). In this cemetery, we find the family tombs of the "great families of Athens of war heroes, politicians, artists, actors, presidents and prime ministers" (Llewellyn-Smith 97). Former presidents of the country (Tsatsos), prime ministers (Rallis, Papandreou), archbishops (Hrysostomos), literary figures (Souris, Seferis), heroes of the 1821 Independence War (Kanaris, Kolokotronis), and shipowners (Nomikos) have their final resting place in this cemetery; their importance for the country is revealed by the fact that the names on the gravemarkers are the same names we find on the streets of Athens--yet another sign of the importance of these figures for the socioeconomic life of the city. In other words, as Llewellyn-Smith claims, the First Cemetery clearly reflects the political, cultural, and societal history of Athens in particular and Greece in general since "the great and the good of Greek life ... are buried here" (97, 96).
First Cemetery was designed as a park with elaborate, paved pathways leading to the gravesites. The Kallithea cemetery, which was founded in the beginning of the twentieth century, does not echo the First Cemetery's design and does not embody the history of the country. Kallithea is relatively small in size and has a simple design, with a central square from which paths radiate to the various burial sites.
Spatial Arrangement
Diane Bennett observes that most Greek cemeteries--urban or rural--are divided into sections (the Greek term used is "categories" or "positions"--the same word used for class) ranging from luxury class to temporary gravemarkers. In the First Cemetery, the most prestigious cemetery of Greece established in the 1800s, there are no clear boundaries separating classes; thus, elaborate monuments are scattered in the cemetery, hidden behind other markers or cramped in awkward, tight spaces, and large family vaults are interspersed with rented, 3-year gravesites. The fact that the First Cemetery is the most prestigious cemetery in Greece might offer one possible explanation for the lack of explicit separation; another, more likely explanation has to do with overcrowding of the cemetery. Since the population of Athens has increased significantly in the past fifty years,... |
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