Culture, Civilization, and Demarcation at the Northwest Borders of GreeceAuthor(s): Laurie Kain HartSource:
American Ethnologist,
Vol. 26, No. 1 (Feb., 1999), pp. 196-220Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL:
Accessed: 29/11/2008 01:22
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black .Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with thescholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform thatpromotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Blackwell Publishing
and
American Anthropological Association
are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to
American Ethnologist.
http://www.jstor.org
culture, civilization,anddemarcationat thenorthwestbordersofGreece
LAURIEKAINHART-HaverfordCollegeAli Pashaused Greekalmostas his officialanguage,and over thegateof his castle is aninscriptionnGreeknwhich heclaimsdescentfromPyrrhusKingofEpirus.hegreatepic poemof more thantenthousand inesrelatingll hisexploitswhichitwas hisgreatdelighto haveread ohimbyitsauthorHajjiSekhret,MoslemAlbanian romDhelvino,swrittenntirelynGreek.AMoslemAlbanianwho claimsinmodernGreek obe adescendentofPyrrhusnddelightsna Greekpicof hisown deedsrecited ohimbyhis own Homers amost remarkablehenomenon.WaceandThompson914:192]Inearly1790,the infamous MuslimAlbanian,AliPasha,rulerofquasi-autonomousOttomanEpiros,launched a notorious and decisive attack onhisfractiousmountain-dwellingsubjects,theChristianSuliotes.Inthe sameyear,Mozart'soperaCosiFanTutte(SoDoTheyAll,or,They'reAll LikeThat)openedinVienna.The Albanianmotif wasintheair,andMozart'slibrettist,Lorenzo daPonte,madegooduse ofit. Theplotof theopera,setinNaples,isaversionof thewagertheme that motivates Boccaccio'sDecameron andShakespeare's Cymbeline.Thestoryinvolves twoItaliansuitors,FerrandoandGuglielmo,who,challenged byDonAlfonso,declaretheir fiancees to be abovetemptationandagreetoputthisconstancyto the test.Accordingly,FerrandoandGuglielmosay goodbyeto thewomenandpretendto leave forwar.Inshortordertheyreturn,disguisedasdashingAlbanian noblemen. The ladies'maid,De-spina-thenameisGreek-isthe first togreettheexoticallyattired "Albanians."She isimpressedbut voices confusion.Announcingthe visitors to hermistresses,sheexclaims,"Whatappearances!whatcostumes!whatfigures!what mustaches!Idon't knowifthese creatures areVlachsorTurks;Vlachs, Turks;Turks,Vlachs?"' Howperfectanexpressionof the anomalousandvexingpositionof the AlbanianinAdriaticcivilization.2Despinaknows the men are notGreeks.Onlytwopossibilitiesremain-willtheybe Turksor Latins?Inthe18thcentury,theVlachswere transhumantpastoralists,merchants,andintellectualswidelydispersed throughoutthe southernBalkans,andthey spokea Latinlanguage.)And furthermoredoesthiscostuming,Thecollapseofthe CommunistregimeinAlbaniaafter1990 ledto overt tensionsbetween GreeceandAlbania as aresult,ontheonehand,of massiveillegalAlbanianimmigrationto Greeceand,on theother,newquestions concerningthestatus andsecurityof the GreekminorityinsouthernAlbania.Duringthe 20thcentury,nation-constructionacrossthe Greek-Albanianborder involved therecip-rocal differentiationofheterogeneous populationsintobipolarGreek andAlbaniannationalities.Inthisarticle,Iconsiderthepublicrhetoric anddiplomatic processesinvolvedindistinguishingGreekandAlbanianpopulations.Isuggestthatthroughattentionto borderhistory, segmentarymodelsofculturalidentitycan beusefullymarriedto thetheoryofnationalismat thescale of the state.TheGreek-Albaniancase demonstratesboththecentralityof the borderto thelegitimationof the stateand themarginalityof actual borderpopulationswhopersistentlygeneratecondi-tions ofsocialheterogeneity.[Greece,Albania, nationalism,ethnicity,border,stereotype]
AmericanEthnologist26(1):196-220.Copyright?1999,AmericanAnthropologicalAssociation.
196americanethnologist
do thosemustaches,signifyless or more?Arethey manlychiefs-orpuppets?ClearlytheseAlbaniansarehilariously,extravagantly,indecipherable.
stealingandplundering
However trivialand fantasticthe conceitappears,da Ponte'sscenario madegoodculturalandpoliticalsensein1790 and has notlost its resonancetoday.The Albanian of Greekpopularideologyisstillashadowy figure.WhentheAlbanian national football teamplayedamatchagainstitsGreekcounterpartin Athens in1990,the Athenian fans chanted: "You don't haveacountry[homeland]/Youdon't have apeople/Whatareyou doinghere/Onthisplayingfield?"[Dhenekhetepatridha/Dhen ekhetelao/Tiirthate nakanete/Stoyipedhoafto?].3Themessageis not hard tograsp.Havingnoplaceandnopeople,the Albanians cannot constitute a nationalteam;if theirs is not a nationalteam,it cannothaveany placeon the nationalplayingfield.Radical irredentistGreeksputthe matterunambiguously:Stealingndplunderingheculturalheritagefotherpeoples[Albanians]hould understandhat hereisnoquestionof theirecuringa uniform ational-racialethnofiletiki]dentity,becauseheyhave neverconstituted national-racialnity.Theywere andare-whateverthey say-thedescendantsfGreeks(70%),Slav-Turks20%)and variousFrankishribesFrangikonilon]10%).Giorgiou993:196]On whatgroundsis an Albanianfiguredto be less determinate than aGreek,aVlach,oraTurk?Christiansinex-Ottoman domains havefrequentlyandstrategicallyconflated the termsMuslim and Turkto ostracizeMuslim orMuslim-descendedpopulationsas alien(asinthecurrent Serb-Bosnianconflict;see Sells1996),andAlbanians,thoughof severalreligions,havebeen so labeled.ButGiorgiou,for the mostpart,claimsthemasGreeks.Theallegedindeter-minacyof Albanians can also beexploited byAlbaniansthemselves. Newsreportsfromearly1996explainthatduringthe firstsixmonths of1995 at least45,000Albaniansofficially changedtheir names from MuslimorCatholic Albanian forms toGreekforms-presumablyintheinterests ofsecuringvisas toGreece.4What makes this maneuverpossibleis apeculiarsetofconceptualconventions about the natureofAlbanians and Greeks. Theseconventionshavetheiroriginsinthemodels ofnationalityinvokedbyGreekand Albanianspokesmeninarticulatingclaims to contestedterritorynnorthwestGreece andsouthern Albaniaduringandafterthe breakupof theOttomanEmpire.Diplomatic argumentsemployed byAlbanian andGreekspokesmeninthe internationalarena in1912-1 3 andin1919(atthe Paris PeaceConference)share auniverseofdiscourse butembracecomplementarily opposed strategies.Thevocabularyofthisdiscourse survives intothepresent.In arecent letter to PresidentClinton,adelegationofAlbanian-Americans-insist-ingthat,despiterecentcrises,AlbaniansandGreekshave ahistoryofclose tiesandcoopera-tion-observes:"Historicallythe two nations have livedinpeacewith eachother,andrelationsbetween the twopeopleshavecontinuouslybeencordial,mainlybecause there isconsiderableAlbanian bloodinGreeceandconsiderable Greek cultureinAlbania"(Repishti1994b:6).5Itis this distinction between Albanian"blood" and Greek"culture"-termsthat,as Just(1989)hasshown,arecharacteristicallyelidedinpractice-thatIintend toexploreinthis article. Asotherscholarshaveshown,themetaphorofbloodinGreekstatebuildinghas beenabundantlysuccessful(Herzfeld 1997:74).But,intheserviceof anexpansionistcivilization,Greece hasalsoroundlyattacked bloodpolitics.Inthe dialecticsofnationalself-definition,eachapproachhas its moment.
theborder and theethnos
Atthe turn ofthe 20thcentury,theregionthatis nowsouthernAlbania,GreekEpiros,andnorthwestern GreekMacedonia(seeFigure1)held amultilingualandmultireligious population,andinsomequartersitstill does.Forexample,villagersinthe FlorinadistrictintheGreekculture,civilization,anddemarcation 197
Search History:
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
p.
Culture, Civilization, And Demarcation at the Northwest Borders of Greece
Culture, Civilization, and Demarcation at the Northwest Borders of Greece
4.8K
Reads
20
Readcasts
8
Embed Views
More From This User
Notes
Load more
