Identities in Transition

The Enkidu Summer Conference 2007

June 1 - 5, 2007

Mexico City

in:

Remembrance through Oblivion: The Revival of Ancient Greek Drama on the Ancient Stage in Modern Greece

Zeynep Akture

Department of Architecture 

Izmir Institute of Technology 

Gulbahce Campus,  Izmir

(Turkia/Turkey)

The attachment made, at least since the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, between the ancient Greek civilisation and the modern Greek national identity marks the departure of the Greek experience from the broader Western concern for Classical antiquities. A highlight, marking the potential of ancient theatre remains in this enterprise, is a session of the Greek National Assembly that was held in 1829, and its prolongation in 1832, at the ancient Theatre of Argos. The symbolism of this event echoes in the earliest-recorded attempt to perform ancient Greek drama in an ancient performance building in 1858, when a group of students chose the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens for their representation of Sophocles’ Antigone in Archaic Greek. However, the latter monument has never been used for modern performances until the present day, due to the characteristically negative attitude of the Greek state authorities. Their policy of preserving the unrestored authenticity of the monument and the popular will to stage in it modern performances of ancient drama, which would have required reconstructions, may be interpreted as two aspects of the same desire to revive the ancient Greek civilisation in the modern Greek state. Building on the difference made by Pierre Nora (1986-1993) between the lieux de mémoire of a reified past and the milieu de mémoire of a lived reality in the acclaimed series on the cultural memory in France, this paper will attempt to demonstrate how this dilemma was resolved through the “remembrance” of the Greek and “oblivion” of the Roman past of country, to preserve the unrestored authenticity of the national lieux de mémoire such as the Theatre of Dionysus, while transforming Roman monuments such as the nearby Odeon of Herodes Atticus into national milieu de mémoire through comprehensive reconstructions, as required for staging in them modern performances.