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The Karaghiozis Performance in Nineteenth-Century Greece

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Linda S. Myrsiades
Linda S. Myrsiades*
Affiliation:
Deleware County Community College
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Extract

Out of the vacuum of the sparsely developed dramatic environment of nineteenth-century Greece grew a performance totally unrelated to the largely literary and western-European oriented theatre of Athens under the influence of the king and his court. It was a performance which, unlike the literary theatre, aroused the interest of the common man through its use of folk tales, anecdotes, songs, dialects, costumes and characters as the basis of its presentation. Originating in the Turkish folk form Karagöz, the Greek performance, called Karaghiozis, found its roots in an entertainment with which Greeks bom on the mainland and in other parts of the Balkans and Middle East were already familiar.

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 2 , 1976 , pp. 83 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1976

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References

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2. [Editors’ note: This statement is based on Greek sources and does not take into account the extensive sources in Turkish, which remain to be investigated.]

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27. Ibid., 9 February 1852, p. 3. [Editors’ note: The garments listed are the hellenized forms of the following words, which are Turkish unless other derivations are given: kavuk (wadded ceremonial turban); sarīk (ordinary turban); kalpak (Astrakhan fez); serviette (towel [French]); iskefe (skullcap [a Byzantine word passed into Turkish]); fes (fez); bonnet (soft headdress without a brim [French]); piperies (? hat shaped like a pepper); capello (hat [Italian]); caschetto (helmet [Italian]); cüppe (full-sleeved and full-skirted robe); biniş, (ceremonial riding dress); çakşīr (trousers); burnuz (bournous); entari (loose robe); giubbone (tunic [Italian]); kavad (greatcoat [Serbian]); guna (fur [Slav]); potur (knee-breeches); şalvar (baggy trousers); yağmurluk (raincoat); capotta (shepherd’s cape [Italian]); sortu (jacket [Venetian]); mantello (cloak [Italian]); rasum (cassock [Latin]).]

28. Biris, op. cit., 1066-8.

29. Loukatos, op. cit., p. 234.

30. Ibid., pp. 234–5; Biris, op. cit., 1130.

31. Biris, op. cit., 1134.

32. Ibid., 1069.

33. Ibid., 1132.

34. Biris, 13-14 V.Rotas, , Theatro, no. 10 (July-August, 1963), 31.

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