Slouching toward Byzantium

“The people of Greece,” said one of Saki’s characters, circa 1912, “unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally.” Save perhaps for the Cypriots this may no longer be true. All of its recent political vicissitudes notwithstanding, Greece is one of the most stable countries in Europe. The Greeks are intelligent, quickwitted, not given to despair; and, with a steady eye on tourist income, they make all the history—all kinds of history—that can be locally consumed. On the most barren and empty islands, one is aware of the presence of a hardy and intelligent people. But, then, in Greece the landscape and the people are inseparable. Without the people the landscape would be somehow meaningless. Unlike the United States, Greece is humanly old and geologically young. It is very different from the Grand Canyon.

With this in mind, I find it fascinating how the relatively short-lived era of European bourgeois civilization affected the Greeks. During the twentieth century, Athens, like Madrid or Marseilles, has become a modern city, large portions of which are now comfortable, as well as hideous. Athens, which fifty years ago was a southern Balkan capital of 200,000 inhabitants, has grown together with neighboring Piraeus until, now, they form a swelling and smog-ridden conurbation of nearly five million people, choked with automobiles, of course.

JL

About the Author

John Lukacs

“The people of Greece,” said one of Saki’s characters, circa 1912, “unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally.” Save perhaps for the Cypriots this may no longer be true. All of its recent political vicissitudes notwithstanding, Greece is one of the most stable countries in Europe. The Greeks are intelligent, quickwitted, not given to despair; and, with a steady eye on tourist income, they make all the history—all kinds of history—that can be locally consumed. On the most barren and empty islands, one is aware of the presence of a hardy and intelligent people. But, then, in Greece the landscape and the people are inseparable. Without the people the landscape would be somehow meaningless. Unlike the United States, Greece is humanly old and geologically young. It is very different from the Grand Canyon.

With this in mind, I find it fascinating how the relatively short-lived era of European bourgeois civilization affected the Greeks. During the twentieth century, Athens, like Madrid or Marseilles, has become a modern city, large portions of which are now comfortable, as well as hideous. Athens, which fifty years ago was a southern Balkan capital of 200,000 inhabitants, has grown together with neighboring Piraeus until, now, they form a swelling and smog-ridden conurbation of nearly five million people, choked with automobiles, of course.