Mid-war period Ethography: Fintanaki by Pantelis Horn

Disclaimer

The article below was originally written as an undergraduate assignment for the Greek Open University in 2007, during a period when the author’s academic skills were still developing. Although the quality of this article does not match that of later examples of the same author’s work, it is written in a thorough manner and contains useful information for students and other readers with non-specialised knowledge; therefore, it has been proudly included on this website.

The reader needs to be warned that the original assignment, on which this article was based, was written in Greek and was intended to be read by specialised academics. Despite the author’s best intentions to present his essay in the clearest way possible, some points and arguments might still be lost in translation. The author recommends that readers consult the web for additional information on any unfamiliar words or specialised vocabulary.

The author admits that the bibliography for this article is limited, as required for an undergraduate assignment of this level. The author did not include any additional bibliography during the translation of his work into English due to time and access limitations. It must also be noted that the original bibliography for this article was studied from translated copies in Greek; therefore, the page numbers suggested in the citations below match the page numbers of the translated copies and not the original volumes.

Introduction

This article discusses the theatrical play Fintanaki by Pantelis Horn (1881-1941), written in 1921. Fintanaki is a modern Greek diminutive of the Turkish word fidan, meaning 'sapling'. In Greek urban slang of the 1920s, the words fintani (sapling) or fintanaki (little sapling) were often used to describe people with a certain delinquent background or unconventional, antisocial behaviour. The play by Pantelis Horn is connected to Athenian folk-ethnography, which is associated with earlier literature and theatre genres, such as the comedy-romance and the drama-romance. The current paper discusses this relationship and the connections between the above genres and European Naturalism. The conventions of Naturalism, noted in contemporary European literature, were studied by Pantelis Horn and were adapted to the urban Greek context. The play is discussed in relation to broader developments in theatre and literature during the mid-war period, both in Greece and in Western Europe. The ethographic and naturalistic features employed by Pantelis Horn are examined in their contemporary social and economic context, and are also associated with the social norms and moral values of the mid-war period. A separate section examines Fintanaki within our own (modern Greek) context and comments on the play's diachronic character. At the end of the paper, there is a brief summary with some basic conclusions on the relationship between Naturalism and ethography, as this is noted during a transitional period for Greek theatre and literature.

Fintanaki and the Athenian ethography

Fintanaki by Pantelis Horn was first introduced on stage on 17th September 1921 (Vafeiadi 1992, 9). The literature and theatre reviews of the time described the play as folk-ethnography; however, it also included other naturalistic features, which sparked debate among literary scholars and theatre commentators. On the 19th September of the same year, Fotos Politis published an article in the newspaper Politeia, in which he suggested that the only genre describing the play is ethnography. In his view, Fintanaki described the life and everyday reality of contemporary Athens by “presenting the local colour in full fidelity” (Vafeiadi 1992, 51-3). Of course, Fintanaki and the broader dramaturgy by Pantelis Horn is nowadays difficult to categorise. The writer studied a variety of theatrical genres and welcomed multiple influences from European literature, including the works of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), Symbolism, Naturalism, and psychological drama. At the same time, however, Pantelis Horn remained loyal to Greek tradition, focusing on the Greek rural and urban environments, which he transformed in his own personal style. The main theme of Fintanaki is the relationship between love and human fate in a context of social deterioration, which he describes realistically and melodramatically (Vafeiadi 1992, 33-4).

The story takes place in the interior courtyard of a typical Athenian courtyard house in the area of Plaka, on the slopes of the Acropolis. It is the year 1921, a period of great social reclassifications due to the impact of World War I, while Greece is on the verge of the Asia-Minor Catastrophe. The Athenian petty bourgeoisie is experiencing severe poverty and economic insecurity. The play focuses on the gradual collapse of the protagonists’ morality, shaped by social fate and its economic dead ends. Due to these circumstances, Toula, who is the play’s main character, is led to prostitution, while her father, Mr Antonis, is forced to purloin government money in order to ‘buy’ his honour back. The immediate social circle of the two protagonists includes three women, Eva, Froso and Mrs Katigo, who do not recognise any form of moral or social value outside money. In this specific social environment, any manifestation of true love is meant to die. The protagonists' lives are automatically controlled by the invisible hand of poverty (Vafeiadi 1992, 11-14).

A similar story to the Fintanaki had been previously played in the Greek theatres in 1891: it was the Lyre of Old-Nicholas (Η Λύρα του Γερονικόλα), written by Demetrius Koromilas (1850-1898). The writer focused on the upheaval and discord caused by money within a poor, working-class family in the Plaka area. In his play, Koromilas introduced elements of comedy-romance and drama-romance, which were later adopted by contemporary revues and ethographic dramas (Mauromoustakos 1999, 292). The neighbourhood of Plaka, together with poverty and the corrosive power of money, is a common feature between the plays by Pantelis Horn and Demetrius Koromilas.

The development of comedy-romance and drama-romance in Greece is associated with the first publications of ethographic literature in the 1880s and the establishment of folk studies as a distinct module in Greek academia. During that time, there was a shift in interest from urban environments to rural areas and the life of the countryside, which led to the development of a rural-folk, or perhaps ‘couleur locale’, drama. In the theatre, there were the first appearances of plays written in local dialects, actors dressed in folk costumes, and the use of folk music and folk songs during the play. The milieu of the rural countryside was described in a populist manner, leading to the development of standardised, stereotypical theatrical characters, defined by their lineage, origin, profession, accent, and various other external identification marks. Of course, the development of such stereotypical characters in comedy-romance and drama-romance was largely due to the influence of Realism rather than Naturalism. This is true in relation to the ‘scenic reality’ of the plays, which was still heavily idealised (Pouchner 2002, 334-5). As will be explained further on, the relationship between Naturalism and the works of Pantelis Horn is defined by various factors that do not necessarily depend on developments in drama.

The ethographic approach followed by Horn in Fintanaki, as well as its relationship with comedy-romance and drama-romance, is noted in relation to the standardised everyday characters of the Athenian 1921 petty bourgeois, which dominate the play. Aggelos Terzakis (1907-1979) identified these characters as “η μεσίτρα, ο παραλής, το τσόκαρο, ο κουτσαβάκης, ο νοικοκύρης-άνθρωπος, η ‘προκομμένη’ (1)”, while the so-called Fintanaki (the sapling) was a typical young working class girl of the 1920s (Vafeiadi 1992, 16).

All of the play’s characters speak the daily folk language of the Athenian working-class neighbourhoods. This is the demotiki (2), which was enriched with elements of urban slang. This preference for the demotiki was not only due to popular conventions in ethography, but also to the demotic movement of the early 20th century. The reader should bear in mind that theatre and the production of drama in modern Greece were intellectual battlegrounds where the demoticism debate began in the late 19th century. Strong supporters of the demotiki language, such as Argyris Eftaliotis (1849-1923), Yiannis Psycharis (1854-1929), Demetrius Tagopoulos (1867-1926), Elias Voutieridis (1874-1941), Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957) and Pantelis Horn (1881-1941), established the demotiki as the official language of modern Greek drama (Spathis 1981, 39-40).

In Fintanaki, the play’s characters exhibit stereotypical mannerisms that recur in ethographic Realism; for example, when Efi asks Yiagos, in a mincing manner, if he is just passing his time with her (Horn 1992 [1921], 88). There is a characteristic way of talking by some of the protagonists, such as the working-class slang by the ‘koutsavakis’ Yiagos, who notes: “if luck pulls you down and smashes you in such way, and strikes you down like an octopus…you get to become hard as rock and you say to her (to luck): ‘strike again you bitch’” (Horn 1992 [1921], 97). The local colour, theatrically known as the ‘couleur locale’ of the comedy-romance, is noted in relation to the lyrics of folk songs. In one of the scenes, Mr Antonis recaps Toulas' childhood, and after having been carried away by his emotions, he mumbles the lyrics of a known lullaby: “Go to sleep, I ordered your dowry gifts from Constantinople, your clothes and your golden jewellery from Venice (3)” (Horn 1992 [1921], 135).

From a technical perspective, Fintanaki is classified as an urban ethography because it describes an urban milieu; this contrasts with the typical ethography of the time, as well as with the comic-romance and the drama-romance, which usually describe the rural milieu. It represents a theatrical shift from the ethography of the countryside to the ethography of the big cities, which can be attributed to the peculiar social conditions of 1920s Greece. The movement of folk-Athenian ethography and Neo-Urban Realism had already begun in the early 20th century with the works of Spyros Melas (1882-1966), and continued during the mid-war period, initially with the play Renoula (Ρηνούλα) by Aemilios Veakis (1884-1951) and then with the Fintanaki by Pantelis Horn (1881-1941). The latter play introduced a total shift of interest to the urban environment, probably due to the internal migration towards the urban centres of the time. This migration was due to the devastation following World War I and the Asia Minor Catastrophe, which produced poverty and social unrest among the lower social strata throughout Greece. The urban ethography noted in Fintanaki offers a realistic description of the urban environment of the Plakan neighbourhood at the eve of the Asia-Minor Catastrophe; however, there are no similarities with the absolute misery noted in the Vaudeville Woman (Γυναίκα του Βαριτέ), written in 1924 by Georgios Sokos (1892-1937), or the extreme prostitution described in the Neighbours (Γειτόνισσες), written by Pantelis Horn in 1924 (Vasileiou 2005, 96-9). In European literature, the shift of interest from the countryside to the city coincided with Naturalism, which occurred much earlier than in Greece due to the Industrial Revolution and the 19th-century urbanisation (Vasileiou 2005, 104). In his Fintanaki, Horn shows no intention to copy the characters of European Naturalistic urban dramaturgy; by contrast, he presents typically local folk characters (Vasileiou 2005, 100), which are likely to be associated with the Greek comic-romance.

The impact of Naturalism

The discovery of Naturalistic features in Fintanaki arrived late due to the transitional stage of the mid-war period, which affected Greek dramaturgy and the philological analysis of its plays. In 1983, Demetrius Stathis characterised Horn’s play as “a delayed imitation of Naturalism…‘moulded’ into ethography” (Vafeiadi 1992, 59). According to Spathis, the play is closer to Naturalism than any other play of the same period. Despite its structure as a capital city’s ethography, the play promotes a social critique and denounces the system’s extortionate mechanisms through the moral decay of the protagonists’ family. Still, Spathis agrees that the essential features of Naturalistic drama are absent in Fintanaki. These are the ultimate determinism in the play’s plot, the feeling of complete wretchedness in relation to the protagonists, and the impact of heredity on the protagonists’ behaviours (Vafeiadi 1992, 59).

In relation to the latter point, Kostas Georgousopoulos confirms the Naturalistic origin of Fintanaki, as the feature of heredity is promoted strongly through the relationship between father and daughter. In the play, Mr Antonis tells Toula, “You look just like me” (Vafeiadi 1992, 17), yet he also knows this might not be true. In reality, Mr Antonis wishes to prove to himself that, despite the climate of money-worship among the inhabitants of the Plakan courtyard, his daughter maintains a level of honesty and integrity that stems from his own personality. In the author’s view, at the end of the play, heredity manifests differently than Mr Antonis believes. Both characters are gradually dragged down towards illegality and moral decay. Mr Antonis dies from sorrow, and before him dies Toula’s love for Yiagos. A few months after its theatrical premiere in 1921, the play was republished as a novel. In Horn’s own introduction to his novel, Froso (Toula’s mother) is described as a woman brought up in Athens’ red-light district (Vafeiadi 1992, 12-13). In that sense, when Toula decides to become a prostitute, heredity is confirmed by relation to her mother.

The play’s relationship with Naturalism can be clearly seen in the photographic description of the Plakans ' daily life and economic reality. This is stripped from its popular myths, beautifications and idealisations, which are, by contrast, noted in drama-romance. Horn describes the impacts of heredity and social context on their characters with absolute fidelity, and he experiments enough to conclude that their personalities are completely nullified. On the other hand, Horn’s intention does not follow the typical conventions of European Naturalism, probably because of the trends of the transitional phase from ethnography to Naturalism noted in Greece during the early 1920s. For example, although the characters are dragged down to immorality due to their actions, at the same time, their esoteric ethos remains intact, an element that descends from the conventions of Romanticism. As Toula ends up in prostitution, her act receives the form of a human sacrifice, and at the same time, the death of Mr Antonis receives the form of a redemptive purification (Vafeiadi 1992 17-18).

It must be noted that the “transitional phase from ethography to Naturalism” is a conventional term that is meant to describe the confusion of literature scholars and theatre commentators of the time in relation to Pantelis Horn’s play. In reality, the problem lies in the broader confusion between the two genres, noted in Greek theatrical reviews, stemming from the impact of 1880s prose literature, where ethnography and Naturalism were conventionally conflated. Greek prose of the 1880s is connected with a shift in literature towards realistic scene descriptions and the customs and habits of Greek rural areas, which differ from the conventions of the preceding Romanticism. The unification of Naturalism and ethnography in Greece occurred under peculiar conditions. The milieu of European Naturalism was restricted to the ‘couleur locale’ of the Greek countryside due to the nature of the Greek society. Furthermore, the main focus of European Naturalism was the poverty and misery of the urban working classes, which was expressed through social critique strongly influenced by Marxism and Darwinism. The latter was employed to stress the impact of heredity at the social level: the social environment was portrayed as an almighty living organism that powerfully subdued the consciousness of the petty bourgeoisie. By contrast, Greek literature never developed a similar movement and deflected from the European norm of the time. With Fintanaki, however, there was the first appearance of a European-style urban milieu in Greece, which again did not resemble the typical European milieu of Naturalism. The Athenian society of 1921 had not reached the levels of industrialisation and urbanisation observed in other European capitals; therefore, Fintanaki maintained strong features of the traditional agricultural society of the Greek countryside. One could argue that the country’s population was semi-urbanised, and that the theatrical audience was still charmed by the folkloric features of comedy-romance and drama-romance from previous periods (Pouchner 1984, 322-6).

Pantelis Horn is often regarded as the beginning of pure Naturalism in Greek theatre. Alongside Modernism in the fine arts, Naturalism appeared in Greek literature and theatre at the same time as ethnography. All three movements originated in Northern Europe much earlier, but arrived in Greece with a significant delay due to the peculiar social conditions of the time. This situation generated two broader tendencies: on one hand there was a traditional ethography that was still attached to the thematology of the previous century, and on the other hand, there was a modernist ethography, that was influenced by the works of Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), August Strindberg (1849-1912), Leon Tolstoy (1828-1910), Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann (1862-1946) and the philosophy by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Ibsen’s Vampires, for example, were first performed in Athens in 1894 and introduced to the audience by the novelist and dramatist Gregorios Xenopoulos (1867-1951), one of the pioneers of Greek urban Realism. In later years, the consolidation of ‘Ibsenism’ in Greece was due to the contributions of Konstantinos Christomanou (1867-1911) and Thomas Oikonomou (1864-1927). The early phase of Greek Naturalism began with the plays The Secret Wedding (Ο Μυστικός Γάμος) and The Prank of Life (Η Φάρσα της Ζωής) by Yiannis Kambysis (1872-1901), both written in 1896. From 1907 onwards, major Greek playwrights assimilated the ideas of Naturalism and Symbolism in their works and founded the Greek Theatre of Ideas. These were Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957), Spyros Melas (1882-1966), Demetrius Tagopoulos (1867-1926) and Paulos Nirvanas (1866-1937). Fintanaki by Pantelis Horn was initially classified as a ‘Plakan ethography’ instead of a Naturalist drama, even though it described the social traps constructed by the urban milieu (Pouchner 1984, 368-70). This is due to Horn’s devotion to Ibsen’s Symbolism and his productive interaction with various theatrical genres, which focused on the lives of both foreign and domestic urban working classes. His broader interest in the social decay and poverty of the Greek petty bourgeoisie is highly unlikely to have been triggered by the economic uncertainty of the mid-war period, let alone by the events of the Aria-Minor Catastrophe, which occurred after Fintanaki was first presented on stage in 1921. In that sense, Horn’s motive is likely to have been external, and to a certain extent related to the social reflections of the October Revolution of 1917, which aimed at the practical establishment of Marxist ideology. During the time of Pantelis Horn, the so-called ‘20s Generation’ of Greek intellectuals consisted of many Communists and Socialists, while at the same time, there was a strong leftward shift in the country’s artistic production. This leftward shift affected Greek drama, shifting the focus to the lower social strata and the problems they faced due to money and capitalism (Vasileiou 2005, 104-5). There are, of course, objections to whether Horn had assimilated Marxist ideas in his plays, first because of his family background and second because of his profession: he was a naval officer during the climax of Greek Nationalism (Vafeiadi 1992, 23). On the other hand, it is likely that Horn’s critique of the urban milieu was strongly influenced by the anti-military and anti-capitalist views of other contemporary writers.

Fintanaki in the modern Greek context

The previous two sections focused on the relationship between Fintanaki and ethography, naturalism, symbolism, and the broader tendencies in Greek literature during the 1920s. This section focuses on something totally different: the play’s features, which connect it to modern social reflections and, therefore, allow it to be examined within the modern Greek context and mindset.

The almighty power of the social environment and the way in which poverty manipulates people's lives can also be seen as a contemporary social reflection. Of course, the psychological dead ends in which Horn’s protagonists are trapped have been partially overcome by today’s standards and social practices (Vafeiadi 1992, 21) (4). Still, they raise interesting questions about Greek social history and the relationship between past and present customs.

In the play, Toula falls in love with the wrong man during a vulnerable age and feels disappointed. Based on the 1920s standards and social practices, her abortion is an extremely immoral act, which carries social criticism and public stigma. Is this stigma the same for women having abortions today? Her social circle consists of women who do not hesitate to prostitute themselves in order to avoid their economic condemnation. On the other hand, though, isn't this the case nowadays for many poor migrant women in Western societies? According to Mrs Katigo, for the women, abortion, prostitution, illegal money and fast success bear no moral constraints. This is even true for the men: Yiagos sells himself off for a job in the public sector. Are these situations significantly different from modern Greek examples? Mr Antonis, presented as a moral male figure, purloins public funds to buy back his lost family honour. His wife disagrees and criticises his actions; however, it is the same woman who, earlier in the play, had no objections to Mr Antonis being prone to stealing the money and spending it on himself and his family. According to her exact words: “who has honey on his fingertips and does to taste it”? In modern Greece, where corruption seems to be leading our society, how different is this specific way of thinking for some people? Finally, the play depicts the character of the middle-aged, wealthy ‘uncle’ Giavousis, who can buy love and attention with his money. How unfamiliar is this type of man in our modern societies?

The answers to the above questions are not as obvious as one might think. As noted earlier, Fintanaki is an urban-folk ethography with Naturalistic elements. Horn describes and criticises the social reality of his time, which is not entirely different to ours; in fact, to a certain extent, this type of reality is timeless for most of the poor working classes. The features of ethographic Realism in Fintanaki are not necessarily time-specific and do not describe only the social conditions of the mid-war period; they extend to deeply rooted social habits that are still present in modern Greek society. The author’s view is that Pantelis Horn wishes to expose the reality of his time, shaped by the economic conditions and broader poverty of the mid-war period. In the play, the viewer notes that money can corrupt all moral values; however, it is clear that money is the only means to guarantee the protagonists’ survival. With a sense of Romanticism, Horn is likely to recollect the times when money could not touch the moral integrity of the ‘good-old’ people, such as Mr Antonis. In a tragic way, Horn redeems his protagonist and introduces the moral reality of ‘modern times’, which is still present today. The main difference between the past and the present is perhaps the following: the relationship between money, corruption, and society is not oriented towards survival, but towards satisfying an on-growing demand for luxury.

Summary and Conclusions

Fintanaki by Pantelis Horn was first performed in 1921 and sparked scholarly debate regarding its typological classification. This debate arose from confusion among the theatrical reviewers of the time, as it was a transitional period towards the amalgamation of Naturalism and urban ethnography. Horn had studied various theatrical plays and literary genres; therefore, he had assimilated the latest European theatrical developments through the works of Ibsen, Naturalism, Symbolism, and the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. In Fintanaki, there is a strong presence of stereotypical characters noted in the Athenian urban context, which descend from the preceding comedy-romance plays by Demetrius Koromilas. The connection to ethnography is noted in relation to the play’s focus on the Plakan courtyard and its descriptions of the characters, particularly their expressions and language, which also align with the broader demoticism movement of the early 20th century. The play’s social environment is described through a combination of Naturalistic and ethnographic conventions; in fact, it is a semi-urban milieu that exerts a strong influence on the protagonists, in line with the prototypes of European Naturalism. Another interesting feature is the presence of Determinism in the play, though not necessarily in its Darwinian sense, but more at a social level. The critique of society and capitalism aligns with the poverty and other economic problems following World War I, as well as with the ideology of the October Revolution; however, Horn avoids any political commentary on the subject. He uses poverty to present the moral corruption and esoteric collapse of his protagonists in a way that seems experimental. Finally, the author's personal view is that the play carries a sense of romantic nostalgia; this is likely to reflect Horn’s nostalgia for the ‘good old days’, when people were morally intact. During the play, Horn’s ‘good-old days’ die alongside his protagonists, opening the way to new, immoral values of social survival that persist in modern Greek society.

Bibliography

Horn, P., 1992 [1921], To Fintanaki, introduction and comments by E. Vafeiadi (ed.), Modern Greek Theatre Library Series, Athens: Dodoni.
Mauromoustakos, Pl., 1999, ‘Comedy-romance and drama-romance’, in Greek Education Encyclopaedia, Volume 28, Theatre – Cinema – Music – Dance, Athens: Ekdotiki Athinon, 292.
Puchner, W., 1984, ‘Fintanaki and the ethographic legacy’, in Puchner, W. (ed.) European Theatrology. Eleven Studies, Athens: Goulandris-Horn Institution.
Pouchner, W., 2002, ‘The post-revolutionary theatre until the Asia-Minor catastrophe’, in Puchner, W. (ed.) Modern Greek Theatre (1600-1940) – Cinema, Volume I, The Modern Greek Theatre until World War II, Patra: Greek Open University, 77-299.
Spathis, D., 1983, ‘The Greek Theatre’, Greece: History and Culture (10) 29-33.
Vasileiou, A., 2005, Modernisation or Tradition: Prose Theatre in Mid-War Athens, Athens: Metaichmio.
Vafeiadi, E., 1992, ‘Introduction’, in Horn, P., To Fintanaki, introduction and comments by E. Vafeiadi, Modern Greek Theatre Library Series, Athens: Dodoni, 9-63.

Notes

1. Such characters are difficult to translate into English, and can even be more difficult to describe in detail. The mesitra (μεσίτρα) is a sort of female agent, mediator, or middlewoman who arranges a casual date or marriage between youths. The paralis (παραλής) refers to a rich male, who is also likely to think that his money can buy everything. The tsokaro (τσόκαρο), which literally means "clog," was an improvisational type of shoe for poor people; however, in the play’s context and in 1920s urban slang, tsokaro was used to describe a woman of low moral standards. The koutsavakis (κουτσαβάκης) literally means a person who is limping or has a peculiar walking style, often humpback, with spinal deformations; however, in the play’s context and also in the popular folk shadow-theatre of the early 20th century, koutsavakis relates to a person who pretends to be tough by imitating cripple-walking. The noikokyris anthropos (νοικοκύρης άνθρωπος) is still used nowadays and literally means a good family man. Finally, the prokommeni (προκομμένη) is an ironic nickname. Although it literally means a lady with remarkable achievements throughout her life, in the play’s context, the word is used to describe a woman with no achievements.
2. For the language debate and the division between demotiki and katharevousa in the early-modern Greek state, see the articles “Romans, Greeks, Hellenes: Pre-revolutionary notions of national identity” and “Archaic dialects, the Hellenistic Koine and the modern Greek language”.
3. The lullaby in Greek goes like this: “Κοιμήσου και παράγγειλα, στην Πόλη τα προικιά σου, στη Βενετιά τα ρούχα σου, και τα χρυσαφικά σου”.
4. This is currently not the case. In fact, when the original paper was written back in 2007, there were no signs of bankruptcy and economic recession on the horizon, which have been troubling Greece since 2010. Over the last decade, particularly, the lower and middle working classes in Greece have witnessed a significant loss of income, often resembling the working-class poverty described in Fintanaki.