ALEXANDROS PAPADIAMANTIS AND THE LANGUAGE QUESTION1

Nicholas A. E. Kalospyros
2
3

If we could justify the assertion that Papadiamantiss otherworldliness is a fair

palate of his indulging in profound lyrical reveries about human nature, we should
have attended closely to his linguistic medium for their respective description; in a
modern Greek state being especially tantalized by the so-called Language
Question[1], Papadiamantiss case should have gained a particular attention under
serious remarks relevant to it, such as that in the spheres of poetry and fiction,
the search for a written language has historically been in essence a search for
precedents[2], not to mention the major issue of relating to the History of
Classical Scholarship. Therefore, for Alexandros Papadiamantis (1851-1911), one of
the most compendious diachronic Greek authors, who occupies a unique and
legendary status as a writer of prose-fiction in our literature, the demanding
challenge to underline his attitude towards the linguistic debate aims to develop
discussion of a particular dimension of his work which earlier critics have already
acknowledged but not sufficiently elaborated on.
It remains undisputable that, though his works are susceptible of a
bewildering variety of multiple as well as of contradictory interpretations in
opposition to the disruptive impact of a cosmopolitan Westernism and insulting
modernity which evoced the writers cautiousness, whereby he poetically glossed a
sense of subjectivity familiar in the Greek writers and typically related by him to his
childhood years, since his literary landscape is dominated by God, Papadiamantiss
hieratic efforts to conjure up a divine presence in the words of the ancestral
language entail the fully purposive use of different phases of Greek language.
1 http://www.eens-congress.eu/?main__page=1&main__lang=de&eensCongress_cmd=showPaper&eensCongress_id=143
2 http://www.eens-congress.eu/
3 http://www.eens.org/

Behold

the

elliptical

picture

of

the

unrivalled

language-independency

of

Papadiamantis: we can observe such manoeuvres of poetic utterance in the trends

of linguistic usage throughout the last centuries in intellectual life and in the
contiguous debate about the place of the ancient language in the school curriculum,
both of which are often unintelligible without a complete understanding of the
Language Question. Although this dualism in language in the form of an escalating
competition of archaization and purifying mechanisms that expunged many nonGreek features from the written language and enriched the modern Greek language
with newly coined words and morphological forms lacking in the colloquial modern
Greek

but

appropriate

to

different

linguistic

situations

originated

in

the

phenomenon of Atticism[3], the Language Question appeared to be a modern

phenomenon as an increasingly polarized linguistic debate turning into a strict
contradiction between i) the revival of long-vanished linguistic features and purism
prescriptions, by many writers, especially those involved in more learned pursuits,
who cultivated a pompous rhetoricism, and ii) the extremes reached by the
proponents of demoticism, a language closer to the spoken standard, who produced
neologisms. Those writing in katharevousa[4], i.e. using variable linguistic features
of vocabulary, grammar and syntax based on Ancient Greek (a modified form of
Atticistic Greek) and feeling themselves as the rightful inheritors of the classical
world, and thus proclaiming their Greek national identity as closely linked to
language,
[290. 23][5], couldnt avoid the accusation of exploiting an artificial and inexisting
language that was invented by indigenous scholars
[6]. Thus, rehearsing the disseminated in the Greekspeaking world arguments of the expatriate classical scholar Adam. Korais, whose
model prevailed as the official written language, it seemed inadequate to interact
with the reality of Greek language controversy, i.e. the embattled contours and the
consequences

of

the

Language

Question,

resulting

in

the

diglossia[7] institutionalized as a formal division within written usage[8]. So, this

substitute for socio-political action within modern Greek bourgeois class[9], was
one facet of scientific retrogression, nationalism and irredentism, while the debate
itself can now be interpreted as a symptom of what is often called a reification or
objectivization of language, developed to an unusually high degree[10] and since
it has been disputed that the elite language declines and also compromises with the

vernacular causing a fusion from which the standard language is born[11]. The
literary position of Papadiamantis offers us and here lies the noble desideratum of
our view the chance not to re-examine the Language Question but to approach
its essence and simultaneously appraise the way he managed to reverse it by
reclaiming the entire history of the Greek language and regaining access to the
wide range of a literary language along with its diversity, his preferences among
ecclesiastical tradition and sterile scholasticism being neither repeatable nor
completely translatable.
Papadiamantis maintained a firm attitude even by challenging every artificial
constraint or compromising journalese and officialdom. He had a conscious aversion
to Psycharism; in the only interview he gave, he expressed himself explicitly about
J. Psychariss (1854-1929) intentions: ,
, ; , ,
,
. !
[12]. He was totally
inimical against the idea of language imposition: Lingua nova Graeca inventa
, , ,
, ,
,
, , ,
,
[288. 10-15].
His friend, Ioannis Vlachoyannis, once remarked that Papadiamantis had
never read a book written in demotic, by specifying that
,
[13]. On the contrary, Papadiamantis in his interview to D.
Chatzopoulos in the newspaper (1893) confessed his admiration for the
naturalness emerging from K. Krystalliss language:
, [],
[14].
In another of his writings, he was wondering in presenting a good sense of
humour: , ,

 , , . ;
' ; [291. 8-10]. In his
study The Idols, published in 1893, Emm. Rodis supported the cause of the spoken
language, although he expressed himself in an elegant katharevousa. Eleven years
before, the Observations on the Language by K. Kontos (1834-1909) were
published in Athens, summing up what he had elsewhere published separately.
Kontos was professor at the University of Athens since 1868, a pupil of the
Dutchman C. G. Cobet; his tendencies to correctness on Atticistic ground and his
intensive archaism made him an architect of purism, who, like his intellectual
ancestor Phrynichus, believed that he could eradicate linguistic anarchy through
variations, mistakes, barbarism and solecism, by enriching the poor and vulgar
Greek vernacular. Beyond Kontoss ultraconservatism, Papadiamantis conceded his
knowledge of Greek and his right to lead a chaste struggle for the notion of
: ,
, ,
[292. 28-31]. He esteemed
highly those who knew to express themselves in a flourishing Greek language, as
he accepts in the obituary he wrote for Father Dionysios:
,
[328. 30-31]. But in other cases, Papadiamantis
resorted

to

ironical

comments:

[290. 18]. His ironic mood must not be interpreted as an

acrimonious attack on his opponents, but rather be seen as product of his dramatic
agony. The contradiction between the reality and the phenomena motivates his
irony,

while

this

ironical reductio

ad

absurdum advances

to

theexpressis

verbis revealing of the genuine literary intention. Then, he hurls the modified ironic
oppositions with unequalled acumen, thus combining stylistic scholarship with
Christian eschatological viewing[15].
D. C. Hesseling noticed carefully the spiritual veins of Papadiamantiss work:
son uvre entire tmoigne dune grande connaissance de la Bible et de la
liturgie, et cet amour de lglise a exerc une grande influence sur sa langue. Il
emploie le grec populaire, et souvent le patois de son le natale, dans le dialogue,
trs rarement dans tout un rcit, mais en rgle gnrale il crit un grec qui se
distingue de la langue officielle par un nombre extraordinaire de mots archaques,

tirs pour la plupart des vieux livres de pit. Il rend magistralement la langue et le
style des vies de saints. On ne saurait parler chez lui dun style fixe: le sujet,
linspiration du moment, lamnent prendre ses formes au grec ancien, chez les
auteurs ecclsiastiques byzantins ou dans lusage journalier. Mais, lors mme quil
parat perdre de vue la tradition orale, sa langue na rien de mort; on sent que les
expressions quil doit ses nombreuses lectures font partie intgrante de sa
pense. Il possde une tournure desprit remarquablement originale et il est rest
parfaitement indemne de toute influence soit ancienne, soit occidentale[16]. Only
by taking under consideration Papadiamantiss enormous classical, biblical and
ecclesiastical scholarship it is probable to understand his conception of moderation
and caution against exaggerations, to which many of his contemporaneous scholars
were inclined; he indicates that sometimes hypercorrection can lead to devastating
results concerning sound texts: ,
( ) [218. 32-33].
Consequently, due to manifest ignorance of the Language Question and its
significance, the opinions of the critics on the kind of Papadiamantiss language
that gives life to the writers homesickness are divided. Some scholars hastened to
depict Papadiamantiss style by means of oversimplified aphorisms, compared to
the taste of his generation and their own grasp. Other philologists emphasized on
the opinion that he was tightened to the chariot of katharevousa adding that his
katharevousa was entirely personal and inconsistent; others reached the conclusion
that it is possible to discern between the different layers/levels of his language: the
popular spoken language, almost photographically recorded and often with idioms
from Skiathos, which he used in dialogue; an admixture of katharevousa with many
demotic elements (perhaps the most individual style), which he used in narration;
and a more archaizing katharevousa, a kind of traditional prose language inherited
from the earlier generation, which he reserved for his lyrical digressions.
Papadiamantis

was

introduced

as

an

author

of

high

quality

representing

katharevousa, so that a respected puristic tradition has established itself.

Papadiamantis was a particularly important actor in this because of his great
popularity, his stories being serialized and read aloud in village cafs[17]. For
instance, K. Chatzopoulos characterized Papadiamantiss katharevousa as pedantic,
A. Terzakis as problematic, M. M. Papaoannou as inert survival of the past and P.
Moullas as a language undisciplined dressed in her puristic garment, whilst T. Agras

and O. Elytis regarded it a language with a history through the centuries, hoarded
up from multiple cultural layers, and Z. Lorentzatos along with N. B. Tomadakis a
language which denies its submission to the monochrome of the one or another
expression. Ar. Nikoladis considered Papadiamantiss work from a linguistic aspect
to be a self-evident overstepping of the linguistic debate between demotic and
katharevousa[18]. In the opinion of the majority of scholars Papadiamantiss
katharevousa should be considered Byzantine or, at least, sacerdotal.
Still the problem remained: What was such an author trying to do, e.g. when
he applied his lyric confession in the Rosy Shores, pouring deep suffering, tender
longing and transcendent eroticism lingering in him? Cherishing the vivid tradition
of Mount Athos, he chose a language that could grant him the pathway from prose
to poetry, and, in other words, its supersubstantial prosperity[19]. To surpass the
theoretical question between the form of written language (katharevousa vs
demotic) Papadiamantis needed to possess an infinitesimal literary creature which
would incorporate in morphological, typological and syntactical features the
previous generations of poetical experience and literary devoutness. With detailed
correlations between Homeric and Papadiamantical language as inseminating
matrices of sublime style, we can trace the homogeneity and harmony in the
tradition

that

Papadiamantiss

language

suggests:

an

almost

Homeric

katharevousa (with several meaningful allusions to the classics and the Homeric
models to which it may aspire), hieratic, biblical and, above all, anagogical, which
would express perfectly every nostalgic whispering of lyric feelings. In declaring the
admirable style of hymnography (:

,
, ,
, , '
, '
[135. 22-28], composed in a superlative and sublime language
( [152. 22]) he simply warned us that his language
had to override any mundane barrier, in order to testify verbal conducts from
another sphere:
, ,
.

, ,
[220. 9-14]. That is why he couldn't but
agree with Longinus writing about sublimity in an elevated style (whereas he seems
not only to be representing the style indicatively but also to be expressing sublimity
by embodying it in his own words[20]). Therefore, Papadiamantical language knows
no simple opposition between archaism and innovation, since the innovative
tendencies extend mainly to the manipulation of archaisms for literary effect[21];
as a modus loquendi it forms a suggestive symbolism that can mutually integrate
the world of ancient myth into his portrayal of contemporary reality, in the sanctity
of divine eros.
Apart from his personal and individual Sprachkritikastereien, he refutes
dilemmas such as the imitation of classic patterns or the adoption of archaiognostic
practice. In his lifelong service of the ecclesiastical speech, whereby classic Greece
met Christian thought and doctrines, he reconciled stylistical imperatives and
linguistic quandaries in terms of sublime beauty. By overriding the Language
Question in his unique way of embracing the entire Greek language, he marked his
position deliberately. He could equally align the vernacular language
[237. 12-13] with any
possible form of katharevousa. True language does not confine the freedom of
expression in a from above established type of linguistic orthodoxy. [] When
language does not subjugate life, but life subjugates language, then the archaizing
expression can be just as much genuine as the folk song just as the language of
Kalvos, Papadiamantis and Kavafis has been true[22].
His article (1907) [288-299] constitutes his testament
on language topics. Papadiamantis summarizes his views and, at the same time, he
provides us with a genuine wit. I shall touch on just to a few examples to indicate
that his constant agony for the Greek language and its sacred tradition define an
outline of language theory which rejects the presuppositions of holding on
obscurantism and language problems and attests an uncompromising attitude
towards language itself.
a) Although the pursuit of an authentic form seems incomprehensible to many
uneducated, it usually incurs the taunts of them:
,

[293. 13-14]. In the press we find numerous examples of the debasing and
barbarization of Greek language which suffers gravely in the hands of the illiterate:
,
.
, , '
. [...] ,
[294. 18-22 and 30-31].
b) Furthermore, an alibi for this misery is objectionable due to a complex of
provincialism towards the ostensible progress achieved by other European
countries: , !
, . . ; [295. 6-7].
c) On the other hand, the immoderate purism combined to excessive verbosity and
pretentious preciosity cannot but produce a counterfeit fabrication, instead of
elegant Greek expressions: , ,
, .

, ,
[295. 17-21].
d) He implied that nowadays a general confusion is common:
' , , ,
, [296. 1-3].
e) We should let our language take its own natural course, without external
interferences owing to foreign standards, since language is a living organism and,
so, cannot be suffocated: '
, , ,
, ,
[296. 10-13], because
, [296.
26-27]. Therefore, we cannot tolerate loaning and imitation of outlandish linguistic
models or modernisms but only as a necessary evil. Unfortunately,
.
. .
, [296. 13-16].

f) The glamour of our ancestral language must function as a lighthouse directing to

the harbour, not as the harbour itself: ,
, ,
. ' <> ,
, ,
. , [296. 20-25].
It is daring to imagine how the Language Question itself could stand as an
ambiguous comment in Papadiamantiss work, from the gruff demotic of the local
Skiathos idiom, to liturgical Greek and back to antiquity, in an astonishing long
duration, which bequeathed to our literary tradition two currents, the scholarly and
the popular one. By this synaxarian mosaic empebbled on the typology of a mature
katharevousa, Papadiamantis gathered around his work and opened up a world of
silent devoutness and later of a laudatory loquaciousness. It is noteworthy that
most of the demoticists understood well the inner relation established between
Papadiamantis and the people concerning the world that was echoed through this
linguistic choice, and that he had already transcended the dilemmatic questions
that torture feeble minds and suspend poetic temper: Papadiamantical language
fulfills the catharsis necessary for a grammatical soul to relieve from its passions,
not by ordering but by conveying aesthetic magnificence, so that each one of us
could advance till the summit he is able to. Surpassing the Language Questions
major problems, he became homeland and language himself, and by setting
language matters right he proceeded over to a boundless poetic temper that could
easily attract faithful and distrustful travellers in Greek language. Perhaps, there
lies the reason why it is rather difficult, very difficult, rather impossible to render
him into any foreign language, for his idiomatic language causes the translators
failure to contextualize him. What can we do but follow his advice:
, . ,
, '
[272. 26-28]?

NOETES

[1] On this topic see A. E. Megas, , .

(300 ..-1750 ..), and .
(1750-1926), Athens 1925 and 1927 (repr. 1997), P.
Bien, Kazantzakis and the Linguistic Revolution in Greek Language, Princeton 1972,
B. Joseph, Language, Power and Freedom in Greek Society, Journal of Modern
Greek Studies 10 (1992), pp. 1-120, R. Beaton, An Introduction to Modern Greek
Literature, Oxford 1994, pp. 296 ff., S. Swain, Hellenism and Empire: Language,
Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50-250, Oxford 1996, pp. 35-40, P.
D. Mastrodimitris, , 7th ed., Athens 2005, pp.
53-71.
[2] R. Beaton, l.c., p. 331.
[3] See . . Trypanis, , Athens 1984.
[4] See P. Mackridge, Katharevousa (c. 1800-1974). An Obituary for an Official
Language, in: M. Sarafis & M. Eve [ed.], Background to Contemporary Greece, 2
vols, London 1990, pp. 25-51.
[5] All references to tales of Papadiamantis appear in square brackets and refer, by
page

and

lines

number,

to

the

5th

volume

of

the

edition

by

N.

D.

Triantafyllopoulos, Athens 1988.

[6] E. D. Rodis, . , Athens 1893, p. 286, a citation of Th.
Livadass words.
[7] A special form of bilingualism, in which two distinct forms, legally sanctioned, of
the same language are used side by side in the same community for different
purposes.
[8] See J. Niehoff-Panagiotidis, Koine und Diglossie, Wiesbaden 1994.
[9] G. Kaklamanis, , 1989, p.
116 and also passim.
[10] Beaton, l.c., p. 353.
[11] H.

Kahane

&

R.

Kahane,

Decline

languages, Language55 (1979), pp. 183-198.

and

survival

of

Western

prestige

[12] , ed. G. Valetas, vol. V, Athens, p.

496.
[13] , 24 (1938), p. 1634.
[14] , (
), 355 (Christmas of 1941), p. 113.
[15] N. A. E. Kalospyros, , Athens
2002, p. 210.
[16] D. C. Hesseling, Histoire de la littrature grecque moderne, French transl. by
N. Pernot, Paris 1924, p. 137.
[17] Bien, l.c., p. 118.
[18] See

T.

Agras,

in

N.

D.

Triantaphyllopoulos [ed.], .
, Athens 1979, pp. 119-130 and . . Zorbas,
, Diss. (Athens
Univ.), Athens 1991 (typewritt. ed.), pp. 19-32.
[19] See

N.

A.

E.

Kalospyros,

, 1747 (July-Aug. 2002), pp. 21-31.

[20] G. B. Walsh, Sublime method. Longinus on language and imitation, Classical
Antiquity 7 (1988), pp. 252-269.
[21] Especially by using animating metaphors and metonymies; on their function
see

C.

M.

Schmidt,

methodengeschichtliches

Die

metaphorische
Problem

und

Funktion
sein

literarischer

Texte.

Ein

sprachphilosophischer

Lsungsansatz, Orbis Litterarum 56 (2001), pp. 319-333.

[22] Chr. Giannaras, , Athens 1978, p. 149.