Introduction

by Lincoln MacVeagh, former Ambassador to Greece

THE inclusion of Greece in this Atlantic series of “Perspectives” on the countries of the free world is highly appropriate. Being perhaps the most intensively as well as the longest studied of all those countries, she might have been left out as needing no new appraisal at this time. But the very fact of our having learned so much about Greece makes it difficult to see her as she is. Facts and opinions about her, emanating from many sources oyer the whole course of history, come to mind immediately her name is mentioned, and this is confusing. Perhaps of no country could it more truly be said that she requires to be better known because she is already known so well. Certainly none is in greater need of being seen in perspective.

Take the foreground position we tend to give to “Ancient” Greece, consciously or unconsciously, whenever Greece is spoken of. Someone has truly said that reading about this or that foreign country must be, to many Americans, “like going home.” If that is so, then reading about Greece must be, to nearly all of us, like going home to mother. She is indeed the mother of our civilization and for many centuries our scholars have been gathering information about her ancient way of life for the light this throws on the development of the whole Western world. But this way of approaching her, which still conditions the average American’s view of Greece, can be of only very limited assistance in any attempt to understand her as she is.

Or take our thinking about what is still too often called “Modern” Greece, though the age of Otto is today as dead as that of Pericles. We have not studied the Greece of the nineteenth century to anything like the same extent that we have studied Ancient Greece. But there was a time in the first half of that century when she was of intense interest to the whole Western world. Much of what was written about her then is even now unforgotten, and the almost wholly incredible character dreamed up for her by Byron and other romantic sympathizers in her War of Independence against the Turks still clings to her. Had the West continued its interest in what went on in Greece after her independence was achieved, we might now be more aware than we are of the fact that she was never so much romantic in herself as the source of romance in others, and we might appreciate better the truly heroic toughness and resiliency which enabled her to achieve a new culture for herself in less than a century. We tend to see Modern Greece very much in the light of Europe’s nineteenth-century Romantic Movement, and as this is to see even that Greece only partially and contemporary Greece not at all, the need for an improved focus is again apparent.

With the longest history of any country in Europe, Greece has had as many lives as the proverbial cat, and has died as many deaths. She has been invaded and conquered, in whole or in part, by foreigners of almost every description, among others by Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Gauls, Goths, Slavs, Franks, Normans, Sicilians, Genoese, Florentines, Navarrese, Venetians, Catalans, Turks, and Germans, and from each of these in her long and repeatedly successful struggle to “lead captivity captive,” she has derived certain cultural elements which she has made her own.

The following articles, stories, poems, and reproductions of works of art by modern Greeks will not, I think, surprise us if we keep these things in mind. They reveal a culture which is by no means a mere survival of the classical and romanlic traditions so well known to us, but which is a fusion of many elements. They also do much more than this, since they make us feel its quality. On the surface, there could hardly be a closer association than now exists between America and Greece. Since our declaration of the Truman Doctrine in 1947, we have shown an understanding not only of the importance to us of the independence and territorial integrity of Greece, but also of the great step forward she has taken on the international stage in composing her age-long differences with Turkey and allying herself with that country on the present frontiers of freedom.

Despite our acceptance of the new importance of their country, we tend to think of the Greek people too much in the patronizing manner of a generation ago, when archaeology and philanthropy accounted for most of our interest in Greece. It is true that in recent years we have supplemented these feelings with a large measure of admiration for the basic qualities of heart and mind among the Greeks which alone could explain their devotion to the very ideals of heaven and home which we cherish. We have thought of this development as “The Greek Miracle,” and have not even glimpsed the lesson it so clearly teaches of essential fellowship between us and them. To bring that lesson fully home, the following selective “sampling” of their literary and artistic achievements cannot of course be sufficient. But it does give us an opportunity, through direct acquaintance with their manner of thinking and feeling, to reinforce our present relationship with a greater measure of comprehension. In so doing it may facilitate an adjustment of focus which is so urgently needed for a proper perspective on Greece today.