SKETCHER

Bruce Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 3101, 22 September 1899, Page 6

SKETCHER

_t.W BMTIMEJNT ; ■ -'^MADE A NATION. THE (3REECE OF TO-DAY CREATED OF PAST PHANTOMS. :, How the Shades of th* Past Have Called the Present lata Being:— An Unprecedented Experiment— Unique Attempt to Rejuvenate Language. The Greek nation of to-day is a fact created by a tradition — an. a__reesive fact because it .is -i the product of a splendid tradition, says. David Turner ! In. The Philade.ph._a. Press, i It is said that when the Persian host sent by Xerxes to sack the shrine at ! Delphi moun-led to the attack gigantic spectres of ancient heroes rose in the Little band of defenders, and the dead fought beside the living to repel the ■ foes of their country. These phantom warriors still fight for Greece in all her battles ; and it Is no exaggeration to say that this army o£ ghosts is more effective for her protection than all the costly armament that she has impoverished herself to maintain. It ia simple truth that here the shades of the past have called the present into being. Not that Greeoe herself is a ghost— she is Intensely alive. But she affords a unique example of a nation lifted from its grave by the magic of a sentiment after a seeming death slumber of many centu_*__. I£ has <*rften appeared thai of a.U .'r^sbns senli men tal reasons aie the strongest, but history can scaraocly show another instance such as this. Nowhere else, indeed, have such conditions existed. The case of Italy probably conies nearest ; yet Italy, however depressed, could never be called dead ; and Rome, through all her vicissitudes has never wholly lost her greatness or ceased to be a seat of power. But Athens had practically become a barren, site. In the parlier decades of the present century there remained only ruins an-d a wretched hamlet of barely three hundred huts. For something like a thousand years Greece had been a little more than a memory, her territory almost unvi_*tted, her national identity extinguished — though her history and literature were eagerlj**' "■iii died in all the universities of Europe. To this widespread reverence for a past which her own people had in part forgotten — for they were under the blight of ignorance and oppression. — »h_. chiefly owes her restoration to a piax*e among the nations. In 1871 she revolted against Turkish tyranny. j Atrocities like those recently perpej trated in Armenia followed, and in 1825 Ibrahim Pasha overran Peloponnesus with an army of Egyptian slaves driven to battle under the lash. In toe ordinary course of events, despite some gallant fighting, the rebellion would soon have been, stamped out Ln blood end punished by a yet more cruel bondupr-. But the sympathdes of all Europe had been aroused ; the name oi thr- Hellas was potent throughout the civilized world. Dea<3 poets and buried orators were pks*Sding for her, and the living took up Ihe strain ; Byron not only lifted up hi_ voice, but laid down his life. Finally sen_ln-b_n.t triumphed over policy. The same slow-moving "powers" in whose teeth she has lately ca.st her defiance, at last brought their oan non to b-t*aj* in her defence and interposed to secure her independence. Never had tlie slva-des of her heroes won a more signal victory. Their influence has been dominant In Greek affasirs ever since. That alone has mads- Athens the capital of the nw Hellas ; apart from sentiment it is not the natural metropolis of the oountry. But the ruins whiah crown the Acropolis have raised a-bout them a beautiful cdty which will ever be the Mecca of studerats acd the "_3y» of Greece." Some have disputed the claim of this j pey-ple to their heritage, and deny that th'jy are true descendants of the Greeks of old. Of course, their blood is not pure — the blood of no nation remains unad-ultera-ted through the varied fortunes of a period of 2000 years ; hut I believe that the people of Greece todiy are quite as truly Greek as the English, for example, are Angl'-Saxon. Yet. who would da.ro contiovert th-e claim of th** great "Anplo-Saxon racp" to their boasteo title ? It is their birthright, and Ls not vi tun led by 7 fa/*t that th'-ir blood has b<*e-n largely rruingled with that of the Dar-e, the Norman, tlie Frenohman and the CVlt. Neither does a considerable mixture of Albanian. Slavonian and Wallarhinn stock void the birthright of the modern Greek ; and if thia pretension were as false as tt is just, it would still be well to countenance and oiKourage it. When we consider that the fervent patriotism and national pride to which it has given rise have enahled a downtrodden race of serfs to become a spirited. progressive, self-respecting people. Ist certainly seemss worthy of all recommendajtion. These classic ghosts have done a noble work. Perhaps the most remarkable fact about the Greece of to-day is the survival of its ancient language. Not that it ia urvcharLgped — but. the wonder is ■that there is »o little change — and with greater familiarity the marvel grows. New words, of course, have entered. arud tbe grammar has suffered such modifications as are seen in all m'K3 n rn tongues ; but when once you havp sur rnountrKi the barrier raised by our arbitrary aaid artificial method of pronunciation, you perceive that th<r. Ip quite as much Attk: ln t'te speech nf Athens as Saxon ln the sp^^-h of 1.->n don. The modern Athenian enn ?»ad tho Iliad with, muoh les.- _*-t\my than the Londoner cam read the Beowulf, that so-called- "AngloPaxnn epi'-" — and the implied w>m pa r i.<=on is oalculated to make one bow his hs_ad In sham" ; while the Athenian can read tho iJrr-^k New Testament at least ajs readily as an Englishman can read Wycl ff- 's translation of the same — and, again. oh! what a difference ! It is true that the Greek language has suffered much less from the long degrad&tion of its users ; hut in like mariner English, as everybody knows. became so impoverished after the Norman conquest tru-vt it was scarcely more than a ploush.man's dinlr-ct. This j defect -was ultimately supported by the liberal importation of foreign terms T.he*. Greeks have set about the task In a different way; they are bending p_l ti*.*ir energies to a restoration — as complete as existing conditions permit — of their ancient language. In faot. one of the most extraordinary experiments ever attempted i* now goring on m Greece — nothing less than the resurrection -of the dead— in the matter of language. Can it succeed ? ■So far as the writer is aware, every such undertaking in the past has met with failure ; language, it was found, could no more be made to order than a tree could be constructed by chemical process ln a laboratory. But it is unsafe to predict. This age is like no other that the world has seen. New agencies are at work. Th<> miracles of the past are the commonplaces of the present. Fact chases close on the heels of fiction, and even o;;tstr''ps It. Jaded with novelties, we are forgetting horw to wonder. The new aere-rcv r:Ow. ai w*rl: 'n ' '■••" I Greek experiment is popular educatloa. Such an engine has never been available for such a purpose before. Tha Government, with admirable enterprise, has filled the land with schools — free schools, much like our own— and tn them the youth of Greece are t_.i_g_.fcas far as it ia found practicable, the rejuvenated language. By this mean_» and by the daily press — another new and powerful factor — much has already been a****xxmplished. Whatever may be the outcome the experiment wiJl b* •— tnhnri witb th* grmmtmmt _-_-_ve_-t» ,