The "Idea" of Hellenism.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 698, 24 December 1909, Page 12

The "Idea" of Hellenism.

("THE NATION.")

Of tho white, clean avenues which/make tip the fashionable quarter of modern -Athens, tho whitest and the cleanest bears the name of "The Street of the Phil-hellcnes." Of the cafes where iu every. town and village tho modern Greek worships tho Logos and the spirit of dialectic over his/ white raki and his brown coffeO, the proudost and most popular 1 is '.apt to bear tho nattie Of Byron. Amid poverty and defeat, under the scoldings ;of -the. world's press, with his ports in danger of blockade and his''frontier menaced, with invasion, the Greek child grows up with this superb. consolniion that there are Phil-hellcnes even in the tunless regions l of the north, that there always have been Phil-hellenes, that there always will bo Phil-hellenes. It matters very' little to what class or, grade: of society- he belongs." Ho .nay go-'abroad, laborious, ingenious,, to keep/ a grocer's '.-store 'in Khartum,- or cultiiato oranges in . Florida. , He may' find . himself wealthy, well: - educated,". .elegant,, among „ .thq - "intellectuals", of Paris. There is always around, his,head this enviable halo. His enemies 'aro/Mis-helloncs, the foes, of culture and. light. -His friends are Phil-hellenes,. who haVe done their best, to compound for an unlucky accident of, birth,'by doing , honour to his race, his traditions, and' his' manifest destiny; , His good fortune is unique. and ' he" knows it/, . 'The tradition / iiever.':' dies. Byron might burn ' away . the sacred fire in mortal. fever.. It kindled • the eloquence of Gladstone.' , Gladstone -'dead,..:thero'. still] is Clemencenu. The most commonplace citizen 'of modern Athens speaks and votes and arms with the consciousness' of a/■ great crowd "of witnesses , which-' lurks :. amid-''. the. pillars of/the.: . Acropolis,.-and flits with ghostlj steps ; vunon the road :; 'to;'/ /Marathon. He might. . in.'; some : rude / momeiit';'' oi l' prose' and "'disillusion shako off '.the.' obscssioh; but behind him is the sentiment /which' sus-tains-his pretensions wherever there .are. educated mon in/Europe. Ho cannot forget that a Legion: of PhiUhellehes fought' at- Pharsala--arid Doruokos. 'He is .pleasantly." aware thiit a/group of:distinguished Frenchmen,' archaeologists, scholars, journalists, is ever ready in' r distant ; Paris to defend, his claims;hhd- perpetuate the cult- of his 'race -in' graceful lec-tures.-and' neatly .turned articles./; He' canriot,;, if he would, lose/ the , sense of being Greek, iti- all he -does.. Ho , serves' 1 the-.national idea " when lie • soils to' Egyptmhs; lie. is Of patriotism when .lie defiles tho sky of. Attica with -his mill-ohimrieys. He is never .a lonely individual." He is/always a Holleno/.with a backing of Phil-hellcnes.'. ; . . The .sentiment, which has calionippd tho modern Greeks with'something' of . tho : affection ; which. we feel for the . ancients,' is .to.rsomo ;oritics.. a splendid unrcDson, nor is .it difficult to _erect against its iuipetUbus" sympathies a formidable/ barrier of '.'objection.- It, isj not. easy/to decide . How'/far','/the/modern. Greek inherits the blood Of the ancients;, it .is 'even hardra.. in. "wliat . respect' he'.represents , tho old . tradition.' There are ;iindonbtcd)y; is. ,lands on which tlio. race has survived almost unmixed; there are ;as . clearly largo ' tracts of . mainland Greece .of which thp. population i is chiefly Albanian,. WaUachiah or Salvohio in its origins. -The.-"nationalist patriotism of ,< •,, e °ks .is :an essontially • modern soirit, .which owed,its awakening, to -tho French EeVO*' lution. : Thoir. democratic institutions aro riot centred city;• they, aro . based on ,a modern Liberal theory, and go 'to form a' national .State under a ' limited -Monarchy.: Their culture is predominantly .French.' Their Ohurelii profoundly patriotic though It is- fii .rathor -Eastern: thati' Hellenic; it .d(uei's neither : iii . ./'ritunK nor intellectual .atmosphere from the :chttrches of .Bulgaria or Russia.;-'lt liaS "s6ne-i.«flithe keen polemical spirit, tho passion:. for specula-: tion, /the tendency to heresy ;and schi'smaVhich' were a-distinctly Hellenic-elohiorit.inithe.'earlv Christianity of - tho.' East, /-Nor can-, oue honthat in letters, or: philosophy, '.or/the arts, . the ; modern- Greeks , havo as- .yet - given proofs/of; the ' of. any hereditary gomus. -In literature, their : tradi,tion:is French; in : architecture their masters, weroilGerma'ns,' in - . ' Promiso wo TOnyYalote'ct,but as; yet there is no great or' spdrttanebuii nativo, aohioyement. .Finally,, despito.tho. co'ntinual references in leading articles" and public speeches to a classical .past, ;tho .memory .which really.,.governs thoi,thinking ; of tho averago Greek-' is, not-'that bf Periclean. Athens; but rather, that of Imperial Byzantium. The-allur-iiig; dream, the "great ideu," is, riot to restoro the intellectual glories of . the. city-state; but rather to create again; something resembling , the, Empire ;.whieh;. the" Turks overthrow.. If this analysisTrtrue so far it goes—oxhausted the ti'uth- 1 about the -inodorn Greoks, it wouldbe a morn confusion : of, thought, which caused' the scholar, the. poet,, tho idealist: to;.expend upon them an affoction which he denies to Servians;', or .Eunianiaris. ■ .They - would;..'ha simply-,one. among: several, more; or;-less pro-' mising-'Eastern,peoples,'.all democratic, all/as yet/imitative , in their culture,'..which; aro struggling through a difficult arid' often; sordid present/.towards; a' future which; wo. cannot ■ di,yineVi- We. know, what-we-mean by; the "Hellenism" which ,inspires.\tho reverent .'study Of/ Plato at Oxford, /'which! clothes: itself , ift Professor ; : Gilbert .. - Murray' 6. / trans-, ; latipns' ;of ../.Euripides,, -or : ; speaks to us in /'the- pages/ of -Pater. .But; Hellenism in that sense, of.-the word-was hot involved whin the . Greek bands went out to meet the Bulgarian bands in Macedonia. • 1 there'is:nono,the-less a.s'ense'in which the/ Greeks are - splendidly right when they claim to be,in a special sense .the-pioneers of civilisation in/' tho Near Bait.- ■--Ihey ' began somp _ generations before . any otKer-''Christian ■raco in'tlie -Near East; to -organise -their educa.tion : and/-to ' cultivate lotters."' .They - piirsue oulhiro;'to-day -with ,a: disinterested and liberal passion. ..Tlie Bulgarians .'and', the', Armenians . are. to-day,., ho . less eager. to; learn, -'arid- thoy are;,more at hohiexin tho;■ modern :world"of thought.] .Socialism, for ' example,- has. yet-no footing in.; Greece,- but it-.thrives among , the younger, •/' generation: ;of Bulgarians and Armenians. Both these. races ■ turn' -with avidity to. the study 'of the' natural sciences: ■But Turkey'/tho atmoSphero': -of a .Greek School,: whether, for boys' or girls; ,is almost exclusively literary,: The present writer' ;|*as; seen - a class, of girls Of thirteen. or 'fourteen in a Macedonian town, busied.while the -world beyond, its : . walls "Was seething with i revolution ,iri; the Memorabilia of ■ Xenophon and -attempting to follow its thought. - Tho bdys'in the Bulgarian gymnasium a'feif streets avray.'liVeri .writing essays -on.,' Darwiri, 'and spending' their afternoons'' on. • experimental■ cheinistr jr.\ Iri.- a Cretaii. waysido 'inn, one - may chance..upon' a'.'commercial traveller! who "will delight his clients by reciting-: long passages from;Xthe Odyssey. Among tho leaders of-'the great, insurrection: was/one : who boasted ! the ability'. to: recite. by ; heart four- 'plays' .of the Attio" .idramatists,'. another , was -. translating Kant into ; modern; Greek, 'arid a third would lio, on the/roof of the.insurgent/headquartors, lof-t in J-a'' volume of Plato.. It would ;be'.' an exaggeration "to : pretend that .such .tastes/nre general, or. even common. The'' Greeks'. 'are not a' reading/people. But tho , astonishing fact, in , their social system; is that this' keenly commercial" people ,'is ; . none' . the less anxious that boys destined: to become clerks or storekeepers should spend valuable: yearsin acquiring a by no means contemptible know-; ledge :of/the classics. That is but one'illustration:.'of: the spirit -which distinguishes\tb» Greeks. The Bulgarian-who reads Tolsioy, in the/original .Russian -may -be a more-thought-ful'arid a better educated man than tlio GrCek ivho : can , recite"'-. by heart : an ' oration- of Deiu'Ostheries.' .But the latter acquirement ii' a proof of, a disinterested love. of letters which is . rare' among :the. other jieoples of -,the-'Near East' It -is .in a ntilitarian' spirit- that'the Bulgarian acquires .Russian, and -chemistry. The Greek goes to his classics with .a passionate idealism;; which: asks .for no Teward moro sordid '-.than' tho' sense of pride'; in a/graat ; heritage.;' "While this, gifted race represents this; spirit in: the East, it fulfils, a mission; Political; success: it does riot need. . Conquest and;expansion would not assist its task.' Its •centre is the school. A,wise Phil-helleno will -riot, .deaire ; that. Greece ■ should . greatly, strengthen her'army,, or expend her strcneih In: attempting territorial aggrandisement.' Tho "great idea," as,we see it, is not:tho restora-. tion of tho ByianHne Empire, but the developmeht,'. wherever Greek \is sijokeii, of this active intellectual, temper,which has conceived, auiid tho-.perils of a racial struggle and tho meanness Of. Levantino commerce, tho conception of a.disinterested intellectual life. There lies .tho true Hellenism,, and the best servico which' the Phil-lielleno can render is ,to help the Hellene: to know, himself. . ' . ', .