The Multiple Antiquities of Greek Modernity

This volume explores the multiple perceptions of Hellenic antiquity in modern Greece, a central yet contested aspect of modern Greek national identity ever since the foundation of the Greek state in 1830. How did the various disciplines of modern Greek classical scholarship cultivate conceptions of Hellenic antiquity that suited the national narrative of the continuity of Greek history? In what ways did modern Greeks engage with and adapt Western European ideas about ancient Greece? How were the dominant views of Hellenic antiquity reinforced or challenged by alternative perspectives appearing within scholarship, but also in the arts and the public sphere? And how was Hellenic antiquity turned into a commodity that could be consumed and exploited in the tourism industry as well as in Greece’s relations with other countries? By bringing together specialists from a wide spectrum of disciplines to address such questions, the volume aims to shed light on the diversity of modern Greek perceptions of ancient Greece and their usages from the 19th to the 21st century.

Chryssanthi Avlami teaches History of Ideas at the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences and the Catholic University of Paris. Her work focuses on the historiography of Antiquity and the reception of the Greco- Roman world in Europe (18th–20th centuries). Author of L’Antiquité grecque à la française : modes d’appropriation de la Grèce au xixe siècle (Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2000), she has also co-edited a number of volumes, including De l’Europe ottomane aux nations balkaniques : les Lumières en question (Brepols, 2023).

Michael D. Konaris is a Research Fellow at the Research Centre for Greek and Latin Literature of the Academy of Athens. His research interests lie in the history of classical scholarship and especially in the history of the study of Greek religion in the 19th and early 20th century as well as in the history of comparisons between ancient Greece and China. He is the author of The Greek Gods in Modern Scholarship: Interpretation and Belief in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Germany and Britain (OUP, 2016).

Ce volume est consacré aux différentes interprétations de l’Antiquité grecque depuis la fondation de l’État en 1830 jusqu’à nos jours. Comment les savoirs disciplinaires ont-ils façonné des conceptions de l’Antiquité conformes au récit national ? De quelle manière les Grecs dialoguent-ils avec les savoirs classiques européens ? Quelles lectures alternatives du passé antique, émanant du monde académique, du monde artistique, voire de l’espace public, ont entériné ou, au contraire, remis en question la vision dominante de l’Antiquité élaborée par les historiens grecs du xixe siècle dans une perspective nationale voire nationaliste ? Dans quelle mesure, enfin, l’Antiquité a-t-elle été marchandisée au profit de l’industrie touristique ou des relations entre la Grèce et les pays étrangers ? Dans un esprit pluridisciplinaire, le volume vise à mettre en lumière la multiplicité des perceptions et les usages grecs modernes de l’Antiquité entre le XIX^e et le XXI^e siècles.