Women and the construction of national identity in Greek stories (1880–1922)

In this study, we investigated how the national identity and women were portrayed in the stories published between the years 1880 and 1922 by Georgios Viziinos, Alexandros Papadiamandis, Andreas Karkavitsas, Giannis Psiharis and Hristos Hristovasilis, who were the five philosophers who oriented the 19th century Greek philosophical life. We allocated the first chapter of this five-chapter thesis to the concepts of "nation" and "nationalism" and the theories proposed in this field. In the second chapter of the thesis, after a brief summary of the Modern Greek Enlightenment, we described how an effort to create an identity was undertaken from 1830, when Greece was recognized as a national state, to 1880. In this context, we discussed the Greek official narrative history and the "other" and the woman in this narrative. In the third chapter, we examined the redefinition of the national identity after 1880, how it was reproduced in compliance with the conjuncture of the period, and how it was reflected in literature. In this context, we presented historical/literary developments under four sub-headings. First, we briefly addressed the political events of the period and explained how the language problem, which was an integral part of Greek intellectual life and national identity, was reintroduced in the 1880s. Next, we explained the term "ithografia", which specifically describes Greek storytelling, under a separate heading. In the fourth chapter, we discussed with examples how the national identity and the concept of native/national woman were established, how a point of view was developed towards a woman of the "other," and according to what criteria the concepts of "femininity" and "masculinity" were defined in line with the 19th century rhetoric in the stories of the five authors who constituted the main subject of this thesis. In this respect, we identified the attitudes of the stories we dealt with towards five basic perceptions: the woman, the "other," time, religion and space. In the fifth and final chapter, we analyzed the results that emerged in the light of all these investigations. The overall results that we reached in a total of 281 stories that we examined can be summarized as follows: Elements of national identity such as alienation, religion and language were not used at the same level of intensity by every author. However, it was seen that the act of creating an "other" was the most intense identity element. In the context of the Macedonia "issue" between the years 1880 and 1910, a serious conflict was the case especially with Bulgarian nationalism. Nevertheless, there was little room for Bulgarians in the stories. Another finding that needs to be noted is that all the Bulgarians that were mentioned were perceived "negatively." No extremely "good" or extremely "bad" characters were encountered in the stories. However, it was seen that the sultan, the representative of the Ottoman Empire, and the Muslim rulers working under him, such as the Arabs and the Albanians/Arvanits, were presented as extremely "bad" people. Although the Ottomans/Turkish people were perceived as more "negative" than other ethnic elements, this was not reduced to an ordinary character among the general public. The negative perception was mostly against the Ottoman rule. It is seen that besides the Ottomans/Turkish people, all women regardless of whether they were natives or foreigners were also marginalized. It was found that in the stories that were examined, the woman was perceived to be more negative than the Ottoman/Turkish, whom the Greek official narrative history regarded as the national "other." It was concluded that there were two types of "other" in Greek national narrative: one who was open/articulated (Ottoman/Turkish), and the other who was secret/unspoken (woman).