#hislop

Modest about our national pride - and inordinately proud of our national modesty.

- Ian Hislop

“Utopia” is one of the many Greek words used in English. For many, it denotes a place of impossible fantasy. In my view, Greece could really be such a place.

In this last year, it has felt as if the whole world is in state of upheaval and change. Both politically and environmentally, nothing has felt secure. It is just my own speculation, but I wonder if this will draw some more of the highly educated and successful members of the Greek diaspora back to their fatherland, their “patrida.” They might recognize that the values and the way of life in Greece could offer much more than they will ever find in the supposedly more successful economies where they live. Their return would greatly strengthen Greece.

Imagining Athens in 100 years’ time, there is one thing that dominates my hopes: that those buildings that are now 150 years old and currently in a state of dilapidation will have been restored. In my dreams, there will be a project inspired by the photographs and the writing of Nikos Vatopoulos to ensure the salvation of derelict and yet precious architecture. His book “Facing Athens” would be the blueprint, the handbook, for this, not just to preserve the past for its own sake, but to respect the elegance and grace of the past so that it can sit side by side with the best of the modern. Such an initiative (and I think it would take fifty years) would have a huge impact on tourism, too. Many visitors go to the Acropolis and a couple of museums and then make a dash for the islands, intimidated by the sight of dark, boarded-up mansions in the heart of the city. Athens should seize the moment now, before it’s too late. The longer-term benefits will be immense.

Five contemporary British philhellenes, eminent scholars and authors, write about their their life-defining connection with Greece.

For more than three decades, I’d travelled around in Greece, mostly to Athens, the Aegean islands (predominantly to Crete, where I have a house) and the Peloponnese. It was an author tour that took me, slightly unenthusiastically I admit, to Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki.

It was a winter day when I arrived and, as the plane made its final descent, I looked out the window and saw acres of flat, agricultural land: organised, divided and full of crops, very unlike the rugged, infertile landscapes further south. It was intriguingly different from the Greek landscapes I was familiar with.

When the taxi reached the city centre, the streets were damp and night was falling. But I went out to explore, following the long, paved esplanade that traces the curve of the seafront to stretch legs and fill lungs with fresh air. The sun was setting and, far away across the Saronic Gulf, Mount Olympus was visible through a mist. It was both beautiful and melancholy.

“The Greeks have done remarkably well in dealing with the pandemic compared to other countries in Europe and America,” says British writer Victoria Hislop.

“When the restrictions are over, when the borders reopen and flights start again, Greece will be one of the first countries without cases. Then you might not want to have tourists from countries which are still dealing with the problem. We might be equivalent to the lepers trying to come to Greece, like a reverse stigma,” says the author of “The Island,” a historical novel centered in the former leper colony of Spinalonga, off the coast of Crete, which was published in 2005.

Isolated in her home in the English countryside, she is feeling something of the atmosphere she describes in her book and the television series it inspired – distinguished not just for the fascinating plot, but also for the humanity and compassion with which Hislop treats the subject.

The coronavirus pandemic coincided for Hislop with the death of her 92-year-old mother, Mary Hamson. “I think she was tired and decided that it was time to go. On the day of her cremation, a huge feather from some bird landed on the fence of my house, and I said to myself, ‘That’s it, she has flown away.’ I took it as a message of farewell, a sign,” Hislop told Kathimerini newspaper.

Lockdown measures prevented the family from holding a cremation ceremony. “So every member of the family, regardless of where they were geographically, connected on Zoom. We came together and said all the things we would have said if we’d been able to attend the funeral,” she says, adding that it is odd how “technology is replacing human contact.”

These five books are important works about Greece — fiction and nonfiction — and all of them will help any reader to understand the country in greater depth. Most importantly, they are not about ancient times, but Greece today, as it was shaped by events of the 20th century. All of them are very readable.

The Fratricides by Nikos Kazantzakis (1964) Everyone knows of Zorba the Greek (often because of the film), but this is another, equally fascinating novel by Nikos Kazantzakis. It is set during the civil war of the 1940s and shows Greece destroyed by war and occupation. Hope comes in the form of Father Yanaros, who tries to end the war in his village; the message, if there is one, is that hate and nationalism often go hand in hand. In this story faith goes some way towards repairing the damage — not just religious faith, but faith in your fellow man. The story has lots of contemporary resonance.

Eurydice Street by Sofka Zinovieff (2004) In this charming book Sofka Zinovieff describes how she moved to Athens with her Greek husband and two young children in 2001. She writes in a warm and often amusing way about a chaotic city, noticing the strange habits and traditions that locals take for granted, but outsiders are surprised and bemused by. As an anthropologist, she explores what lies beneath the surface of human behaviour and with affection and criticism paints a lively portrait of the real Athens. I learnt so much from reading this book.

The Magus by John Fowles (1965) In the late 1970s, when it was reprinted, this novel was in everyone’s hands — on beaches in Greece and everywhere else. Re-reading it 40 years on, it seems no less exciting and strange. Set on the island of Spetses, it evokes its atmosphere and landscape perfectly, and the smell of pines seems to rise from every page. A young and naive schoolteacher, Nicholas, gets involved with a wealthy recluse and ends up enmeshed in a strange and dangerous psychological game. It is often sinister and threatening (as a thriller should be), but is as much a page-turner now as it was when it was written.

Salonica: City of Ghosts by Mark Mazower (2005) This is a fantastically readable book on the history of Salonica, now know as Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city. Mark Mazower tells the extraordinary story (and at times it is almost novelistic) of a place that was once the ideal multicultural city — with an equal number of Muslims, Christians and Jews, all of whom happily co-existed for many centuries. He describes the glory days of the city and how it came to lose its sizeable populations of Muslims and Jews within a 20-year period during the 20th century. It is colourful and detailed and never once dips in its pace. Mazower turns Thessaloniki into a character that feels loss and other emotions.