Page 282 - Beholding Liberty!

Karl Georg Anton Graeb
(1816-1884)
Imaginary reconstruction of ancient Athens watercolour, 19 x 44 cm
Hellenic Parliament Art Collection
ed (i.e. πανεπιστήμιον/university (Korais, 1810), δημοσιογράφος/journalist (1826), ποδήλατον/bicycle (1889) et al.). Still, all things considered, the establishment of the katharevousa was deemed as a «success of the Enlightenment», as an honourable compromise, as compared to the alternative of the extreme
34. See relatedly, Mackridge 2014: 47-48, 210-216.
35. The term απλή/simple signifies
the modern Greek as opposed
to the ancient Greek language, which Rhigas usually calls ελληνική/ Hellenic (Greek).
After the 1850s, the memory of the pre-revolutionary disputes and the deeply political dimension of the language issue, which, in the end, were not associated simply with the choice between two different linguistic forms, but with two contrasting perceptions about individual and collective life, are reignited. There follows the military phase of the Greek language issue.
The visionary Rhigas writes in article 53 of his Constitution, which was designated to function as a constitutional chart of the first Greek democracy: «All laws and decrees are drafted in the simple lan- guage of the Greeks as the most intelligible and easy to be studied by all races encompassed in this kingdom; the same holds for all the documents of judgments and state acts».35 In 1976, after acute ideological debates over the issue of language, the right time had finally come and Rhigas’ order was vindicated, with the linguistic-educational reform that established the demotic as official language of the state and education, as common instrument of communication of the Greek-speaking linguistic communitiy.
Today, two hundred years after the Revolution of 1821, the battlefields have subsided. The feats and self-sacrifice of the fighters, the tensions and disputes of the time have entered into the sphere of his- torical research. That which remains alive and robust, besides the feeling of deep gratitude and pride for the Struggle of the Greeks, is the Greek language. The language that served as a cohesive bond of the enslaved in the years of Turkish occupation. The language in which the historical events of the Revolution were recorded. The language that we also use today in our daily life, to express our ideas, our feelings. The language of our poets and literature. The language we teach in our schools, that the Greeks learn, but also those speaking other languages who live today in our country. The language in which the history of Greece shall be written in the days to come.
282 BEHOLDING LIBERTY!
archaistic/atticizing attitudes.
34