The volume consists of 32 texts that originate from the announcements of the eponymous conference on Modern Greek studies organized by the Department of Philology at the University of Crete in 2013 in honor of Alexis Politis, a leading scholar of Modern Greek culture.
With central themes revolving around the various forms and functions of discourse and time from the Enlightenment era to the eve of the Balkan Wars, the actions, ideas, and realizations of Greek society are traced, and the significant advancements that led to its formation are mapped.
Through a multitude of sources and approaches, crucial and complex issues of the country's intellectual history are discussed, the most important individual and collective initiatives recorded in the Greek world and the major centers of the diaspora Greek community are reconstructed, and the mental, aesthetic, and social currents and the expressions of individual consciousness are highlighted.
The folk (klephtic) song in its historical context, the popular printed and manuscript discourse, the linguistic, aesthetic, and ideological inquiries before and after the War of Independence, the legacy as well as the new realities and needs of the newly founded state, the communication and networks of intellectuals from Greece and the European world during the years of the Great Idea, the reflections of Romanticism in 19th-century literature, the relationship of the creator with the historical and literary context, the myths and imaginary constructions in an era governed by significant national and ideological imperatives represent just some of the issues that the authors of the volume address with exceptional care and knowledge in their studies.
The volume concludes with a bibliography of Alexis Politis and an index.
