[QUOTE]"I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world."
I couldn't agree with you more! I will second this great dictum with another one, attributed to Plutarch:
"We call Greeks those who partake of our culture."
You are absolutely (but sadly so) right: The mandolin culture of Greece just about vanished around 1920-1930; hence the entire purpose of my several publications so far.
The bouzouki was not the cause but only a symptom of the mandolin's fall from grace. The horrors of World War I, the abject misery of post-1922 Greece (with over a million refugees from Asia Minor squatting, starving, wasting away in wretched shanty-towns in Pireus and Thessaloniki), and the final blow of the even greater horrors of World War II rendered the gentle, dandified, elegant mandolin culture "culturally irrelevant".
The purpose and intention of my publications was inherently revivalist. I will say no more here, as I have already tired my friends with this —my favorite!— topic, and also as I always feel awkward discussing items that are for sale on the forum proper, i.e. not as listings in the Classifieds. I would, however, welcome any comments, questions, inquiries, etc. that you might wish to send me via direct message.
Cheers!
Victor
P.S. Does your ancestry lead back to the lovely valleys of Thessaly, perhaps?
It is not man who lives, but his work. (Ioannis Kapodistrias)
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