Μουσική και θέατρο στις ελληνικές κοινότητες της Βουλγαρίας (τέλη 19ου αιώνα-αρχές 20ού) ως «απόλαυσις εθνική άμα και καλλιτεχνική»

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Ξανθίππη Κοτζαγεώργη

Abstract

A historical part of the peripheral Hellenism, many of the Greeks of
Bulgaria already enjoyed a firmly established urban lifestyle by the mid-19th
century, and by the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century most of
them had adopted a totally urban mode of social life and activity. Thus, in the
urban and semi-urban communities of Philippopolis (mod. Plovdiv), Varna,
Pyrgos (Burgas), Stenimachos (Assenovgrad), Anchialos (Pomorie), and other
smaller places, music and drama developed to meet the urban Greeks’ new
demands for entertainment. The music and drama associations undertook to
supplement social and cultural life in the larger, wealthier urban Greek
communities by organising dancing parties and concerts and giving theatrical
performances, while the travelling Greek theatre companies contributed their
own performances. These cultural events also served the Greeks of diaspora
(outside the secure bounds of the Greek state) as demonstrations of ethnocultural
self-reliance or superiority —especially in the multiethnic context of
the communities in Bulgaria— and also as a means of inculcating national
awareness and holding together the broader strata of the local Greek
population who had no other means of consolidating their Greek consciousness,
such as joining associations or receiving a Greek education.

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