Newspaper MANIOT SOLIDARITY (MANIATIKI ALLILEGGYI)
June 2002
Nadia Seremetakis is the granddaughter of Theodoros G. Seremetakis from Inner Mani, who served for many years as a professor and Director of the Commercial School of Kalamata, and the daughter of Panagiotis Seremetakis and Sofia V. Konstantinea from Archontiko, Avia. She studied in Athens and New York, where she subsequently taught in undergraduate and postgraduate programs in Cultural Anthropology–Ethnology, Theatre Studies, Hellenic Studies, Social Sciences and Women’s Studies at distinguished universities. She conducted extensive fieldwork and comparative research in countries including Greece, the United States, Mexico, Albania and Ireland, among others, and served as a consultant to ministries, international organizations and local institutions. A well-known author of scholarly books and articles, as well as poetry, published in Greece and abroad by reputable publishing houses, in 2002 she was invited to serve as an International Visiting Professor at the School of Culture and Communication at New York University.
– Tell us about your Maniot roots and, more generally, about your relationship and ties with Avia and the wider region. Please discuss your studies, your family, and your professional and academic activities in Greece and abroad.
My family is a blend of people from Inner Mani on the one hand, and Outer Mani and Messenia on the other. Some lived—and still live—in their ancestral homeland, others in Athens and Piraeus, and others abroad. From an early age, therefore, I learned to cross boundaries… linguistic, ecological, cultural and economic boundaries.
This ability, with which my roots endowed me, was further cultivated and developed through the many years of academic study and training that followed, mainly in New York, where I earned three postgraduate degrees in the social sciences and humanities, including a doctorate in cultural anthropology–ethnology. My training also encompassed methods of social, historical and anthropological research, proficiency in foreign languages and computer skills, among other areas.
The result? The publication of books and articles by international academic presses and in scholarly journals, as well as newspapers, written across two continents and in two languages, English and Greek. My first book, for example, entitled The Last Word at Europe’s Edge: Sensory Experience, Death, Women, is based on many years of research and focuses on Inner Mani. My second, entitled The Senses Still: Perception and Memory as Material Culture in Modernity, draws its subject matter from Outer Mani, particularly Avia and Perivola Spanea.
One of the aims of both books, which have been published, circulated and taught abroad since 1991 and in Greece since 1994, was to bring our own places into an equal dialogue with other countries and cultures. It was an aim that succeeded—and continues to do so…
Books and articles, however, constitute only one part of a multifaceted scientific and professional career spanning approximately twenty years. This work also includes university and non-university teaching, the organization of international conferences and the delivery of lectures, always at the invitation of the institutions concerned. One example is the interdisciplinary symposium entitled Greek and Greek-American Women in Voice and Text, which I organized at the Onassis Center for Hellenic Studies in New York. Among its aims was to bridge the gap between academic research and the needs of the Greek-American diaspora in New York.
– It is well known that a substantial Maniot diaspora lives and is active in the Athens metropolitan area, of which you are, of course, also a member. What are your relations and ties with these fellow Maniots? Given the view that there is a strong sense of cohesion among Maniots in the Athens metropolitan area, particularly around their respective places of origin, how do you think this cohesion could be further strengthened? The Maniots who continue to live in their ancestral homeland need support from distinguished fellow Maniots in order to advance the region’s developmental goals, both material and intangible. Can they take your contribution to this effort for granted? How do you think this contribution could be expressed?
In Greece, when I devoted three years to Messenia in order to establish a Department of Literature, I turned, among other things, to the public history of Kalamata. I developed a participatory program which, if you look at it again today, you will see offers precisely the kind of model needed by the Maniot diaspora of Attica. As a theoretical and methodological model, it should not be forgotten that it attracted the attention of the Vienna Festival 2000 at the time, among others.
On another occasion, in a lecture I delivered at a conference of the Messenian diaspora, to which I had been invited by Panagiotis Foteas, I analysed the reasons why “the same dynamic”—that is, the presentation of private memory as public history through citizens’ participation, which constitutes a democratization of public memory, and the creation of a museum in action as a process of cultural development—could and should be applied to a future event concerning the Messenian diaspora, whose history has yet to be written. Here, I am referring to the microhistory of the diaspora, one that encompasses both private experience and public archives.
Mani has a unique ecological, archaeological, architectural, ethnographic and political history that lends itself to the planning of public-history events and performances. The promotion of Mani’s history is also directly linked to the region’s tourism development. What should concern us all deeply is the risk that Mani may lose important historic areas or itself be transformed into a fossilized open-air museum..
There is an urgent need to develop a comprehensive programme linking the preservation of Mani’s historic architecture, settlements, agricultural practices, tourism and distinctive cultural identity. An immediate and useful step would be to organise a multilevel, interdisciplinary conference bringing together entrepreneurs from the diaspora, academics, specialists in culture and education, regional authorities and economists to discuss the issue in a serious and practical manner. Such a conference, through both the originality of its concept and the quality of its presentation and organisation, could gain recognition well beyond the boundaries of the region.
The above offers only a faint outline of my contribution to our region, both within and beyond its borders, from the past to the present day. The question, therefore, of whether my contribution to the development goals of our region can be taken for granted is, in my case, rather beside the point…
– Recently, a discussion has emerged concerning the “debt” owed by the modern Greek state to the Maniots, in recognition of our ancestors’ major contribution to the outbreak of the 1821 Revolution, the large-scale participation of Maniot fighters and the unique repulsion of Ibrahim’s attacks by the Maniots. Do you agree and, if so, how do you believe this contribution should be acknowledged?
The modern Greek state owes many “debts” to the Maniots. I believe that both my lecture in Gythio, entitled “The Poetics of Dialogue: Mani’s Contributions to Contemporary Europe,” delivered in 2000 at the invitation of the Greek National Tourism Organisation, the Prefectural Administration of Laconia and the Municipality of Gythio, and my commemorative address in Diros, delivered at the invitation of the Municipality of Oitylo, Mani, and the Prefectural Administration of Laconia, as the first woman to give the ceremonial address for the historic anniversary of the Battle of Diros against Ibrahim, were founded precisely on this perspective. It is no coincidence that the educators from Laconia who were present requested that further lectures and seminar-style meetings should follow. The large attendance of primary and secondary school teachers from Messenia at the programme presented earlier in Kalamata conveyed the same message. Isolated and scattered lectures and events achieve very little. On the contrary, they can often be counterproductive, since the abundance of cultural and historical events may ultimately lead the public to indifference.
Knowledge and cultural development cannot be achieved through an arbitrary bombardment of information. For information to be transformed into knowledge, it requires coordinated and comprehensive planning rooted in the needs of the specific place. Anything else merely serves a small institution or a limited group of people and inevitably remains confined to the margins.
