Just across from it there now stands another equally imposing building. On close examination it is found to be only a reinforced concrete skeleton built with some indeterminate public purpose in mind: a school, a mental hospital or, perhaps, a library. That it is among the most stately structures built in Athens in the last decade goes without question. What to do with it is the issue.
The erection of the building has a culturally revealing history. Some years ago a public-spirited philanthropist, loannis Passas, an expatriate, appeared on the local scene and announced to the military government that he planned to present to the state his unique collection of European and Oriental Art. The Junta period was culturally lean, and in the first blush of its cultural enthusiasm, the government allocated a sizeable chunk of prime public land and forty million drachmas for a building to house Passas’s collection.
The trouble began when a commission headed by the then-director of the National Gallery was asked to make an artistic estimate of the collection and came to the conclusion that it was largely worthless. Passas thereupon publicly accused the Director of being ignorant of Oriental art and the Director in turn sued Passas for slander and won the case. The culture-hungry Junta continued to favour Passas, however, and granted the forty million which resulted in the erection of the imposing skeleton of a white elephant we see today.
The fall of the Junta brought construction to a halt. There the matter rested until last year when Passas decided to continue with the project for the sake of the cultural welfare of Athens. Quoting statements by specialists in Chinese art which affirmed that many of his museum pieces were priceless, he signed a contract with the lowest bidder for the completion of the museum. He then requested a further thirty two million drachmas from the Ministry of Culture, explaining that construction costs had tripled during the intervening years.
The government decided to review the whole matter and came to the conclusion that Passas’s original agreement with the Junta government was illegal. On April 14 the Public Prosecutor charged Passas with bad faith, the embezzlement of state funds, and demanded the return of the balance of the forty million drachmas which had not thus far been spent on construction. Such was the ignominious demise of the Museum of European and Oriental Art.
The fate of the structure is still undecided. The City Council of Athens at first considered tearing it down and returning the area to its former state of nature. Now the Cultural Association of Gizi, the borough where the building stands, has entreated the Council to complete it as a much-needed local high school. So the unfinished Monument to Folly remains. All museums are built to house and honour the Muses, but in the case of the Passas Museum,· Thalia, Muse of Comedy, still reigns supreme.
In Pursuit of the Evzones
OUR YOUNG friend, the Determined Reporter, sent in an account of his latest foray into trial-and-error historical documentation:
One fine day it occured to me that the Presidential Guard (otherwise known as the evzonoi or, less formally, as tsoliades) must, like the Beefeaters and Swiss Guard, have a colourful and interesting history which is unknown to most. The majority of tourists make a beeline for Constitution Square and a view of the Evzones rigidly on parade or standing immobile at attention in their virginal white kilts. Greeks living abroad to this day hang evzone dolls from the rear view mirrors of their cars; as children, many of us made evzones from pipe cleaners, wool yarn, and bits of flannel. Yet it is surprising how many people are aware of the institution only in the barest sense, recognizing their presence but not their past.
Determined to correct this situation, I composed a long list of questions and set off for Tzavella army camp, the Presidential Guard’s base in Athens which is situated at the corner of Herod Atticus and Vassilisis Sofias streets, more-or-less behind the Parliament Building, a diagonal stone’s throw from the Presidential Palace, and a mere hop, skip and jump from the apartment building where Prime Minister Karamanlis lives. I explained my purpose to the Evzone standing at the gate and asked him to take me to his leader, a witticism that was lost on him: he led me to a sparsely furnished office where I found myself face to face with the head officer. I told him I wanted information on the history of the Evzones. He was not very responsive to my queries, most of which — the number of soldiers in the camp, the hours at which the guards change, the precise height required to become an Evzone — appear to be state secrets. He suggested that I contact the High Command for further information. It was two days after the recently announced shuffle in the Armed Forces’ hierarchy and I certainly was not about to charge into that labyrinth of military officialdom. When I left, a mere fifteen minutes later, he had answered only four or five of my questions. I felt as frustrated as I do after my tenth unsuccessful visit to the passport office or after trying to cash a check at the bank. I decided to abandon grassroots reporting and to research the matter in the various museums and libraries around Athens. A cagey official might spot me and accuse me of stupidity with intent to think, but this was a chance I would have to take.
Surprisingly it is very difficult to find information on the Evzones. When I did, it was even more difficult to interpret the information from the complicated katharevousa, in which it was written. (It seems that the only people who have recorded anything about the Evzones, wrote only in this antiquated, artificial version of Greek which has long been the refuge of super-conservative nationalists.) Between the decoded katharevousa and the information I had wrested from the head of the camp, I was nevertheless able to draw a few conclusions.
The Evzones came into existence as regular infantry after the 1821 Greek War of Independence. The uniforms consisted of the national dress of the peiiod, especially that worn by the revolutionaries, for the purpose of enhancing a sense of nationalism in the fledgling state. The Evzones first became a regular military unit in 1833 when Otto, the young Bavarian prince ‘chosen by the Conference of London to occupy the newly-erected throne of Modern Greece’ decided to set a precedent and organize the army. Actually, Otto probably had very little to do with it since he was a stripling of eighteen at the time and his affairs were managed by a council of regency composed of Bavarians who arrived in Greece with him.
During the following years, especially during the period of the Balkan Wars, the Evzones were regarded here, and to a certain degree abroad, as something close to heroes and the pride of the Greek army and nation. They were known for their tough training and their hardiness: many of them were from the area of Roumeli, noted for its brave warriors.
One thing I learned was that our forefathers, the leaders of modern Greece, loved order. This tendency is apparent from the fact that they were constantly reorganizing the army. In the course of the many reorganizations, the Evzones were increased or decreased in numbers and importance. Major changes in the army structure subsequent to Otto’s appearance occurred in 1843, 1860, 1867, 1868, 1904, 1909, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1926, 1929, and 1935. (I cannot account for the grace period of forty years that occurred between 1868 and 1904 but presume it was marked by ‘minor’ changes which my sources considered unworthy of mention.)
The cause of these army reorganizations were the result of major events taking place in the country. For example, when George I, the second son of Christian IX of Denmark, mounted the throne in 1863, it signalled several sessions of organizational musical chairs. (Otto of Bavaria had been nudged from the throne in 1862 while off on a cruise, which hardly seems cricket, but George I suffered an even nastier fate. He was assassinated in Thessaloniki in 1913.) The Balkan Wars of 1913-14, the army revolution of 1909 and many other developments, had their effects on the army. Each of the many leaders of Greece apparently had something to say about the way the army should be run and made no bones about it. In the course of these events, the Evzones remained general infantry men until 1914 when they were condensed to two platoons with the specific purpose of guarding the Palace. Later on they became regular infantry while other units were assigned to the Palace or to Presidential Guards depending on the comings and goings of the monarchy and the republics. Then, in 1935, they were reformed into four regiments, and stationed at Mesolongi, Arta, Lamia and Athens. One company became the Presidential Guard, the same company as far as I could discern, stationed here today. The other regiments were eventually dissolved except for one which still exists today, stationed at the Greek-Yugoslav border at a place called, appropriately, Evzone.
It is considered an honour to be appointed to the Guard. Soldiers are chosen from among the regular conscripted ranks on the basis of height and build. I never succeeded in finding out what the minimum height requirement is, but a tsolia does have to be ‘tall’ and fairly muscular, especially in the limb. (The slight-framed and spindle-legged would obviously look ridiculous in the short skirt and long white hose.) They receive the same pay (about seventy drachmas a month, I believe) and serve for the same length of time (twenty-eight months) as regularly enlisted soldiers.
Their formal uniforms, worn on holidays and special occasions, consist of the famous white baggy-sleeved shirt, the white skirt known as ‘foustanella’, white stockings, pomponned shoes (tsarouhia), a colourfully embroidered jacket (fermeli), and a betassled hat (fesi or farion). On regular days in the winter they wear a blue version and in the summer a khaki one. A moustache used to be compulsory but is now optional. Beards are out.
The Athens tsoliades at Tzavella Camp (named after one of the chieftains during the War of Independence) guard the Parliament Building, the President’s Palace and the Statue of the Unknown Soldier, and change guard every hour on the hour around the clock. On Sundays, the eleven-o’clock guard change is distinguished by the fact that most of the company participates and, accompanied by a band, marches in a small parade up Herod Atticus and down Vassilisis Sofias to Syntagma.
It is interesting that the tsoliades used to deliberately dirty their foustanellas to ward off germs. Fight fire with fire in its most literal sense. This brings me to my final point, a paradoxical one that I suspect defies explanation. Tsolia comes from the word tsoli which means dirty rag. Evzone means well-dressed and well-built.
Scout’s Honour
AS THE population of Athens grows and the standard of living rises, more and more people are able to invest in the motorcycles, cars and trucks that transport them to the beaches surrounding the city. The pine-shaded, white expanses of Skinia near Marathon were not so many years ago relatively inaccessible to most. Today countless automobiles inch their way to its shores coming to a halt under the trees and spilling out several generations of picnickers and enough furnishings for a small apartment: tables and chairs (for lunch and card games), cots (for siestas) and sheets and blankets (for protection against drafts), as well as roast pans of prepared food and quantities of the ubiquitous fruit and watermelons (which may sometimes be seen submerged in the sea where they have been placed to chill). When bathers climb back into their cars or their trucks, most of their refuse is left behind. Many beaches are not equipped with rubbish containers and when they are, most people do not use them. While we all complain about this state of affairs, few of us do anything about it.
Not so the members of St. Catherine’s Attica Scout Pack whose cubs descended on Skinia on June 5 and collected no less than four tons of garbage which was later carted away by trucks belonging to the municipality of Marathon. The twenty-five, nine – and ten-year-old boys were joined by parents and friends bringing the ranks of the anti-litter squad to one hundred. The rubbish was collected in one thousand plastic bags. One cub collected fifty-four bags. Each boy had a ‘sponsor’ who donated five drachmas for each bag of rubbish collected. These rewards went into the troop’s treasury and the youngsters hope eventually to collect enough funds to buy rubbish containers for the beach. The fact that June 5 was World Environment Day was only a coincidence. It is hoped that others will follow the example of the lads in St. Catherine’s pack and that their efforts will spark others to do the same.
