Summary: | Belonging to a social community, a nation, a culture or a religion, can be
expressed by stressing differences and borders between us and others,
between our collective self and their otherness. Achievements of classical
Greek culture for us are primarily bound to the polis, city-state, but
classical Greek literature gives quite significance to the definition of
universal Greek identity by creating the figure of a barbarian on the
opposite side. This contrast between Greeks and barbarians, not noticeable
in the literature of archaic period, grows more and more important (while
the notion of the word barbarian becomes more pejorative) with gradual
intrusion of Persian domination over west area of Asia Minor from the middle
of VI BC and with successful resistance of many Greek states in the first
half of V BC. The basic feature that defines the notion βάρβαρος is a lack
of moral responsibility indispensable for enjoying (but active enjoying,
applying, engaging in, practicing) political freedom. Moral responsibility
and political freedom are closely connected through λόγος - which is ability
to reason and also ability to speak (in Greek). The image of barbarian is
further elaborated with features of cruelty and excessiveness of all kinds
(especially when it comes to somatic pleasures), i.e. a lack of moderation,
so essential to Greeks. On the other hand, “to be Greek” meant: to be a
citizen of a Greek polis having full civic rights. This further means:
exclusively men. Otherness in being a barbarian, hence, goes hand in hand
with Otherness of a woman in ancient Greek world. This polarity also
includes the tension between πόλις and οἶκος, i.e. the tension between
public-political and private-family life. Bearing this dichotomy in mind, I
am re-reading two theatric plays: Euripides’ (cca 480-406 BC) tragedy Medea
and radio-drama Medea of Serbian writer Velimir Lukić (1936-1937), one of
many literary and art-works inspired by Euripides’ tragedy and Greek myth.
Euripides’ Medea influenced on the tradition of this famous barbarian woman
from Colchis, passionate and cruel sorceress, more than any other text did.
If this writer didn’t make up Medea’s infanticide (performed in order to
punish her unfaithful husband) on his own, then it was him who gave a fixed
form to this variant of the myth. She is a refugee from her own home and
country, a newcomer in Greece on the other side; she is a dangerous
foreigner, a barbarian, passionate woman and sorceress; a threat and an ill
omen to the manliness and male principle (and ambiguously a potential help
to it). In order to avenge to her infidel husband, Greek Jason, this
Colchian woman becomes a murderer of her own (two male!) children in the
Euripides’ tragedy. The bloody epilogue of love between Greek and Colchian
is described by Velimir Lukić as well. In his radio-drama Medea, eternal and
varible, male and female, Greek and barbarian (in a particular aspect) are
juxtaposed. Lukić constantly has in mind an abyss that gapes between
hellenic and barbarian world, a gap that (in his interpretation) is so
terrific that Medea will murder her own offspring saying: „So that I prevent
my sons from becoming Greek, / To prevent them to reject their barbarian
mother…”
|