GREECE

A few indications
The arts have been a part of Greek life since Antiquity. In the summer the tragedies are staged in the ancient theatres, as was done thousands of years ago. The heritage of ancient Greece is found in various domains: poetry, the theatre, philosophical and historical writing, travel accounts. Based to a great extent on « logic » and « ideas », the Western system of thought is connected directly with such Greek philosophers as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Similarly, the sciences, the arts and politics in the West owe a large amount to the models of classical Greece.           
These days, Nikos Kazantzakis is the contemporary novelist most widely read in the country. Modern Greek has been able to maintain a strong presence of the poetic tradition with such authors as George Seféris and Odysseus Elytis, both of them Nobel Prize winners.
Greece can also boast of very lively creativity in the plastic arts and of the persistence of such traditional activities as embroidery, weaving and tapestry.
Rebetika music, born in Greek Anatolia at the end of the 19^thcentury, is now arousing new interest among young people.
As to the cinema, Theodoros Angelopoulos is the director most appreciated by the critics, with such films as The Suspended Step of the Stork and Eternity and a Day.

Organisation of cultural policies
In Greece, the cultural heritage and the arts are the responsibility of the Ministry of Culture. Part of that ministry’s departments are decentralised everywhere in Greece (museums, Ephories of the prehistoric and classical antiquities, Ephories of the Byzantine antiquities and Ephories of the modern monuments), the administrative departments, on their part being located in Athens.

Events connected with the country

Franco-Greek tandem

8-22 September in Paris, Unesco
Exhibition
Homage to Greece
This exhibition will contain the works of 38 French 20th-century artists, including Henri Matisse, Francis Picabia, Raoul Dufy, André Masson as well as Pierre Bonnard. The donation of these works made by Roger Milliex, a great admirer of Greece in the 1940’s, bears witness to French artists’ friendship with Greece

And also…

6-7 October in Paris, Kléber international conference Centre (salle des ambassadeurs)
Colloquium
The Greek politicians in France: Harilaos Tricoupis, Eleftherios Venizelos, Constantin Karamanlis and Constantin Motsotakis.
With participation by writers, intellectuals, scientists and politicians.

For more information :
http://www.amb-grece.fr/presse 
http://www.culture.gr/war/index_en.jsp 

• Updated: 04.09.2008

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