Emmanuel Roidis

Emmanuel Roidis                                      ΕΜΜΑΝΟΥΗΛ  ΡΟΙΔΗΣ

 Born 1836 in Syros                                    Died in Athens 1904

Every country suffers from something: England from fog, Roumania from  locusts,  Egypt from eye diseases, and Greece from the Greeks. Emmanuel Roidis

One of the most important literary figures of the 19^th century, Emmanuel Roidis was amazingly versatile: a liberal (except where women were concerned) a republican, a brilliant and witty wordsmith, a novelist, an essayist, a critic, an indefatigable reader, translator and, above all, an acute and caustic observer. These talents were called into play again and again during the 40 or so years that he live in Athens and observed the Athenian scene. Some say his vision became darker as poverty and deafness took their toll. I am not so sure. The role of ‘ironic ‘observer’ seems to have fitted this complex personality from the get go.

His Life

Roidis was born in Hermoupolis on Syros in 1836. Both his father and mother came from that class of wealthy Greek merchants which produced so many of Greece’s 19^th century movers and shakers. (1)  From the age of 6 to 13, he lived in Genoa where his father was honorary Greek consul while at the same time running a branch of the family business. By 1849 the family was back in Syros and Emmanuel attended the Greek-American School there. Syros was at that time one of the cosmopolitan centers of the Aegean world. A fellow classmate was Demitrios Vikelas, another scion of merchant princes who would later become first president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), a writer of note, and the inspiration for this blog. (2)  Precocious even then, the boys started a hand written weekly school newspaper called Μέλισσα. 

At the age of 19 Roidis went to Berlin where he studied literature and philosophy for two years while seeking therapy for the hearing problem that would plague him for the rest of his life. He subsequently worked for the family in Roumania and Egypt before coming to live in Athens permanently in 1862 - having decided to take up writing as a career. It was an era of wonderful possibilities for a well off and well connected young man with a taste for concerts and museums.

Roidis had always been a voracious reader. He especially appreciated the great works of European literature including the works of Byron and  Chateaubriand whose “Itineraire” he would translate.  According to Peter Cochran, Roidis was thoroughly conversant with the traditions of the epic and Italian mock epic. That knowledge, and having learned while in Genoa of an intriguing medieval scandal, propelled him to publish Pope Joan in 1866.It is the only 19^th century Greek novel that ever gained international readership. (3)

 

That a certain Pope John was rumored to have been a woman was inspiration enough for Roidis to place her in a series of adventures that would put Moll Flanders to shame, and finally to have her crowned Pope until an embarrassing pregnancy and even more unfortunate birth during a liturgy would cause a horrified mob to throw her into the Tiber. This was the perfect vehicle for Roidis’ brand of satire; he had his heroine make a detour to Athens just so he could lampoon the people he knew best.

The Roman Catholic Church was not amused, and neither was the Greek Church. The Holy Synod excommunicated Roidis and the book (as harmful and blasphemous) and did their best to try to convince the government to ban it altogether! It is amazing, considering its futility, that the Greek Church has so often taken this step. It never succeeded in suppressing anything and almost always made the object of its wrath more popular than ever.(4) It served to establish Roidis  as the writer to read in Athens.

The next years were good years. He wrote about literature, language, and politics, working with French newspapers like the Independance Hellenique and La Grece which he later headed in 1970.

The Lavrion Mine Debacle

In 1873, Roidis, like so many Greeks, lost everything in the Lavrion  Mine Stock scandal. This disaster left all investors (except the owners and bankers, of course, (5)) destitute. Gone was the wealthy dilettante. After 1873, he was writing in order to make a living wage.

Asmodaios

In 1875, Roidis, along with the brilliant political cartoonist Themos Anninos (The Arkas of his era) undertook a weekly satirical periodical called Asmodaios in which they targeted writers and politicians of the day, sparing no one (except perhaps Charilaos Trikoupis). Roidis’ connection with Asmodaios lasted for 18 months after which he went on to create and write for other periodicals. 

In 1877, he was invited to judge a drama competition and his refusal to accept any of the submissions as good enough caused a furor. A long debate about the current value of Greek letters, poetry in particular,  started between Roidis and Angelos Vlachos, a debate which enthralled the reading public at the time. Roidis basically argued the Greek literature (with very few exceptions), was not up to snuff because the ‘social environment’(6) required for great literature did not exist in Greece. He believed that Greek writers were too inbred and not open enough to international influences. Fighting words-  and ones that suggested that Roidis regarded and positioned himself as more of a cosmopolitan than his opponents, something which must have raised hackles at the time.

In 1878, Roidis became the curator and director of the National Library. Like so many government jobs, this was a mark of political favour. He held this position whenever Trikoupis was Prime Minister and lost it whenever his rival, Theodoros Deligiannis took over.  Deligiannis was not a fan. Roidis had publically attacked him for his poor handling of Greece’s interests at the Congress of Berlin.
 

Language

The ongoing language debate over the use of the demotic or katharevousa often absorbed his attention. He championed the demotic although he wrote in katharevousa. (7) In 1885 he apparently contributed a word to the debate - diglossia –double language- coined to ridicule the parliamentarians who used katharevousa in their speeches but demotic in their debates – both choices perfectly understood by all in spite of katharevousa being touted as superior by the ‘educated’.

 The Idols, completed in 1888 was his biggest contribution to the issue. The 'Idols' of the title were the beliefs of linguistic purists who denigrated the demotic. In elegant katharevousa, Roïdis coolly demolished all of their arguments. (the irony!).

 

The Last Years

In 1890, he became completely deaf but, using his trademark blend of humor, pace, and irony, continued to write essays and short stories for the periodicals of his day. A typical story might be “Dog Story” written in 1893 and set in Syros where a political refugee smashes his leg, has it amputated with no anesthetic, is attended by his faithful dog Pluto who is almost caught for vivisection but escapes only to end up in a cemetery full of stone throwing boys!

Roidis and Women

 In these years he was the doyen of Greek letters and, in historical hindsight at least, seems to have almost always been on the side of the angels – except when it came to women. There he shared the blindness of his peers. At that time, politics and letters, in fact everything outside of hearth and home, were considered to be the exclusive purview of men. Roidis was less than pleased after Kalliroi Parren published the first edition of her Ladies’ Journal in 1887, established herself as a writer, and continued to have the ‘nerve’ to call herself a journalist. Her main objective was to improve the lot of working women and these aims involved both politics and social issues. Roidis reacted to her in his usual acerbic fashion by saying that women who did not observe the proper boundaries of their sex were ‘laughable’ and any who might consider a male profession such a medicine or law were worse: ‘beyond laughable’(8). He called such women monkeylike and Parren herself a “faiseuse d’embarras’ .

 

Parren responded by calling Roidis the ‘guardian angel of the past’ and a man who knew nothing about women – both probably true! Roidis never married and had been very close to his own mother who was, no doubt, the epitome of the successful man’s (or son’s) helpmate.  The 19^th century mania for embracing ancient Greece resulted in the ongoing  diminished role for women that that ‘idea’ encompassed! (9) Roidis had a lot of support at the time; men felt threatened. 

When he died of a heart attack in 1904, he no doubt thought that he had successfully put the ladies back where he was sure that they belonged. He could not know that she was just at the beginning of an amazing career in the name of women’s equality.

His Legacy

Ironically, very few people read Roidis today partly because he wrote in katharevousa and because, to really enjoy the subtleties of his satire, a fairly intimate knowledge of the issues of his day is necessary – not for the fainthearted. 

A few of Roidis’ ‘bon mots’ which have lasted:

It is necessary for harmony with a pretty woman to carefully conceal two things: nine tenths of your love and one half of your property.

I respect the dead, even when they are still alive.

The Greek prefers the easy road even if it leads to the abyss.

I can think of 12 ways to make money, the most honorable being theft.

His Grave

Emmanuel Roidis died poor and that never bodes well, not even for the famous, in the First Cemetery. They may be interred but not for long if dues are not paid. I had entirely given up on ever finding him until recently and quite by accident, I stumbled upon a simple cross bearing his name in a plot dedicated to a family named Papademitriou. I had been navigating their weed filled plot to look at a relief when I realized that the barely legible name on the simple cross in the front right hand corner said Emmanuel Roidis. I was delighted because I had wanted to write his story.

Map

Footnotes

1.     Emmanuel Roidis was born in Hermoupolis on the Cycladic island of Syros to Demitrios Roidis and Kornelia Rodokanakis. Both came from rich merchant families. Her family had with roots in Byzantium and by the 19^th century had businesses all over the Ottoman empires and beyond, His  had originally been Athenian “archondes” under the Franks who moved to the Peloponnese and Zakynthos when Athens fell to the Ottomans .Under the Venetians, one branch became counts. Emmanuels’ branch moved to Chios in the 1700s and by the 19^th century had business interests in many places including  Syros, Alexandria, and Athens.

2.     Demitrios Vikelas was the first head of the International Olympic Committee and one of the first to recognize and promote the First Cemetery as a pantheon of modern Greece.

3.     Peter Cochrane:  Byron and Latin Culture: Selected Proceedings of the 37^th International Byron Society Conference… Lawrence Durrell was fascinated by the oddity and elegance of Pope Joan and has translated it into English.

4.     «κακόηθες και βλάσφημον»

5.     See Giovanni Battista Serpieri   on this blog:

6.     Τη χαμηλή ποιότητα της ποίησης την απέδιδε στην απουσία κατάλληλης «περιρρέουσας ατμόσφαιρας».

7.      The debate was between linguistic conservatives  (who were most often the wealthy and socially entrenched) who wanted an elevated written language (i.e. a ‘purified’ language) that did not necessarily have to conform to the Greek actually spoken in the streets or even by themselves. For the educated elite, ( Like Panayiotis Soutsos and Alexandros Rangavis) this meant more and more changes to reflect ancient Greek. To the demoticists, this artificial separation of written and spoken Greek was unnatural.  Katharevousa proponents had the entire education system in thrall – and a vested interest in the status quo!

8. 1896- With Parren http://errosotamala.blogspot.gr/2011/03/blog-post_07.html

9. It was added in the 1990s though      - still a ways to go ladies.

Source: From https://www.kar.org.gr/2018/03/20/emmanouil-ro%CE%90dis-o-filopegmon-ke-eretikos-ellinas-logotechnis/