1. GREEK NATIONAL HERO:
THE GREEK SPIRIT
Music School of Agrinio
Comenius Project
“Of Folk Music and Men”
2012 - 2014
2. THE STUDENTS OF
THE MUSIC SCHOOL OF AGRINIO
UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF
STAVROULA ALEXAKI
ENGLISH TEACHER
To be read as an introduction
to our video presentation
“The Greek Spirit”,
our “National Hero” Project Product
3. RATIONALE
Inspired by our work on Greek Folk
Music and having explored the
origins and transformations of Greek
Folk Songs throughout the centuries,
we have decided that the figure we
would like to explore as our “Hero” is
the Greek Spirit.
4. The lives of ordinary people,
both men and women, as well as
the lives of outstanding Greek
people, again both men and
women, as sung and praised in
our rich musical tradition have
been the subject matter of both
obscure and renowned artists
who have woven the tapestry of
what it means to be Greek.
5. Starting with the origins of Greek Folk
Songs, which go back to ancient times, we
have explored a wide variety of Greek Folk
Songs, namely :
The Akritic Folk Songs (or the songs of
the frontier guards defending the eastern
borders of the Byzantine Empire)
The Songs of Ksenitia (or of the Longing
for one’s Homeland)
The Songs of the Klefts (or of Greek
Revolutionaries)
Lullabies
The Rebetika Songs
6. Through this overview, a
pattern began to emerge: The
Greek spirit with its capacity
for endurance, ingenuity,
tenderness and persistence
has helped shape a unique
combination of qualities
which have been the
“trademark” of Greek people
throughout the centuries.
7. On their journey through time, the
Greek people have roamed first the
Mediterranean Basin and later on
the world, at times explorers,
travelers, traders, colonizers,
invaders, suppliants, exiles or
immigrants. They have come in
contact with various peoples both of
the East and the West, they have
influenced multiple cultures while
being influenced themselves.
9. This is the fusion we decided to celebrate,
both in this Comenius Project entitled
“Of Folk Music and Men” and in the
“National Hero” Project Product.
Through our contact with our partners, we
have come to realise that there are ever-
present connections in the different
aspects of our lives, so we thought it fit to
create our “Greek Spirit” video
presentation in order to record all the
prominent Greek moments in our vast
history that have brought us closer to the
people around us.
10. In the video, we re-trace
our people’s steps to
ancient times and we
commemorate their times
of suffering and pain, their
times of glory and bliss,
their times of passion and
creativity, their times of
solidarity and endurance.
11. We feel that all of you will relate
to them, as our journey through
time does not necessarily
embody only what is Greek; it
rather has a universal quality of
what is actually the journey of
humanity on this Earth, as the
lives of all people converge or in
a way move in concentric circles,
sometimes overlapping,
sometimes colliding.
13. We hope that you will enjoy
our journey, that you will
relate to us, that you will
recognize aspects of your
own people in it, that you
will understand why Greek
Music, Literature and
Philosophy are still
relevant today:
14. Humanistic values, the example
of ordinary men and women who
acquire extra-ordinary
dimensions in order to make it
through life’s countless
difficulties and in order to face
its challenges, all this is clearly
what the world needs today in
order to move forward towards a
peaceful, hopeful future.
