19th Century Romantics and the Publication of the Volume, “Through Romantic Eyes” of the Benaki Museum in Athens

By AURON TARE
Quite by accident I came across a luxurious volume, bound with so much care and published in the name of such a serious institution as is the Athen’s Benaki Museum. The volume is entitled, “Through Romantic Eyes.” After a visit of several hours through the magnificent ruins of Butrint, and after sitting down to drink something after such a long walk, friend of mine, a foreign diplomat, gave me this volume as a gift, as a reminder of a talk we once had about the travels of the Romantics of the 19th Century throughout Albania and Greece. The epoch of the travels by the Romantics of Europe to all corners of European Turkey, as the regions of Greece, Albania and Macedonia were known at that time, is a subject of substantial interest. Towards the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th Centuries, a number of European aristocrats, talented artists or adventure seekers searching for exotic background material to their deeds, traveled to hitherto unexplored regions of Greece and Albania. The diaries or publications of these travelers, their paintings and drawings or secret reports remain, today, the most authentic witness accounts informing us of life and the history of the regions they journeyed through. The drawings and paintings they did, that, later on earned them the sweeping term of “19th Century Romantics,” are the only evidence we have on how the scenery used to be, now totally transformed by modern times; the only descriptions we have of the ancient cities, now in the stranglehold of steel and concrete or of the colorful folk costumes of the inhabitants of these places, gone for ever, victims of global expansion.
The European Romantics were a very interesting mixture of that universal race of human beings who thirst for travel, exploration and adventure. Writers and poets, archeologists or artists, with a thirst to discover ancient history, but also plunderers of art, very distinguished names in the halls of the aristocrats of Paris or London, but also highly intelligent observers working for the secret services of the respective countries- all of them together created an Epoch, which left indelible prints on the re-birth of Modern Greece or of the other regions of the Ottoman Empire.
Thanks to the diaries or publications of these travelers, their paintings, sketches or reports, we inherit a priceless treasure of information on Greek-Albanian-Turkish history of that period. All of this formed the subjects of the conversation with my diplomat friend and it is for this reason that I could hardly sit down, in quiet, and read this volume in peace.
So after leafing through a part of this Volume, for a few minutes I turned back to the beginning again and saw the foreword written by the Director of the Benaki Museum Dr.Angelos Delivorrias, as well as the text drafted by the authoress of the book Fani-Maria Tsigakou. If some foreign researcher, in this case the Greek scholar Tsigakou, had published a book with inaccuracies or the subtle manipulation of the content of tableaus drawn almost 200 years ago, I would have put this book away in a drawer, dismissing this merely as outright ill will or ignorance. But the name of such a serious institution as Benaki Museum and the support provided to the publication of this volume by official institutions, such as the Ministry of Culture or the Ministry of Tourism of Greece prompted me to write these lines.
Apart from the magnificent scenery depicted in the tableaus by the masters of those times, there is also a series of portraits and scenes where individuals are depicted dressed in traditional folk costume. The normal reader of the history of that period is well aware of eh fact that the Romantic painters often focused their works around Albanians dressed in their very particular folk costumes. In the territories of European Turkey, the Albanian element was predominant for a series of factors linked with the fact that Albanians traditionally emigrated or worked as mercenaries in the armies of the Turkish Pashas or in the bands of the Klefts. This most picturesque element in the paintings of the highlands or islands of Greece is described hundreds of times in the travel notes of a number of artists or travelers of that time. The powerful personality of Ali Pasha Tepelena and his rule throughout the Greek territory had resulted in the Albanians spreading out far and wide and often, in the travels of these romantics of the time, the Albanians served as guides or armed guards for the adventurers. The broad scale involvement of Christian Albanians in the Movement for Independence of Greece, made them an even more interesting subject for European painters, who positioned Albanians, as an important element in their compositions dedicated to the Greek Revolution.
In the collection at the Benaki Museum, there are a series of tableaus, accumulated over the years, in which the Albanian element, dressed in their particular folk costumes, especially the traditional fustanella, are the centre of these works. However, strangely the researcher and Curator of this Museum Mrs. Tsigakou decided that in the volume she published, all the drawings and paintings containing an Albanian element were captioned “Greek Highlanders.” It is astonishing how a researcher, who writes and publishes a Volume on the Tableaus of the 19th Century Romantics, can erase with one stroke of the pen, the entire Albanian element, which served as a source of bountiful inspiration to a series of artists of the period.
In particular, I would select the Tableau by Carl Hag, so well known and loved by both the Albanian and foreign public. Naturally, the experts in the field could have quite a lot to say about the painting, printed in hundreds of publications as the Tableau of a typical Albanian male, whereas in the Benaki publication it is entitled, “The Greek Highlander” by Carl Hag 1861.
There is absolutely no doubt that this tableau depicts a typical Albanian male, because not only is his costume typically Albanians, but if you look closely, you can also see that the hair cut is typically Albanian for the time, close cropped fringe and long shoulder length hair at the back. There is plenty of other evidence of the hair cuts of the Albanian males of the time, different from their Greek contemporaries in the works by Hobhouse, the traveling companion of Lord Byron or in the famous painting by Dupres, “Ali Pasha in Butrint.” Here, you can clearly see the hair styles of the body guards of Ali Pasha, close cropped fringes and long hair at the back.
I don’t think this is the place to dwell on whether or not the fustenella is a characteristic feature of Albanian or Greek folk costumes, because Faik Konica has covered this amply, however I would say that the author Tsigakou does try to very subtly manipulate the truth when she writes that the “long fustenella was used chiefly by the Greek Chieftains and was predominant throughout the Greek residential centers. In the middle of the 19th Century, King Oto decided that this would be the uniform to be used at Court.” Mrs. Tsigakou lies deliberately about this issue, or otherwise she does not know that many of the authors of the period, or later on, have written about the fustenella, as one of the main and distinctive features of the Albanians, distinguishing them from the Greeks. The fact that the German King of Greece Otto introduced this attire into the Court indicates the veneration he had for this symbol of clothing of the Albanian fighters. To this day the Greeks still do not have their own word to describe the fustanella, but they call it a fustenella too, borrowed from the Albanian word “fustan” which means dress.
If the author of the volume has suspicions about the themes of the tableaus presented in this publication, it cannot be said that she nurtures similar suspicions on the authorship of these lines, quoted out of context and presented above. Whoever has read Lord Byron, knows only too well that these lines have been taken from “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” Canto II, and more accurately from the famous song, “Tamburxh, Tamburxhi!!” Related to this song, this famous poet wrote about the moment when he heard it sung for the first time by a group of Albanians, who danced to this song. Byron rendered the bulk of these lines from these chants into the English version. In other words, it is impossible that a researcher of Tsignakou’s status must have read this famous verse of Lord Byron.
If Mrs. Tsignakou goes so far in this Volume as to manipulate the well known lines of Byron about the Albanians, then how valid are the opinions raised on the Tableaus of the Romantics containing Albanian figures? The reader can draw his own conclusions.
In 1984, the authoress of this book printed an early version of this publication in the French language, entitled, “La Grece Retrouvee,” in Albanian, “Greece Re-found,” with the foreword by the well-known professor of ancient French history Jacques Lacarriere. This French Professor writes that in many of the paintings of the 19th Century Romantics there are Albanians dressed in their national costumes. Mrs. Tsigakou failed to remove this passage from the foreword of the well-known Professor in the initial publication, however in the second publication it has been removed.
Although the book “Through Romantic Eyes” is devoted to the tableaus of the European artists and their art for Greece, there is no reason why the figures of the Albanians who were the source of their inspiration for their works should be manipulated by he researchers of today, even more so when they are backed by official Greek institutions. The tableaus of the Albanians in the context of Greek history should not be negated just as their outstanding contribution to the Greek revolution should not be negated. If Albanian or Greek scholars, private or state institutions are involved in the manipulation of historical truths, they will without doubt help the deepening of the abyss of bilateral misunderstanding and contempt.