Alexander the Great in Nana Nikolaou’s Children’s Play:

What’s it Like to be Greek

Dr. Guendalina Taietti

זמין עכשיו ביוטיוב!

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https://youtu.be/gDa0sCwUXHM

This paper aims to showcase the multi-layered reception of Alexander III of Macedon in Nana Nikolaou’s theatrical play Nikos Kazantzakis’ Alexander the Great and to discuss the play’s educational-political relevance. The play was staged in late 2017 - early 2018 in collaboration with the Foundation of the Hellenic World and well fits into the ongoing adaptation and assimilation of the image, history, and deeds of the Macedonian conqueror in Greek culture. Alexander has in fact been interpreted, reshaped, and exploited by the Greeks from Antiquity to the Modern era; from a historical persona he became a myth, a god-like figure, and a Hellenic national hero according to the different historico-political, social and cultural stimuli the Greeks were facing. Nana Nikolaou’s children's play is particularly interesting because it is the “reception of a reception of Alexander”: it is based on the famous Cretan author Nikos Kazantzakis’ educative romance about Alexander, which was probably written in 1940 and partially published with the title The Years of Alexander the Great in the Neolaia Magazine, issues 19 (10.2.1940) to 52 (28.9.1941). Lately in 1978, Kazantzakis’ romance was re-edited and published as Megas Alexandros / Alexander the Great. Curiously, although in Greece Alexander is present in the whole span of human activities, such as songs, mottoes, folktales, romances, poetry, paintings and movies, only sixteen Greek plays on the Macedonian are attested; among them, only one Karaghiozis shadow-theatre play, which targets children as an audience, is still put on stage. Nana Nikolaou’s choice to stage a children’s play about Alexander becomes then emblematic of the need for educating Greek children, and including them in the preservation of their Hellenic heritage and in the appropriation of their hero Alexander.

Thursday, March 9, 2023 Gathering: 12:00 |  Start of lecture: 12:15

Room #1319,  13th floor, Eshkol Tower,  University of Haifa