Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: This article focuses on the documentary The Songs of Fire by Nikos Koundouros (1975). Shot immediately after the fall of the military dictatorship (1967–74) in Greece, it exhumes the elation of three public concerts and demonstrations, capturing the enthusiasm for the return to democracy expressed through singing and chanting. The article focuses on the ways in which popular songs became the vehicles of the popular demand for democracy during the early transition to democracy. It shows how the film was crucial in establishing a narrative of resistance in collective memory that was centred on singing and listening, investigating the ways in which this sonic narrative, performed collectively and publicly, also betrays a latent reaction to a brutal regime fought by the few. It argues that collective singing seems to merge in memory with the ‘singing resistance’ performed individually and in secret during the dictatorship. Extended back in time, this sonic narrative registers an unconscious desire to repress the fact that large parts of society had remained silent during the regime's seven-year rule.
Source: twentieth-century music
Author: ANNA PAPAETI
Institution: National Hellenic Research Foundation
Language: English
Topic: Spanish Culture and Identity
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,255
OpenAlex ID: W4319985776