Zola, realism and naturalism in late nineteenth-century Greece

This case study argues that realism is introduced in nineteenth-century Greek literature through the debate on the translation of Émile Zola’s Nana in 1879. Before that, prose fiction (which is a ‘novelty’ not cultivated in Greece before 1830 and subject to accusations of immorality, directed especially towards the translations of foreign novels) may exhibit ‘realist’ tendencies which remain largely untheorized. It is the attacks against Nana which force Greek critics to reflect on the notions of realism and representation systematically, from an abstract, theoretical point of view. If the problematic of realism is introduced in the 1880s, actual prose fiction turns towards the (initially) idealized depiction of life in rural areas, a wave of fiction called ethografia, whose ideological premise is consistent with Romantic nationalism and which can be seen, at least initially, as a reaction against realism and naturalism which eventually enters into dialogue with them. The second part of the case study discusses two turn-of-the-century short novels by Alexandros Papadiamandis and Andreas Karkavitsas which are crucial in this turn from the naïve beginnings of ethografia towards a more sustained engagement with a realist/naturalist theory and practice.