The Greek language question

At independence Greece inherited two languages: katharevousa, a learned form close to ancient Greek, and demotic, the one people speak. The choice is not technical, it commits one's idea of the nation, and every writer takes sides simply by writing. Solomos wrote his hymn in demotic as early as 1823, Psycharis made it a programme in 1888. The translation of the Gospels into the spoken language caused riots in Athens in 1901 and several deaths. The question was settled only in 1976.

works 5

• PoetryHymn to LibertyΎμνος εις την ΕλευθερίανDionysios Solomos · 1825Written in 1823, in the midst of the war of independence, the song became the national anthem of the country; its author, trained in Italy, chose to write in the language of the people.Literature
• TheatreThe Basil PlantΟ ΒασιλικόςAntonios Matesis · 1859A drama in five acts written in 1830 under British administration and set a hundred and twenty years earlier under the Venetians, it pits the old Ionian nobility against a rising bourgeoisie.Literature
• EssayΤο ταξίδι μουYannis Psycharis · 1888not translated into EnglishPublished in 1888, the book is the manifesto of demoticism. It opened the Greek language controversy, which sent crowds into the streets of Athens in 1901 and was not settled until 1976.LiteraturePublic domain
• PoetryΟ ΦωτεινόςAristotelis Valaoritis · 1891not translated into EnglishA narrative poem interrupted by the death of the poet and published twelve years later, it draws on the memory of a revolt against Venice that the peasants of his island had kept alive.LiteraturePublic domain
• PoetryΟ τάφοςKostis Palamas · 1898not translated into EnglishAn elegy of 1898 born of the death of a child, it is the most intimate book of a poet who dominated the letters of his country for forty years.Literature