Alexander Billinis: The 'Documented' Story- an ancestor from two distinct worlds, the Christian and the Muslim, the Ottoman and the Byzantine; Rebetiko and Marginality, Daniel Koglin

The 'Documented' Story, Alexander Billinis, The Weekly Hubris

“My ancestor was a product of two distinct worlds, the Christian and the Muslim, the Ottoman and the Byzantine, and such a symbiosis was far from uncommon, though Modern Greece’s national mythology demands otherwise.”—Alexander Billinis

Related:

Marginality—A Key Concept to Understanding the Resurgence of Rebetiko in Turkey, Daniel Koglin

Music & Politics, Vol, II, Issue 1, Winter 2008

Abstract

"At its outset, Greek rebetiko song had been a disreputable genre inasmuch as many intellectual opinion-leaders associated it with urban lowlifes and Turkish music. Today, however, members of the educated classes—in Greece as well as in Turkey—hold this genre in high esteem as one of the great achievements of modern Greek and late Ottoman popular culture, respectively. The author explores the ways rebetiko is perceived and performed in Istanbul and Athens in an era of Greek-marginality. This marginality, however, is redefined in relation to the present thus accounting, it is argued, for the emotional impact rebetiko continues to have on listeners in both countries".

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