CULTURE

Hellenic Quarterly turns its focus onto Athens in new issue

Hellenic Quarterly, a periodical covering the Greek scene that’s just out with its 11th issue (Feb. 2002) remains a magazine of considerable ambition and reach that still struggles to provide the concomitant attention to detail. With a 7-euro cover price, the magazine cannot afford to overlook the small things in the rush to meet publication deadlines, or to cut corners and costs. Until it does, this thoroughly worthy enterprise with potentially wide-ranging appeal will continue to lag behind its potential. As before, the quarterly combines a central theme – «Athens and its new image» is the timely focus here – with sub-sections on politics, culture, institutions, theater, fiction, and books and authors. The editors have solicited pieces that range from generalized speculation by political figures to specific ideas for improving a city about which Sotiris Mousouris writes, rather wistfully, «Fifty years ago, Athens was a charming city.» Yiannis Kalatidis’s piece on remodeling Athens’s historical center, and Menis Koumandareas’s reflective piece on being an Athenian stand out. Giorgos Yiannopoulos ponders an overall transport policy for the capital, though this begs for results rather than studies. The magazine’s cultural coverage includes a description of the National Bank of Greece’s new Cultural Institute, and another of a program for preserving fortified structures. The theater section spotlights the works of Iakovos Kambanellis, arguably the most influential playwright in 20th-century Greece. Recollections by Kambanellis collaborators and an interesting essay by Amy Mims on the challenge of translating his plays fill this section out. Similarly, Demosthenes Voutyras, an early 20th-century (and mainly short-story) writer with a pessimistic bent, is highlighted in the fiction section, with two excerpts from his long-neglected works, which are undergoing an apparent literary re-evaluation. Translating, editing, and proofing such a wide-ranging periodical can be daunting. Still, at times, proper nouns are transliterated with curious results. Enough references to the Lints (Linz?) Opera, Georges Balansin, Maler and G. Dassen can greatly diminish any effort expended in collecting the information originally. Fact-checking, though arduous and thankless, would add to the periodical’s overall credibility, especially for native English speakers. This issue includes strikingly good, usually black-and-white, photography, credited in part to a published photo collection. This not only breaks the text but adds a nice artistic touch, and shows a continuing editorial effort to enhance overall quality. With its wide coverage of Greek cultural and political life, the magazine would better fill its niche with closer attention to detail and better editing.

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