March 26, 1954
MOTHERLAND WORSHIP: (From a column by Emilios Hourmouzios): «Motherland worship! Let us examine this subject, since the occasion demands it. (…) Is not love of one’s country (…) established like a religion, with the mysticism of all religions and which rules out any objection or desire to confirm the content of its doctrine? Of course, that is what love of one’s country should be. However, it can also be something else which transcends (…) the metaphysical and in some way becomes a positive philosophy. (…) The two Greek centuries, the 19th and 20th, have not provided us with the opportunity to discern these two different aspects of the phenomenon since, filled as these centuries have been with events on the national front, with wars and the like, we have merged the love of country that was enthusiastic patriotism with the love of country that settles in the soul like a moral acquisition that is loftier and more permanent. Solomos, for example, and Kalvos, to look at poetry, had conquered that moral interpretation of love of country. (…)»
