Rebetika, the Incredible Source of Modern Greek Music

Rebetika is one of those Greek words that has no translation in English. We have referred to it as ‘Greek blues music’ except that it differs from what we call blues music in English. Today we can go into a Greek record shop and see rebetika music either in its section or scattered around as ‘laika‘ or popular music. It is a recent trend that many composers have written much of it. It has become ‘cool’ today.

Rebetika, its origins

But where did the rebetika music come from? Who were the original rebetikists? Sad songs were occasionally sung in Greece around the turn of the twentieth century, but it was not until 1922 that rebetika music made a powerful entrance into Greece.

Just before 1922, the new nation of Greece, freed by the Great Powers just 60 or seventy years previously, decided that they wanted to protect all the many Greeks who lived in Asia Minor. The headquarters of the Greek Orthodox church was in Istanbul (known to Greeks as Constantinopolis even today). Western Anatolia–modern Western Turkey–South of Istanbul, was predominantly Greek. This is what Greeks call Mikra Asia or Asia Minor.

The Great Powers gave support, predominantly the British prime minister, David Lloyd George, for the Greek Army to invade Asia Minor. The prime minister of Greece was the Cretan Eleftherios Venizelos, who had lobbied hard for an expanded Hellas (the Megali Idea) at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 to include Thrace and the predominantly Greek areas of Asia Minor—in particular, the area of Smyrna, modern day Izmir. Turkey’s political situation was in a state of disarray. The remains of the failing Ottoman Empire were vying with rebels trying to create a new state of Turkey.

Rebetika, the Catastrophe

In the massive city of Smyrna, however, life went on. It has often been said that the Greeks of Smyrna were more sophisticated, prosperous, and cosmopolitan than the Greeks of Greece. They supported the idea of bringing Smyrna into the State of Greece so that the future for them would be Greek, secure in line with Romiosini.

After all, Greeks had lived here since the Bronze Age three thousand years ago. Then, though, the young Turkish government was enacting genocidal policies towards minorities—for example, the Armenian Genocide had just happened—so what better than to be a part of the State of Greece? The future in a country ruled by Turks brought only uncertainty.

It is a long story, but not a very long war. Greek forces invaded Turkey through Asia Minor and secured the city of Smyrna, to the delight of the Greeks. With the encouragement of Lloyd George, Venizelos gave the order to take some of the area to the east of Asia Minor to secure the region of Smyrna. Then there was an election in Greece in 1920 in which Venizelos fell from power. The new prime minister, Dimitrios Gounaris, appointed inexperienced monarchist officers to senior commands, and King Constantine of Greece took over in Smyrna.

The rest of the war went downhill for the Greeks. A new young Turkish Army commander called Kemal Ataturk was on the rise. Britain withdrew their agreement to support the Greeks, and the new Soviet Union was helping the Turks. Having progressed almost to Ankara, the capital of Turkey, the Greeks faced a massive counterattack. The Greek lines were thin, and they had little support from behind. The victorious Turkish Army marched westward, gaining support from more Turks. They were heading for the predominantly Greek city of Smyrna.

On September 9th, 1922, the Turkish cavalry entered the city of Smyrna. The Greek government resigned the same day, and the Greek Army was driven into the sea as Smyrna burned. The Turkish Army massacred a significant number of the Christian population, including the brutal lynching of the Orthodox Archbishop of Smyrna. Many fled, taking just what they could carry on the long march north, across the Bosphorus, through Thrace to Greece.

This was followed quickly by the Treaty of Lausanne, an essential part of which was the exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece. All Christians had to leave Asia Minor and return to Greece. All Muslims had to leave Greece and return to Turkey. So that winter, a long line of Christians walked to Greece, most of whom were born in Asia Minor. Similarly, a long line of Muslims from Greece walked back to Turkey, most of whom were born in Greece.

Rebetika, the migration

That migrating population, approximately three million of them heading for Greece, made up songs describing their situation, fear, and starvation walking through burned fields. Today, we can buy some of these songs on a CD called Mikra Asia by George Dalaras. This was the core of the music of Rebetika. These refugees arrived in Greece and were allocated as best as possible across the country. Many came to Thessaloniki and Athens, living in tent-like cities until houses could be built for them.

Many, too, arrived in Crete and on other islands. Greece had lost around half of Thrace and all of Asia Minor. The battle called the Megali Idea—the Great Idea, became known as the Catastrophe.

In Athens, especially, which almost doubled in size with refugees, times were tough. There was little or no work. Many decided then to emigrate, and the Greek government gave them support. They mainly went to America and Australia, where their families still live today, mostly still speaking Greek and English.

The Manges

But for some of them, living in cities like Athens and particularly Pireus, formed small groups of musicians with instruments that they had brought from Turkey, the bouzouki for example and several others, and they sang songs in the Smyrna style, which became known as Rebetika.

Rebetika (singular rebetiko), also often written as rembetiko or rembetika, became the music of what the Greeks called the Manges. The manges were usually smartly dressed men and women who spent most of their time in ouzeris, cafes, brothels, and even prisons.

The music was full of passion, melancholy tales of the hashish smoking habits that came with them from Smyrna, of love, death and daily life. Mostly they had a sadness that spoke of the pain they had seen and the life they now had to live. The source of the word is obscure but is often said to have come from the word Rebetis (plural Rebetes), which means petty criminal, a person of the underworld, which is how the manges were seen by the original people of Greece.

This was unfair to people who were more musicians than thieves, but the food was short, and life was pretty desperate for them in those early days on the mainland of Greece. As the years passed, Rebetika music became increasingly popular as it expressed people’s individuality. It underlined their desire for freedom. The bigger clubs and tavernas in Athens employed more and more rebetika bands, and records were made. Some names became famous, such as Sotiria Bellou and Vassilis Tsitsanis and others.

Several dances could dance to the music, but the most important one by far was Zeibekiko. This was an intensely personal dance, mostly relatively slow and danced by one man at a time. Anyone else joining in was unwelcome, and anyone who applauded may have been starting a fight. The dance originated from the Zeybek warriors of Asia Minor and was introduced to Greece following the exchange of populations. It grew prevalent recently; the dance has allowed men to wait until one has finished and can hand it over.

Today I have seen even women dance the Zeibekiko, but it is rare. In this dance, a man would dance for himself. He may even stand on a glass of wine, lift a table or chair, or perform other complexities, but it was just himself and the music that mattered—which is why applause was never sought, even disdained.

Rebetika and Politics

Authorities always saw Rebetika, particularly fascist or extremely right-wing authorities, as evil. The people who sang and danced rebetika lived their own lives. Nobody owned them, and nobody was going to own them. When in 1936, the Greek dictator, Ioannis Metaxas, took power in Greece, he made rebetika illegal. But even the man who famously said ‘no’ to Mussolini could not kill Rebetika. It had become the music of the heart, even the soul, and now it was going underground.

During the German occupation of Greece, which similarly banned rebetika, among many other things, the manges bands still sang rebetika, which was growing in power. In the 1950s, after the occupation and the following Greek Civil War of 1945–1950, rebetika music became very popular, so popular that the music and songs themselves were becoming less and less rebetika and more and more laiki—or urban pop if you prefer. There were many arguments about this, but as always, time rolls on.

But it is without a doubt that the music of rebetika gave birth to today’s popular music in Greece. So much so that the rebetikists of the 1960s decided that a revival was due and that rebetika was one thing and popular music was something else. So they re-recorded the old greats of rebetika and issued vinyl singles and LPs of pure rebetika.

Great Greek artists like Manos Chatzidakis and Mikis Theodorakis used the bouzouki in its various shapes and sizes in their music and wrote songs primarily influenced by the original rebetika. But there was more trouble to come. In 1967, the colonels or the junta dictatorship seized power in Greece. Many still remember the signs of the soldier in front of the phoenix rising from a fire placed in every Greek village. This government also banned rebetika.

It also imposed a new and cleaned Greek language called Katharevousa which had to be taught to children in schools and was the official language of Greece, even though day to day almost everyone in the state of Greece spoke Dhimotiki, the language spoken before the colonels and also the language of today’s modern Greece. Mikis Theodorakis was imprisoned and then allowed to go to France in exile. Again, underground, rebetika was played secretly and passionately. Theodorakis gave concerts in France and elsewhere that came even closer to Rebetika.

The Greek colonel’s junta was probably as stupid as King Constantine’s Smyrna ideas. They forced the independent Greek country of Cyprus to create a coup backed by the American government, whose foreign secretary was Henry Kissinger. The coup took over the government of Archbishop Makarios and put an idiot in power. His name was Nicos Sampson.

This coup started an invasion of Cyprus by Turkey and the seizure of the north of Cyprus that still exists. The colonel’s junta fell in Greece, and Konstantinos Karamanlis’ New Democracy Party was elected as the government in 1974. Karamanlis also legalised the Greek Communist Party, the KKE. This time was known as ‘Metapolitefsi’ or the restoration of democracy. The monarchy was abolished, and the third Hellenic Republic had begun. The military junta of the colonels arrested 87,000 people, of whom 2.800 were tortured, and they assassinated, to our knowledge, at least 88 people.

Rebetika and Laiki

The original rebetika music was recorded on LPs. Still, after the colonel’s junta regime, people seemed to want newer music, the laiki or popular music, the music of a new Greece, a Greece free of strife, a Greece moving into the unknown and hopefully happier world of tourism and a better income. All this came along. Of course, tourism grew, as did the Greek government, and the world went into the 1990s and the new millennium. What happened to Rebetika?

Well, it is an extraordinary story. One of the forgotten rebetakists of the 1950s and 1960s was Loukas Daralas. He did at least one great song: ‘ To Vouno’ or the mountain. This dominant player of rebetiko music and songs had a son, a tiny baby boy we know today as George Dalaras. George has done a great deal for Rebetika. He is the most well-known artist in Greece and has published many more records and CDs than anyone else. As I have mentioned, he published a very early album called Mikra Asia, and he published many more old and new rebetika songs.

Today, the young people of Greece, like all young people, search for what is new and their roots. They are being supplied by the latest and the most modern rebetakists. The music is not so much the need and the passion for Smyrna and a land long lost to the Greeks, but for the sadnesses of today and, of course, for the beautiful rebetika personal dance of Zeibekiko.

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