For Britain, renewed demands by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece’s prime minister, to relinquish the Parthenon marbles brings the country face to face with its colonial past. For Greece, repatriating the sculptures, which have been housed in the British Museum since 1817, is a matter of national identity.
For the past 200 years, Greeks have leaned heavily on the idea that the present-day nation is an extension of ancient Greece. From a young age, this is what I was taught in school. Ancient Greece was everywhere in the curriculum and we were encouraged to feel great pride in having originated from the cradle of European civilisation. But after moving abroad as an adult and reading more widely, I started to question the fragile link between our past and present. Most Greeks will argue for repatriation of the Parthenon sculptures on the basis that ancient Greek artefacts are part of its national heritage. But the current debate exceeds national borders.
For a large part of international public opinion the return seems only fair. For some, it is a matter of aesthetics: repatriating historic monuments to exhibit them in the environment they were created for. For others, it is a political question: another step towards accepting the many crimes committed by imperialism and colonialism. Irrespective of where the antiquities are going to be exhibited, however, we should not be blind to the political motivations behind the demands of Greece’s rightwing government to repatriate the marbles to Greek soil.
With inflation soaring and Greece in the grips of a cost of living crisis that shows little sign of abating, Mitsotakis could be right to want to deflect from these issues. Despite his recent landslide electoral victory and polls suggesting he still enjoys considerable popularity, optimistic rhetoric proclaiming Greece as one of the fastest-growing economies in the EU seems at odds with the day-to-day experience of Greek people. In August, the price of food and beverages had increased by 10.7% compared with August 2022, according to the Hellenic Statistical Authority. When going to the supermarket is nothing short of a nightmare, an appeal to Greek national pride over the Parthenon marbles makes absolute sense.
The historian Benedict Anderson argued that modern nations were not based on blood lines, history or even language as it is commonly argued, but were “imagined communities” created by nationalism. It is true that national identity often cuts through right- or leftwing ideology. As Antonio Gramsci, the Italian political theorist, argued, national consciousness is the glue binding together groups with opposing interests. But nationalism also confirms the legitimacy of those in power over territory and population. Common language and religion, but also common history and civilisation is what national identity is based upon; it’s not hard to see that demanding the return of the Parthenon marbles is part of this story.
Mitsotakis’s government might struggle to convince the public of its role as pious conservators of Greek architectural heritage, however. It has long suffered from a problematic relationship with the Greek Archaeological Association, clashing over the preservation of Greek ancient heritage, with critics arguing that the government is prioritising economic considerations over the protection of the sites. A new passageway made of reinforced concrete and a lift enabling disabled access to the site of the Acropolis fuelled an outpouring of condemnation. Yannis Hamilakis, professor of archaeology and modern Greek studies at Brown University, argued that these alterations played into the “neo-classical colonialist and nationalist dream” with little prior study. In a country where tourism is the main industry, attracting more visitors to the site seems to many to have been the main consideration driving the changes.
The government’s feud with the Greek Archaeological Association took another turn in August when the culture ministry called for the eviction of the association from the government building it had been using since 1982, raising further questions over its commitment to the preservation of ancient artefacts and to those with expertise on the matter, especially those with critical voices.
Despite moral considerations and questionable decisions related to the Greek archaeological sites that seem to be driven by economic rather than cultural considerations, we should not forget that the spat between Rishi Sunak and the Greek prime minister may have to do with an altogether different agenda. Sunak has been accused by the Greek government of using the row to distract from difficulties at home, a well-worn tactic when one wants to divert the attention of the public from other significant matters. I suspect the same could be said, however, for the Greek prime minister.
Marina Prentoulis is Associate Professor in Politics and Media at the University of East Anglia
