The Archipelago #16: Efi Gazi – Are Greeks Western?

In her latest book, ‘Unknown Country’ (Άγνωστη Χώρα, Πόλις, 2020), Efi Gazi, a Professor of History at the University of Peloponnese, freezes the frame halfway through the 200 years of Modern Greek History, at the turn between the 19th and the 20th century, in order to focus on a group of intellectuals who gave shape to their anti-western ideas on national identity. In this episode of The Archipelago, the first of two recorded to coincide with the bicentennial of the Greek Independece, Efi Gazi talks about these intellectuals, the battle between ideas of East and West in defining Greekness, the peculiarities of Greece’s relation to the West and the legacy of the debate on orientalism.