'Les Perses de l'Occident' de Sotiris Skipis: Une invasion barbare en Europe dans les années 1920

Abstract

The study examines the contribution of Sotiris Skipis (1881-1952) to theatrical art, an aspect which has been neglected by contemporary research. It focuses on an almost unknown three-act drama of Skipis, which the present research retrieved from the rare collections of Greek libraries: Les Perses de l' Occident (The Persians of the West). The author published the work in Paris in 1917, before the bloodshed of World War I was beginning to wane, to openly condemn pan-Germanism and racism, even before the latter term prevailed. The paper explores the ideological, aesthetic, and dramaturgical substratum of the text reflecting the spread of racial theories in Europe is explored. It also interprets the reasons that did not allow for the stage realization of the play on Parisian stages at the time of publication, despite the warm praise from Parisian scholarship, and that it took more than a century to pull the play out of oblivion.

Keywords

• modern greek theatre
• pan-germanism
• racism
• the interwar period