Nikolaos Kourkoumelis
DIONYSIOS SOLOMOS AND THE GREEK LANGUAGE IN THE IONIAN ISLANDS
Abstract
With this forceful statement, Dionysios Solomos defines a significant part of the
framework within which Greek World developed in the 19th Century. However whilst
“Freedom” was a concept universally accepted by the people of Greece, acceptance of
“Language” varied, both due to the political division of the Greek area and its populace as well
as due to different ways and methods applied by local administration in respect to education.
In fact in the areas under Ottoman occupation, this was left to the initiative of the
Municipalities and the Church, while in Zante (Zakynthos), Solomo’s home, and the other
islands of the Ionian sea, education was organized locally and supervised by the Central
administration. In both cases, a common factor of reference was the Language used by the
Church. On the other hand, how to create a literate greek language, cleansed from foreign
impurities, in accordance to the teachings Adamantios Corais constituted a uniform objective in
both cases. Influenced by different political, social and economic factors, the local greek of the
respective areas developed in diversified idioms allowing for the parallel use of two languages.
In any event the prevailing language sense always remained purely Greek. In Zante in
particular, the language used by foreign administration and bureaucracy (Italian, Latin, French,
Russian and English) had little impact and influence on the large bodies of citizens, workers or
peasants and was restricted to the social circle that partook in the administration. Following the
formation of the first Hellenic State, that of the Repubblica Settisulare‐Επτάνησος Πολιτεία ,
language was deemed to be essential to national self determination as well as a condition “sine
qua non” towards fulfillment of political freedom. Every possible means towards establishing
greek as the formal state language was used. The Constitution of 1803 ruled that as from 1810
no Public Office could be held by a person not literate in Greek and that Greek would be the
sole official language by 1820. The Constitution of 1817 the Ionian State, protected by Great
Ο ΣΟΛΩΜΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΤΩΝ ΙΟΝΙΩΝ ΝΗΣΩΝ
607
Britain (United States of the Ionian Islands‐Ιόνιον Κράτος), treated Greek Language in an
identical manner. Due however to interventions by the protectorate and its bureaucracy, such
constitutional rules where applied in stages and slowly and it was only by 1850 that these
where fulfilled, indeed after long parliamentary struggles. Solomos was a student of the “Zante
Public School” for two years (1807‐1808). Up to his departure to Italy, he lived in a completely
Greek speaking environment. It was during the fertile years of his stay in Corfu that he closely
experienced the struggle for the prevalence of the Greek Language and it was then that he was
able to form a total outlook on the language. When he died on 9/21 February 1857, the Greek
Language of the Ionians was political established, literary developed and ready to fulfill his
own expectations. The Island’s Greek Society, was by now, more than ready for establishing
anew its national goal of Union (to Greece). What was indeed the meaning of “Greek” as
contemporary language was yet to be redefined according to the views already accepted by
mainland Greece and set out by the “Wise Man”(σοφολογιώτατος) in Solomos’
“Dialogue”(Διάλογος) written prophetically years earlier.