REGINA ZERVOU

Phd candidate in Cultural Studies

THE CO-OPERATIVES MOVEMENT SEEN THROUGH THE VERSES OF THE

CARNIVAL SATIRA IN AGIASOS, LESVOS

Introduction

The co-operative movement drastically changed the Greek

countryside during the first decades of the 20th century, both at

the economic level, by organising the production of the

agricultural sector on a totally different basis, and at the

social, ideological level, since through the co-operatives’

structures new ideas could be disseminated among the farmers. In

this paper I will focus on the change brought by the co-

operatives to the ideas and beliefs of the people, as the people

themselves express them. I use as reference texts the carnival

verses recited during the interwar period in the village of

Agiasos, in Lesvos. These verses, which are written by people

belonging to the lower social strata, peasants and laborers,

reflect in a very vivid and direct way how the real protagonists

of the co-operation movement, the people who participated in the

co-operatives in the interwar Greek countryside, evaluated the

changes brought by the co-operative to their everyday life and

work.

Co-operatives in Lesvos

Lesvos is one of the Greek islands that showed an intense

agricultural co-operative activity. The first co-operative was

established in 1915, while up to 1924 20 more co-operatives came

to fill the list. At the end of 1928 the island boasted of 55 co-

operatives with 25 oil-pressing factories. The number of co-

operatives was not as high as it could have been, because

according to the law only one co-operative was allowed in every

community. The Agricultural Co-operative Confederation of Lesvos

was established in 1931.1 According to a table published on the

31st of December 1934, the co-operatives of the island numbered

6,685 members with a co-operative capital of 17,600,000 drachmas,

reserve funds not included., According to a report written in

1935 by K.Vennos of the Rethymnon ABG department 2, the peasants

of Lesvos had managed to overcome the difficulties and obstacles

put in their way and they constituted a fine example for the rest

of the country’s co-operatives, even though the majority of the

members of the island’s co-operatives did not belong to the lower

social classes, as they possessed many acres of olive lands.

Lesvos’ agricultural landscape, where eleven million olive trees

covered the eastern and southern part of the island, may be

described almost as a monoculture. Lesvos’ main product is the

olive oil, therefore the main activity of most of the island’s

co-operatives is its processing and commerce. The processing of

the olive crop is a laborious one, and requires equipment that is

not available to every small or medium scale farmer. This is why

1 Table cited in A. Klimis, , “Οι συνεταιρισμοί εις την Λέσβον – Β΄ μέρος” [Co-operatives in Lesvos – Part two] Συνεταιριστής [The co-operator], 13, (1937/4-5), p.80.

2 K.Vennos, “Η συνεταιριστική κίνησις Λέσβου και τα εξ αυτής διδάγματα”,[Theco-operativism movement in Lesvos and what it has taught us” Συνεταιριστής [Theco-operator], 11 (1935/1), p. 96-97.

the possession of olive oil factories and pressing machines was

of vital importance for the olive oil co-operatives of the

island, as this would attribute to their liberation from the

owners of olive oil factories. The small producer, driven by an

unexpected need to the office of the land owner, the “boss”,

afentiko, to ask him for money, was enchained to him for the rest

of his life, obliged to bring to his oil pressing factory all of

his production and sell it at the prices the landowner imposed on

him. Most of these landowners were also eminent businessmen,

whose businesses flourished during the period of Lesvos’

economical spring, at the end of the 19th century, before the

annexation of the island with the Greek state in 1912. Due to the

radical change in the island’s economy, in that period, which

coincided with the flourishing of the co-operativist movement in

Greece, they turned once more to the agricultural exploitation to

outweigh the loss.

According to George Philipopoulos, head of Department in the

Ministry of Agriculture,3 there are several reasons why the olive

oil co-operatives should look forward to the acquisition of olive

oil pressing factories. First of all, the condition of the

machines used and the quality of the work done in an olive oil

factory is the guarantee for the quality of the olive oil

produced. In the 1930’s, the pressing factories of the co-

operatives were equipped with newly designed machines with

centrifugal systems. Secondly, after the repayment of the loan

granted for the acquisition of the factory, the costs for the

3 G.K.Philipopoulos, “Oι συνεταιρισμοί εις την ελαιουργίαν” [Co-operatives inthe oil industry”, Συνεταιριστής, [The co-operator], 11 (1935/1), p. 73-79

members of the co-operative would be only the wages and the

necessarily repairs, while two new possibilities might emerge:

the members could organize the trade of their products in common

and they could also exploit the olive sub-products in a more

beneficial way.

The most important olive sub-product is the oil extracted from

the seed and the sediment, the so-called “pirina”, which can also

be used as house combustible. Its trade reveals the relations

between the oil factory owners and the producers. The olive seed

factory owners (6 in the whole island according to K. Vennos4)

would form a trust and fix the price of the product, dividing the

island’s territory into zones of influence. In 1932, the

Agricultural Bank of Greece granted the co-operatives the funds

needed, so that they wouldn’t have to demand them from the olive

seed factory owners in advance, as they usually did at that time

of the year. As that year the olive oil co-operatives did not

possess an olive seed pressing factory, the ABG hired, on behalf

of the olive oil co-operatives and under certain conditions, an

olive seed factory that had been idle for the last year. When the

olive oil co-operative of Agiasos participated in the five Gera

co-operatives deal that aimed at fixing a price for the olive

seed extraction, they attained a higher price than the one gained

by the Agiasos communal oil-pressing factory at auction.

Therefore, the construction of olive oil factories was of prime

importance for the survival of the olive co-operatives of the

island. Many of them hurried to the construction of their own4 K.Vennos, “Μια νέα συνεταιριστική κατάκτησις –συνεταιρική εκχύλισιςελαιοπυρήνων υπό των συνεταιρισμένων ελαιοπαραγωγών Λέσβου”,[ A new conquest ofco-operativism – co-operative pirina extraction by members of the oil co-operatives in Lesvos” Συνεταιριστής, [The co-operator], 9 (1933/3) p. 41-43.

factories with loans granted by the ABG, other banks or even by

individual businessmen. The function of these co-operative

factories obviously caused the reaction of the private olive oil

factories that started planning ways to successfully attack the

co-operatives.5 The co-operative movement in Lesvos had also to

fight against the mistrust of its own members, the peasants of

the island, who would very easily exert harsh criticism against

the administration of the co-operative in a period of economic

and product crisis, as was the year 1929. There was also severe

criticism that the co-operative members, encouraged by the ABG

that granted them almost unconditional loans, rushed to buy and

operate the pressing factories, without second thoughts.

According to the director of the ABG in Mytilini, Aristidis

Klimis, a native of Plomari, one of the most important oil

producing areas of the island, the need for money was the reason

that led to the creation of the co-operatives and the loans

granted by ABG, and not the opposite. The foundation of co-

operatives, he continues, would “drag” the credit to a better

organisation of the production and trade of olive oil.

Nevertheless, he also agrees that the pressing factories of the

island’s co-operatives were built mostly by short-term loans on a

high interest, making their repayment rather difficult. Another

inconvenience that the co-operatives had to face was the

provision of the law 5289, which forbade the share of profits

among the members of the co-operative. Instead, the olive oil co-

operatives offered the services of the oil pressing factories to

5 A.Klimis, «Η κίνησις των ελαιουργικών συνεταιρισμών Λέσβου», “Oil co-operatives’ activity in Lesvos, Συνεταιριστής[The co-operator], 10 (1934/11), p. 166-167

their members at a lower price. However, even this measure

discouraged the co-operativists, who wanted to receive at the end

of each year a sum of money “mazomeno para” and were unable to

calculate the benefits of the discounts.6

The work done by the co-operative oil pressing factories

consisted mostly in putting in store the producers’ olive crop

for a short period before the pressing, as most of them did not

possess large storage units. The crop was pressed separately for

each member and the olive oil produced was stored and sold

independently by the producer. In that way, the members of the

co-operatives could not benefit from their newly founded

structure to establish a better sales network.

The co-operative of Agiasos

Agiasos is a mountainous village, almost half an hour’s ride from

Mytilini, the capital of the island. Until World War II, it was

the most populous village of the island. Situated on the north

slope of Mount Olympus, the island’s highest mountain, Agiasos is

surrounded by olive trees, whose cultivation is the main activity

of its inhabitants. The village’s lands, which exceed the limits

of the village, were first distributed to the landless farmers by

the law of 1924 on the repartition of the arable lands to the

refugees. Furthermore, in 1929, after years of struggle, the Co-

operative of Agiasos Landless Farmers managed to obtain the

redistribution of church, monastery, communal and school land,

starting with the eight monastery dependencies in the nearby6 A. Klimis, “Οι συνεταιρισμοί εις την Λέσβον – A μέρος” [Co-operatives inLesvos – Part one] Συνεταιριστής [The co-operator], 13 (1937/3), p. 35-39 and, A.Klimis, , “Οι συνεταιρισμοί εις την Λέσβον – Β΄ μέρος” [Co-operatives in Lesvos– Part two] Συνεταιριστής [The co-operator], 13 (1937/4-5), p.77-82.

cultivated fields that were once a lake, now drained. This place

was called Limni, and belonged mostly to the Monastery of Agia

Lavra of Mount Athos. All the lands around the village were

redistributed in a similar way.

The first steam-driven olive pressing factory, the “machine”,

mihani, as they called it, was founded in Agiasos in 1879, two

years after a fire that had destroyed, among other properties,

most of the olive pressing mills. It was bought mostly by money

given by the church, a big landowner and the more prosperous

inhabitants of the village, who were obliged to pay two wages

each. Soon after, another factory was founded in Stavri, in the

upper part of the village, and then another one by Sapounathelis,

the so-called “money lender”.7, According to Evridiki Sifnaiou, in

1920 there existed four olive - pressing factories in Agiasos:

the Sapounathelis and Skoutelis ones and two more, one owned by a

person named Ioakeim Evagelinellis and another by Prokopios

Emanouil, the two latter being, according to the author, of

communal ownership.8 The Agiasos olive oil co-operative was

founded in 1928. Soon after, the Administrative Council of the

co-operative decided (decision no. 20/3-9-1928) to rent a

pressing factory owned by a local landowner and businessman,

Skopoutelis, for the needs of its members. In its next meetings,

7 S.Kritikos. Πολιτική Βιογραφία, [A Political Biography], Athens, Memphis S.A..2001. Η υποσημείωση χρειάζεται διόρθωση . Poios o syggrafeas ke pios o titlos 8 E. Sifanaiou . αυτό τι ειναι???Λέσβος:Οικονομική και Κοινωνική Ιστορία (1840 -1912),[Lesvos: Economical and Social History (1840 – 1912), Mitilini, Municipality ofMitiliny (co-fiananced LEADER, 1996, p. 368. The existence of the two communal olive pressing factories among four is due, according to Sifnaiou, “ to the rise of the social struggle in Lesvos during the late period of Ottoman rule. These factories contributed to the emancipation of the peasants from the owner’s yoke, while they performed an important social and educational work, asthey invested their profits in the community.” Ibid, p. 200

the Council decided about the milling fees, (decision no. 33/9-

12-1928), the compulsory sale of the olive seed, the “pirina”,

(decision no. 38/30-12- 1928), the modification of the working

time-table of the factory in order to face the increased needs of

that period (decision no. 122/18-3-1929) and the rent of the

warehouse owned by Mariglis (decision no. 126/30-3-1929). On 26

May 1929, the Agiasos Co-operative Administrative Council decided

to buy a plot for the construction of a pressing factory.

Soon after, they proceeded to the agreement for a 600,000

drachmas loan for the construction of a co-operative owned olive

oil factory (decision no. 262/ 23-3-1930) and, within two months,

the co-operative bought a plot in Kaboudi, in the upper part of

the village, for the purpose (decision no. 293/8-6-1930). Due to

the financial crisis of 1929, whose consequences were also felt

by the people of Lesvos, on 26 June 1932, the co-operative of the

village decided in a common assembly of the Administrative

Council and the Executive Committee, to postpone the construction

of the factory and to hire instead the installations of the first

“machine” of Agiasos, which had been donated to the hospital of

the village. The construction of the co-operative factory would

start three years later and was to be completed in 1939.9

The Agiasos olive oil co-operative was considered by the ABG as

one of the best organised, both as regards its administrative

skills and its logistics.

The carnival satira of Agiasos

9 Information found in the Archives of the Agiasos Oil Co-operative.

As mentioned above, Agiasos is a mountain village built on a

slope of mount Olympus, almost in the centre of the island. The

landscape reflects a closed community, apart from the other

villages of the plain. This feature gave birth to the peculiar

character of its inhabitants: very stingy with money, always

ready to accuse others, not very friendly to strangers, but at

the same time gifted with an innate sense of humor and an honest

self-sarcasm, deep enough to depict their own faults. If we also

take into consideration that Agiasos is the village with the most

kafenia (the traditional coffee-shops in the Greek villages) per

capita in Lesvos, itself the capital of kafenia in Greece, we may

understand their importance for the life of the community, or at

least for its masculine population, and the idea of the carnival

satira that was kafenio’s spiritual child.

Carnival has been celebrated all over the Mediterranean since

remote times. In the pre-Christian times carnival was the term to

describe all the festivities of the people during the “dead

season”, the period during which there were no agricultural

activities. Carnival involved celebrating the gestating death of

the winter, gestating since it denoted the upcoming of spring.10

The god Dionysos in ancient Greece was a famous example of the

year demon, who was believed to have died violently and then

resurrected. The festivities in honor of Dionysos in the

classical years of Greek antiquity are believed to be at the

origin of the carnival celebration up to nowadays.11

10 J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough II, The Killing of the God, London 1994, p..587-590. M. Eliade , Κόσμος και Ιστορία ή, Ο μύθος της αιώνιας επιστροφής, [Cosmos andHistory or the Myth of the Eternal Return) Athens, Ellinika Grammata,1999, p. 88.

In the beginning of the modern era, carnival was studied from a

historical viewpoint as the most propitious period for the

manifestation of public dislike and demands.12 Through Bakhtine’s

discerning analysis of the carnival in medieval Western Europe,

as a true and non-intermediated expression of popular culture and

taste, the ‘outmost of the people’s celebrations’, as he called

it, was put on a social analytical basis, giving priority to the

contrast – and, sometimes, the conflict – between the upper

(which in the Middle Ages was identified with the land owners and

the clergy) and the lower social strata.

While in Western Europe the scholars have given emphasis to the

social character that carnival fiestas acquired during the Middle

Ages and later, their approach to the carnival festivities in the

Eastern Mediterranean is mostly limited to theories about the

welcoming of the spring by death and the resurrection of nature

and its demons. Nevertheless, this social character of the

carnival festivities can also be depicted in the eastern part of

the Mediterranean basin, even in rural areas like Agiasos.

Agiasos carnival is the best-known and most beloved among all the

carnivals in Lesvos, mostly due to its long, uninterrupted

11 A characteristic example is the thesis of Katerina Kakouri, Διονυσιακά, εκτης σημερινής λαϊκής λατρείας των Θρακών [Dionysiacs, from the modern popular worship inThrace], first published in Athens in 1963. For the ancient Greek Dionysosworship, see also Cornford F.M. Cornford ,The Origin of Attic Comedy ,London, General Books LLC, 2010. 12 For the social impact of carnival festivities during the early modern erasee, among others, E. Le Roy Ladurie, Le Carnaval de Romans – De la Chandeleur auMercredi des Cendres 1579 – 1580, Paris, Editions Gallimard, 1979. J.M. Brophy “Mirthand Subversion: Carnival in Cologne”, History Today, 07/01/97, 47 (1997/7), p.42,. D.K Feil., “How Venetians think about Carnival and History”, AustralianJournal of Anthropology, vol..9 , (1998/4), p. 141-162

history since the last decades of the 19th century and to the

carnival satira. The satira of Agiasos consists of large poems

written in dekapendasyllavos (the typical Greek folk rime) and in

the local dialect. It is the child of the kafenio communities; of

the life that the men of the community share in this special

place that is destined to fulfill their needs for friendship and

communication. The authors of the satira during the interwar

period were people of the lower strata, day laborers and small

landowners, who composed their verses in the kafenio “with the

fork”, as one of them wrote, meaning that the best composition

time was the one of drinking ouzo and eating meze (starters).

Even though carnival festivities were taking place since the end

of the 19th century, carnival was institutionalised as a public

feast of the village in 1937, when the cultural center of the

village ‘Anagnostirion’ proclaimed an annual satira competition for

the best written satira, which was rewarded with an amount of

money given by a bequest of an Agiasotis, who had emigrated to

the USA. Even though the carnival satira is part of the unwritten

oral tradition of the people, the authors were obliged to hand

their verses in writing to the members of the committee that

would award the prizes. Since that time, which coincided with the

heyday of the Greek co-operativism, there is written evidence of

satira verses, which can be used, among others, as a trustful

historical source.

During the interwar period the satira verses had a very strong

social appeal. They always treated of all the matters, everything

that happened in the village’s small community over the previous

year, from their point of view, of course, that of the

hardworking people, who earned their daily living with

difficulty. The newly come co-operative and the consequences it

brought to their everyday lives couldn’t be left out.

The agricultural activity and the exploitation of the olive crop,

the main source of income for the majority of the villagers, has

been expressed many times in the verses of that period – that is

the satira verses of the 1938, 1939 and 1940 carnivals. Through

these verses, which constitute a historical testimony about the

way the co-operativist movement was accepted by the people in

rural Greece, many facts concerning the relations between the big

land and factory owners and the small peasants can be studied.

As for the matter of the olive oil factories, the first

reference is given in a satira of 1938. In that year, which was a

“maxuli”, a highly productive year for the olive crop, the owners

of the pressing factories, in great need of water to accomplish

the pressing tasks of the factories, had spread rumors that the

water coming down from Sanatorio, the hospital in the north of

the village, was infected by the excrements of the patients and,

therefore, not drinkable. Even though the authorities had tried,

through declarations, to calm down the panicked people, the

inhabitants of the village stopped using water from the water

supply reservoir and tried to satisfy their needs by using the

water of a small spring. The people of the carnival took the

responsibility to inform their neighbours about this cheat. Both

the two main groups of satira writers dedicated a good part of

their work to contradict this propaganda. One of the two satiras

ends with the following verses:

[Πίνιτι ‘πί ντ διξανμινί

τσι δε μπιθέν’ κανές! Όρτσιλογ τσ’λίσα βγάλαντνα ός έχιν τς μιχανές.

Φτί που χριγιάζντι του νιρού ντ Κινότητα αγκαλέσαν αφίκασί μας διψαζμέν’ τσ’ έδγετς τς ελιές αλέσαν. 13

Drink water form the reservoir, Nobody will die!This was a calumnyBy those who have the “machines”.

Those who need the waterSpread the bad rumors in the CommunityThey let us thirstyIn order to press the olives.14].

This task undertaken by the “carnavali”, the people who

participated in the carnival both as composers and performers of

the satirical verses, to inform their co-villagers and,

therefore, to be engaged in revealing the truth, when other

interests groups try to hide it, has survived through many

decades, up to the time when television took on as the main

source of information of the people. During the period of the

colonels’ dictatorship (1967-1974), many inhabitants of Lesvos,

coming from the capital of the island and other villages flocked

13 Tρίβολος [Trivolos] ,n. 298., 18/3/1938.14 As I translate these verses into English, I realise how poor they become.They loose their rime, the dekapendasyllavos of the Greek folk songs, which is«the way for us to talk and live, because we need a rime in order to live”.They also lose the beauty of the Agiasos dialect, a merge of elements comingfrom the ancient Doric dialect and the Turkish language, a dialect which, atthat time, was almost incomprehensible even for the people of the island’scapital, Mytilini. The marvels of folk culture can be understood in theirtotality only in the language spoken by the people.

in masses to Agiasos to attend the carnival festivities,

expecting to get the information censured by the police.

The “carnavali” were supposed to be an incontestable source of

true information. The people of the village always believed them.

“What carnavalos says is the truth” was a common phrase in the

marketplace at that time. Even Stratis Anastasellis, the reporter

of the article in the satirical weekly published newspaper

Trivolos where these verses are reproduced down, notes: “Since

carnavalos said it, the people of the village believed it and they

started drinking water from the reservoir again, without any

fear.”15

The ideals of co-operativism as expressed through the satira

There are times when folk culture, the product of a small rural

community, expresses the thoughts, beliefs and hopes of the lower

strata about historical matters of major interest. This is the

case of the following satira verses that consist the core of my

paper. They were recited in 1940 and reveal the opinion of the

small landowners about the consequences of the co-operative

pressing oil factory on their economic condition and the

relations of the social classes in the village.

Throughout the verses, the authors give prime importance to the

difficulties that the co-operative olive oil factory has to face

because of its competitors, the private owners of pressing

factories, who reigned in the village economic life and imposed

their rules on the processing, the trade and the price of oil.

The problems must have been so harsh, that even in the first

15 Tρίβολος [Trivolos], n. 298, 18/3/1938.

verses the carnavalos, the performer of the first group, begins by

announcing:

Θα πώ τσι για του ΣυνετεριζμόΤσι δότι προυσουχήΕ θα τα πω όμως ούλαΝα μη γένι ταραχή.16

I will tell you now about the Co-operativeAnd give me your attentionBut I won’t tell everythingBecause that will make a mess.

meaning that there are many more things to say about what has

happened, but he prefers not to refer to them, fearing probably

the turmoil that might be caused.

He continues by pointing out why the co-operative oil pressing

factory works in competition with the private ones. The owners of

the private oil pressing factories feel menaced by the new

factory, which puts into question their status and income:

Πουλλοί έχ τς ε ντουν θέλιντου ΣυνιτιριζμόΈφτου του ιργουστάσιουθα ςκάς τού Μπειρασμού

Έφτου του ιργουστάσιουθα τα σφαλής τα άλλαγιαφτό φουνάζιν καμπουσοίέχιν δίτσα μιγάλα

[There are many those who don’t wantThe Co-operativeThis factoryPuts them in temptation

16 Tρίβολος [Trivolos] n. 371, 12/7/40.

This factoryWill make all the others close downThat is why there are some who are shoutingThey have their rights.]

And he accuses its competitors of sabotage in an undeclared war

against the co-operative factory:

Ε βλεπς π΄τουν διν’ψεφτκα πανιάτσί κάθα χρόνου ςπούν;Μάξους τα δίν’γοί παλιαθρωπγια να τς ικδικηθούν.

[Don’t you see that they give them false oil clothsThat cannot last more than a year?The bastards do it on purposeIn order to take vengeance.]

Then he praises the benefits of the co-operative factory on

account of the prices given and the promptness in accomplishing

the tasks:

Να ζέι η Συνιτιριζμός

Που κάνι τα θάματα!Ίσαμι τώρς ήλισιΈκς χλιάδις στάματα.

Σα θέλιτι να βρίστσιτικαλό λουγαριασμότς ελιές σας να τς παγαίνιτιστου Συνιτιριζμό.

[Long live the Co-operativeThat makes wonders.Up to now it has pressedSix thousand stamata.

If you want your accountsTo be OK

Take your olivesTo the co-operative]

And even the good quality of the extracted olive oil, due to the

modern machinery bought and used by the co-operative pressing

factories.

Κατό μιρώ νάνι γ’ιλιέςτου λάδ άςους θαν έβγιΓιαφτό του Συνιτιριζμόκανές δε ντουν χουνέβγι.

[Even if they are picked up a hundred days agoThe oil will be qualified as ace.17

That is why no one likes the Co-operative.]

Then the carnavalos predicts the repayment of the loan taken for

the construction of the factory if next year’s crop is as good as

the present one. What an irony, these verses were recited just a

few months before the outbreak of the Italian – Greek war in

October 1940 that dramatically changed the social and economic

turnout even in the remote island of Lesvos.

Μια χρονιά ακόμα να τιριάςςα π’ταίριαςι η φιτνήθάν απουμείν μες του χουριότζ’άμπα γή μηχανή.

[If the next year’s crop is

17 If the olive oil is classified by an acidity rate of 0,1 to1% , called ‘ace’ in the olive producers dialect, it isconsidered of low acidity, proper for domestic use.

as good as this onein the village the “machine”will stay for free (without debts)].

The satira also mentions the absence of co-operative warehouses

that would attract even more producers:

Έπριπι νάχι αμπάριανάβλιπις τι θα γενί.Ούλους κόζμους τς ιλιέςντέγιτσ’ήθιλι α τς παγαίν.

[If it had warehousesThen you would see.Everybody his olivesWould like to take them there].

The satira denounces the well-known tactic of the factory owners

– referred to by the impersonal “they” – to form trusts in order

to impose their prices on the producers.

Γινατέψαν γι Αγιασώτιςαπ’ένα πού συνέβ’π’νοικιάςαν ούλις τς Μηχανέςτς έχιν μό μια τσι δλέβγι.

Τού ςχέδιου ήνταν καλόπού είχαν καμουμένουγια πρέφα πήγαν γοι καγμέντς ήβραν κατουγραμμένου.

Γροιτσήςαντου τού ςφάλμαντουνάμ ήνταν πλιά αρ΄γαγι όρθις είχαντ’ ιρχμένα σ’άλι μηχανή τ’αβγά.

Πήγαν ςτού Συνιτιριζμόούλα τ’ΑγιασουτέλιαΔείξαντου τσείνι του θάμαντουνάμ εν είχι καςέλια.

[The Agiasotians got angryWith what happened before they had borrowed all their machinesand left only one to work.. (the factory owners made a trast).

The plan that they thought was goodso they went to play cardsbut they finally lost.

They tried to see what went wrongBut it was too lateBecause now the chickens (clients)Went to put their eggs in other place.

All the kids in AgiasosWent to the Co-operative.They worked miraclesBut didn’t have enough boxes].

And the satira ends by inciting the villagers to do their best to

help the co-operative factory succeed:

Μη ζλέβγιτι καμπός καμπόςΜον πρέπε να του χαρείτιΤδ’ ούλι σας να βουγηθήσιτιΜ’όπγιουν τρόπου μπορείτι.

[Some of you, don’t be jealousYou must be happy insteadAnd all of you should helpIn any way you can].

The authors once more express their belief that the loan will be

soon paid off and the financial benefits of the co-operative

“machine” will become more evident:

Σά ντνή πληρώςιν τ’μηχανή

θα δείτι τι θά γένι.Μ’ένα μπιντάρ του κάθς μόδστα πιταχτά θα βγαίνι.

[When we pay off the machineYou’ll see what will happen.With 50 cents a modiWill come out in no time].

Finally, there is a reference to the problem of the oil seed, the

pirina mentioned above. Now the producers could take their pirina

back home and use it as a combustible, instead of being obliged

to leave it to the factory owner.

Θα παίρνιτι ντ μπυρήνα ςαςμές τς κόφις φύλλα – φύλλαςά μπού τνή πέρναν γοί προυτνοίτσ’ι δέν ήκαφταν κσύλα.

[You would take your pirinaIn the boxes as you wantLike the olders didAnd they didn’t have to burn wood].

It is amazing how in just a few verses all the problems

concerning the main agricultural production and the co-

operativist movement – loans that have to be repaid, trusts made

by the factory owners, the blackmail of the small land owners

through the distribution of the pirina – are expressed in a very

direct way, leaving no place for afterthoughts. It is also

surprising how the worries and remarks of the poor peasants of a

village coincide with the statements made by the officials of the

ABG, who were responsible for the implementation of the policy

regarding the co-operatives in the Greek countryside.

The co-operative movement in Greece was state-driven, as proved

by the role played by the National and the Agricultural bank of

Greece, together with the Ministry of Agriculture.18 The peasants,

as a crucial element in the Greek society that was drastically

changing during the first decades of the 20th century, were

treated in different ways by the political forces that dominated

the social scene of that period. Seen as the underdeveloped part

of the population who would improve their social status through

small ownership. The bourgeois ideology, saw them as the

underdeveloped part of the population who could improve their

social status through small land ownership19, whereas the

Communist Party treated them as the impoverished crowds that

should set themselves under the ideological leadership of the

urban proletarians.

The new element provided by the study of this work of folk

literature to the study of the interwar period and the co-

operative movement in Greece is that these verses consist an

important historical evidence about the way the people in the

Greek countryside perceived the ideals and the work done by the

co-operative structures, a piece of history written from below.

Although the agents of the dominant ideology, expressed through

the bank and administration structures, used the co-operative

network to extend their influence in the peasants’ world and

even, during the Metaxas dictatorship, to create a non-place18 C.Bregianni, ‘ Συναιτεριστικά δίκτυα στη διαχείριση της αγροτικής πίστης(1914 -1940). Ουτοπία, ιδεολογία ή «εργαλείο» αγροτικής πολιτικής;[Co-operativenetworks in the administration of agricultural credit (1914 – 1940). Utopia, ideological make or “tool” of agrarian policy?] in D.Panagiotopoulos, D.Sotiropoulos (eds.) Η ελληνική αγροτική οικονομία και κοινωνία κατά τη βενιζελική περίοδο, [Greek peasant society and economy during the Vanizelos’period], [p.89-110], Athens 2007, p. 9019 Ibid, p. 375-376

that would absorb the social conflicts20, the class struggles that

led to the institution of co-operatives couldn’t be camouflaged.

An agrarian reform was urgently needed by the peasants who had

suffered for ages under a system based on the harsh exploitation

of the big landowners who, in the end of the 19th century,

expanded their activities to the trade sector, leaving no space

to the small producers. That is why the small producers and the

lower social strata embraced the efforts for a different mode of

organ21 ising agricultural production with zeal and enthusiasm,

believing that it could lead to a deeper transformation of social

relations in the countryside.

“The agricultural co-operatives revealed the need for collective

expression by the peasants’ world, that was fully supported by

the progressive parts of the local societies.”22 Even the remote

and isolated village of Agiasos, had received most of the

messages regarding the social change that stirred Europe in the

interwar period. Some young people had gone to European countries

to study and, when they returned, they brought back new ideas in

their luggages. The cultural centre of the village, the

“Anagnostirio”, founded at the end of the 19th century by a group

of small manufacturers, in those times welcomed and nested

innovative thought, and was severely criticised by the

20 C. Bregianni, «Η πολιτική των ψευδαισθήσεων,. Κατασκευές και μύθοι της μεταξικής δικτατορίας» [The politics of illusions. Constructions and myths of the Metaxas dictatorship], Ιστορικά [Historica], 30 (1999), p. 171-19821 Ibid, p. 375-37622 V.Patronis – K.Mavreas, ‘Ιδεολογικές και πολιτικές προσεγγίσεις των αγροτικών συνεταιρισμών την περίοδο του μεσοπολέμου’ [Ideological and politicalapproaches on the agricultural co-operatives during the interwar period], in Panagiotopoulos, Sotiropoulos (eds.) Η ελληνική αγροτική οικονομία και κοινωνία κατά τη βενιζελική περίοδο … o.p. cit.,, p.ed.191.

conservative sections of the society for that reason. But, most

of all, it was the laborers of Agiasos who had been impregnated

with the ideas of social justice and, in their turn, expressed

them, given the opportunity, at the carnival in satira verses.

They paid, in that way, their small contribution to the tradition

of the workers’ movement that exploded in the beginning of the

20th century in various parts of Southern Europe, strong,

impulsive, and class-orientated.

Admitting these features of the co-operative supporters’ speech,

we cannot overlook the role performed by the Greek Communist

Party , which “seemed to be the only political party aiming at

direct control of the co-operatives. After the purges of its

political leadership in 1923, the party launched a directive to

fully subject the co-operatives under its control, a strategy

that was maintained during the interwar period.”23 Agiasos was

considered a “progressive” village during the 20th century. The

influx of the new ideas had coincided with the founding of

“Anagnostirio”, but the innovative ideas were enriched bygained

in social and political meanings during the interwar period, when

large parts of the peasant population of the village adopted the

positions of the Communist Party.

The spread of communist ideals in some parts of the Greek

countryside consists a contradiction in the causality of the

Marxist ideological universe, where the industrial worker should

be the locomotive that would reverse the existing production

relationships. However, in Greece, in the beginning of the 20th

century, peasants slowly entered into the world of modernity

and the communist ideals penetrated in areas where a connection23 Ibid, p.209.

between production and the market economy was emerging. Olive oil

was one of these products.

The monetarised relationships between producers and consumers of

agicultural products suffered the consequences of international

financial fluctuations in the wake of the economic crisis that

broke out at the end of the 20’s. The satiras written in Agiasos

at the end of the interwar period reflect this new social reality

. In a village where, even in 1938, the karnavalos call the upper

class of the village “kotzabasides”24, the newly-established

olive-oil pressing factory brought the small landowners face to

face with the big landowners – owners of the pressing factories.

. The folk creators sensed, in their own private way, the changes

that the new century also brought to the relationship between the

sexes. On the eve of World War II the news about women’s

emancipation reached the remote mountain village of the Greek

periphery and found their way into the traditional verses of the

male authors.

Carnival is a public event in the village and all public events,

and the public places as well, were the privilege of men. Until

the 1990’s, the Karnavali, who recited the verses of satira, were

only men. No woman could have ever imagined exposing herself

saying obscenities before the whole village; that would be

unthinkable. So, how could the authors of the satira make the24 'Κotzabasis’ is the Turkish-origin [< koca-basi] word used to describe the elders of the communities during the ottoman empire.It is also used to describe authoritarian people, which reveals the derogatory sense of the word.Tegopoulos-Fitrakis, Ελληνικό Λεξικό –ορθογραφικό, ερμηνευτικό, ετυμολογικό, συνωνύμων αντιθέτων κυρίων ονομάτων[ Greek Dicitonary] , Ekdoseis Armonia, Athens 1990

women speak about their emancipation? Simply by giving the satira

the theatrical form of a conversation between a man and a woman,

where the role of the woman would be played, of course, by a man,

just the way it happened in ancient drama.

The Female karnavalos acted like a Lysistrati of the 20th

century, standing up in front of the Male to revindicate her

rights to participate in social life. It is this modern and

remote Lysistrati, the Female and not the Male karnavalos, who

was to defend the co-operative against all the evildoers of the

village. The authors of the satira had chosen the Female, who in

their minds represented the new and innovative, to be the

defender of the co-operative ideals, thus linking all the social

movements of the beginning of the 20th century, aligning the

women’s requests and their emancipation from the male yoke with

the co-operative’s task to emancipate the small peasants form the

boss’s, “afentiko”, yoke.

Though there is abundant evidence on the way the state and its

services tried to construct and propagate the co-operatives’

network, there is little information on how the people themselves

thought and reacted to this innovation that would bring

considerable changes to their lives. There lies the importance of

these few satira verses. Folk literature, the spiritual product

of the people in traditional societies, can be a reliable

historical source as to the way the people perceived and

evaluated the changes that were decided at a higher

administrative level. Because of its nature, a direct and non-

intermediated means of expression, it portrays with clarity

positions and beliefs. Whatever the dominant state ideology about

co-operatives may have been during the interwar period, this

particular case study reveals that they were highly accepted by

the lower strata peasants, who would use them as a tool of

economic emancipation.