The translation into English of Nikolaos G. Polites’s collection of Greek folk songs fills a considerable lacuna in knowledge of Greek culture for the international Anglophone reading public and it is widely available and arguably recognized as the most influential edition of Greek folk songs. Its texts—creations of an anonymous ‘folk’—have also been widely reproduced in countless anthologies and school textbooks, in sound recordings by popular musicians, and on websites and blogs. “Polit[e]s’s work had an immense effect on contemporary and native novelists, already . . . beginning to turn toward the Greece of their immediate environment for their themes.

The author focused the growing interest of his time in the recording and study of the themes of the life of the Greek people into the influential discipline which he named laographía (“study of the people”). In order to succeed, Politis strenuously opposed the conservative circles of his era (the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) which did not consider folk culture worthy of scientific study. Realizing that traditional folk culture was disappearing due to modernization, he began to document material life, customs, practices, and oral traditions among all ethnic groups, both Greek- and non-Greek-speaking, of greater Greece.

Table of Contents                                          

Translator's Introduction                                                                                                                                                                                                                     - Prolegomena to the First Edition - Note on the Translation - The Song Texts (Historical Songs | Istoriká Tragoúdia, Brigandage Songs | Kléphtika Tragoúdia, Border Songs | Akrítika Tragoúdia, Fanciful Songs | Paralogés, Love Songs | Tragoúdia tes Agápes., Bridal Songs | Nyphiátika Tragoúdia, Lullabies | Nanourísmata, Carols. Palm Sunday Songs | Kálanda. Vaítika, Expatriation Songs | Tragoúdia tes Xeniteiás, Laments | Moirológia, Laments of the Underworld and of Charon | Moirológia tou Káto Kósmou kai tou Chárou, Aphoristic Songs | Gnomiká Tragoúdia, Work and Shepherding Songs | Ergatiká kai Vláchika, Mocking Songs | Periyelastiká - Appendices - Index of Proper Names - About the Translator