At the beginning of the 20th century, Europe is living in peace and prosperity. The “Belle Époque” is an outgrowth of previous important historical events and developments. The networks that are created and which evolve funnel both people and their products, tangible and intangible. It is within this multi-layered world that sound recording and sound reproduction is invented. Early record labels send mobile crews literally all over the world to record local musicians. The range of the repertoire is endless. Cosmopolitanism in large urban centers favors polystylisms and polymorphisms. Colonialism, revolutions, conflicts, refugee flows; the theater, cinema, radio, photography, orchestras’ tours, but also circulations in all kinds of commercial channels in a world that evolves dynamically and anisotropically, form a complex network of “centers” and “peripheries” in alternating roles setting musical idioms in motion, both literally and figuratively. The networks in which the Greek-speaking musics participate, constantly conversing with their co-tenants, are magnificent. Discography has already provided important tools in understanding the relationships that developed between “national” repertoires. The result of this ongoing research is “Cosmopolitanism in Greek Historical Discography”.

According to the data collected so far, the song in question by Kostas Skarvelis was recorded three times in Greek historical discography under the following titles:

– “Mangas sevntalis”, Kostas Nouros and Panagiotis Makrykostas or Kitros (violin), Spyros Peristeris (mandola), Kostas Skarvelis (guitar), Athens, 1931 (Columbia W.G. 228 – D.G. 146).
– “Mangas sevntalis”, Antonis Chatzidiamantidis (or Diamantidis or Dalgkas), Athens, 1932 (Pathé 70516 – 80251).
– “O neos mangas”, Zacharias Kasimatis, Athens, 1932–1933 (Parlophone A 101217 – B-21623-II; reissued in the USA by Columbia USA, W 294435 – G-56329-F), this recording. 

However, as Martin Schwartz pointed out in his highly interesting online lecture on the relationships between the Greek and Yiddish repertoires as reflected in historical discography (see here), the musical phrase used by Kostas Skarvelis in the verse of his song “Mangas sevntalis” refers to the first phrase of another tune, which is documented much earlier in Greek discography as well as in the Jewish (klezmer/Yiddish) repertoire.

The earliest appearence of the tune is found in the recording “Chora rousiki”, listed in the archives of the European Zonophone under the following entry:

“Chora Roussiki”, Zonophone 1563r – X-108021, Compagnie Mitzos (harmonica, mandolin, guitar), Constantinople (Istanbul), 1906.

The differences between the archival record and the imprinting of the information on the label released on the market reveal one of the most problematic issues concerning the research around historical discography.

“Chora Roussiki (Hora Roussika)” – Trio, Etaireia Mitsos, Harmonica, Mandolin and Guitar, Compagnie Mitzos.

“Mitsos” recorded mainly for Zonophone, in Constantinople, in the early 1900s. So far, the research has not brought to light biographical information about him.

This chora seems to be one of the first recordings of Greek-speaking headliners with clear references to the klezmer/Yiddish repertoire, which reinforces our impression about the relations between the two ethnocultural groups. Moreover, the fact that in the Greek version the title chosen is "Chora rousiki" (Russian chora) clearly refers to the geographical area where the Greeks came in contact with this tune.

In the Jewish (klezmer/Yiddish) repertoire, the earliest known recording of the tune dates to April 4 April, 1913, when it was recorded in New York by the Russian-Jewish musician Abraham Elenkrig and his orchestra. Elenkrig had emigrated to the United States around 1906, in the aftermath of the pogroms targeting the Jewish population. The recording was released under the title “Die mame iz gegangen in mark” (מאמע איז געגאנגען אין מארק, Μom went to the market, Columbia 38763-1 – E 1395 and E 3052).

On December 5, 1917, the orchestra of clarinetist Harry Kandel recorded the tune in Camden, New Jersey, for Victor under the title “A Freylachs Die mamma iz gegangen in mark arein” (דיא מאמּע איז געגאנגען אין מארק אריין, Victor B-21231-2 – 69936-A). The record label describes it as an “Old Hebrew Song from Odessa".

In addition to discography, the tune can also be found in historical musical records. In particular, Wolff Kostakowsky included it in the book International Hebrew Wedding Music, published in New York in 1916, under the titles “Rumanian Horra And Bulgar” (p. 14) and “Bulgar. Die Mome iz Gigangen in Mark” (p. 64).

Syncretism, which is observed in the musical actualizations of the areas where Greeks lived and recorded, mainly in the area of folk-popular traditions, is monumental. It only takes one to listen to historical discography, which begins in New York, Smyrna (Izmir), Constantinople (Istanbul), Athens and Thessaloniki since 1900. An essential part of this syncretism concerns the Jews, who constitute one of the main conduits in the uniquely diverse cultural heritage of the Greek-speaking world. They borrow and lend, but they also carry more distant traditions from the places where they have previously lived and the places they have traveled to. They are the central interlocutors in the Greek and Ottoman ecumene, together with Turkish-speaking Muslims, Orthodox but also Catholic Greek-speaking and Armenians, Levantine Protestants, Europeans and Americans, and compose a rich musical mosaic which consists of heterogeneous but co-existent palimpsests: a reservoir to which everyone contributes but from which also everyone receives.

The sources show the timeless existence of a Jewish element, at least since the Hellenistic period, in areas that millennia later formed the modern Greek state. After the “Edict of Milan” in 313 AD and the gradual Christianization of the Eastern Empire, the Jewish element found itself in a difficult position. The Jewish populations that have since been established in these lands became known as Romaniote Jews (or “Romaniotes”’ Rome – Romios). Their historical geographical center of reference was the city of Ioannina, and they speak Greek with various linguistic mixtures. After 1492 and the “Alhambra Decree” by the joint Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, those Jews who did not accept to embrace Christianity were expelled from the Iberian peninsula. They became known as the Sepharadi Jews (or “Sepharadim”), one of the largest Jewish ethno-cultural categorizations (Sepharad in Jewish texts is referred to as the region of present-day Spain). Thessaloniki was one of the main destination points of this displacement, as the ties with the city were older and already close. Apart from the role played by the Greek Jews in the musical developments on the Greek peninsula, there were also important mutual influences between the Greek-speaking Orthodox and the Jews in various other areas where the two communities lived together. As, for example, in Odessa, with the Eastern Ashkenazi Jews, who mainly speak Yiddish, a sui generis Semitic-Slavic language (in Jewish texts, the Kingdom of Ashkenaz, a descendant of Noah, is connected with north-eastern European territories). Their orchestral repertoire is often called klezmer. In other words, apart from the geographical limits of the modern Greek state, the cultural conversations between the Greek Orthodox and the Jews also concern other parts of the world, both in Europe and America, where they met as immigrants. Many of these discographical cases have been highlighted in the past decades by collector Martin Schwartz (see here a previous lecture of his on the subject).

Research and text: Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis