Translation fo English of att text for Lyktan.org in Swedish and Greek: https://www.lyktan.org/rebetiko-som-kaninhal-till-grekiskan/

Rebetiko music culture was created in the Greek 1920s and 30s urban underground, largely among migrants from the Ottoman Empire. Retracing rebetiko, Anna Gavanas plunges into collective social memories that transgress generations and locations. Steeped in hundred-year-old slang, rebetiko lyrics become a portal to the Greek language.

What actually took place at the rebetiko clubs in Exarcheia last Spring? Were strangers linked by the words they sang as their voices oscillated through the room? Bouzouki melodies carried songs of misfortune, love and struggle and absorbed us into collective emotions. As if social memories had been coded into the Eastern scales and 9/8 zeibekiko rhythms. (Diary notes from Athens, May 1, 2025)

Growing up in Gothenburg with a Greek father, I was soundtracked by rebetiko records and bouzouki parties. But not until recently have I pursued contexts, in Greece as well as the Swedish diaspora, where rebetiko lives on as an emotional archive and collective social memory. True to my old school vinyl DJ background I follow rebetiko traces by means of crate digging. During the pandemic, trailing the hallmark rebetiko theme of suffering, I thus stumbled upon a previously undiscovered subtheme: death by tuberculosis. I fund a compilation of songs written by sons to their mothers while dying of tuberculosis in the early 1900s. Death, bitterness and longing: throughout history, rebetiko has mirrored life at sea, on the roads and in the hash dens (tekedes*). Originating among refugees from Asia Minor in the early 1900s urban Greek underworld, rebetiko doesn’t sound like anything you hear in Europe or the US. Its Eastern sounding scales, rhythms and harmonies are radically unlike Western music (Holst 1975).

Growing up in 1970s and 80s Sweden, my generation was told that language development is hampered by more than one single language. It wasn’t until high school that I managed to nag my way into getting public native language lessons, in order to communicate with my relatives in Greece. My grandmother in Athens, as well as my aunts and cousins ​​in Larissa, spoke Greek only. Today, looking back, I realize the genius of my Greek native language teacher: as a method of teaching Greek, he taught me rebetiko songs! As a result, I still remember every note and word of the song ”Ξεκινά μια φαροπούλα απ’ το γιαλό/ A fishing boat sets out from the shore.”

From there and on my voyage into Greek continued, through exploring rebetiko according to its historical contexts. To me this inroad has become crucial because rebetiko doesn’t necessarily lend itself to translation: words and expressions can be interpreted in several ways, especially descriptions of historical characters and sites. Lyrics are laced with slang, allegories and code words for underground phenomena. Thus, as a bonus I now know about 50 Greek 1920s/30s slang words about hash smoking.

In her influential writings on rebetiko, musicologist Gail Holst asserts that rebetiko has an attitude and an emotional charge that cuts across even to someone who doesn’t know a word of Greek. It has an attitude straight from the 1930s Piraeus underworld that defies poverty, oppression and death.

“What makes the songs musically interesting is a combination of factors: the half-oriental, half-occidental sounding melody, the insistent rhythm, especially the oddly attractive 9/8 rhythm of the zembekiko, the contrast between the bouncing rhythm and bright timbre of the bouzouki and the sour-sad lyrics, and above all the quality of the singer’s voice, which can be nasal, grating, or metallic – but is never sweet.” (Holst 1975:45)

But there is another pathway into rebetiko: to trace the melodies, arrangements and rhythms with your body by playing them with the original instruments. Rebetiko orchestration usually includes a double-stringed bouzouki, a double-stringed baglamas, and a folk guitar. My instrument of choice naturally became the baglamas, a mini-bouzouki the size of a forearm. It hides perfectly in your sleeve, as customary during phases in Greek history when rebetiko was outlawed. Throughout history, the baglamas has often been associated with prisons and hash smoking. It can be played as a melodic instrument, it can accentuate rhythmic structure, and it can play chords in parallel octaves with the bouzouki. I love the kick ass treble sound of the baglamas. And I love the spirit of old school baglamas players like Giorgos Batis from 1930s Piraeus, renowned for his humour and generosity. When he was buried in 1967, he was joined in his coffin by his favourite baglamas.

Said and done: a few years ago I travelled to Thessaloniki to search for the baglamas of my dreams. And I found it, hand crafted by none other than Luthier Viktor Dekavalas, whose grandfather made instruments for the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Dekavalas senior was among those who fled during the “Smyrna catastrophe” in 1922.

Ever since I found it, my baglamas has been my best friend: “the only one who understands me,” a role usually assigned to bouzoukis:

Bouzouki, my faithful companion

You are the only one still left

In this false life

To sweeten it for me.

(From the song “My double-stringed bouzouki” / Markos Vamvakaris)

The other day, my 80-year-old father recalled when he was 10 years of age in the mid-1950s, and the baglamas player Giannis Diamandas used to play for the workers in his father’s (my grandfather’s) garage in Larissa. Dad remembers how Diamandas turned up on his bicycle with his baglama on his back. He played, drank tsipouro, told tales and was wasted by lunchtime. On the internet I found a private archive with an unreleased recording of Diamandas. Suddenly, in my kitchen in Gothenburg, I am listening to Diamandas playing baglamas, singing and hollering in 1950s Larissa, as did Dad on my grandfather’s garage 70 years ago.

Although the most seminal rebetiko songs were composed between the 1920s until the Second World War, new generations continue to return, play, interpret and listen to them. The songs resonate with new meanings, emotions and life worlds. Musicologist Julia Lundgren (2023) describes rebetiko in terms of catharsis, as living out emotions and thus being purged of them. To me, rebetiko is also an example of how music, here in the form of lyrics, scales and rhythms, can evoke collective social memories and shared emotional intensity. In Exarcheia last Spring, I was surrounded by 20-30 year olds who collectively experienced themes and emotions as deeply as did their great grandparents. Crisis, struggle, love and life on the road: eternal themes resurface in new contexts. For me, rebetiko culture has become a portal to both the Greek language, my ancestors and life in the Greek-Swedish diaspora.

References:

Holst, Gail (1975) Road to Rembetika Music of a Greek Sub-Culture – Songs of Love, Sorrow and Hashish. Evia: Denise Harvey Publisher.

Lundgren, Julia (2023) Rembetiko i Sverige Studier av en grekisk musikkulturs fortlevande i diasporan. Magisteruppsats: Linnéuniversitetet.

Text: Anna Gavanas, social anthropologist, author, and associate professor affiliated with Uppsala University. She also plays and sings in the music groups Thessaly Hifi and Meteora

*Tekes – Tekedes: In rebetiko songs, tekes refers to an informal and often illegal place for smoking hashish, which also served as a meeting place and a space for socializing among people on the margins of society. In that sense, it can be seen as a kind of “café” in the world of rebetiko, with a strong symbolic charge.