Greek Illustrated Journals and the ‘Popular’ (1912‒24): In Quest for a New Research Approach

This article is a first attempt to analyze a number of Greek popular journals from the first half of the twentieth century in the frame of cultural, media, and historical interrelations and its logical inherences and to investigate them as both autonomous objects of study and a particular form of press, media, and reading product. Starting with an overview of the state of the art, it argues that the journals analyzed, Ελλάς [Hellas] (1907–21), Εικονογραφημένος Παρνασσός [Illustrated Parnassos] (1910–23), Εικονογραφημένη [Illustration] (1904–24), and Μπουκέτο [Bouquet] (1924–46), should be seen as examples of a new media format that introduced a new form of documentation combining the dissemination of encyclopedic knowledge with popular entertainment, innovative forms of representation, and the extensive use of images.

Greek Illustrated Journals and the 'Popular' (1912-24): In Quest for a New Research Approach 'Periodicals of wide dispersion can be divided in general in two -albeit not always accurately -categories: in popular and elitist. The major criterion (for this distinction) constitutes the readership: while in older popular periodicals female readership prevails -and this is the reason why we could describe these journals as gossip rags -elitist journals are dominated by male readership.'1 Characterizations such as the one presented above, stated recently in a seminar paper on the history of the Greek Press, are still common practice in the discourse on popular journals of the twentieth century in Greece. Underlying this categorization -common also in other European countries -is a wide-ranging social hierarchization of culture and expressions of culture and a general dichotomy between 'low' or 'trivial' and 'high' or 'serious' culture.2 Many popular Greek journals of the twentieth century are often included in the first category.3 The consequence of such a classification borders on the neglect of and disregard for the popular periodical press in Greece, on the one hand, and indicates a scarcity of research and studies about this press in general, on the other.4 This is related to the fact that wider academic interdisciplinary debate exists regarding neither the popular print culture nor the periodical press as a distinct object of research, including general theoretical approaches or methodologies. This leaves the researcher with many problems and doubts, as well as a general confusion on fundamental questions about the material itself.5 Accordingly, overall debate is lacking regarding which periodicals should actually be considered 'popular', including criteria for such classification.6 Is it, instead, that content, related audiences, lay-out and design, and sales figures and 'popularity' of the journals on the Greek press market define this classification? In his bibliography on literary and art journals, Karaoglou specifically excludes 'so-called popular journals', while, nevertheless, admitting that, in terms of classification, these journals are the most problematic because they also publish popular foreign and Greek authors. See Charalampos Karaoglou, Περιοδικά λόγου και τέχνης 1901-1940[Literary and Art Periodicals, 1901-1940], 3 vols (Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 1996-2007, I, p. 4. In order to approach the question of what can be considered 'popular' in the framework of Greek popular periodicals of the first half of the twentieth century, the aim of this article is not to give an elaborated and profound overview on Greek popular journals or their idea of what should be considered 'popular' in the interwar period. My intention here is rather to carefully approach, in a first attempt, a very small number of popular Greek illustrated journals, all published in the first decades of the twentieth century, and analyze them in the frame of cultural, media, and historical interrelations, as well as logical inherences.7 Hence, I investigate them as both autonomous objects of study and a particular form of the press, media, and reading product.8 Exploring Greek popular journals as a form of media genre in the realm of the Greek press market requires asking, particularly, how editors and authors, but also buyers and readers, actively construct meaning when they create, buy, and read the journals. This entails the investigation of those journals as media of mass culture and, hence, a product of consumption, taking into account that these journals were published during a particular period of time, the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, a period of rapid political, socio-economic, and technological transformation. I thus argue that the journals analyzed here reflect notions of the 'popular' by somehow creating a new media format which differs from older ones because they are characterized by three basic features: a new form of documentation combining the dissemination of encyclopedic knowledge with popular entertainment, innovative forms of representation, and the extensive use of images. I thus hope, first, to initiate an interdisciplinary debate on the definitions, character, and forms of the Greek popular periodical press in a period decisive for the development of print culture. My second aim in this article is to attract attention to a periodical press that is part of the non-English speaking world of magazines characterized by Patrick Leary as the 'offline penumbra': non-digitized, little noticed and marginalized within Greece, and, at the same time, geographically perceived by many scholars outside of Greece as located 'at the peripheries' of Europe.9 Third, I intend to follow the recently voiced postulation to shift 'beyond the familiar cosmopolitan centers' and widen the primarily Western Eurocentric approach to the history of the periodical press in general.10

State of the Art
Recent media studies -usually drawing largely on Western Europe -have shown that since at least the beginning of the nineteenth century popular journals have evolved as significant agents of an ever advancing 'medialization of society' and played a decisive role in regional and national processes of identification, the transformation of knowledge and consumption in societies, and the development and establishment of intellectual public spheres. Still, popular Greek journals of the twentieth century are historical Greek philological and literary journals from the nineteenth until the mid-twentieth centuries initiated by the Library and Information Center of the University of Patras. The choice of journals reflects the interest in periodicals considered 'scientific, academic, and/or elite'. Since the programme is perceived as a tool for philological research on literature, the reason for including the journal Μπουκέτο seemed to be its subtitle Illustrated Literary Review, as stated in the programme produced by a 'group of scholars'.
have been utilized on only a very limited scale by researchers in Greece.16 While many of the journals are not at all or only partially digitized and often in low quality, archival material is scattered among various archives.17 Since popular periodicals were not seen as expressions of 'serious' or 'high' culture in Modern Greece, they were either never collected, or collected much later, by national institutions and state archives, and only a small number of individuals collect popular journals.18 This hierarchization in terms of cultural and historical value is also reflected in the journals' current accessibility, which is also an obstacle to research and a re-evaluation of popular journals as expressions of popular culture. Hence, data and information on the exact dates of release, publication, and closure of the journals in the existing historiography is often contradictory, while particularly statistics about total circulation and data on readership, audiences, and -since considering journals can also be considered a product of consumptiontarget-groups are lacking.

Greek Popular Journals and Greek Print Culture
Published under titles such as   were published periodically between 1902 and 1926 once or twice a week, or once a month.20 The choice of researched material is based on a combination of the common characteristics of content and date of publication, since all are considered journals of general interest or family magazines and are used (to a greater or lesser extent) for images and were all published in the first half of the twentieth century. Μπουκέτο is the only magazine which continues to be published after the period under research. Again, the periodicity depended also on economic and political developments, especially in periods of military conflict, as stated in Παρνασσός, which announced that, due to Greek mobilization in the Balkan Wars and the absence of writers, as well as personnel working in the printing offices, the journal would restrict its issue to only Saturday instead of Tuesdays and Saturdays.21 They were all published in Athens and issued in tabloid format. The first three journals, especially, largely employ visual material of all kinds, usually photographs, typically published on the front page but also arranged within the issues. On the other hand, Μπουκέτο, with different content and a latecomer in the Greek press market, only sporadically used photographs. Sales figures, as well as data on who actually read these journals, are as of the date of this article unavailable, but we know that they were sold mostly via subscription in Athens, Greece, and abroad, including the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, the Americas, Russia, Europe, and Australia, reflecting the spread of Greek communities outside the Greek borders.22 It is important to situate the aforementioned popular journals within the framework of Greek press history, as the decades before and after the turn of the nineteenth century signaled a 'golden era' for the Greek press market.23 Following developments in Western Europe, innovative printing techniques, such as photo-type setting and the highly productive rotary press system, opened new potential. Blackand-white as well as multi-colored illustrations, in addition to photographs, became easier and cheaper to produce and publish, while modern technologies and economic infrastructures helped to lower prices per piece.24 Greek printing enterprises adopted these new technologies rather quickly.25 This contributed to a wider dispersion of press products, although prices always depended on local and global economics.26 Nevertheless, the technological progress released, in any case, attractive and challenging opportunities in the field of public information and documentation.27 It can be assumed that literacy helped press products to reach out to an ever-growing audience. Foreigners were particularly impressed by the high number of newspapers and the attention given to the press in general. For example, William Miller, a historian and insightful specialist on Greece and the Balkans who visited Greece after the 1900s and later settled in Athens, declared that there 'is no other country where the press plays such an important part in the life of the people'.28 Although exact figures on literacy in Greece before 1927 are lacking, research suggests that, by the beginning of the twentieth century, at least forty to fifty per cent of the population in Athens was able to read.29 It would be misleading, however, to assume that only literate people 'read' the journals and had access to press products, including popular journals and magazines. We 22 See advertisements in Ελλάς (18 June 1917), 4, or a statement by the editor of Εικονογραφημένη commenting on the difficult economic situation and the shortness in material and as stating that the periodical had 1,500 subscribers even in ' Abyssinia, Madagascar and Australia', Εικονογραφημένη know that newspapers were not only bought by individual customers but also purchased by coffeehouses, which displayed them to a wider public. It is thus certain that, as stated by Miller, 'owing to the practice of sitting in cafés over a glass of water and reading the newspapers, the readers of a journal are far more numerous than its purchasers'.30 Besides, although sources refer usually to newspapers, we certainly know that these were often read out loud and discussed in coffeehouses, which were frequented, however, usually by a male clientele.31 This also seemed to be the case for popular journals. The correspondence between editors, authors, and subscribers or readers, published in various columns often titled 'Correspondence', 'Letterbox', or 'Carte Postal' makes clear that coffeehouses and clubs based in Athens as well in other regions of Greece and abroad also purchased journals and magazines and probably placed them at the disposal of the public.32 What seems to me decisive here, however, is that those journals attracted 'readers', not just because of their writing but, equally, because of their massive visual information, a point I return to later. That the audience consisted not exclusively of literate but also illiterate 'readers' who went through the journals turning the pages and simply looking at the numerous and diverse images is, in my mind, a significant factor when considering 'audience' and 'readership' of popular journals in the interwar period.

A New Media Format
Most striking when approaching these three journals is the immense and diverse range of topics, from general politics (including external and domestic), cultural and philosophical values, fashion, and theatre, to encyclopedic travelogues and serialized novels, but also snappish caricatures, instructions on moral behavior, and dance lessons on paper. In columns such as 'Everywhere and anything', 'Impressions of a Month', and 'Novelties of the Week' readers got a glimpse of current news and curios from Greece, Europe, and all over the world, learned about modern art, literary and fashion-trends, amused themselves with comments on theatre and entertainment, and read up on the rites and customs of 'foreign' and 'indigenous peoples'.33 How can this be understood as a new form of media product? It would be presumptuous to claim that it was the overwhelming content which characterized these journals as a new form of press product. While a number of earlier periodicals combined various fields of interest and importance, the wide range of topics echoed, to some extent, the world developed, produced, and surrounded by these magazines, a world that was constantly changing and growing in all areas of life. This world became more global and wide, opening a new window to an ever-growing world of information.34 This was at the same time reflected by an increasing interest by its inhabitants in information. They -like audiences in Western Europe but also the Ottoman Empire -demanded, especially in urban areas, new forms and sources of information about the changing world around them. The Greek market met this growing interest with a number of periodicals, which differed from the older, conventional format of Greek journals, although they nevertheless relied on established forms of communication. As such, they meant to please the reader's curiosity by taking great effort to impart information and knowledge, something periodicals had also been trying to achieve in the last two decades of the nineteenth century.35 The choice of topics played a decisive role. Alongside the serialized publication of novels of Greek and translated foreign writers, which made up a large part of the journal, colourful descriptions of unknown regions and their inhabitants, vivid accounts of imagined or more familiar places filled the pages of the journals.36 Accounts on Istanbul/Constantinople, Alexandria, Paris, and Vienna are numerous, as well as stories about regions and people perceived as 'Greek', particularly after the Balkan Wars. Here reports on the newly incorporated regions of Thrace, Macedonia, and Crete, their inhabitants, customs, traditions, and history not only shed light on the new citizens, but also contributed, via text and images, to their respective 'hellenization'.37 Article headings announced in short and catchy slogans to readers what they could expect to read, as in a one-sided article on Holy Mount Athos right after the Balkan Wars:

MOUNT ATHOS 'RES NULIUS' THREE ENVOY MONKS Interesting physiognomics -What they said to us -The constitution of the Holy Mountain Democracy is ready -Fears and characterizations38
Readers were now also guided to places of curiosity, which had been previously closed to them. Consequently, Εικονογραφημένη reported, with illuminating illustrations, drawn in detail and in a rather diverting way, on the construction of the new Athens prison, while both praising the architects as well as mentioning the great expectations raised by Greek society.39 Additionally, journals addressed on individual pages more specific readerships -most probably predominantly female -when, for instance, talking about the latest fashion in clothing, hairstyle, or headdress. At the same time, however, they presented themselves as mentors concerning issues of everyday experience, addressing elements of the middle-class culture of modernity: serialized columns on 'Varia' and '(Social) Tabaki and Sehopoulou, as consumers. This was reflected in small, as well as one-page, advertisements carefully located within the magazine that offered readers a window onto the global world of modern consumption. French beauty products lined up alongside offers by local dressmakers, next to ads from law and medical offices, while large images of new hotels, restaurants, and racecourses recently opened in Athens gave insight into the lives of the rich and high strata of Athenian society.41 Alongside the choice of topic, however, what seems decisive here was the entertaining way journals circulated news and information and the way periodicals presented encyclopedic knowledge. In a period of technological modernization and rapid political and social transformation, in order to increase participation in mass culture and consumption by growing populations, journals -perceived as a print and media product -had nevertheless to satisfy a new need for entertainment.42 Such processes of modernity also entailed that readers understood themselves more and more as consumers, searching for the joys of everyday life.43 Similar to trends in other parts of Europe, twentieth-century Greek popular journals answered this call by combining encyclopedic knowledge, moral instruction, and satirical criticism of society with well-directed entertainment. Greek journals drew immensely from the former traditions of the satirical press which flourished in Greece, affecting the Greek daily press of the nineteenth century as well.44 Hence they used simplified, vibrant, and true-to live depictions in their writings. Doing so, the articles generated easily interpretable representations of complex issues or instances of medical or technological issues, with the aim of editing and organizing a great deal of information as popular knowledge. Hence, Παρνασσός titled its regularly published articles on various medical issues 'Science for Everybody', as seen in the one-page article on 'Cholera and Disinfection'. 45 In a similar vein, functional articles about the newest technological inventions, such as the cinematograph, cameras, and the telegraph, and their use, as well as experiences with these new devices were published.46 They normally used a clear and intelligible version of Modern Greek, sometimes even the vernacular, and carefully approached a topic by addressing the readers' own experience in the matter, a calculated decision in contrast to the scholarly older forms of popular science in journals of the nineteenth century. For example, the article on the 'Secrets of the Cinematograph' started with: 'Now that everybody, young and old, has been caught up in the magic of cinema, there exists a well-justified curiosity about how these performances, which everybody so vividly views on the white screen in every dark hall of the country, were produced. '47 Periodicals often openly addressed their readers and their supposed curiosity about the latest events and rumors about the world in order to involve them directly in these accounts, while telling the story of interest as one yet to be 'discovered', not just by the author but by the audience itself. As Nikos Bakounakis has recently stated, for daily newspapers at the end of twentieth century Greece, the aim of a narration was not just limited to presenting information on a certain matter, but also to promoting information by telling a story as a detective novel.48 The article on the people of the former Ottoman province of Tripolitania, for example, started as following: 'Actually, who are these residents of Tripolitania, whose occupation has provoked the Italian-Turkish war and might put peace in the Balkan Peninsula in danger? Take a look at this actual dilemma, which nowadays is on everybody's lips and which Parnassos will attend to.' Contrary to nineteenth-century journals, these journals and the authors who engaged directly with the topics related them particularly to the fears, worries, passion, and excitement -generally speaking, to the sentiments -of its readership. Hence, popular journals addressed the readers' own emotions or experiences with the everyday, be it news about Mediterranean politics, products, and activities of mass consumption, such as dancing in the 'European way', or going to a cinema.
As already mentioned, journals also encouraged their readers to actively engage in the making of the journal itself. Following the example of daily Greek newspapers, readers were now asked to share with the journal their experiences regarding modern trends and products and with the audience by writing smaller articles or comments, or just posting brief bits of information on a variety of matters. Via contests about issues like 'What is the best reason for a rich Greek person to invest his or her money in Greece?' which asked readers to send in ideas, journals allowed their audiences to partake in their creation and composition.49 As such, readers figured prominently as informants on social events, especially in the peripheries and from the countryside, and letting other readers know that they also had participated. Hence, they directly incorporated a wide range of reader perspectives, including those of different writers, especially offering women new avenues towards participation in public discourse regarding a wide range of social and political issues. In my opinion, this is important, taking into account the fact that the journal had to sell. A participating readership could always be considered a group of buyers in a fast-growing and competitive press market.

The Role of Images
The proposition of these journals to invite readers to participate actively in their making was not only limited to written contributions. It was also extended to visual material, especially photographs, which leads us to the issue of images and their role in popular journals in relation to the creation of a new media format. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Greek press started to print photographs using half-tone production.50 Since 1899, the Athenian newspaper Ἑστία [Hearth] published photographs on the front page, followed by many Greek dailies like Εμπρός [Forward], Σκριπ [Scrip], and Το Άστυ [The City]. According to Mastoridis, photographs had become an 'indispensable element of the Greek daily' already by the beginning of the twentieth century.51 Photographs and images appeared, however, in rather small numbers, being used as either illustration or evidence.52 The monthly Εικονογραφημένη was the first to introduce photographs 48 Bakounakis, p. 99. 49 Εικονογραφημένη (3 January 1913), 9. 50 Important to note is that many newspapers established their own printing offices, including departments of stereotyping, zincography, and photo-engraving, since this technology was not easy, requiring special equipment and knowledge. Mastoridis,'Cutting',p. 350. 51 Mastoridis,Casting,p. 345. 52 Bakounakis claims that by 'the beginning of the twentieth century the photograph had already found its place in the Greek newspapers, adding to the optical function of the narration'. This implies a steady increase in the utilization of photography by daily Greek newspapers, which is however doubtful especially in the period after 1922. One reason could be increasing prices of paper and materials, the domestic economic crisis, and the loss of trained professionals, affecting the printing business. Bakounakis,p. 93. in 1902 as one of its major strategies for attracting readers.53 More than any other journal, Εικονογραφημένη presented a new form of popular illustrated journalism in the field of the periodical press. The journal based its success particularly on the high number and quality of the photographs displayed on every page of the journal.54 Like Εικονογραφημένη -but with fewer photos of lesser quality -Εικονογραφημένη and Εικονογραφημένη also employed photographs, but in contrast to Εικονογραφημένη, these figured prominently on the front page. They were mostly images of political, social, and cultural life, beautiful actresses and artists, and members of the Greek royal family, but also of other dynasties, as well as European and Greek politicians.55 Hence, like European journals, photographs were used particularly as eye-catchers on the front page addressing the curiosity of the potential reader, who probably became more and more used to this new form of visual technology. 56 Furthermore, in all journals, but more specifically in Εικονογραφημένη and Εικονογραφημένη, we typically find large two-page panoramas titled 'Panorama', 'Pinakotheque', or 'Salon' or just 'From Work and Life', usually at the centre of the magazine. As a new form of visual presentation, the exclusive display of images, often solely photographs and frequently framed by red printed edgings, consisted of a wide variety of themes and fields of interest.
Topics, areas, and regions are rather unsystematically compiled in a potpourri of photographic impressions rather than adhering to one photographic or visual narrative or serving as illustration for an article.57 The scenery often presented landscapes, city panoramas in Greece and abroad, spectacles, and locations of general pleasure, entertainment and excitement, such as zoological gardens, but also business scenes of market places, shops, and trade fairs.58 There were also numerous depictions of known and unknown athletes and artists, music associations, and school excursions, as well as many orientalist and staged pictures of both 'foreign' and 'familiar' ethnicities, which many readers probably already knew from postcards. 59 Since photographers had not yet initiated a rule regarding the signing and labelling of their photographs, the origin of the photograph is not known in many cases.60 Journals used, to a great extent, photographs from amateur photographers and 'personal collections' along with their own. Issues simply listed the motif related to a geographic or topographical area and the location depicted in the picture, as well as the name of the (amateur) photographer and his place of origin. Although these images were taken by individuals, as stated by the caption, they were often signed by known photo studios of the time. 61 Εικονογραφημένη and Εικονογραφημένη and, to a lesser degree, the weekly issue of Εικονογραφημένη, greatly encouraged their readers to send in their own photographs of any content. Similar to those in European and Ottoman journals, articles about military conflicts resulted in increased demand for textual and, especially, visual, information from both editors and audiences.62 In addition to official images from state institutions, the journals relied on and deliberately based their visual coverage of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, preceding the First World War in South Eastern Europe, on their audiences' contributions. Εικονογραφημένη persistently requested readers to send images from family members who were fighting or had been wounded or even killed.63 Hence, periodicals mostly published portrait photographs taken in studios before or after military service and distributed them uniformly throughout the magazine, accompanied by captions stating either the location of service, the state of health, or the date and place of death. 64 It is important to underline, however, that in addition to photographs, a variety of other images comprised the visual body of the journals presented in this paper. Εικονογραφημένη and Εικονογραφημένη regularly presented caricatures, drawings, and lithographs on their covers instead of photographs, while both journals frequently offered readers a page with caricatures on the last page of every issue.65 A mix of visual material was offered, likewise, within the issues. Especially, but not exclusively, columns such as 'Technological Progress' informed readers about news from nature, medicine, and technology, along with the simplified language and methods previously discussed. Extensive visual material also consisted of graphics, drawings, charts, and hand-drawn maps to illustrate and explain what written accounts would only complicate or were not able to illuminate.66 In such instances, it seems that photographs probably functioned as scientific evidence, while illustrations functioned mostly as explanation, reflecting the great demand for more information. But this also mirrored an abundant curiosity by certain sectors of society in areas that were either inaccessible to their readers or only gradually emerging into public attention and discussion.67 This increased use of visual material also signaled a certain transparency and openness towards readers in the journals' own operational practice, including the process of printing, production of photographic material, and methods of distribution.68 Rather than being comprised exclusively of photographs, the mix of visual material, including woodcut images, drawings, graphic illustrations, hand-drawn cartographic material, caricatures, and multicoloured depictions, as well as an increasing number of photographs, managed to keep readers attracted to the journal's content.
New forms of printing technology, such as photo-type setting, not only facilitated the use of multiple images on one page, but also supported new display formats by mixing different types of images and illustrations in photo-collage. One example is the two-page 'Pinakotheque of Parnassos', which merged several photographs of the Bulgarian tsar Ferdinand with the painting of a Byzantine emperor into one image.69 Layout and typography contributed substantially to this process by highlighting the illustrations integrated into the text in red, although they did not always connect directly with the topic of the article, though lithographs and photographs often helped convey specific political statements, messages, and goals. Hence, images played a major role not only in popularizing information and knowledge; they also contributed to the fact that the journals entertained the readers, functioned as attractive ways of grabbing readers' attention, and accustomed readers to a new way of seeing and, ultimately, reading.
Rather than thinking of textual innovations, novel methods, new forms of reader participation, and communication, an increased variety of visual materials, pictorial markers, and specific forms of typographical layouts as given by-products, they must be seen as expressions of the inherent logics of 'popular' illustrated journals as powerful press and media creations in a period of rapid political, socio-economic, and technological transformation at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Nicole Immig is a specialist on Modern Greek and Balkan History. Her research interests include the history of migrations, cultural and visual history of World War One and the history of the popular press in South Eastern Europe. While her PhD thesis, completed at the Humboldt-University of Berlin, concentrated on Muslims in Greece in the timespan from 1878-97 and their struggle between political and socioeconomic participation and emigration, she is currently engaged in exploring the visual and media history of the Balkan Front in World War One. From 2017 to 2019 she was Onassis Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern Greek History at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey. At the moment she is Interim Professor of South-Eastern European History at Justus-Liebig University of Giessen, Germany.