Greece itself is female. Female imagery is rooted both in ancient times and in Christianity—from the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and peace, Minerva, who fought against Neptune and gained Athens (the capital of Greece), to the Virgin Mary. Most of all, Greece’s imagery is a female warrior fighting for justice: liberty. The national anthem of Greece, written by the poet Dionysius Solomos (1798-1857), is titled Anthem for Liberty; in it, Greece and liberty are almost the same entity—a woman. Greece’s feminine character is divided into two: one glorious and heroic, the other suffers. In poetry, songs, and painting, Greece appears either as a pretty young woman dressed in white or as an older woman dressed in black. The images coexist in work representative of war. As for Greek women, they look like Greece: they are glorious fighters or those who support the fighters and mourn their loss.
In the imagery of the Greek Revolution of 1821-1828 that led to the founding of the Greek state, Greece is dressed in white when she is leading the fighters—her sons or her brothers—into glorious battles; when in distress, she is dressed in black and is usually desperately alone. In the Anthem for Liberty, Greece went alone to the Great Powers asking for help and came back alone; all doors were closed. In fact, Greece is a little country surrounding by foreign nations, most of whom have at times been hostile. Its origin, alphabet, and language differ from those of its neighbors: to the east the Turks are Muslim, and to the north its neighbors are Christian Slavs and Bulgarians and Muslim Albanians. Thus, all Greeks, men and women, have at times had to fight. Kostis Palamas (1862-1943), one of the best-known and best-loved Greek poets of the twentieth century, wrote in "Daughter of Limnos" that it is not shameful when a woman leads male fighters because in ancient times there were militant goddesses, and Nike, the goddess of victory, was a virgin.
There are many popular songs about the women of Souli, the Souliotisses, who fought for their freedom in the prerevolutionary years. Many of the heroines of the Greek Revolution are depicted in paintings. In their portraits, Manto Mavrogenous is well dressed and pretty, as is Bouboulina, forty-five years old with six children. Manto Mavrogenous appears with a rose in her hair, and Bouboulina is armed and determined in her ship; her right hand is pointing or indicating an order (Historia tou Ellinikiou Ethnous, 282). This glorious and heroic imagery is accompanied—as always—by one who suffers. In Eugene Delacroix’s Massacre of Chios, there are three women in the foreground: one dead, a young one leaning at the shoulder of a man, and an older woman who looks anxious and terrified (Historia tou Ellinikou Ethnous, 245). In other paintings, Turks slaughter women who hold their children in their arms, trying to protect them.
In the 1940s, Greece was afflicted with war and occupation. The participation of women during this crucial period was frequent and of vital importance to mother Greece. During the Albanian war (1940-1941) when the Greeks fought Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italy, the women of Mountain Pindos carried ammunitions to the soldiers because there were no roads and no mules or donkeys. They were depicted in the paintings of both well-known and unknown artists (Baharian and Antaios 1986, 29, 41). At the same time, the singer Sofia Vembo—known as the singer of Victory—sang the still-popular song "Go on Children of Greece Who Fight for Us on the Mountains."
During Nazi occupation (1941-1944) in one of the most famous songs of the Greek resistance, a partisan says, "My mother, sweet Greece, the partisans of the National Liberation Front would light for you the candle of honor and freedom" (To antartiko tragoudi, 43). The honor of Greece was lost because of occupation. The only way for Greece to regain its dignity and accordingly for the Greek people to be honored was to fight for their country’s liberation. At this point, it was socially acceptable for women to join both the civilian and the armed resistance. Although Greek women had no political rights, it was acceptable during the occupation for them to enter the public arena and participate in demonstrations and battles against occupied forces. Greece was in danger, and all Greek people—men and women—had to fight for its and, consequently, their own freedom.
Following World War II, during the Greek Civil War (1946-1949), the children of mother Greece were deeply divided. The right wing accused left-wing women of being dishonorable and prostitutes because their main focus was on political issues rather than solely on their families. When left-wing women stood in front of the firing squad, they sang the same song that Souli-otisses had sung a hundred years earlier: "a fish could not live on land nor a flower on sea and Souliotisses could not live without freedom" (Papadouka 1981, 79). These women believed that they were fighting for their country’s liberation from English and U.S. occupation, and they were determined as they faced execution to prove that they were real Greek women, real daughters of Greece.
