Political hymnography of the Greek National Schism (1915–22): The personal anthems of Eleftherios Venizelos and King Constantine I

This article approaches Greece’s Ethnikos Dichasmos (‘National Schism’, 1915–22) through the personal anthems of the conflict’s two opposing protagonists, Eleftherios Venizelos and King Constantine I. Drawing on George Th. Mavrogordatos’s Weberian analysis of the Schism as a contest between competing charismatic movements, the article traces how leader-centred songs became core mediums of political struggle – composed, performed, censored and re-recorded in step with the shifting fortunes of each faction. Particular emphasis is placed on the discography of these anthems in the United States and Istanbul, and on the censorship and propaganda that accompanied their promotion in the factional Greek-language press. The royalist anthem ‘O Aetos’ (‘The Eagle’), composed in 1916 by Spyridon Kaisaris with lyrics by Nikolaos Theofanidis, served as the official soundtrack of ‘Constantinian’ Athens; its contrafacta were continually updated to register revenge, exile and restoration. A long-standing uncertainty over the identity of the so-called ‘Hymn of Venizelos’ is here resolved for the first time: in the first half of 1917 two separate hymns were written for the ‘father of the fatherland’ – Kaisaris’s march ‘O Yios tou Psiloriti’ (‘The Son of Psiloritis’) and Kalomoiris’s popular anthem ‘Venizelos: Laiko tragoudi’, set to verses by Angelos Doxas. Placing these compositions side by side, the article shows how different musical idioms underpinned different political projects, and how each leader’s attitude towards his own anthem sharpened the ethical contours of the conflict. Evidence from the Greek-American press and recording industry further situates these hymns within a transnational arena of political communication. The article proposes ‘political hymnography’ as a productive analytical lens on the National Schism and, more broadly, on civil conflicts where personal anthems concentrate the moral claims, ideological divides and emotional investments of factional struggle.