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Pizza Effect in Greek Realities: The Syrtaki Phenomenon

2022; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

10.2139/ssrn.4289310

1556-5068

I. V. Smirnova,

Contemporary and Historical Greek Studies

Often some elements of a particular national culture are perceived as its integral part, something primordial, ethnic. But sometimes key symbols acquire such popularity and significance only after they have been extracted from the mother culture, transformed or evaluated outside, and subsequently implemented in the original society, that is the so-called "pizza effect". For Greece, such a phenomenon is the syrtaki dance written by Mikis Theodorakis for the film “Zorba the Greek” in 1964 and which became a metonym for everything Greek, a symbol of Greek culture, first for external observers, and then for the Greeks themselves.