<1>What unites Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, a Victorian British novelist and poet, and Calliope Kypriadou,(1) a nineteenth-century Greek female translator and educationist, is not only the author–translator relationship, but also, quite importantly, their life. A life which illustrates society’s expectations placed upon women, on the one hand, and women’s tenacity and attempt to break the chains of dependency and effect change, on the other. Although these two women lived in different countries and under different conditions, they were both expected to comply with certain gender roles and norms which they wished to challenge and transgress. They had a consciousness of self, of being treated differently because of their sex, and they desired to act freely. They shared a strong craving for agency, personal fulfilment, self-expression, and self-determination.
Weaving the Threads of Change: The Woman as Writer and as Translator
<2>Dinah Craik was a prolific Victorian author who earned a living from the publication of her works ever since she was nineteen years old. Craik was born on 20 April 1826 in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. Her father was a well-educated Irish clergyman, and her mother was a teacher at a small school. The family moved to London in 1840 upon the father’s decision and when the mother died in 1845, the father abandoned Craik and her two younger brothers leaving them destitute (Showalter 8). Yet, by that time, Craik had received a good education, and she had studied modern and classical languages. This enabled her to survive the crisis and support herself financially. Her family situation, as Showalter rightfully claims, “released her creative drives, propelling forcefully into a life and career for which her intellectual interests, her introspectiveness, and her discomforts with the female role had prepared her” (9). Having discovered the satisfaction offered by self-dependency, Craik continued to work and earn her own money even after she married, much to the objections of her husband.
<3>Craik believed in women’s capability of becoming self-sufficient and opposed the stereotypical notion of women’s passivity. She suggested that more space and opportunities be offered to women for pursuing education and a career. In her words, it was time “to counteract the creed of feminine subservience and blind obedience, to make the woman man’s help and not his hindrance” (“About Money” 24). This demanded that women be “taught to claim their real ‘rights’ and exercise their best ‘female franchise’—freedom to stand on their own feet, and, be they single or married, to take their affairs into their own hands” (24). Craik was so confident in her role as a cultural agent and active citizen that she wanted other women to follow the path she had decided to lead herself. Thus, it comes as no surprise that she kept stressing the significance of financial independence to a woman’s life: “To be able to earn money, or, failing that, to know how to keep it, and to use it wisely and well, is one of the greatest blessings that can happen to any woman” (26–27). She urged other women to “quit … the safe negativeness of a private life” (“A Woman’s Thoughts” 63) and tried, through her writings, to show that women could survive without relying on men. They could instead “if they wished, depend on each other” (Showalter 14). The concept of self-dependency helped Craik promote women’s collectivity and a consciousness of common interest that they could develop through their position in society and the roles they performed even if they were not ready to conceptualize bonds of sisterhood. To this end, she encouraged the creation of a community of female readers, calling them to “explore the power of female relationships stemming from shared goals and faith” (Stenson Newnum 310). However, a woman’s entrance into the world of letters, a traditionally male-dominated world, was not met with approval by all. Thus, Craik did not denounce all of society’s ideals, despite leading “a much more unconventional existence than many of her female contemporaries” (Foster 41) and despite pointing to a life women could live without losing themselves “in the exquisite absorption of home” (63). As underlined by Showalter, Craik wrote “for ‘novel-readers, pure and simple’” (7). She knew fiction could influence their ideas, thoughts, and self-conceptions; she did not mean to disrespect their values or Christian beliefs.
<4>Craik and her work appealed to Calliope Kypriadou, a nineteenth-century Greek translator, who decided to translate A Noble Life into Greek. The translation was published in Athens in 1885, under the title Μια ευγενής ύπαρξις(A Noble Person). Five years later, in 1890, a new translation produced by Calliope Kypriadou was released in Athens. The title was Απομνημονεύματα ενός δυστυχούς (Memoirs of a Poor Man) and, based on the information provided on the cover title, it was a novel written by Craik. Nevertheless, both the preface accompanying the translation and the actual text are the same as those published in 1885. This leads to the belief that it must be a revised version or a new edition of the first translation coming out under a new title and, perhaps, by a different publishing house (there is no information regarding the publisher in the 1890 edition). Considering that a positive review followed the first translation in 1885, it is likely that the success of the latter led to a second publication. As for Kypriadou, the only thing known is that she was the headmistress of a girls’ school in Patissia, Athens, founded in 1871 by the Φιλεκπαιδευτική Εταιρεία (Society for the Promotion of Education and Learning).(2) Despite all efforts made, no other information could be found. This could be ascribed to document loss and destruction and/or to inconsistent record-keeping practices; however, it could also indicate that women in nineteenth-century Greece were assigned an even lower status than that of their male counterparts. Although several Greek women were deliberately involved in translation, their work was hushed and/or ignored along with personal details regarding their life histories. And though some information can be retrieved about women who belonged to upper classes and elite merchant families, there are still many women about whom nothing is known. Certainly, this is not exclusive to female translators; however, considering that Greek women hardly made it to the history books or anthologies,(3) this omission of reference and/or lack of information can be read as gendered. For, despite the fact that Greek women lived in an era characterized by constant turmoil, and it could be contended that conditions could not allow for their visibility, they contributed to the struggle for national independence and to multiple facets of life, counteracting such an argument. As Gerda Lerner rightfully notes, “women’s participation in general revolutionary movements did not bring them closer to advancing their own rights and interests [because] their male colleagues and comrades considered their demands at best marginal and secondary and did not act on them” (279).
<5>All of that would start to change when some key influential male figures who played a vital role in what they called the “rebirth” of the Greek nation began to highlight the role women could play in the newly founded Greek State.(4) The exposure of Greeks to the ideals of the Enlightenment yielded fruit in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries, leading to the formation of the Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment(5) (Dimaras “Greek Romanticism” 26) and to the Greek Renaissance reaching its peak. Within this context, Rhigas Velestinlis, one of the fathers of the Greek War of Independence, and Adamantios Koraes, an eminent and hugely influential humanist scholar, addressed and pointed to the negative impact of discrimination and structural inequalities against women in society. They pointed to the interdependence of women’s education and the revival of Greek society,(6) and they stressed that women could contribute to the formation of a national conscience and the intellectual renaissance of the Greek people (Vranousis 374, 386–387; Dimaras “Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment” 19–22; Zacharia 9–10; Augustinos 169–200). In this light, they favored cultural change that could be achieved through the reformation of education and the opportunities given to women to be educated and through the circulation of enlightened thought by means of translation. Koraes expressed many times his belief in the contribution of translation to the enrichment of modern Greek language and literature (Dimaras “Greek Romanticism” 19). Rhigas also shared his views on translation, which he saw as a creative activity for translators and readers alike (1790; preamble to readers). For them, knowledge was a vehicle for social and individual transformation that could also enable the construction of a new Greek identity.
<6>In search of this identity, in the formative years that followed the end of war, Greeks turned to both religion and their classic inheritance, struggling to reconcile conflicting impulses—tradition versus progress. That is, the two pillars on which Greek national identity was based were Orthodox Christianity and the ancient Hellenic cultural heritage (Livanios 2008; Mackridge 2012). This “selective tradition” determined the dominant socio-cultural norms and conventions in women’s lives (Kitsi-Mitakou and Misiou 91, 99–103). At the same time, the contact of Greeks with the political and philosophical thought of Europe led to attention being placed on women and to leading male figures articulating the need for a redefinition of women’s role and position in society. They viewed women as moral agents that could help preserve the real, national identity by rearing and educating the young and instilling in them a sense of patriotism (Varikas 97–103). Women were thus allowed and expected to engage with activities outside the domestic realm, reflecting the belief held and expressed a few decades ago by Mary Wollstonecraft who advocated that her peers could be excellent mothers and wives, as well as agents fulfilling various tasks in both the public and private sphere (1792). This did not mean, though, that they could fully access the public domain or that they (could) enjoy(ed) all rights and privileges men were entitled to. The long-promoted model of womanhood mirrored the influences of both their classic inheritance and Christianity. Piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity were core virtues fundamental to the Christian ethos of a woman. Chastity, loyalty, generosity, selflessness, and self-restraint were also virtues that a Greek woman should possess following the example set by Penelope, wife of Odysseus, in Homer’s Odyssey.
<7>However, it was the so-called women’s “sacred mission” to raise Greece’s future citizens in alignment with the dominant national idea that created a hybrid, free space in which they could act as subjects who performed their duties, acting and making decisions on their own. And, though their position in society did not enable them to deviate easily from the inscribed social and cultural roles, they made use of this space gaining insight about themselves and developing “a sense of sisterhood and an autonomous definition of strategies and goals” which they believed “could ameliorate their conditions as the mothers, wives and homemakers of this nation state [sic]”. At the same time, they were able to envision an alternative form of female citizenship and “alternative cultural policies and acts” through which they thought that as individuals, as free citizens of the modern Greek State, they “could ameliorate … the condition of their nation and their state” (Tzanaki 4).
<8>Unsurprisingly, within this framework the ancient Greek heritage and Christian faith were closely tied to modern Greeks’ self-image. Thus, if Greek women translators’ activities were cloaked with the new spirit that formed and was formed by the “Helleno-Christian idea,”(7) they could promote their causes. The intellectual rebirth of the Greek people envisioned by some enlightened male voices of the nineteenth century was a goal also shared by these women who pointed to the priority of educating the female population as it would enable the undertaking of tasks in the public sphere that, in turn, would contribute to national development. Under the guise of common good, they could engage with intellectual activity and thus mitigate their social isolation and cultural exclusion. Rhigas, Koraes and other progressive intellectuals had paved the way for a considerable number of Greek women who began to translate foreign works into Greek, write their views on translation, produce their own literary works, and from 1845 onward founded and contributed to the first Greek women’s periodicals (Kitsi-Mitakou & Misiou 91).
Inculcating Rebellious Feminine Propriety
<9>The lack of original works written in Greek and the need to enrich the domestic literature and cater to the needs of a growing readership were underlined by most enlightened figures in nineteenth-century Greece. Considering that original female writing —writing for and by women— was regarded with suspicion, Greek women engaged first with the translation of Western works into Greek that would allow them, as most of the women translators studied asserted, to contribute to the cultivation and education of the Greek people, which was vital to their intellectual rebirth (Misiou, forthcoming). Greek women formed a crucial part of the then-new reading public and novels were among the choices made by female translators in the 1800s.
<10>This was not accidental at all as novels were considered a more appropriate genre for the female readership. The experiences shared by the heroes and mainly heroines of the novels, the feelings and emotions evoked, the situations unraveled, everything contributed to Greek female readers developing a very special relationship with this literary genre. It was common belief that women’s nature explained their inclination to reading novels and short stories. But it was more than that. As argued by Eleni Varikas, novel-reading in the nineteenth century contributed to an expansion of Greek women’s individuality (“The Ladies’ Revolt” 154). The same holds true for translating. Engaging with translation helped Greek women foster an assertiveness, grounded in the ability to see themselves in a new light. This may justify their insistence on translating novels and their decision to defy the reactions sparked by the growing cultural influence of western mores and manners that conservative influential men thought led to a questioning of traditional values and social structures and to the corruption of Greek society. From the late 1830s to the early 1840s, along with the rise of novel-reading and translating, many articles were published in journals that tried to warn Greeks against the perils of immoral models of behavior and lifestyle being introduced to society.(8) Greek women were strongly advised “not to imitate foreign women, to avoid their vanity of beauty and their embellishments and try to safeguard the Hellenic character and keep it intact, for this was the most glorious inheritance that [they could] transmit to [their] children” (“Upbringing and Pedagogy” 51). As Demetra Tzanaki emphasizes, “[r]omanticism, uncontrolled emotions and hypersensitivity were regarded as catastrophic for the Hellenides’ [sic] authentic character” (52).
<11>But the Greek women translators under investigation believed fervently in the importance of introducing western works and ideas to Greek readers, and in playing the role of agents and mediators of change. That is, translation became a ground for exploration but also for resistance to cultural conventions and social norms. It was a vehicle for effective criticism of dominant ideologies that allowed Greek female translators of the period to challenge long-held practices that deprived women of certain basic rights and stripped them of agency. Translating was seen as a form of covert activism. The paratexts surrounding their translations reflect their protofeminist goals that are consciously merged with a pseudo-conservative discursive approach (Misiou, forthcoming).
<12>The Greek women translators on which this paper draws wanted their translations to act as vehicles for readers’ familiarization with texts of European literature, and as tools for spreading knowledge from various fields and educating Greek girls and women who comprised the target audience. In this light, Kypriadou Calliope self-consciously selected a work written by a woman, something that was highlighted in the very first lines of the preface to her translation. In her words, “this educational book, appropriate for the whole family” (δ΄), was written by “an eminent British female writer, widely known in the literature world by means of her many books and publications, and especially thanks to her novel John Halifax, Gentleman” (γ΄). Kypriadou thus appeared to have been familiar with Dinah Maria Mulock Craik and her work. She was actually the first to introduce Craik to the Greek public. Being aware of the scarcity of Greek books with moral lessons that are pleasing to the heart (γ΄), as she noted, she translated Craik’s A Noble Life, a novel in which a disabled hero is placed at the core of the narrative enabling Craik to radically explore nineteenth-century attitudes to disability, family, and the importance of living a worthwhile life. The production of translations that would provide ethical instruction and amusement was one of the motives that triggered most Greek women’s translatorial agency and defined the goal of their work. Within this context, Kypriadou’s choice was carefully thought-out and justified.
<13>Based on a review published in the notable Greek periodical Evdomas (Εβδομάς / Week) in 1885, that is, in the same year that Kypriadou’s translation came out, it seems that her intentions were successfully fulfilled rather than missed. As the anonymous critic stressed, “the novel Μια ευγενής ύπαρξις offered by erudite and cultured Calliope Kypriadou should be read by all Greek families” (585). Considering the time and debate around the need for and importance of women to be educated and participate in social actions, the positive review about Kypriadou’s work is very significant. Equally notable is the fact that the critic commended her profound knowledge and skills (585). Writing and publishing reviews about Greek translations performed by women was quite rare, let alone praising reviews and comments.
<14>Kypriadou’s decision to avoid adopting a radical position must have contributed to her public recognition and acceptance of her work. Kypriadou underlined in the preface the importance of building a moral character, encouraging women to consider Christian ethical teachings (δ΄). Her views can be explored within the context of domesticity and Christian Orthodoxy that framed Greek women’s roles and activities the way Christian Catholicism did in the West in the late nineteenth century. Similar to Christian feminists who believed that God created women equal to men and demanded women enjoy the same rights as men (Hause and Kenney 12), Kypriadou was of the belief that Greek women should fight for equality in opportunities and rights. This was openly expressed also by the Greek female editors and contributors to women’s periodicals who were allies to the cause of Kypriadou and that of other Greek women translators. Leading a life shaped by the Christian principles and values did not mean that women should continue to silently accept the prejudices directed against them. As argued in the feminist periodical Thaleia,(9) women were “neither angels nor demons … but equal associates and partners to men” (Lazaridou 3). Thaleia promoted a vision of women as equal to men, guiding them to a new understanding for themselves. Greek women editors and contributors to periodicals appealed to the Christian doctrine that “before God no one is … subjugated, male or female” (Leontias 3). They pointed to a female way of being and experiencing the world framed by Helleno-Christianity but going beyond the constraints of patriarchy.
<15>Quite importantly, Greek women’s periodicals contributed to “enhancing both individual struggles, by hosting women’s translations and literary works” and to “collective ones, by helping women realize the new social roles they could attain and play in the Greek community” (Kitsi-Mitakou and Misiou 93). Kypseli,(10)Thaleia, Eurydice,(11) and Efimeris ton Kyrion (The Ladies’ Journal)(12) were among the periodicals that played a vital role in bringing about change in Greek women’s lives. They were owned and edited by women, hosted articles and translations written by and for women, and directly addressed the woman-question, framing it as a human rights issue. These periodicals offered sites for women to legitimize themselves as sources not only of moral power but also of knowledge, allowing them to share experience and goals. The opening editorial of Eurydice “mirrored the aims of Greek women reformists, that is, the intellectual rebirth of their sisters through the Greek Orthodox principles that would lead to national greatness”(Ktena-Leontias, qtd. in Kitsi-Mitakou and Misiou 94). This veiled discourse tinted with Christian overtones reflected Greek women’s decision to perform subservience to transform their lives and society.
<16>Greek women translators, editors and contributors to periodicals used the space offered (paratexts to their translations) and the space created by themselves (women’s periodicals) to articulate a public voice and make themselves seen. Kypriadou used her address “to dear readers”, which prefaces her translation, as a means to claim an authentic voice, an authentic self that could define its own creativity and interrogate authorship, authority, and identity the way feminist translators would do a century later (Santaemilia 61). She challenged the position to which both translators and women have historically been put, being viewed as “the weaker figures in their respective hierarchies: translators are handmaidens to authors, women inferior to men” (Simon 1). To this end, Kypriadou too adopted discursive strategies that would allow her to carefully express her subjectivity, while challenging rigid gender boundaries. She thus employed the conventional topos of modesty through the rhetorical device of the “excuse because of mental weakness (excusatio propter infirmitatem)” (Genette 207–208) and referred to her language inadequacy and lack of knowledge that did not permit her to offer a “better” translation to the Greek public (δ΄). Similar to other Greek women translators of the period, she asked for leniency and forgiveness and tried to diminish the significance of her work as this would allow her to conceal her true intentions. Sharing their anxieties about the lack and/or inadequacy of skills compared with the skills of the author facilitated Greek women translators to exhibit proper conduct. Hence, it is hardly surprising that they constantly referred to themselves as “humble, pious daughters,” evoking the figure of masculine authority and of feminine modesty. A strategy that also reflects their masterful and self-conscious assimilation of the rhetoric of morality. As Robinson underlines, the rhetoric of morality “tak[es] its authority from religion, from God and his church, and thus impos[es] upon its user a conflicted superiority that is rhetorically grounded in humility” (154). This also correlates with women being considered as innately more moral than men, and thus as capable of raising and educating the nation’s youth—a narrative endorsed by the conservative patriarchal Greek society of the time.
<17>Within this context, most of the nineteenth-century Greek women translators studied expressed their initial reluctance to appear in print or, as inferred from the paratexts to their translations, this is what they had to do to prove their compliance with the societal definition of their gender roles which excluded the possibility of intellectual autonomy and creative activity and denied women’s ability to contribute to progress through the application of their minds. What Lerner notes about writing women holds true also for translating women:
[W]orking prior to the recognition that women might be capable of participating as autonomous thinkers in the public discourse, [writing/translating women] had to remove three obstacles before their voices could be heard at all: 1) that indeed they were the authors of their own work [co-authors of the target text produced]; 2) that they had a right to their own thought; 3) that their thought might be rooted in a different experience and a different knowledge from that of their patriarchal mentors and predecessors. (47)
While addressing these obstacles and in their attempt to gain readers’ trust and ensure further protection against those who might oppose their decision to enter print, almost all Greek women translators of my research project emphasized the crucial role played by the father, brother, husband, or even God in their decision to engage with translation. Kypriadou referred to obeying God’s command, implying that she could not go against His will; right after Craik’s name and the title of the book, the phrase “Γεννηθήτω το θέλημά Σου” (Thy will be done) appears on the title page of the translation produced by Kypriadou. It can be inferred that for women to be able to assert the right to a voice of their own, reference to an authority figure, preferably a male one, was indispensable. Kypriadou and the other Greek women translators thus presented themselves as not powerful enough to defy God’s word or men’s advice and resist their encouragement, subtly subverting the practices that had rendered them invisible in the first place and using them to their advantage without, ostensibly, disregarding and violating codes of proper female conduct. This strategy enabled them to strengthen their efforts for self-expression. At the same time, the attention Greek women drew to acting according to God’s will and to being supported by men, together with the apologetic tone for the daring undertaking and their self-effacement, permitted them to highlight their translatorial agency, while camouflaging their assertiveness and claim for authorial agency. For, my research shows that Greek women of the period were not mere amateurs of translation; rather, similar to women writers before them and in their time, “once the formalities of admitting their inferiority had been satisfied, they felt freed to prove their strength and talent and individuality” (Lerner 52). Far from offering a literal translation of the source text, they intervened whenever necessary, making changes that were closely tied to their teloi—that is, their personal goals and motivation (Baker and Chesterman 21; Chesterman 17).
<18>Greek women translators therefore tried to undermine their potential and ability to translate literary works, mostly for the sake of appearance, and in their attempt to ensure readers would accept what they were provided with, without criticizing the translation strategies adopted. Nonetheless, Kypriadou and most of the nineteenth-century Greek female translators studied signed their translations using the “title” of translator together with their name, showing that they wanted to “get noticed, admitted and earn a place in the social order” (Bourdieu “Homo Academicus” 481). Naming could define the boundaries of the field—that “network of objective relations … between positions” (Bourdieu “The Rules of Art” 231)—and affect the status of members and their position(s) within it. In turn this could lead, on the one hand, to a redistribution of forms of capital possessed up until then solely by male occupants and, on the other, to a change in the power relations between them. The boundaries between the private and the public could be transgressed, and women could enter arenas that were previously male dominated. A telos shared by the Greek female translators examined was women’s access to full rights, their emancipation. They wanted to enter the public sphere, shape an identity of their own and change their life. Both Greek women’s translatorial work and the emergence of women’s periodicals laid the ground for the rise of feminist awareness and the development and growth of feminist consciousness in Greece, enhancing the conditions for women’s agency and empowerment. Informed by Lerner, and based on the research I have carried out, it could be argued that the feminist consciousness they built consisted of:
(1) the awareness that women belong to a subordinate group and that, as members of such a group, they have suffered wrongs; (2) the recognition that their condition of subordination is not natural, but societally determined; (3) the development of a sense of sisterhood; (4) the autonomous definition by women of their goals and strategies for changing their condition; and (5) the development of an alternate vision of the future. (274)
The changes advocated by Greek women translators were further promoted by Callirrhoe Parren,(13) founder and editor of The Ladies’ Journal, who put forward Greek women’s concerns and demands, prioritizing and legitimizing women’s emancipation. In the introductory article to the sixth-anniversary issue, Parren reminded readers that among the tasks of The Ladies’ Journal was “to raise its voice and fight against women’s violated rights. To turn whole libraries upside down in search of historical arguments in favour of our [women’s] sex” (“Sixth Year” 1). Having the support of several Greek women writers, she entered into dispute with all men who opposed women’s vision for emancipation and with Emmanuel Rhoides(14) who vehemently reacted to women’s writing at the end of the nineteenth century. The article he wrote under the derogatory title “Αι γράφουσαι Ελληνίδες” (Greek Women Scribblers) reveals that Rhoides did not grant them the title of writers. Rhoides suggested women wrote “about needlework and cooking,” stressing they were unable to address public matters. To further support his claim, he cited the Chinese saying, “if the hen begins to crow like a cock, kill it immediately,” and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s misogynist belief that “only two careers are open to women, that of a housewife and that of a harlot” (2). Parren’s response to Rhoides’s critique was to call women to “defeat him thoroughly,” urging them to prove “he’s history” (“Rhoides” 202).
<19>In a bold statement that would be congruent with the views held by Parren and Greek women translators and reflected her trust in women’s capabilities and leading role in the intellectual life of a society, Craik noted that
in literature [women] own no … boundaries; there we meet men on level ground—and, shall I say it?—we do often beat them in their own field. We are acute and accurate historians, clear explanators of science, especially successful in imaginative works, and … we can write as great a poem as any man among them all. Any publisher’s list, any handful of weekly or monthly periodicals, can testify to our power of entering boldly on the literary profession, and pursuing it wholly, self-devotedly, and self-reliantly, thwarted by no hardships, and content with no height short of the highest. (“A Woman’s Thoughts” 51)
Parren would agree with Craik when the latter stated with emphasis that women “are certainly independent agents, and all [their] life long [they] are accountable only, in the highest sense, to [their] own souls, and [their] Maker” (“A Woman’s Thoughts” 26). From the 1870s onward, more women in Greece too would openly express their reluctance to conform to the regulations constructed by society and imposed upon them “as to what is proper for [women] to do, and what not” as Craik herself would also argue for her peers (26). However, Parren and other influential women in her circle believed Greek women needed first to provide themselves with the opportunity to develop mind and soul, be confident and courageous, and then go on to make more radical claims. They maintained that, in times of change, “moderation” is safer. Thus, similar to Craik who did not support the women’s suffrage movement (Stenson Newnum 309), the nineteenth-century Greek women translators, editors and writers studied refrained from claiming the right to national suffrage hoping to dispel men’s fears of women’s emancipation. At least, this was the situation up until the 1870s; because feminist awareness began to rise and by the end of the nineteenth century, Greek women had become aware of the role they could play as social and political agents, as carriers of cultural and linguistic values (Varikas “The Ladies’ Revolt” 108). Thus, from the last years of the century onward, political equality and political rights were also added to the agenda. Seeing other women in Europe obtaining the right to vote, Greek women’s discontent grew—claiming full access to political and civil rights was no longer an option, but a necessity.
<20>Female agency was necessary and nineteenth-century Greek women who had a public voice made sure to promote the works of women translators and writers, and to work towards providing their peers with opportunities for (self-)development. They had created the space to represent themselves as autonomous translating and writing subjects by reading other women, embracing their ideas, and introducing their work to female readers through their translations. They were awakened to their individuality, which they were able to express through the powerful means offered to them, that is, translating and writing. Their conscious choice to translate works written by women can be seen as an attempt to cause ruptures to the norm of subordinate female translators rewriting the work(s) of dominant male authors, but it can also be seen as part of their dedicated efforts for transition to a new type of Greek woman in a new type of Greek society. A type of woman that would not be merely taught “the art of living” as Koraes had suggested (qtd. in Bouilly 1820: ιστ΄–ιζ΄) but would receive a well-rounded education that would allow her to participate actively in public life; in turn, this would enable her to contribute to the realization of the nation’s struggles and quests while constructing a new identity in alignment with her protofeminist claims that were cast in terms of ‘rights’. The views held by the nineteenth-century Greek women translators examined echoed those expressed by Craik who, in 1858, strongly suggested that “instead of bringing up … young girls with the notion that they are to be wives, or nothing … we could instil into them, that above and before all, they are to be women [sic] women, whose character is of their own making, and whose lot lies in their own hands” (“A Woman’s Thoughts” 344–345). Even though men were still hesitant to support women’s agency and their development of social roles outside the domestic hearth, the idea that women would design their life trajectories on their own was expressed and endorsed by most Greek women who started to think of themselves as a community, a women’s community whose members shared common experience as mothers, wives, daughters, homemakers, and in some cases also teachers, and the desire for intellectual advancement that was associated with a model of alternative womanhood.
Taking the Center Stage on Their Own Terms
<21>The long-standing silence to which Greek women were relegated and the societal norms to which they were expected to adhere and affected their life are echoed in a poem written by Aganiki Mazaraki (1838–1892), published after her death. Through this poem, Mazaraki urged women to “[s]ay nothing that society may hear / [and] hide [their] inspiration in the depths of [their] soul,” asking them never to forget “[they] are always on stage” and need “[a]lways wear [their] masks” (Tarsouli 25–26, qtd. in Tzanaki 53). For centuries, Greek women consciously acted the role(s) prescribed for them by their society and culture. They wore their masks, as Mazaraki mentions, and silently performed the tasks assigned to them. But “the pattern alter[ed] and beg[a]n to crack by the end of the 19th century, directly as the result of women’s raised feminist consciousness” (Lerner 282).
<22>Nineteenth-century Greek women translators created translational and transnational connections and, along with Greek women editors, periodical contributors, and writers, they participated in intellectual circuits that increased their engagement with women’s and feminist movements and facilitated their shaping a new identity. As Parren claimed in her address to the International Congress on Women’s Rights that took place in Paris, “the formerly ignorant [Greek] woman felt the urge towards progress and education” (“Nineteenth-century Greek Women” 3). They could conceptualize a society in which they would not be excluded—a society in which male dominance could be subjected to criticism and shaken to the core. As noted by Simon, women historically “have translated in order to build communication networks in the service of progressive political agendas and in the creative renewal of literary traditions” (2); and this applies also to the case of Greek female translators in the nineteenth century. They had developed a sense of personal empowerment and had identified their “ability to exert power in an intentional way” (Buzelin 6); they were aware of the power of their agency as translators and as women and sought ways to liberate themselves. They were determined to unlock their potential and power and perform as agents of change, making conscious and targeted choices. Much like women in seventeenth-century Britain and France who were pioneers of feminist thought, the nineteenth-century Greek women translators studied also realized that their “subordination was neither natural nor divinely ordered” and this enhanced their wish to “challenge the claim of women’s intellectual inferiority [and] demand institutionalized education for girls equal to that for boys” (Lerner 136), while advocating for their inclusion in all aspects of life. The experience of translatorship as empowering enabled them to subvert patriarchal ideas by pointing to social and cultural discriminatory norms toward women.
<23>Greek women’s systematic silencing of voice, educational deprivation, and marginalization in history have for millennia limited their thought and perspective, while increasing on the other hand the power and effectiveness of patriarchal thought. By the end of the nineteenth century, the walls of patriarchal hegemony had started to break down. The woman question was addressed powerfully, and women’s points of view and female experience were no longer hushed but rather expressed lucidly, all being clear manifestations of Greek women’s intellectual transformation. Nineteenth-century Greek women translators, among other learned women (some mentioned above), negotiated the right to creativity and originality, the right to authorship, positioning themselves as (re)creators of knowledge, as agents in active processes with rights. They were determined to prove that culture and history are made by both women and men. They wanted to show that male-centered history intentionally ignored and silenced women’s work and their significance. They prompted other Greek women to study the past, look for women in history and learn about their valuable contribution to society. Varikas is right when she argues that “history provided a locus for the denunciation of male domination and the celebration of resistance” (“National and Gender Identity” 270). Greek women translators’ contact with the writings and ideas of women in the West through the texts they studied and translated, through women’s periodicals and Parren’s weighty presence in international events, helped them raise their voice. They knew they possessed great ability and energy which, once set free, could not be suppressed. They had become inculcated with liberal values and feminist ideals, and they were ready to struggle to participate in the public forum of the intellectual, cultural, and political discourse of the day. They were determined to reconstruct their present and prepare a desired future.