ABSTRACT
This paper will discuss two notable twentieth-century Greek novelists and their relationship with Byzantium. I shall examine novels by two women writers, Penelope Delta (1874-1941), who wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century, and Maro Douka (b. 194 7), who in 1995 published a bestseller on a Byzantine theme. The work of both writers appeared at periods of renewed interest in issues related to the formation of the Greek identity and the reassessment of the historical past. Delta's two early novels For the Homeland (1909) and In the Time of the Bulgar-Siayer (1911), were written during the continuing turmoil with Bulgaria over the future of Macedonia. 1 The second novel was almost contemporary with Palamas's The King's Flute (191 0) (discussed by Anthony Hirst elsewhere in this volume - Chapter 9) and Ion Dragoumis's Blood of Martyrs and Heroes (1907-11), which concerned the Macedonian Struggle. All three writers, who were personally acquainted, closely followed the political climate in Europe, saw or contributed to the rise of nationalism and had a keen interest in Byzantium. (This same period also saw, for example, the founding of the first chair in Byzantine Art [1912]; see the paper by Eftychia Kourkoutidou-Nikolai'dou in the present volume - Chapter 13.) Delta also worked towards a third novel, entitled The Collapse, which remained incomplete and was first published in 1983.2 Her first two novels, however, have stayed in print, and Delta is
120 MARIANNA SPANAKI
probably the most popular twentieth-century children's writer in Greece, contributing greatly to the consolidation of an interest in Byzantium.
