• 1 The author would like to thank Dina Vaiou (Professor Emerita, N.T.U.A.), Yannis Vlahopoulos and Geo (...)
• 2 Mazower Μark, The Balkans: From the End of Byzantium to the Present Day, London, Orion Publishing, (...)
• 3 Said Edward W., Orientalism, New York, Pantheon Books, 1978.
• 4 According to the Treaty of Lausanne, the Muslims of Western Thrace and the Greek Orthodox populatio (...)
• 5 Clogg Richard, “Nation Building, the ‘Great Idea’ and National Schism 1831–1922,” in Richard Clogg, (...)

1From the nineteenth century until the Interwar period, nation-states were formed progressively out of the multiethnic societies of the former Ottoman Empire.1 This process brought about a long period of wars, deportations and mass murders.2 During this period, the Greek state expanded geographically and established itself as a nation-state, developing the corresponding ideological mechanisms in order to homogenise the heterogeneous population, consolidate a “European” identity and denounce any oriental cultural elements.³ In continuation of the Second Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), the Treaty of Lausanne was signed (July 1923). The treaty4 validated the foundation of two nation-states, Turkey and Greece, and enforced the deportation of Muslims from Greece to Turkey and of Greek Orthodox Christians from Turkey to Greece.⁵

• 6 Gkizeli Vika, Κοινωνικοί μετασχηματισμοί και προέλευση της κοινωνικής κατοικίας στην Ελλάδα 1920-19 (...)
• 7 Nettl Bruno, Study of Ethnomusicology, Champaign, University of Illinois Press, 2005.
• 8 Anagnostou Panagiota, “Did You Say Rebetiko? Musical Categories, their Transformation, and their Me (...)

2The arrival of one and one-half million refugees from Asia Minor (1922-1923), as well as the departure of a vast number of people, provoked major social and urban transformations.6 As the port of Piraeus was the main gathering point for the displaced populations, a great number of refugees from Asia Minor settled in its periphery. Social and urban transformations were reflected in all aspects of social life, including musical creation.7 Urban popular music in Greece started to develop extensively in the late nineteenth century and bloomed particularly during the Interwar period. In several neighbourhoods where refugees settled, a new genre of music flourished, known widely as rebetiko; a term which can invoke many different meanings from musical, social and spatial context.8

• 9 Jackson Peter, Maps of Meaning, London, Unwin Hyman, 1989, p. 78.
• 10 Ibid., p. 89.

3According to Jackson, popular culture is “predominantly urban in character”9 and reflects metropolitan experience, the transformations of an industrial society and the making of a working class. Rebetiko, as a critical part of the popular culture, is perceived as an ensemble of social practices and experiences that embodies the refugee memory and the process of survival of the impoverished urban populations. This paper studies the relations between the socio-spatial transformations and the evolution of popular music through the investigation of the everyday life in the working-class refugee neighbourhoods, putting into question the context in which the official discourse enlisted repressive mechanisms in order to control and de-construct the culture that emerged from this “dangerous class”10

• 11 Harvey David, “Ο χώρος ως λέξη–κλειδί” [Space as a Key-Word], Γεωγραφίες [Geographies], n^o 10, 2005 (...)
• 12 Massey Doreen, “A Global Sense of Place,” Marxism Today, June 1991, p. 25-29 (26).
• 13 Ibid., p. 29.
• 14 Lefebvre Henri, Critique de la vie quotidienne, Paris, L'Arche, 1977.
• 15 Massey Doreen, For Space, London, Sage, 2005.
• 16  Massey, “A Global Sense of Place,” op. cit.
• 17 Ibid.

6The research is set within an interdisciplinary theoretical context, wherein the notions of space(s) and place(s) are perceived by a “relational” approach,11 in order to explore the process(es) and the dialectic relations that emerge in space through time. Following Massey, the idea that “the identity of place - the sense of place - is constructed out of an introverted, inward-looking history based on delving into the past for internalised origins”12 is deceiving. On the contrary, it is the result of a constellation of different identities and “can only be constructed by linking that place to places beyond.”13 Moreover, this article perceives the spatiality of the social practices, as they appear in Henri Lefebvre’s Critique de la vie quotidienne14 and in Doreen Massey’s For Space.15 Massey’s concept of “a global sense of place” is particularly useful.16 Considering the relations between different social and cultural identities as a key component of the process through which music was formed, we will attempt to analyse the multiple dimensions of its spatiality, through the recognition of the identities that coexist in it.17

• 18 Hastaoglou-Martinidis Vilma, “The Cartography of Harbor Construction in Eastern Mediterranean Citie (...)
• 19 Kottea Marianthi, “Η βιομηχανική ζώνη του Πειραιά 1860-1900” [The Industrial Zone of Piraeus 1860-1 (...)
• 20 Tsokopoulos Vasias, Πειραιάς 1835–1870, Εισαγωγή στην ιστορία του ελληνικού Μάντσεστερ [Piraeus 183 (...)

7In 1834, Athens was proclaimed the capital of the new nation-state. In 1835, Piraeus was declared its official port and an independent municipality. The period from the mid-nineteenth until the beginning of the twentieth century was transitional as Piraeus was growing into a modern industrial port city. Τhe marine and railway networks, developed during the later nineteenth century, turned Piraeus into a nodal point among the ports of the Ottoman Empire, Black Sea, Alexandria and the Western Mediterranean,18 and connected the city with rural Greece and other important urban centres in the Balkans.19 Τhe industrial zone of Piraeus was formed gradually in the northwestern part of the city and expanded parallel to the railway axes and towards the western coast of the port, at the area of Drapetsona.20

• 21 Ibid.
• 22 Micheli Liza, Πειραιάς/από το Πόρτο Λεόνε στη Μαγχεστρία της Ανατολής [Piraeus/from Porto Leone to (...)
• 23 Koutelakis Charis, Foskolou Anna, Πειραιάς και συνοικισμοί [Piraeus and its Settlements], Athens, V (...)

8The construction of a railway turned out to be one of the determinant factors in the socio-spatial polarisation of the city, as the railway tracks functioned as a heavy barrier that divided the city in two parts: the southeastern, which was the commercial part and place of residence for the privileged social classes, and the northwestern, which gradually evolved into the place of industrial development and residence for the disadvantaged classes.21 In the wake of the First Greco-Turkish War (1897), the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) and immigration to the United States in the early twentieth century, great numbers of people moved successively from the countryside to Piraeus. Αll those who were “not welcome” settled on the northwestern side, close to the rail tracks and the industrial zone, forming the first working-class neighbourhoods of Piraeus (e.g. Agios Dionysios, Maniatika, Kaminia, Agia Sofia, Ipapanti).22 As people from very different origins, and from all over Greek territory, were brought together in Piraeus, its newly formed working-class neighbourhoods became a regional melting pot, smelting heterogeneous cultural elements in a context of modernisation.23

• 24 Leontidou Lila, Πόλεις της Σιωπής [Cities of Silence], Athens, ΕΤΒΑ, 2001.
• 25 Ibid.

9The working class of Piraeus during this period cannot be considered a rigid social structure. Any attempt to classify these impoverished peoples strictly and objectively according to their position in economic production would collide with reality of social and economic fluidity. The luckiest worked in industry, but the majority only worked occasionally and informally in conditions of insecurity: atypical labour, piece-work, child labour, peddlers, street vendors.24 Marginality was widespread in Piraeus, with beggars and other port dwellers living under extremely harsh conditions. Progressively, certain activities that the authorities wished to keep invisible (such as prostitution houses and hashish dens) started to concentrate in specific urban zones outside the socially advantaged part of the city.25

• 26 Micheli, Πειραιάς/από το Πόρτο Λεόνε στη Μαγχεστρία της Ανατολής [Piraeus/from Porto Leone to the O (...)
• 27 Leontidou, Πόλεις της Σιωπής [Cities of Silence], op. cit.

10The majority of the refugees from Asia Minor first arrived in the port of Piraeus (1922-1923), where they temporarily stayed in camps, until some of them were transferred to other cities or neighbourhoods. A big part of them settled permanently in Piraeus’s periphery, forming refugee neighbourhoods, such as Nea Kokkinia, Drapetsona, Keratsini, Ikonio, Anastasi and others.26 The refugees’ installation stirred a new urban reality with particularities of class and culture. It contributed to a new wave of development and of industrial growth. Gradually, Piraeus evolved into the biggest working-class city of Greece. Displaced, impoverished, vulnerable and disadvantaged, many refugees joined the homeless population, became occasional workers, or occupied semi-illegal jobs typical of the impoverished social strata.²⁷

• 28 In several cases I am referring to the non-refugee population as previous inhabitants in order to e (...)
• 29 Hirschon, The Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe, op. cit.
• 30 Jackson, Maps of Meaning, op. cit.

11The interaction between the refugees and the previous inhabitants28 brought out new identities in a certain space. The rearrangement of everyday life within these neighbourhoods combined the poverty of the present with the cultural heritage of their past. People from very different backgrounds were forced to share the same spaces, with only a few common points: Orthodox religion, Greek nationality and the indigent living conditions.²⁹ Through this encounter, popular culture bloomed, fertilised from the refugee element within the specific socio-spatial conditions.30

• 31 Kokkonis Georges, La question de la grécité dans la musique néohellénique, Paris, Association Pierr (...)
• 32 Kalyviotis Aristomenis, Σμύρνη, η μουσική ζωή 1900-1922 [Smyrna, the Music Life 1900-1922], Athens, (...)

12Musical blending was a wide and vivid phenomenon in the multiethnic port cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. The development of a distinctive musical genre during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was the outcome of a sophisticated interpretation of popular oral musical forms which originated from the populations that had moved into the cities.³¹ This idiom was the result of an encounter of Turkish, Greek, Arab, Armenian and other linguistic and musical elements, distanced from the nationalist ideals of the period that were tearing down the multiple cultural identities.32

• 33 An oriental version of the French café chantant, in which blossomed the urban popular musical idiom (...)
• 34 Zerouali Basma, “Η χοάνη των τεχνών και των τέρψεων” [The Funnel of Arts and Delights], in Maria-Ca (...)

13The profession of the musician in the modern sense of the term existed, and demanded high standards of mastery and technique. Due to the urban and social networks, music was spread, loved and played within the lower and middle strata of the port cities of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans, Athens and Piraeus included, from the late nineteenth century. Discography during this period was very limited, leaving the oral tradition as the principal means of diffusion. The café aman33 was the main place where people gathered to perform and enjoy these songs. Due to its immaterial hypostasis, the musical performance was a sophisticated process, whose role was central in the urban social life.34

• 35 Andrikos Nikos, Η εκκλησιαστική μουσική της Σμύρνης (1800-1922) [The Ecclesiastical Music of Smyrna (...)
• 36 Pennanen Risto Pekka, 1997, “The Development of Chordal Harmony in Greek Rebetika and Laika Music, (...)

14This idiom – henceforth called the “café aman repertoire” – is often mentioned as “Smyrneiko,” which literally means “from Smyrna/the way of Smyrna.” The term is widely used to describe the wide range of popular music with direct and indirect modal references, which was the main repertoire of the popular music in the ports of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans.³⁵ As Pennanen and Andrikos point out, despite the fact that the majority of the musicians were coming mainly from the urban spaces of the Ottoman Empire and relocated in Greece after the population exchange, they were characterised as representatives of Smyrneiko. This nomination emerged from the emblematic image of Smyrna in the fantasy of the Neo-Hellenic milieu.³⁶ Said another way:

• 38 Andrikos Νikos, Οι λαϊκοί δρόμοι στο μεσοπολεμικό αστικό τραγούδι [The Makams in the Urban Popular (...)
• 39 Α very tiny type of bouzouki, very different from Turkish baglama. Kourousis Stavros, Από τον ταμπο (...)
• 40 Pennanen Risto Pekka, “The Organological Development and Performance Practice of the Greek Bouzouki (...)

15During the later nineteenth and the early twentieth century, a musical idiom blossomed in Piraeus, related to the café aman repertoire. Henceforth called “premature rebetiko,”38 this idiom was much rougher, without melody ornaments, and it was performed mainly on bouzouki and [Greek] baglamas.39 The bouzouki was a very popular instrument, associated with the long-standing (rural and urban) tradition and it was taught through everyday practice. As these populations relocated in the capital at the end of the nineteenth century, they brought it with them.40

• 41 Damianakos Stathis, Παράδοση Ανταρσίας και λαϊκός πολιτισμός [Tradition of Revolt and Popular Civil (...)

16Premature rebetiko reflects the multiple forms of cultural interweaving that took place within the poor strata of Piraeus. This idiom has been associated from researchers with the culture of the underworld and the tradition of rebellion. In fact, the places where this idiom blossomed were often characterised by social deviation and entrenchment, like the hashish dens and the prisons. Although these places are different, they share certain similarities as far as social networks and practices are concerned. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, premature rebetiko was popular among the café aman musicians, partly included in their repertoire and diffused beyond the places of entrenchment. Another important point in the diffusion of the premature rebetiko, was the migration to the U.S.A. where many recordings took place at the turn of the century.41

• 42 Laclau Ernesto, Emanicipation(s), London and New York, Verso, 1996.
• 43 Andrikos, Οι λαϊκοί δρόμοι στο μεσοπολεμικό αστικό τραγούδι [The Makams in the Urban Popular Music (...)

17Rebetiko is a signifier that can host many signifieds in different historical contexts.⁴² As a music genre, it embodies techniques from both tonal and modal systems. It maintains the oriental philosophy as far as the ornate structure of melody is concerned, with a careful use of occidental harmony. As far as rhythms are concerned, the influence of traditional music of Asia Minor, the Balkans and the Aegean islands is evident. It is related to a great part of the popular songs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, mostly, but not only, the café aman repertoire and the premature rebetiko.⁴³

• 44 Ibid.

18Rebetiko is considered as the music of the people who relocated to Athens and Piraeus and formed the popular strata of the city. Coming from different places, they were seeking a shared code of expression and communication; a “language” based on the development of common symbols that produce common meanings in the context of an aggregation of shared social practices. Therefore, it is the funnel of a variety of other musical idioms with different historical, social and musical features, whose origins can be identified mainly in the homelands of these people. A wide range of rebetiko songs are forged by the conditions of urbanisation, the state of being a refugee and the emergence of discography. These songs started to be registered from the late nineteenth century in the urban centres of the Eastern Mediterranean such as Izmir and Istanbul, and were mainly capitalised from discography in Greece during the Interwar period.⁴⁴

• 45 Anagnostou, “Did You Say Rebetiko?,” op. cit. p. 3.

19Although the term rebetiko appeared in the beginning of the twentieth century, its early usage “seems inextricably linked to non-musical characteristics,”45 like clothes and manners. Thus, rebetiko in this paper is perceived as an assemblage of social practices and common experiences, related to music creation and performance and to the refugee memory that emerged from a nexus of social relations developed in the neighbourhoods of the poor strata of the Interwar period. The contribution of the refugees to the evolution of urban popular music was undeniable. The encounter of musicians, refugees or not, in the taverns, café aman and the hashish dens of Piraeus made them share common spaces of living and places of performance on all spatial scales. The previous inhabitants and the refugees shared the same conditions of underemployment, social exclusion, poverty and insecurity. Music, as a means of survival, reveals how the premature rebetiko and the café aman repertoire interwove fruitfully and stirred out a new way of making things.

• 46 Holst Gail, Road to Rembetika, Limni Evoias, Denise Harvey, 2011.
• 47 Tragaki Dafni, Rebetiko Worlds, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007.

20Through discography, the oral urban musical tradition was reproduced in a more sophisticated way and widely diffused, especially during the 1930s. During this period, the discography in Athens was led by companies such as His Master's Voice, Columbia and Odeon.46 The registration of the songs was determinant for the music itself, as the songs should fit the discography standards: a specific duration, commerciality, lyrics and music approved from the direction of the company.47

• 48 Wacquant Loïc, “Urban Outcasts: Stigma and Division in the Black American Ghetto and the French Urb (...)
• 49 Royal Decree of 12/03/1937; Vlisidis Kostas, Όψεις του ρεμπέτικου [Aspects of Rebetiko], Athens, ek (...)
• 50 Ibid.

21Music also responded to pressure and penalisation by the authorities. Stratification of social classes in the city, cultural identities that co-exist, and the constitution of the nation state are the three main factors of urban marginality.48 Certain social practices related to popular culture and the places where rebetiko was performed were targeted by the authorities for legal deviation, thus triggering the repressive mechanisms. The censorship enforcement of the 4th of August Regime was the peak of this process: it prohibited, criminalised and persecuted modality and the oriental musical ornament, as well as the music of the hashish dens after 1936-1937.49 The stigmatisation of the oriental elements aimed to flatten the multicultural identities of the music, to canalise it in a context of strict national cultural norms and to marginalise whatever deviated from the nationalist representation of the “Greek European Identity.” The persecution of not only the genre but the musicians as well, was intense.50

• 51 Veranis Giorgos, Lamprou Anna, Mourgou Alexandra, “Καρτέλα – μητρώο προσφυγικών οικισμών στη Νίκαια (...)

22At the end the nineteenth century, the area of Nea Kokkinia was sparsely inhabited. At the southeastern part, there was a lime kiln, while other spaces in the area were used as waste dumps. During this period, the industrial zone of Piraeus expanded alongside the railway and the first working-class settlements of Piraeus were formed. Around 1915, Armenian refugees from the Ottoman Empire were added to these settlements. Developed in the southeastern part of Nea Kokkinia, they formed its periphery. The majority of the inhabitants were working in the developing industrial zone of Piraeus.⁵¹ The following testimony of an Asia Minor refugee reveals the geographical limits before the formation of the refugee settlements in Nea Kokkinia:

• 53 Veranis, Lamprou, Mourgou, “Καρτέλα – μητρώο προσφυγικών οικισμών στη Νίκαια (Νέα Κοκκινιά)” [Regis (...)

23The urbanisation of Nea Kokkinia started to intensify after the arrival of the refugees. Contrary to the situation in Drapetsona, institutional organisations for refugee settlements played a relevant role from the very first years. Τhe Fund for Refugee Assistance (FRA) (established for temporary relief), the Refugee Settlement Commission (RSC) (that became the urban planner for the refugee settlements on Athens’ peripheries), as well as the Ministry of Social Welfare (MSW) had a great impact in the construction of social refugee housing. In the years between 1923 and 1928, Nea Kokkinia’s population rose to 33,201.⁵³

• 54 Hirschon, The Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe, op. cit.
• 55 Vaiou Dina et al., Διαπλεκόμενες καθημερινότητες και χωροκοινωνικές μεταβολές στην πόλη. Μεταν (...)
• 56 Massey, “A Global Sense of Place,” op. cit., p. 28.
• 57 Hirschon, The Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe, op. cit.
• 58 Lefebvre, Critique de la vie quotidienne, op. cit.
• 59 Vaiou et al, Διαπλεκόμενες καθημερινότητες και χωροκοινωνικές μεταβολές στην πόλη. Μετανάστρι (...)
• 60 Hirschon, The Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe, op. cit.
• 61 Lamprou Anna, Mourgou Alexandra, “Νέα Κοκκινιά: Διερευνώντας τις πολλαπλές ταυτότητες μιας προσφυγι (...)

24In Nea Kokkinia, the collective refugee memory of the Ottoman past marked every aspect in their relocation process.⁵⁴ “‘There,’ is an important part of the overall narrative, which returns as a decisive reference; it encodes memory, nostalgia, a measure of comparison with ‘here’; and it is a place associated with loved ones and familiar practices.”55 For the uprooted refugees, their homeland’s geography remained a reference on a symbolic level and was used as a way of self-orientation in the unknown new urban space, through the creation of familiar symbolic representations. The search of “ritualistic connections”56 reflected the gradual transformation of the unknown space(s) into familiar place(s).⁵⁷ Progressively, the neighbourhoods of Nea Kokkinia were woven into small communities: small-scale socio-spatial entities⁵⁸ based on the existing social networks sharing an emotional and symbolic significance related to the place.⁵⁹ The discriminations between refugees, according to their specific homelands, as well as local stereotypes were often used in everyday language. For example, those from Smyrna were often considered to be sociable, progressive, frivolous; revellers, scrappers, gossipers; with “light morals.” Τhose from the interior of Asia Minor were considered serious, peaceful, “half-witted.” Τhose from Istanbul were considered as “better than the others,” regardless of their social position. Τhose from the southern coasts of the Black Sea were considered stubborn, but also very serious and smart.⁶⁰ Their organisation in the new settlements was based mostly, but not absolutely, on the organisation of their homelands (Agios Nikolaos, Osia Kseni, Agios Georgios, Krini [Germanika], Chalkidona, Armenika [Neapoli], Peykakia).⁶¹

• 62 Hirschon, The Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe, op. cit.

25Agios Nikolaos was considered as the most prestigious neighbourhood and was mostly inhabited by people from Istanbul; the “aristocrats of Nea Kokkinia” who were the first to get access to the social housing. Refugees coming mostly from the area of the Black Sea settled in Osia Kseni. It was considered as a quiet neighbourhood, inhabited by diligent workers full of pride and stubbornness. Krini took its name from the homonymous suburb of Smyrna in Asia Minor, known as Krini (in Greek) and Çeşme (in Turkish), and there settled refugees from the area of Smyrna. It was considered a loud neighbourhood where people liked to fight a lot, to dance and sing, and where the women were infamous for their morals.⁶² As Giorgis Papazoglou recalled:

• 64 Lamprou, Mourgou, “Νέα Κοκκινιά” [Nea Kokkinia], op. cit.
• 65 Leontidou Lila, “Slums of Hope,” Athens Social Atlas, April 2017, online: https://www.athenssociala (...)

26Despite the institutional planning of refugee settlements by FRA, RSC and MSW, living conditions were still characterised by poverty, miserable housing and persistent social and spatial exclusion. The personal and collective struggle for survival was the main issue of everyday life. Nonetheless, social life in Nea Kokkinia was characterised by intense sociability, extroversion and an intense participation of women in social life. Manners, social relationships and ethics reflected cultural heritage, while the poverty and indigence of the present informed the rest.⁶⁴ As Leontidou underlines, “even this confined internal space was no problem, because everyday life was extended to patios and yards, which also served as laundries and workshops, to doorsteps and pavements for informal socializing, to empty plots which became playgrounds for the children, and to piazzas, which converted public space into common space”.⁶⁵

• 68 Leontidou Lila, “Slums of Hope,” Athens Social Atlas, April 2017, online: https://www.athenssociala (...)
• 69 Papastefanaki Leda, Εργασία, Τεχνολογία και φύλο στην ελληνική βιομηχανία, Η κλωστοϋφαντουργι (...)

28In Nea Kokkinia, industry blossomed during the Interwar period. Among smaller and bigger factories, there were many units of textile industry and tapestries. Unlike Drapetsona, the factories of Nea Kokkinia were not gigantic. Moreover, the RSC encouraged small ownership of crafts and shops, especially among refugees. A critical intention of the RSC in the 1920s and 1930s was that “the creation of a large population of petty home owners, rather than a landless proletariat, was considered as an aversion of the communist danger.”68 Nevertheless, most inhabitants were working either in the industries, or in piece-work (especially women); it was the luckier ones who were small owners.⁶⁹ As Stelios Vamvakaris explains:

• 71 Ibid., p. 246.

29The consciousness of a working-class identity gradually developed among the inhabitants of Nea Kokkinia. This was apparent from their involvement into collective mobilisations and strikes, during the 1930s. According to Papastefanaki, “the strike went out of the factory and was transferred to the city, the working-class city […]. In Kokkinia, the events were transformed into a popular revolt.” ⁷¹

• 73 Lamprou, Mourgou, “Νέα Κοκκινιά” [Nea Kokkinia], op. cit.

31The contribution of these refugees to the evolution of popular music is undeniable. Many of them became involved with discography during the 1930s. Due to their previous experience and skills in musical performance, they managed to assume important positions in the recording companies and to determine the aesthetics of the gramophone.⁷³ Nea Kokkinia became famous for its rich music life, which emerged from the everyday life. Giorgis Papazoglou describes how the songs and life recalled each other:

• 78 Tsokopoulos Vasias, “Η ανασύσταση της καθημερινής ζωής στην προπολεμική Κοκκινιά” [The Reconstructi (...)

33As music was a formative element of the everyday life and practices, the nightlife of Nea Kokkinia was described as overwhelming. The little taverns and the café aman were the spaces where music from Asia Minor relocated and met the local musical elements: “In the evening, you can see people everywhere. The roofs of the little taverns turn spontaneously into dancing floors. […] The instruments never stop playing the music, the glasses are always full of beer and the waiters never stop running […] [Nea Kokkinia] is a loud refugee city that knows how to seize the night. […] Nightlife in Kokkinia is the richest of all refugee settlements”.⁷⁸

• 82 Κyramargiou Eleni, Δραπετσώνα 1922-1967 Ένας κόσμος στην άκρη του κόσμου [Drapetsona 1922-1967 A Wo (...)

37The image of Drapetsona in the mid-nineteenth century was very different from what it became during the Interwar period. Full of rocky slopes and creeks, the settlement was scarcely inhabited; a pesthouse functioned on its coast and there were a few slums on the east side, along the Bay of Kremmydarou, where sailors and hashish smokers gathered. Despite its proximity to Piraeus, Drapetsona remained invisible due to its topographical features. At the end of the nineteenth century, the cemetery of Piraeus was transferred to Drapetsona. In 1876, the municipality of Piraeus adjudicated the construction of the Vourla – official prostitution houses – in an attempt to limit prostitution. However, there were fewer efforts to combat the development of a large sphere of other deviant and illegal activities and professions practiced by the impoverished population, such as smugglers, scammers, hashish dens owners.82 Because, as another informant explained,

• 85 Cheirchanteri Georgia, “Transformation in the Wider Industrial Coastal Region of Saint George, West (...)

39At the turn of the century, the industrial zone of Piraeus was expanded into the territory of Drapetsona with the construction of large modern industrial and harbour infrastructures along the coast. Among numerous industrial units and factories, the most important were the Vasiliades Shipyard (and the permanent built tanks of the Port of Piraeus Organisation OLP, 1906), the Fertilizers Factory (1909) and Hercules Cements (1911). 85Settlement followed:

• 87 Leontidou, Πόλεις της Σιωπής [Cities of Silence], op. cit.
• 88 Κyramargiou, Δραπετσώνα 1922-1967 [Drapetsona 1922-1967], op. cit.
• 89 Mourgou Alexandra, Panagopoulou Kallirroi, Smyrni Tonia, Δραπετσώνα: η συγκρότηση μιας εργατικής πρ (...)

40The first settlement cores of Drapetsona, Vourla and Kastraki (near Kremmydarou, where the shipyards were installed), were formed gradually. Due to the proximity with the harbour, the development of the industrial zone and the invisibility from the city of Piraeus, Drapetsona was the main reception area for the most vulnerable social strata that migrated to the capital – mostly from Peloponnese and the Greek islands. They settled in dwellings with tiny makeshift wooden structures, close to each other, without floor and covered by tin roofs.⁸⁷ The inhabitants were, in their vast majority, artisans, unskilled labourers, wandering unemployed or occasional workers in the industry, as well as people whose survival depended on deviant or illegal professions.88 In Drapetsona, urban marginality was systematically reproduced.89

• 90 Pisimisis Vasilis, Βούρλα – Τρούμπα, μια περιήγηση στο χώρο του υποκόσμου και της πορνείας του Πειρ (...)

41Drapetsona was the cradle for prisons, songs and hashish dens. An important element of the popular urban music was the smoking of hashish, either in hashish dens or in remote caves near the sea. The smoking of hashish among the poorest social classes was inextricably tied with their need to escape from the roughness of their everyday life.⁹⁰

• 92 Gkizeli, Κοινωνικοί μετασχηματισμοί [Social Transformations], op. cit.
• 93 Mourgou, Panagopoulou, Smyrni, Δραπετσώνα [Drapetsona], op. cit.

42After the arrival of the refugees, the whole region was transformed into an improvised camp. Motivated by the working possibilities in the industrial and portal zone – as new industrial units were created and the existing ones were enlarged – the underprivileged displaced population started to settle in any available space of the residential core of Drapetsona, forming self-built settlements. Contrary to other districts, like Nea Kokkinia, the absence of central planning for refugee housing was a decisive factor in the socio-spatial transformation of Drapetsona. During the 1930s, the tents gave their place to more permanent constructions, mostly slums and dwellings. 92Regardless of the lack of institutional support and the miserable housing conditions, the inhabitants of Drapetsona were far from indifferent to their homes’ upkeep: they painted their houses and they planted small pots with flowers.93

• 94 Κyramargiou, Δραπετσώνα 1922-1967 [Drapetsona 1922-1967], op. cit.
• 95 Ibid.

43The population of Drapetsona was characterised by intense mobility. Once they had the opportunity, they would move to other neighbourhoods. However, the social features οf the neighbourhood remained remarkably stable. People either chose to reside in this area – due to its characteristics – or they adopted those during their stay.94 Some of the main conditions through which the survival culture emerged had been industrial labour, the housing conditions in slums and dwellings, the relation of the neighbourhood with prostitution and the hashish dens as well as the broader social exclusion. Prostitution expanded with the arrival of the refugees and was connected with the survival process of the impoverished strata. In this context, the origin of the population – refugees or previous inhabitants – was of minor importance.95

• 99 Pizanias Petros, Οι φτωχοί των πόλεων [The Poor of the Cities], Athens, Themelio, 1993.

46The refugees relocated with their songs and their traditions. The extrovert way of living and their cosmopolitism did not abandon them. The encounter of the refugees’ musical culture with the music practices of the previous inhabitants under the situation of poverty and hard work formed an ensemble of common experiences through which the sentiment of common and collective identity was cultivated.99

• 100 ‘Η τετράς η ξακουστή του Πειραιώς’ Markos Vamvakaris, born in Syros in 1905, Anestos Delias born in (...)

47In 1934, the Famous Quartet of Piraeus100 had its first professional performance at the tavern Konstantopoulos in Drapetsona. This performance is considered a turning point because it marked the integration of these musicians and their repertoire into the sphere of professionals. Moreover, at the symbolic level, this quartet was an ensemble of refugees (Anestos Delias and Stratos Payoumtzis) and people who had moved to Piraeus from the Greek islands (Markos Vamvakaris and Giorgos Batis) and reflects the cultural medley among the inhabitants, in and out of the entrenched places.

• 101 Schorelis Tasos, Ρεμπέτικη Ανθολογία [Anthology of Rebetiko], vol. A, Athens, Plethron, 1977.

48Giorgos Batis is one of the most typical examples that unfolds the constant struggle for survival, through the practice of multiple professions. Batis was one of the senior musicians of Piraeus (born in 1890). The style of the senior musicians of the period of premature rebetiko was maintained through his recordings. In 1925, he owned a “dancing school” in Drapetsona along with café-hashish dens; he sold medications for callus and dental issues; he worked as a street vendor, a peddler and more. As a musician, he worked randomly at cafés and taverns. Schorelis mentioned that the “old school guys” used to call him the “King of Piraeus” and remembered him as a person who played the baglamas – hidden always in his jacket – in the streets of Piraeus. In his songs, he described images of the everyday life of the fragile strata, such as their professions, their places of entertainment, their deviant spaces (like caves and hashish dens), as well as the life in prison.101

• 104 Mourgou, Panagopoulou, Smyrni, Δραπετσώνα [Drapetsona], op. cit.
• 105 Jackson, Maps of Meaning, op. cit. p. 101.
• 106 Κyramargiou, Δραπετσώνα 1922-1967 [Drapetsona 1922-1967], op. cit.

51The existence of a constellation of different social and cultural identities in Drapetsona led to a gradual osmosis and elaboration of common identities, whose features were the extrovert character and the cosmopolitanism brought by the refugees’ homelands combined with the culture of a working class living under indigent conditions, “in and out” of the social margins.¹⁰⁴ Through the interwoven conditions of the neighbourhood, a system of solidarity developed, that led to the formation of common consciousness with social and political impact. While during the 1910s and 1920s Drapetsona was considered a morally dangerous neighbourhood, during the 1930s, it was considered a politically dangerous one. Paraphrasing Jackson, slums, dwellings and refugee houses “were regarded as ‘parent’ of the disorder and the nursery of vice.”105 The presentation – in the official discourse – of Drapetsona as a dangerous and inaccessible neighbourhood is related to the attempt of the authorities to connect rebetiko with crime, as well as the attempt of the authority to castigate the working class.¹⁰⁶As Markos Vamvakaris underlines,