Ο «ΤΕΚΜΗΡΙΩΤΙΚΟΣ» ΦΑΚΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΑΙΩΝΙΟΤΗΤΑΣ ΤΟΥ ΑΙΜΑΤΟΣ: ΟΙ ΦΩΤΟΓΡΑΦΙΚΟΙ «ΠΑΡΑΛΛΗΛΙΣΜΟΙ» ΤΗΣ NELLY’S ΚΑΙ Η ΕΠΟΧΗ ΤΟΥΣ

Abstract

In this paper, I review Elli Souyioultzoglou-Seraïdari (Nelly’s) dubious claims about the original ‘‘authorship’’ of interwar iconographic-ethno¬symbolic propaganda known as ‘‘parallelisms’’ of modern and ancient Greek race and culture. These claims, based on the photographer’s re¬introduction to the Greek audience in the 1980s, highlight the problem-atic relation of metapolitefsi’s era (1975 onwards) to the Greek political history and the history of Greek photography. Nelly(’s) began making up these photographs around 1937 while working for the Sub-Ministry of Press and Tourism in the Metaxas’s Regime. ‘‘Parallelisms’’ iconogra¬phy was a crucial propaganda symbolism of Metaxas’s cultural politics, known as ‘‘Third Greek Civilization’’ and has been promoted as the major narrative of national identity.
This article underlines the strong relationship that the ‘‘Parallelisms’’ shared with the racial anthropometric pseudoscience of the 19th century, as well as with the interwar ethnosymbolic theories of beauty contests and commerce, and the interwar racial and eugenic agenda of the au¬thoritarian and ethnosocialist regimes. In short, my aim is to place this particular body of Nelly’s’s work within the ideological context of the period in which it was created, exploring the photographer’s affiliation with particular individuals and associations of the time.