National Day
25th of March

Norsk utgave (Norwegian edition)

The 25th of March is one of two National Days in Greece. On this day in 1821 the bishop Germanos of Patras signalled the beginning of the war for independence by hoisting the Greek flag over the monastery Agia Lavra in the Peloponnese.

Apostolos and  Maria  (Maria from Aegeo Inn)

In Athens the day is celebrated with a full military parade, with army vehicles and personnel marching through the main street in front of the Parliament building. On Antiparos, however, the children were the ones placed in the centre of the celebration of the day. For a Norwegian like myself the celebration reminded me of our own celebration of the Norwegian National Day, the 17th of May. Here on Antiparos the children also make a parade, or rather march in parade. In Norway every school has a band with a lot of brass instruments, on Antiparos the school band consists solely of drums. They do, however, play rather loud and with a steady beat.

A segment of the "school band".

The pupils march in time and at high speed, about the same style as the members of the National Guard in front of the Parliament in Athens. The pupils march with high forward kicks and a lot gusto in swinging of arms. For a Norwegian this was unusual, but here this was as it should be, and all who had gathered to watch the parade made a powerful applause while the pupils marched past. In fact, rather a lot of people had gathered in the main street to take part in the celebration of the day. Everybody was dressed in their finest and newest clothes (just like in Norway on our National Day). Yours truly was very glad to have followed the advice to put on a nice pair of trousers, suit jacket, nice clean shirt and a tie, so as not to appear as the average ignorant tourist (this attire, however, was only used for the three hours of the celebration).

It all started at 10 o'clock in the morning with the pupils marching from the school and up to the main church in the square. Here mass is celebrated, lasting about half an hour. After mass all the pupils march back to school again. At the school there is a laying of wreaths by the monument in the school yard. The local priest is also taking part in their ceremony, as is the police, the authorities of the island and representatives from all ages at the school, including the kindergarten. Everyone lay down a wreath and say a few words. Then the pupils march back to the village square again, where there is first a break with free cakes for all as well as something to drink. which means ouzo for all the men, including guests like yours truly.

This is from the parade from the school to the village square. First comes the kindergarten kids, then the pupils from primary school and finally the pupils from secondary school. This is the oldest pupils at primary school.

After a while the folk-dancing display, which everybody has been waiting for, starts. This is also performed by the pupils from the school. They have been rehearsing for a long time for this display and they are very good. The music comes from big loudspeakers and the sound is quite loud, and the pupils dance and dance. I don't know how many dances they performed, but it was a considerable number of dances, both circle dancing and dancing with a partner. I was told that the dances were from different parts of Greece, both from the mainland and from the islands, among those, from Crete. First the older pupils dance and after a while the younger join in, and in the end everybody dance together.

What no doubt impresses a Norwegian the most is all the incredibly dashing and colourful national costumes that every child wears this day. The pupils in primary school and the children in the kindergarten all wear national costumes, girls as well as boys. The pupils in secondary school wears their school uniforms. I must admit that my knowledge of Greek national costumes is nil, but all the same I will try to describe what I saw..

Most girls wore costumes with a strong red colour, while a few wore yellow and others green, all in bright strong colours. All the girls wears a great shawl which is twisted and bound and fastened in a special way. The boys wore many different kinds of costumes. Some had costumes like the members of the National Guard were wearing, with wide "pleated" white skirts, white heavy tights and dashing waistcoats in strong colours and lots of heavy gold embroidery. A few of the boys had exchanged the wide skirt for a long skirt in a light blue silk-like material. Still, most of the boys wear a national costume that does not include the skirt, but instead wide black knee long breeches. To accompany this, they wear a waistcoat which is black on the front and red on the back. To this costume, as well as the one with the skirt, a big, bright red stocking cap is worn.

I was really impressed by the children's willingness to do their best. I was told that a lot of time and effort was spent in teaching the children all these dances. Antiparos is a small community with only about 800 inhabitants. Because they are so few and live on this little island, it is important to support and protect one another. The inhabitants are thus very conscious with regards to preserving all that is Greek, and to teach this to the next generation. They really wish to preserve and pass on their Greek traditions.

Here the smallest children rehearse before it was their turn to dance in the village square.

This was something I was to experience later on the same evening. I was invited to a name day party on a local tavern, together with more than 100 Greeks. Here they played live Greek music. Earlier there was nobody on the island who knew how to play. If they wanted live music, the musicians had to come over from Naxos. Now, however, four young men had formed a group on Antiparos. It was obvious for everybody that they weren't the "best in the world", but that didn't really matter. What did matter was that they were in fact from Antiparos, which meant that they now could dance and party well into the night with musicians from their own island, which seemed to please everybody enormously. The group played and sang continuously, without breaks, from about 8 p.m. until early morning!

Finally even the local Mayor joined in the dancing.

In the spring of 1999 I was very lucky to visit Antiparos on their National Day and experience how the people here celebrates the day. I must say that this was without doubt one of my best days on the island. Everything was an incredible experience. The weather was just perfect, quiet, a blue sky with warming sun and a temperature of almost 20 degrees Celsius. To have the chance to see all these children in their incredible dashing national costumes, all the dancing and the atmosphere of it all can hardly be described, even with pictures, it have to be experienced. If any one of you have the opportunity to travel to Greece on National Day, do not hesitate, this is an experience not to be missed. Try to get away from Athens and the military parade there, and experience the day in a little local square in the countryside, maybe on an island like Antiparos. Here you will have a great chance of seeing how the day really is celebrated locally. Ask and find out when, where and how the day is celebrated wherever you happen to be.