Bruce Clark

  • 30 June 2020, Athens, Greece

    As part of 'The Venizelos Library Talks' held by the British Embassy Athens, Bruce Clark gives an online lecture titled 'A personal view of Greece, Britain and the arts', followed by a piano recital by Manos Kitsikopoulos.

    Introduced by Kate Smith, HM Ambassador, this lecture is worth watching and we found it inspiration, not least as we too believe that cultural diplomacy needs to be upheld and may it help bring about many exciting new chapters to Anglo Greek relations.

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    Listen to the full lecturehere.

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    We pay tribute to all the great musicians also and include violinist Michael Iskas Michael Iskas violinist

    and pianist Manos Kitsikopoulos

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  • British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s last minute cancellation of his meeting with Prime Minister Mitsotakis over the Parthenon Sculptures this week has caused a diplomatic row between Greece and the UK, with Athens calling Sunak’s decision “unprecedented” and “disrespectful.” Bruce Clark, a contributor to The Economist with a long expertise on Greece and the author of the recent book Athens, City of Wisdom, which dives into the story of Lord Elgin and the Parthenon Sculptures, joins Thanos Davelis to discuss this latest move by Downing Street that is putting the issue of the Parthenon Sculptures back in the spotlight.

    Bruce Clark is also a member of the BCRPM.

    Listen to this episode of the Greek Current Podast.

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    BCRPM are delighted to welcome two new members: journalist, author, broadcaster and speaker Bruce Clark, and political philosopher Dr Rebecca Lowe. 

    Bruce is a broadcaster and speaker on a wide range of subjects including religion and geopolitics, the history of southeastern Europe and the story of textiles. He is the online religion editor of The Economist, and often contributes to other publications. He served on the committee of the Maghera Historical Society and has a strong interest in the local history of my corner of Northern Ireland, especially its linen heritage and its early American connections. He has been an active participant in global debates organised by the Ecumenical Patriarch on the subject of faith and the environment. The early Christian history of Ireland and Scotland is another strong personal interest.

    Since 1998, Bruceworked mainly for The Economist, covering everything from conflict in the Balkans to transatlantic relations and comparative religion. Between 2002 and early 2004 he took a sabbatical to research the history of forced migration between Greece and Turkey. In 2006, he launched the international pages of The Economist’s foreign news section, a new editorial feature devoted to broad global topics from disarmament to development.

    Before joining The Economist, Bruce also served as diplomatic correspondent for the Financial Times, working in London, Brussels and then Washington DC. From 1990-1993, he was a correspondent for The Times in Moscow, covering the fall of communism and Russia’s post-Soviet transition. In an earlier stint at the Financial Times, he was editor of the European news section. His first job as a journalist was with Reuters, as a junior correspondent in Paris and as the agency’s main correspondent in Athens. Thanks to these jobs early in his career, he has a good working knowledge of French, modern Greek and Russian and says that he can also 'get along in Italian, Dutch, German and Spanish'.

    At Saint John’s College, Cambridge, he studied Philosophy and then Social and Political Sciences, graduating with a BA in 1979. Before that he was educated at Maghera Primary School, Brook House School in Dublin and Shrewsbury School.

    Bruce Clark has written three books:

    An Empire’s New Clothes: The End of Russia’s Liberal Dream was published by Vintage Paperbacks in 1995.

    Twice A Stranger: How Forced Migration Forged Modern Greece and Turkey. Published by Granta in the UK in 2005 and Harvard University Press in the USA in 2007.

    Athens: City of Wisdom, 2022.

    Buce Clark has also written articles on the Parthenon Marbles, includung 'Stealing Beauty' published in 2021 and more recently 'Law, Morals and the Parthenon Marbles'.

     

     

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    Dr Rebecca Lowe

    Rebecca is a political philosopher, whose current academic interests range from moral property rights to the value of democracy. She also works on political and economic research issues as a consultant, including an ongoing engagement as Research Director for a patient-capital investment company.

    Rebecca is a Senior Reader in the Canterbury Institute in Oxford. She is the former Director of FREER, a think tank advancing economically and socially liberal ideas.

    Rebecca has worked for various other research organisations, including Policy Exchange, where she was State and Society Fellow, and convenor of the Research Group on Political Thought.

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  • Law, Morals and the Parthenon Marbles

    Treachery, subterfuge and "a steady flow of bribes." Writer Bruce Clark unpicks the dubious legality of Lord Elgin's removal of the Parthenon sculptures.

    When Melina Mercouri went to London in 1983, she put the point in her own inimitable way: “This is a moral issue more than a legal issue.” Kyriakos Mitsotakis took a similar line in November when he visited his counterpart Boris Johnson and declared that the sculptures were stolen – a view which Johnson himself, in his student days, had espoused.

    The British Museum’s position is diametrically opposed. Its website argues that Elgin acted with the full knowledge and permission of the legal authorities of the day in both Athens and London. Lord Elgin’s activities were thoroughly investigated by a Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816 and found to be entirely legal.

    Provocative as it sounds to most Greek ears, the case for the legality of the marbles’ transfer is worth studying. It rests mainly on a document that was apparently issued by an Ottoman official, the kaymakam, at the request of the British embassy to the High Porte, around the beginning of July 1801. It emerged at a high point in Anglo-Ottoman relations, when the two powers were acting in lockstep to expel Napoleon’s forces from Egypt. It was not, strictly speaking, a firman – a term which refers to a decree issued by the sultan himself. But the kaymakam was a high-ranking figure.

    Its terms had virtually been dictated by Elgin’s assistant, a shrewd Anglican cleric, Philip Hunt. It allowed a team of mainly Italian artists employed by Elgin to visit the Acropolis, which was also the Ottoman garrison, make drawings and moulds of the antiquities, and specified that …“When they wish to take away some pieces of stone with old inscriptions, and figures, no opposition be made…”

    Historians agree that when that text was issued it was understood to refer to picking up objects from or below the ground. (Ever since the explosion of 1687, when a Venetian mortar bomb ignited an Ottoman powder-keg and blew the roof off the Parthenon, plenty of valuable debris had been scattered around on the citadel).

    In the course of July 1801, Anglo-Ottoman relations became closer still as fears grew that Napoleon might invade Greece. Hunt was sent back to Athens – on a mission to stiffen the backs of the Ottoman commanders. As he boasted afterwards, this provided an opportunity to “stretch” the meaning of the permit and remove sculptures that were still attached to the temples. In the careful words of historian William St Clair, “Lord Elgin’s agents, by a mixture of cajolery, bribes and threats, persuaded and bullied the Ottoman authorities in Athens to exceed the terms” of the kaymakam’s decree.

    As Elgin would later explain, such a document was in any case not the last word – it was a basis for negotiation with local officials, and it did not preclude the need to keep up a steady flow of bribes to ensure that the stripping of the Acropolis continued unimpeded.

    Conveniently for Elgin, the post of disdar, or head of the Acropolis garrison, changed hands in mid-1801, as an elderly incumbent, who’d made a steady income in bribes, passed away and the job was taken over by his son. The new disdar felt trapped in the middle of a high-stakes transaction, and he feared dire punishment if he miscalculated. Elgin and his associates made sure that he remained frightened. In May 1802, the disdar became anxious that he might get into trouble with his Ottoman masters because he had been slightly too zealous in accommodating Elgin’s project. But as Lady Elgin smugly reported, one of her husband’s agents “whistled in his lug (ear)” that he had nothing to fear. Or to put it another way, “You have nothing to fear but us…”

    Even then, the Ottoman attitude to the legality of the project was never a settled matter. In autumn of 1802, both the disdar and the voivode (governor) of Athens became worried that they might get in trouble with the Porte, because the existing text did not justify the mass stripping which was in progress. Elgin duly procured a fresh document which retroactively legalized the actions of the two officials.

    But then fast-forward to 1808, by which time the kaleidoscope had shifted: the Ottomans were at peace with France and spasmodically at war with the British. Many of the sculptures collected by Elgin were still in Greece.

    A new British envoy to the Porte tried to get the sculptures released, and was bluntly told that Elgin’s entire operation had been illegal. Only after January of 1809, with the signature of a new Anglo-Ottoman treaty, did the atmosphere change, leading to a fresh document that enabled the export of the sculptures to resume.

    During the parliamentary investigation which the British Museum mentions, Elgin was questioned hard as to whether he had abused his position as ambassador to pursue a personal transaction; he replied, absurdly, that, in his antiquarian activities, he was no different from any private archaeologist. But many legislators were unconvinced.

    It seemed obvious that the objects for which Elgin was about to be paid £35,000 had been obtained by careful exploitation of diplomatic privilege and of the sweet state of Anglo-Ottoman relations. Elgin got his money, but that does not mean he was believed.

    Is this really the kind of behaviour on which British officials should be basing their case? By stressing the very dubious argument for the legality of Elgin’s actions, they risk drawing further attention to the fundamental moral issues.

    * Bruce Clark writes for The Economist on history, culture and ideas. He is author of his latest book “Athens: City of Wisdom.”

    This article was previously published in Greek at kathimerini.gr, 18 February 2022

    Bruce Clark also contributed his article 'Stealing Beauty' to BCRPM's articles section of this website. 

     

  • How the Much-Debated Elgin Marbles Ended Up in England
    The author of a new book, Bruce Clarkand his latest article published 11 January 2022, in the Smithsonian Magazine.

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    When Thomas Bruce, Seventh Earl of Elgin, arrived in the city he knew as Constantinople—today’s Istanbul—in November 1799, he had every reason to hope that his mission as Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman sultan would be a spectacular success.

    A year earlier, Napoleon had invadedOttoman Egypt, and Britain hoped to become the sultan’s main ally in reversing the French conquest. The dispatch from London of a well-connected diplomat descended from the kings of Scotland was itself a gesture of friendship toward the Turks. Then 33 years old, Elgin was an experienced statesman who had previously served as a British envoy in Brussels and Berlin.

    As well as competing in geopolitics, the British were vying with the French for access to whatever remained of the great civilizations of antiquity. On this front, too, Elgin was confident of faring well. His marriage in March 1799 to a wealthy heiress, Mary Nisbet, had given him the financial means to sponsor ambitious cultural projects. While traveling through Europe en route to Constantinople, he recruited a team of mostly Italian artists led by the Neapolitan painter Giovanni-Battista Lusieri. Their initial task was to draw, document and mold antiquities in the Ottoman-controlled territory of Greece, thus preserving these ancient treasures on paper and canvas, in part for the edification of Elgin’s countrymen, most of whom would never otherwise see Athens’ statues, temples and friezes.

    From the start, though, the artists’ mandate was shrouded in careful ambivalence. Elgin declaredthat simply capturing images of the treasures would be “beneficial to the progress of the fine arts” in his home country. But in more private moments, he didn’t conceal his determination to decorate his home in Scotland with artifacts extracted from Greece. “This … offers me the means of placing, in a useful, distinguished and agreeable way, the various things that you may perhaps be able to procure for me,” he wrote to Lusieri.

    The initially cloudy mission of Elgin’s artistic team culminated in a massive campaign to dismantle artworks from the temples on the Acropolis and transport them to Britain. Elgin’s haul—representing more than half of the surviving sculptures on the Athenian citadel—included most of the art adorning the Parthenon, the greatest of the Acropolis temples, and one of the six robed maidens, or caryatids, that adorned the smaller Erechtheion temple. Large sections of the Parthenon frieze, an extraordinary series of relief sculptures depicting a mysterious procession of chariots, animals and people, numbered among the loot.

    Among critics, the removal of the so-called Elgin Marbles has long been described as an egregious act of imperial plunder. Greeks find it especially galling that Elgin negotiated the removal of such treasures with the Ottoman Empire, a foreign power that cared little for Hellenic heritage. Calls to return the sculptures to Athens began in Elgin’s own day and continue now: While in London in November 2021, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis stated plainly that Elgin “stole” the ancient artworks. (The British Museum, for its part, has always insisted that its mandate of displaying its collections for the purpose of public education does not allow it to simply give objects away.)

    Does Elgin deserve his terrible reputation? He certainly derived little personal happiness from his antiquarian acquisitions. While making his way back to Britain in 1803, he was detained in France by the government. He returned to his native shores three years later, in 1806, only to find that many of the artifacts he had collected were still stuck in Greece. Getting them to England would take six more years: Beginning in 1807, the earl was involved in acrimonious divorce proceedings that left his finances in ruins, and he had to implore the state to buy the objects whose extraction he had financed. In the end, the government acquired the trove for £35,000—less than half of what Elgin claimed to have spent employing Lusieri and his team, arranging sea transport, and bribing Ottoman officials. He was denounced as a vandal in sonorous verses by the poet Lord Byron, a fellow member of the Anglo-Scottish aristocracy, and the broader British public alike. If Elgin deserved punishment, he got a good deal of it in his own lifetime. But in the eyes of posterity, he has fared still worse.

    In blurring the line between documenting the antiquities of Greece and taking them away, Elgin was following a template created two decades earlier by the French. A promising French artist, Louis-Francois-Sebastian Fauvel, received an assignment in 1784 from his country’s ambassador to the Ottoman sultan to make exact drawings and casts of Greek antiquities. By 1788, the French envoy was urging his young protégé, then at work on the Acropolis, to go much further than drawing or molding: “Remove all that you can, do not neglect any means, my dear Fauvel, of plundering in Athens and its territory all that is to be plundered.” After his diplomatic boss fell out of grace amid the French Revolution, Fauvel became an antiquarian and energetic looter in his own right. When Elgin took up his post in Istanbul in 1799, he and his compatriots saw it as their patriotic duty to outdo the French in this race to grab history.

    Also of note is the fact that Elgin was often surrounded by people whose zeal for the removal of Greek antiquities outpaced his own. These individuals included his ultra-wealthy parents-in-law, whose money ultimately made the operation possible, and the shrewd English clergyman Philip Hunt, who worked as Elgin’s personal assistant. When he learned of his appointment to Elgin’s staff, Hunt explained to his father that the job seemed a “brilliant opportunity of improving my mind and laying the foundation of a splendid fortune.”

    In spring 1801, Hunt went to Athens to assess the progress being made by Lusieri and his artistic team. He realized that simply gaining access to the Acropolis, which also served as the Ottoman garrison, would require a burdensome series of presents and bribes to local officials. The only solution, he concluded, was to secure an all-purpose permit from some high-ranking person in the entourage of the sultan. By early July, Hunt had induced the deputy to the grand vizier to issue a paper that would allow Elgin’s team to work unimpeded on the Acropolis: to draw, excavate, erect scaffolding and “take away some pieces of stone with old figures or inscriptions,” as the permit put it.

    Over the following month, the situation devolved rapidly. With Napoleon apparently on the verge of invading Greece, Hunt was sent back to Athens on a fresh mission: to reassure Ottoman officials of British support and ward off any temptation to collaborate with the French. Seeing how highly the Ottomans valued their alliance with the British, Hunt spotted an opportunity for a further, decisive extension of the Acropolis project. With a nod from the sultan’s representative in Athens—who at the time would have been scared to deny a Briton anything—Hunt set about removing the sculptures that still adorned the upper reaches of the Parthenon. This went much further than anyone had imagined possible a few weeks earlier. On July 31, the first of the high-standing sculptures was hauled down, inaugurating a program of systematic stripping, with scores of locals working under Lusieri’s enthusiastic supervision.

    Whatever the roles of Hunt and Lusieri, Elgin himself cannot escape ultimate responsibility for the dismantling of the Acropolis. Hunt at one point suggested removing all six of the caryatid maidens if a ship could be found to take them away; Elgin duly tried find a vessel, but none were available.

    Still, once back in England, Elgin adamantly claimed that he had merely been securing the survival of precious objects that would otherwise have disappeared. In evidence provided to a parliamentary committee, he insisted that “in amassing these remains of antiquity for the benefit of my country, and in rescuing them from imminent and unavoidable destruction with which they were threatened, … I have been actuated by no motives of private emolument.” Betraying the bigotries of the day, Elgin argued that if the sculptures had remained in Athens, they would have been “the prey of mischievous Turks who mutilated [them] for wanton amusement, or for the purpose of selling them to piecemeal to occasional travelers.” He outlined examples of numerous important Greek monuments that had disappeared or been damaged during the previous half-century. In offering these justifications, he was trying to persuade the committee that he had enlarged the scope of his antiquarian project—from merely drawing or molding ancient sculptures to taking them away—only when it became clear to him that the unique treasures were in danger.

    There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of these claims. Upon his arrival in Istanbul, the earl had declared an interest in decorating his own house with ancient treasures. But even if Elgin’s argument was dishonest, his point about the likely fate of the artifacts, given the geopolitical situation at the dawn of the 19th century, is a serious one. We can assess its merit in light of what actually happened to the sculptures that stayed on the Acropolis (because Elgin’s people didn’t quite manage to remove them all) versus those that were shipped to England.

    Contrary to Elgin’s stated fears, the sculptures that remained in Athens did not vanish. After 1833, when the Ottomans left the Acropolis and handed it to the new nation of Greece, the great citadel and its monuments became a focus of national pride. Protecting, restoring and showcasing the legacy of the Athenian golden age has been the highest priority for every Greek government since then.

     Of course, the monuments and artifacts of the Holy Rock, as Greeks call it, have not entirely escaped damage. Scorch marks from a fire during the 1820s Greek War of Independence, during which the Acropolis changed hands several times, remain visible today. In recent years, the contours of some sculptures have been worn away by air pollution—a problem that was particularly acute in the 1980s. But Elgin’s people also caused damage, both to the sculptures they removed and to the underlying structure of the Parthenon. (“I have been obliged to be a little barbarous,” Lusieri once wrote to Elgin.) Then there were the marbles that sankon one of Elgin’s ships in 1802 and were only salvaged three years later. Even after they arrived at the British Museum, the sculptures received imperfect care. In 1938, for example, they were “cleaned” with an acid solution.

    With the benefit of two centuries of hindsight, Elgin’s claim that his removal of treasures from the Acropolis was a noble act, in either its intention or its result, is dubious at best. Still, the earl’s professed concern for the preservation of the glories of ancient Athens raises an interesting line of thought. Suppose that among his mixture of motives—personal aggrandizement, rivalry with the French and so on—the welfare of the sculptures actually had been Elgin’s primary concern. How could that purpose best be served today? Perhaps by placing the Acropolis sculptures in a place where they would be extremely safe, extremely well conserved and superbly displayed for the enjoyment of all? The Acropolis Museum, which opened in 2009 at the foot of the Parthenon, is an ideal candidate; it was built with the goal of eventually housing all of the surviving elements of the Parthenon frieze.

    Of the original 524-foot-long frieze, about half is now in London, while another third is in Athens. Much smaller fragments are scattered elsewhere around the globe. The Acropolis Museum’s magnificent glass gallery, bathed in Greek sunlight and offering a clear view of the Parthenon, would be a perfect place to reintegrate the frieze and allow visitors to ponder its meaning. After all, British scholars and cultural figures who advocate for the sculptures’ return to Athens are careful to frame their arguments in terms of “reunifying” a single work of art that should never have been broken up.

    That, surely, is a vision that all manner of people can reasonably embrace, regardless of whether they see Elgin as a robber or give him some credit as a preservationist. If the earl really cared about the marbles, and if he were with us today, he would want to see them in Athens now.

    Bruce Clark wrote this article for the Smithsonian Magazine and it was published online on 11 Janyary 2022.

     

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  • A letter from Cambridge

    A documentary from the journalist Bruce Clark about the Parthenon Marbles

      

    “What about the British classicists of our times? Do they study the Athenian past in a spirit of acquisition and ambition or of friendship and respect? I am glad to say that when I last went back to my old place of learning, things seemed to have changed for the better…”

    The observation comes from the journalist Bruce Clark, and it offers a first response to the question which is posed in a short documentary, “From Cambridge with Love: A Call to Mend the Parthenon’s Broken Treasures” which Kathimerini has seen.

    However the author and former international security editor of the Economist, who is a Cambridge graduate himself, does not return to his alma materwith the sole purpose of finding out whether old-fashioned mentalities have been set aside.

    “Public opinion in the United Kingdom is in favour of reunifying the marbles,” Clark told Kathimerini, “but it is not completely well informed about what exactly the sculptures are, or about the role they played in the civilization of ancient Athens – or about the fact they constitute a single work of art. The idea of the documentary was to inform the public more deeply about the sculptures, about the mysteries they contain and the unresolved scholarly debates they have stimulated – as a way of promoting their eventual reunification.”

    The British classicists – and members of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles - whom Clark meets in the film are Paul Cartledge, an emeritus professor of Cambridge University and Edith Hall, a professor of ancient Greek literature at Durham University.

    As Clark – who is also a member of the BCRPM – says in the documentary, “[both] helped me to understand one overwhelming fact – all the brilliant cultural products of fifth century Athens reflect the wave of democratic energy which cascaded through the city – that tiny, talented place – after its victory against the huge Persian empire…”

    The film alludes to the democratic way in which the construction of the Parthenon was overseen – and also to the frieze which represents the whole population of the city. The “mystery” which stirs debate around the frieze concerns the so-called peplos scene - which might, according to some scholars, show Erechtheus, the first king of Athens, handing over a death-shroud to his daughter, foreshadowing her self-sacrifice for the good off the city.

    “It is an unresolved scholarly question,” Clark tells Kathimerini – “just like the question of whether the frieze depicts the Panathenaic procession as it happened at that time, or some idealized notion of the procession in the past.”

    The majority of the frieze is, of course, in the British Museum.“The presentation of the frieze is particularly damaging,”   Paul Cartledge explains in the film, “because the designers of that [BM] gallery try to pretend that they have the whole of the frieze when in fact they don’t…” Edith Hall puts it this way: “You might say it’s like trying to read a comic with the pictures in a random order.” 

    And the British sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld, who also appears in the documentary, adds that “the most tragic thing for a sculptor is to create a work for a particular place and then find that it’s going to be moved…”

    “From Cambridge with Love” – jointly created by Clark and producer Leonidas Liambeys – will make its first appearance in the Ninth “Beyond Borders” Documentary Festival in Kastellorizo. The main conclusion could be summed up in a remark made by Clark to Kathimerini: “It doesn’t require a brilliant brain to see that if there is one single place where the sculptures should be, it is the Acropolis Museum.”

    Does Clark have hope that the advent of a new government will make things easier? “The very fact that there is a new government is a sign of hope,” he responds. “We understand that the Labour government will not stand in the way of any deal made by the British Museum – however they do not plan to change the law.  They are at least giving the Museum some room for manoeuvre. I think, though, that some legislative amendment will be needed.”

     

    From Cambridge With Love will be shown at the International Documentary Festival in Kastellorizo on 26 August at 8.30 pm.

     

    Article written by Nikolas Zois for Kathimerini and published on 14 August 2024

     

  • “These were legally acquired at the time.” Of all the sound bites heard during this week’s furor on the Parthenon Sculptures, that one (attributed to a spokesman for Rishi Sunak) is among the most depressing.

    There are several ways to respond.

    First, there are some interesting arguments about the various, wildly contradictory documents that were issued by the Ottoman officials during the period when the marbles were extracted and transported to England.

    One of those documents, penned in June 1801, apparently authorized Lord Elgin’s associates to collect “some pieces of stone” lying around the Acropolis. But, as they admitted, they exploited a sweet moment in Anglo-Ottoman relations to stretch outrageously the meaning of that text – and systematically strip the Parthenon, using threats and bribes to silence objectors.

    The fundamental principle of British democracy is that laws are made by the people’s representatives and that holders of high office are subject to man-made laws.

    But there is a deeper point of principle, and it goes to the heart of the reason why liberal-minded people call the sculptures of Pheidias a vital piece of humanity’s heritage.

    Among citizens of today’s liberal democracies, the age of Pericles is admired precisely because it foreshadowed the ideal of the law-based state. A state where laws are freely debated and approved with the involvement of all citizens, and then applied impartially.

    A state where office-holders are accountable to every citizen, and can be removed if they violate the law. Ancient Athens had its flaws, but so too do modern democracies. In any case, the ancient Athenian ideal is one we can recognize and admire.

    These points have been well argued by Professor Paul Cartledge, vice chairman of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.

    The Ottoman Empire in the age of Elgin was not a law-based state in anything like the modern sense. It was a kind of theocracy, where power flowed from the sultan, who in turn derived his authority from God. Arguably, modern Britain also has vestiges of theocracy, in the sense that it has a monarchy and an established church. But they are only vestiges: The fundamental principle of British democracy is that laws are made by the people’s representatives and that holders of high office are subject to man-made laws.

    That is why it seems so odd for a British government to be citing the decrees of a theocratic empire as grounds for rejecting the legitimate aspirations of a fellow democracy – and refusing to meet the leader of a duly elected government.

    The Ottoman Empire was not a law-based state in the modern understanding of the term. It was a theocracy in which supreme authority sat with the sultan-caliph who ruled by divine authority and divine inspiration.

    This Opinion arrticle was published in ekathimerini.com on 05 December 2023

    Bruce Clark, is international security editor at The Economist, author of a number of books, including his latest book, which is entitled “Athens: City of Wisdom.” Bruce is a member of BCRPM.

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  • 20 November 2021, The Tablet

    Just over 400 years have passed since Sir Henry Wotton, travelling through Europe on official business, offered a definition of his role: “An ambassador is an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.”

    Even if the preceding words are too harsh, the final six remain important. In everything they do or say, diplomats must serve their homeland, not their personal agenda. A recruit to the Foreign Office is warned of a code which forbids any use of an official position “to further your private interests or those of others.” Equally taboo is accepting “gifts or hospitality” which “might reasonably be seen to compromise your personal judgement or integrity.”


    The past, you may say, is a foreign country, where things were done differently. But how differently? When Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin, was appointed ambassador to the Ottoman Sultan in 1799, it was an opportunity not just to consolidate an alliance against the French but to acquire some of the greatest artefacts ever fashioned – in order to decorate his house in Scotland.


    He would later give different accounts of his motivation: at times he insisted that he was acting nobly to further British aesthetics. He would claim, quite implausibly, that he only decided to remove sculptures, as opposed to having them drawn, when he saw they were in acute danger. In more private communications, he was more frank. During the summer of 1801, when an exceptional military alliance seemed to offer exceptional personal opportunities, there is no mistaking the excited tone in which he writes to Giovanni Lusieri, his monument-stripper in chief: “The plans for my house in Scotland should be known to you. The building is a subject that occupies me greatly, and offers me the means of placing in a useful, distinguished and agreeable way, the various things that you may perhaps be able to procure for me.”


    Studying the documentary evidence for the extraction of the Parthenon sculptures, which began in 1801 and continued intensively over two years, it is hard to avoid a sense of how shocking the operation was to many contemporaries. Was permission given? The original firman (an Ottoman letter of permission) has never been found but let us assume the authenticity of the Italian copy. The person induced to issue it was not the Sultan (who may never have known) but an official several notches down, the deputy to the Grand Vizier; and it has never been clear what exactly he meant by allowing the removal of “some pieces of stone with old inscriptions and figures” from the Acropolis. As the historian William St Clair concluded after a rigorous examination, Elgin’s agents used “cajolery, threats and bribes” to persuade Ottoman officials in Athens to exceed, at least in spirit, the firman’s terms.


    When Lusieri and his team went to work with ropes, pulleys and saws, the spectacle was horrifying to British and Ottoman observers alike. As Edward Daniel Clarke, a traveller and antiquarian, describes the scene; “Down came the fine masses of Pentelican marble, scattering their white fragments with thundering noise among the ruins. The disdar (commander of the Ottoman garrison) took his pipe from his mouth and letting fall a tear, said in a most emphatic tone of voice, telos !
    It was a scandalous act even with due consideration for the spirit of the times, which was itself pretty horrifying to modern sensibilities. The spirit might be described by the elusive New Testament Greek word harpagmos which refers to the act of grabbing, the thing grabbed or to a grabbing kind of mindset. For the powerful nations of western Europe and their wealthy representatives, Hellenism and its physical legacy was something to be grabbed: either by measuring, drawing and painting the ancient artefacts or, ultimately, by removing them.


    Pause for a moment and consider what message is being sent to the world by the British establishment when it retrospectively endorses Elgin’s actions as procedurally correct and legal. Such formalistic arguments cut less and less ice in world where the tide of anger over Europe’s historic arrogance is growing. It surfaced most recently in September when a UNESCO committee, a rotating group of 21 countries, called with unprecedented firmness for the return of the Parthenon marbles to Athens. This emboldened Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister, to make a formal request for talks on [reunification] during a visit to Britain this week.


    The trustees of the British Museum insist, accurately enough, that they have no mandate to do anything except act in the interest of the institution and its educational mission. The British government hides behind the independence of the museum; it is not for any cabinet minister to interfere in the decision-making of such a robustly independent body. As a museum spokesperson said in response to the UNESCO vote, the trustees “have a legal and moral responsibility to preserve and maintain all the collections in their care and to make them accessible to world audiences.” But that need not be the final answer. Ways can be found to overcome the legal obstacles. A law was passed in 2009 to enable the Museum to return objects that had been looted by the Nazis. An equally powerful imperative is building up for the return of objects that were grabbed in the colonial era with egregious cynicism. These include the Benin heads that were seized in 1897 after British forces looted a royal palace in Nigeria.


    In 2019, Germany vowed to work towards the return of imperial loot taken “in ways that are legally or morally unjustifiable today.” All over the world, the moral pressure to rectify (or at least not gloat over) the legacy of colonialism is growing, with the support of rising powers like China and India.  sensed and anticipated that trend when he said in 2017 that France’s museums should no longer be holding colonial booty from Africa, starting a process that culminated last year in a law which provided for some restitution.


    Suppose Britain’s cultural establishment were to renounce the legacy of Elgin and instead throw itself behind the cause of the reunification of the Parthenon sculptures, perhaps on the understanding that Greece would freely grant or lend to the British people other artefacts of real value. Amidst the euphoric chain-reaction that would be triggered, wonderful new ideas would emerge as to how best to share the legacy of Greece with the world. Among the distinguished cultural and academic figures who advocate such a move, the term “reunification” is carefully chosen. If the sculptures now in London belong anywhere it is with the parts of the frieze that remain in Athens and are now superbly displayed, in Greek light and with the Parthenon in view, in the new Acropolis Museum. For the first time in two centuries, visitors would be invited to admire the great majority of the frieze, with its chariots, horsemen, tray-bearers and water-carriers … and ponder what they mean: the fact is that nobody knows.


    In its handout on the marbles, the British Museum rightly notes that the Parthenon has a “complex history”, including phases as a “temple, a church, a mosque and now an archaeological site”. If there is a flaw in the way the Acropolis and its monuments are now presented to the world, it lies in the exclusive emphasis placed on the era of Pericles, leading statesman of Athens from 461 to 429 BC – perhaps the greatest of the Rock’s many ages, but not the only one. Eight centuries before Pericles, the citadel hosted a thriving Mycenean palace; two centuries before, the rock’s sanctity, whose violation incurred a terrible, inter-generational curse, became a wild card in Athenian power struggles. And the Parthenon was a temple of monotheism for longer than it served the Olympian religion: a Greek Christian cathedral for perhaps seven centuries, a Roman Catholic one for another two, then a mosque. For Christians, the mysterious light that emanated from the white pillars became an attraction for pilgrims and a sign of the Virgin Mary. In 1394 the Florentine duke Nerio Acciaiuoli bequeathed the entire modest town of Athens to the Catholic cathedral of Santa Maria, in other words the Parthenon.


    It is an Ottoman Muslim traveller, Evliya Celebi, who gave one of the greatest descriptions of the Parthenon frieze: “The human mind cannot indeed comprehend those images – they are white magic, beyond human capacity: whoever looks upon them falls into ecstasy, his body grows weak and his eyes water for delight.” And the Acropolis has seen an extraordinary modern history – for example in 1941 when two brave young Athenians scrambled up a vertical tunnel first used by Myceneans in the middle of the night and tore down the Nazi banner that flew menacingly over the city. As described later by Manolis Glezos, emerging from the dark passage onto the moon-lit rock was a moment of spiritual ecstasy as well as political defiance.


    All these moments have their place in the story of the Acropolis. It is a shame that the average guide book devotes, say 50 pages to the Periclean century and at most a paragraph to the monotheistic millennium. But if the injuries left by Elgin’s depredation could only heal, then the masters of the Acropolis would more easily find the freedom and confidence to present the story of the Sacred Rock in its mysterious entirety. And the whole world would joyfully assist them.

     

    Bruce Clark’s article was published in The Tablet (Saturday 20 November 2021).

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    Bruce Clark writes for The Economist on history, culture and ideas. His latest book  'Athens: City of Wisdom', is published by Head of Zeus and is available to purchase via The Tablet also.

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  • Twelve British philhellenes share their thoughts on Greece ahead of 2023, writes Yannis Andritsopoulos, London Correspondent for the Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea. 

    The 1821 Greek Revolution against the rule of the Ottoman Turks sparked a wave of sympathy and support in many parts of the world, which came to be known as the ‘Philhellenic movement’ or ‘Philhellenism’ (the love for Greek culture and the Greek people).

    April 19, the date on which the poet and great philhellene Lord Byron died, has been declared by the Greek state as Philhellenism and International Solidarity Day.

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    Two hundred years on, many people around the world continue to love Greece and stand by it.

    Twelve acclaimed contemporary British philhellenes send their wishes for the New Year to Greece and the Greek people in this article written exclusively for the Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea. Notably, most of them think that the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles is one of the highest priorities in Greek-British relations.

    Sarah Baxter

    Journalist, Director of the Marie Colvin Centre for International Reporting, former Deputy Editor of The Sunday Times, Member of the Parthenon Project's Advisory Board

    Happy 2023! Here's to a year of friendship and harmony. I'm hoping we will see the Parthenon sculptures begin their permanent journey home, with some wonderful Greek treasures heading in the other direction to the British Museum on loan. We know a "win-win" deal is going to happen eventually. Let's get on with it!

    Roderick Beaton

    Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek & Byzantine History, Language & Literature at King’s College London, Chair of the Council of the British School at Athens

    A wish that won't come true: for the UK to return to the place it left in the EU following Brexit. Not only would we, the friends of Greece, regain the right we lost to stay close to you without restrictions, but also the voice of a country that had so much to offer to everyone would be heard during the political developments and critical decisions that 2023 will inevitably bring. Just imagine how you Greeks managed your referendum more skilfully than we did!

    Paul Cartledge

    A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture Emeritus at the University of Cambridge, President of The Hellenic Society, Vice-Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM) and Vice-President of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS)

    Greece has become such a major world player in the past century, not to mention the past two centuries, that it's hard to select any contemporary or likely future issue where relations between Britain and Greece in 2024 are not of the utmost significance. In the sphere of international cultural relations and soft diplomacy, one issue stands out above all others for Greece and Britain mutually speaking: 'the Marbles'. A resolution sparked by British generosity is devoutly to be wished.

    Bruce Clark

    Author, journalist and lecturer, Online Religion Editor of The Economist, BCRPM member

    In 2023 it will be 190 years since the Ottoman garrison left the Acropolis and the Holy Rock became an archaeological site which fascinated and dazzled the world. The arguments for reuniting the Parthenon sculptures, for the benefit of people in Greece, Britain and many other countries, become stronger with every passing year.

    Alberto Costa MP

    Conservative Member of Parliament for South Leicestershire and Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Greece

    On behalf of the All-Parliamentary Group for Greece in the British Parliament, I would like to wish our friends in the Greek Parliament, and the Greek people, a very happy New Year. I am delighted that relations between our two countries are stronger than ever and that Greece and her people enjoy a huge amount of support in the British Parliament. We very much look forward to building upon on our relationship, and our shared values and commitments, next year and in further strengthening the historic bonds that our two countries share.

    Armand D'Angour

    Professor of Classical Languages and Literature at the University of Oxford, Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Jesus College, Oxford, BCRPM member

    It is heartening to see that the partnership of the UK and Greece is closer than ever, and that the green light has now been given for the return of the Parthenon sculptures to their rightful home. In these politically fractious times, governments should recognise who their friends are and be generous with both moral and practical support. The return of the sculptures will be a long-awaited gesture of friendship as well as a great morale-booster for both countries.

    Hugo Dixon

    Journalist, Commentator-at-Large with Reuters

    My 2023 wish is that Turkey chooses a new leader and the West finds a way to bring the country in from the cold. A new leader should realise that it is not in Turkey’s interests to play the West off against Russia – especially as Vladimir Putin is a loser. If Turkey comes back to the heart of NATO, Greece will be one of the biggest beneficiaries.


    Kevin Featherstone

    Director of the Hellenic Observatory at the LSE, Eleftherios Venizelos Professor in Contemporary Greek Studies and Professor in European Politics at the LSE’s European Institute

    Dear Greece,

    I hope we will agree to send the Marbles back in 2023. Our two countries have a long-term ‘love affair’ and it’s the least we could do after the folly of ‘BREXIT’ – pushing up university fees for Greek students. But we have a favour to ask, please. At present, our prime ministers don’t last as long as a lettuce, and they have much less brain power, so might you have a politician to spare? Not Dimitriadis or Kaili, though, or we’ll go ‘nuclear’ and send you Boris.

    Judith Herrin

    Archaeologist, byzantinist, historian, Professor Emerita of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies and Constantine Leventis Senior Research Fellow at King's College London, BCRPM member

    Dear friends,
    As 2022 comes to an end, I send my warmest greetings to Greece hoping for a healthier and more peaceful New Year.
    The campaign for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to their rightful place in the new Acropolis Museum gathers momentum, reminding us of the powerful initiative of Melina Mercouriand Eleni Cubitt.
    Let's hope for a breakthrough in 2023! Happy New Year!

    Victoria Hislop

    Author, BCRPM member

    I wish all my friends in Greece a Happy New Year. We are living in uncertain times but there is one thing I am becoming more certain of - opinions are beginning to shift significantly on the Parthenon Sculptures and I think we are moving closer to the time when they will be returned to their rightful home in Athens. Many other museums in Britain are recognising that they have objects in their possession that were unlawfully acquired during our colonial past - and the return of Elgin’s “loot” is long overdue. This is my wish for 2023.

    Denis MacShane

    Former Minister of State for Europe in the Tony Blair government, former President of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), author and commentator

    2022 was the year Britain returned to Greece. Up to August 2022, 3 million visitors went from the UK to Greece – a three-fold increase on the previous year. The weak English pound devalued thanks to Brexit has not damaged the love affair of the English with Greece.

    But love has its limits. Although Prime Minister Mitsotakis told a packed meeting at the London School of Economics that he hoped soon the looted Parthenon Marbles would rejoin the rest of the sculptures from the Parthenon in the Acropolis Museum, there was no indication from Britain’s Conservative ministers London was willing to move.

    The pro-Turkish Boris Johnson was fired by Tory MPs from his post as Prime Minister. But while France’s President Macron has expressed support for Greece as Turkey’s President Erdogan, inspired by Vladimir Putin, steps up his bellicose language threatening Greece, Britain remained silent in 2022 on the need for Europe to stand with Greece against Erdogan’s threats and demagogy.

    Dame Janet Suzman

    Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM), actor, Honorary Associate Artist at The Royal Shakespeare Company

    In a world which seems unremittingly wicked we want tales of powerful gods presiding over squabbling mortals and blissful marriages with happy endings. That’s my dream for the Parthenon Marbles: the Prime Minister will charm the Chairman of the British Museum into a wedding ceremony in the Acropolis Museum, to witness the marriage of the two estranged halves of the glorious Parthenon pediment - accompanied by the cheers of the wedding guests galloping happily round the frieze, now returned home. If only…

    This article was published in the Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea(www.tanea.gr) on 30 December 2022.

© 2022 British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles. All Rights Reserved.