Karagiozis


Karagiozis or Karaghiozis is a shadow puppet and fictional character of Greek folklore, originating in the Turkish shadow play Karagöz and Hacivat. He is the main character of the tales narrated in the Turkish and Greek shadow-puppet theatre.

Origins

Shadow theatre, with a single puppeteer creating voices for a dialogue, narrating a story, and possibly even singing while manipulating puppets, appears to come ultimately from the Indonesian wayang kulit or Chinese pi ying xi Shadow play.
The name Karagiozis or Karaghiozis is from Greek Καραγκιόζης, borrowed from Turkish Karagöz 'dark eye'.
There are several stories of how shadow theater was established in Asia Minor. Many argue for a Mediterranean origin in the Egyptian shadow puppet tradition. Whatever the case, it is worthwhile to mention that regardless of religious restrictions, shadow theater became more widespread around the 16th century among the Muslim Turks.
Originally, his popular appeal was his scatological language and protruding phallus. It is still performed in Turkey, especially during Ramadan celebrations, under the same name.
Karagiozis seems to have come to mainland Greece, probably from Asia Minor at the 19th century, during Ottoman rule. Karagiozis was hellenized in Patras, Greece in the end of 19th century by Dimitrios Sardounis alias Mimaros, who is considered the founder of modern Greek shadow theater.
The genre became a fully integrated, though adapted, amongst the Greek population. But there are several legends as well as studies surrounding Karagiozis's arrival and subsequent popularity in Greece. Some stories say that Greek merchants brought the art from China and others say that it was a Greek who created the "legend" during Ottoman rule for the entertainment of the sultan. Yet others believe that it originated from real events involving two masonry workers named Karagöz and Haci Ivat working in the construction of a mosque in the city of Bursa, Turkey in early 14th century.

Scenario

Karagiozis is a poor hunchbacked Greek, his right hand is always depicted long, his clothes are ragged and patched, and his feet are always bare. He lives in a poor cottage with his wife Aglaia and his three sons, during the times of the Ottoman Empire. The scene is occupied by his cottage in the left, and the Sultan's Palace on the far right.
Because of his poverty, Karagiozis uses mischievous and crude ways to find money and feed his family.
Students of folklore divide Karagiozis' tales in two major categories: the 'Heroics' and the 'Comedies'. The Heroics are tales based on tradition or real stories involving the times under Ottoman rule, and Karagiozis is presented as a helper and assistant of an important hero.
Puppeteers devise their own original tales, however there are many 'traditional' tales that have descended orally from earlier puppeteers and are accepted as 'canon' with slight alterations between the players. Most of them are formulaic and have the following layout, and often involving interaction with the audience:
  1. Karagiozis appears in the scene with his 3 sons dancing and singing. He welcomes the audience and has a comical dialogue with his children. He then announces the title of the episode and enters his cottage
  2. The Vizier or a local Ottoman lord meets Hadjiavatis and reports that he has a problem and needs someone to perform a deed
  3. Hadjiavatis obeys and starts announcing the news until Karagiozis hears about it
  4. Initially annoyed by Hadjiavatis' shouting, he finds it's an opportunity to gain money and sometimes asks Hadjiavatis to aid him.
  5. Karagiozis either attempts to help the Vizier or fool him. The regular characters appear one at a time in the scene ; Karagiozis has a funny dialogue with them, mocks them, fools them, or becomes annoyed and ousts them violently.
  6. Finally, Karagiozis is either rewarded by the Vizier or his mischief is revealed and he's punished - usually by the Vizier's bodyguard, Veligekas.
  7. At the end Hadjiavatis appears on the screen and together with Karagiozis they announce the end of the show
Some of the most known tales are:
Some players have introduced other characters, like Karagiozis' old father or Stavrakas' friend, Nontas.

The puppets

All the figures that represent the characters of the shows are two dimensional and designed always in profile. They were traditionally made from camel skin, carved to allow light through the image, creating details, but are today most often made of cardboard. Traditional puppets gave off black shadows against the white screen, but some more recent puppets have holes covered with colored silk or plastic gel materials to create colored shadows. The torso, waist, feet and sometimes the limbs, were separate pieces that were joined together with pins. Most figures were composed of two parts with only one joint to the waist. Two characters, the Jew and Morfonios had joints in the neck, and had a flexible head.
They were moved with a stick attached to their 'back', except in the case of the figure of Karagiozis, Stavrakas and a few other characters whose arms or other limbs required separate movement. The 'scene' was a vertical white parapet, usually a cloth, called mperntes. Between the figures and the player, were candles or lamps that shed light to the figures and made their silhouettes and colours visible to the audience through the cloth.

Modern incarnations

Conrad, also known as Karaghiosis, the protagonist of Roger Zelazny's ...And Call Me Conrad, which won the 1966 Hugo Award for Best Novel, is partially inspired by this character.
In Greek daily speech, the name Karagiozis is also used as an insult more or less like clown. Puppeteers complain about this, saying that while Karagiozis can be violent, mischievous, a liar and an anti-hero, he is also good-natured and faithful, so his name should not be used as an insult.
During the 1980s, Greek Television had Karagiozis shows on a weekly basis. These shows had more modern and educational themes, like for example Karagiozis living some myths of Greek mythology or visiting the moon and other planets. Some of these episodes were either live with an audience, or filmed especially for the TV show and contained scenes that required editing or special effects.
There have been several recent attempts to make Karagiozis incarnations in comic books. Since the 2000s, Karagiozis is not so popular as a choice of recreation for young kids and the number of puppeteers has diminished, but remains a significant and well known folkloric figure. Today, he is performed mostly in folk feasts or festivals and on national Greek television. There are also occasional tours in the Greek diaspora.