Manges (;

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: μάγκες ;

sing Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

.: mangas , μάγκας ) is the name of a social group in the

Belle Époque The Belle Époque or La Belle Époque (; French for "Beautiful Epoch") is a period of French and European history, usually considered to begin around 1871–1880 and to end with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Occurring during the era ...

era's

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

of Greece (especially of the great urban centers of

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

and

Piraeus Piraeus ( ; el, Πειραιάς ; grc, Πειραιεύς ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens' city centre, along the east coast of the Saronic ...

). The nearest English equivalent to the term "mangas" is wide boy, or

spiv In the United Kingdom, the word spiv is slang for a type of petty criminal who deals in illicit, typically black market, goods. The word was particularly used during the Second World War and in the post-war period when many goods were rationed du ...

Overview

Mangas was a label for men belonging to the Greek

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

, behaving in a particularly arrogant/presumptuous way, and dressing with a very typical vesture composed of a woolen hat (''kavouraki'', καβουράκι), a jacket (they usually wore only one of its sleeves), a tight belt (used as a knife case), stripe pants, and pointy shoes. Other features of their appearance were their long moustache, their bead chaplets (κομπολόγια, sing. κομπολόι), and their idiosyncratic manneristic limp-walking (κουτσό βάδισμα). A related social group were the Koutsavakides (κουτσαβάκηδες, sing. κουτσαβάκης); the two terms are occasionally used interchangeably. Manges are also notable for being closely associated to the history of

rebetiko Rebetiko ( el, ρεμπέτικο, ), plural rebetika ( ), occasionally transliterated as rembetiko or rebetico, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek music which have come to be grouped together since the s ...

Etymology

The three most probable etymologies of the word Mangas are the following: * From the Turkish ''manga'' "small military troop" via Albanian ''mangë''. * From the Latin ''manica'' (from the same root as Modern Greek μανίκι "sleeve") "hand-related" (''cf''. the sound change from the Latin ''manicus'' to the Spanish ''mango'' "handle"). * According to a more marginal proposal, its origin is from the Latin ''mango, -onis'' "dealer, trader".Andriotis, Nikolaos. ''Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής'' (''Etymologiko lexiko tis koinis neoellinikis''), Manolis Triantafyllidis Foundation, 1995.

In popular culture

Most rebetiko songs refer to manges, even when this is not explicit, as rebetiko was part of this subculture. Examples are: "Στην Υπόγα" ("In the Basement", by Kostis, 1930), "Ο Μάγκας του Βοτανικού" ("The Mangas of Votanikos", by Kasimatis, 1934). The admiration of manges was carried on with the later genre of greek music

Laïko Laïko or laïkó ( el, λαϊκό �ραγούδιlaïkó 'tragoúdi'' ; “ongof the people", "popular ong, pl: ''laïká'' 'tragoúdia'' is a Greek music genre composed in Greek language in accordance with the tradition of the Greek peopl ...

. Examples are: "Πού 'σουν μάγκα το Χειμώνα" ("Where Were You, Mangas, During the Winter", by Giorgos Mouflezis, 70s), and others.

Karagiozis Karagiozis or Karaghiozis ( ell, Καραγκιόζης , tr, Karagöz ) 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 i ...

shadow play Shadow play, also known as shadow puppetry, is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment which uses flat articulated cut-out figures (shadow puppets) which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or scrim. The cut-ou ...

s portray a recurrent character called ''Stavrakas'', Σταύρακας. In modern Greek language, mangas has become a synonym for "swash guy, swagger" or (in dialogue) simply "

dude ''Dude'' is American slang for an individual, typically male. From the 1870s to the 1960s, dude primarily meant a male person who dressed in an extremely fashionable manner (a dandy) or a conspicuous citified person who was visiting a rural ...

"; depending on context it may have more negative ("bully, thug, hooligan") or more positive ("brave, crafty man") connotations.

Notes

Notes and references

Bibliography

:''See also the bibliography sections on

and

rebetes A rebetis (Greek: ρεμπέτης ; pl. rebetes ρεμπέτες {{IPA, e(m)ˈbetes}) is a musician involved in the scene of the Greek musical genre of rebetiko, which flourished between 1920 and 1955. Prominent ''rebetes'' include: *Rita Abatzi ...

, much of which also deal with the lifestyle of manges.'' * Stasinopoulos, Epaminondas. ''Η Αθήνα του περασμένου αιώνα (1830–1900) – Last Century's Athens (1830–1900)'', Athens, 1963 {{in lang, el. Culture of Greece Counterculture Belle Époque Working class in Europe