Ioannes Psicharis

Greek writer

Also known as: Iannis Psicharis

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July 13, 2026

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Ioannes Psicharis was a prominent Greek writer and the leading ideologist of the "demoticist" movement in modern Greek literature. He advocated for the adoption of the Demotic language, the traditional popular tongue, as the official language of Greece, arguing against the artificial and archaic Katharevusa. Psicharis's book My Journey (1888) was a fictionalized account and a manifesto for this cause. The demoticist movement, inspired by folklore, influenced poets and prose writers to create a more intimate and authentic style of Greek literature.12

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Greek literature
Demoticism and folklorism, 1880–1922
…pedantry fashionable in Athens, was Yánnis Psicháris (Jean Psichari), whose book My Journey (1888) was partly a fictionalized account of a journey around the Greek world and partly a belligerent manifesto arguing that the Demotic language should be officially adopted as a matter of national urgency. The demoticist movement inspired…
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…pedantry fashionable in Athens, was Yánnis Psicháris (Jean Psichari), whose book My Journey (1888) was partly a fictionalized account of a journey around the Greek world and partly a belligerent manifesto arguing that the Demotic language should be officially adopted as a matter of national urgency. The demoticist movement inspired…
Read More