Professional education in the arts and cultural management is still governed by traditional structures in Greece. There are several academic departments of theatre studies, art history, archaeology, anthropology, cultural and media studies. Artistic education in the fine arts is integrated within official tertiary education, mainly through the Athens School of Fine Arts and the Fine Arts Department of the University of Thessaloniki. On the other hand, the main pillar of creative artistic education in music consists of a system of privately run conservatories and independent teachers, which is only nominally regulated by the Ministry and Culture. Drama education is provided... read more →
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If you are not happy with the results below please do another searchThe awards system has been restructured in recent legislation. The Νational Literary awards have been reorganised, to allow for both recognising the contribution of a writer in his or her lifetime (through the special "great" literary prize) and the contribution of younger, less established writers, based on work published in the last twelve months. There are also awards for Children's Literature, Translation and a Reader's Award. A number of awards have been established for dance, and a major prize in commemoration of Melina Mercouri was introduced to reward cultural contributions of national importance. The Thessaloniki Song Festival has been recently... read more →
There are several sectoral artists’ support programmes and schemes. More specifically: The Greek Film Centre supports international co-productions of feature films in which a Greek producer is a minor partner with a participation of at least 10%. The condition is that the film should either be shot in Greece or with the participation of Greek artists and or technicians or production laboratories.The National Book Centre of Greece holds a "writers in residence" grant programme where incoming writers are hosted at the House of Literature on the Aegean island of Paros. The Greek authors’ abroad scheme offers Greek authors the opportunity... read more →
While the current cultural model trends favour re-centralisation, there is still an important role for some organisations operating, formally and to some extent also in practice, under the arms-length principle in specific fields, especially publishing and film. Sectoral organisations, such as the National Book Centre and the Greek Film Centre are controlled by the state through the direct appointment of their Board of Directors by the Minister of Culture, but receive a separate budget which they can manage according to their established goals and action plan. Local arts organisations are typically established by municipalities, and receive funding by both the... read more →
Law 3828/2002 regulates all aspects of cultural heritage protection and management, replacing a complex sequence of amendments to earlier pieces of legislation dating to 1932 and 1950. The provisions of the current legislation can be summarised as follows: the concept of cultural heritage is broadened to encompass all cultural goods situated in Greece, including immovable monuments and sites, moveable cultural objects, and the intangible heritage (including oral traditions, myths, music, dances, skills and practices), regardless of cultural origin or tradition, and encompassing archaeological, ethnographic and broader cultural heritage;the notion of protection is broadened to cover, apart from physical preservation and... read more →
For many years, there have been few legal and financial incentives to promote sponsorship in the fields of culture and the arts. An Amendment to the Tax Law which provided tax exemptions for cultural sponsorship (1990) was practically rescinded under austerity economic policies in 1997. In 2007, however, legislation was introduced to offer some tax incentives for arts sponsorship; a central bureau has been set up, firstly to certify that a given sponsorship initiative is indeed for a bona fide cultural cause, and, secondly, to produce a list of priority projects in arts and heritage for which sponsorship will be... read more →
Collective agreements for performing artists, such as actors, were established upon the initiative of Melina Mercouri in the early 1980s. Such agreements have been established with public television and radio companies and between the Association of Greek Actors with theatre entrepreneurs. Typically, performers work on short term engagements, either as independent contractors or on a day salary basis, and often find it difficult to collect the necessary time credits in order to be paid a full pension or have access to unemployment benefits. Culture professionals benefit from general provisions with regard to pensions and social security, such as a national... read more →
No special legislation applies to the allocation of public funds for culture. The amount of public funding for the cultural organisations supervised by the Ministry of Culture is reflected in the budget planning of the Ministry and varies each year depending on the government's budget allocated to culture. Since 2012, funding of cultural organisations is subject to a new system that foresees the prior registration of cultural organisations in a Register of Cultural Organisations as a prerequisite for funding eligibility. Organisations submit their funding requests after an open call launched by the Ministry on an annual basis addressed to all... read more →
The Greek Constitution was recently amended to assert the right of all citizens to take part in the information society. According to a 2007 Eurobarometer survey (published in 2011), only 25% of Greeks use the Internet at least once a month, about half the European average. Several reasons have been put forward to explain low levels of access and participation: limited digital literacy; an extroverted, going-out lifestyle, favouring face-to-face interaction over solitary engagement on the Internet; the current scarcity of useful or interesting Greece-based content and services accessible through the Internet. Recent qualitative changes are, however, noticeable: in 2007, 28%... read more →
Greek is the official language of Greece, and the native language spoken by the vast majority of Greek citizens. Modern Greek is the natural evolution of earlier forms of the Greek language, from the late Bronze Age through to Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and post-Byzantine times, and retains to a significant extent the vocabulary base and syntax of earlier forms. The poetics and rhetoric of Modern Greek can be best appreciated with knowledge of earlier literary and linguistic traditions. Through urbanisation and the homogenising effect of national education and the audiovisual media, local variants of the Greek language have become... read more →