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Karaghiozis (toy shadow puppet)

Karagiozis or Karaghiozis (Modern Greek: Καραγκιόζης, Turkish; 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 in the Turkish and Greek shadow-puppet theatre.


See also: Shadow theatre

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'.






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 (Greek: παράγκα) 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 (Sarayi) on the far right.



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 (but with a wide improvisational variety), and often involving interaction with the audience:

  1. Karagiozis appears in the scene with his 3 sons dancing and singing. He welcomes the audience[1] and has a comical dialogue with his children. He then enters his cottage
  2. The Vizier or a local Ottoman lord reports that he has a problem and needs someone to perform a deed
  3. Hadjiavatis obeys and starts announcing the news (usually a singing sequence) until Karagiozis hears about it
  4. Initially annoyed by Hadjiavatis' shouting, he finds it's an opportunity to gain money (either by helping the Vizier or not) and sometimes asks Hadjiavatis to aid him.
  5. Karagiozis either attempts to help the Vizier or fool him. The regular characters (see below) appear one at a time in the scene (they often appear with an introducing song which is standard for each of them); 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.

Some of the most known tales are:

  • Alexander the Great and the accursed snake
  • Karagiozis the doctor
  • Karagiozis the cook
  • Karagiozis the senator
  • Karagiozis the scholar
  • Karagiozis the prophet
  • Karagiozis the fisherman
  • Karagiozis and the gorilla
  • Karagiozis and the ghost

The characters[edit]

  • Karagiozis, is a trickster poor Greek man whose sole interest is sleep and eating. Socially, he is in closer relation to Hadji Ivat (Greek: Hadjiavatis) than any other characters, and often he is informed by him, sometimes they cooperate in business, but sometimes Hadjiavatis is a victim of Karagiozis' tricks.
  • Kollitiria (Κολλητήρια), Karagiozis' three kids. Some versions give their names as (from younger to older) Kollitiri, Kopritis and Bitsikokos.
  • Aglaia, (Αγλαΐα) Karagiozis' wife, who is usually unseen but whose characteristically nagging voice is heard to be coming from inside Karagiozis's house.
  • Hadjiavatis (Χατζηαβάτης), (the Turkish counterpart is Hacivat) he is Karagiozis' friend and sidekick, an honest and serious figure but often ends up being wrapped up in Karagiozis' schemes. He has a tendency to flatter the powerful and is sometimes depicted as a compliant person towards the occupying and dominant establishment, contrasting Karagiozis.
  • Barba Yorgos (Μπάρμπα Γιώργος, "Uncle George"), he represents a crude villager from the mountains, depicted as a shepherd or dairy farmer usually on some business related visit in the lowlands; he is depicted as a Vlach from Rumeli uncontaminated by urban trends, always depicted broad built and strong with traditional outfit. Even though he believes his nephew to be a crook, he helps him out and beats all the opponents black and blue with his staff.
  • Stavrakas (Σταύρακας), whose puppet is the only one with a long independent arm, like Karagiozis. He represents the "mangas" culture prevalent in Piraeus and the Rebetiko tradition. Although trying to bully the others, Karagiozis usually teases him.
  • Sior Dionysios (Σιορ Διονύσιος), an Italianate gentleman from Zakynthos of some aristocratic stock. Faithful to his Ionian Islands origin, he sings cantades and speaks the Ionian Greek dialect with the appropriate accent.
  • Morfonios (Μορφονιός), a European bred softie; he is very ugly with a huge head with an extremely large nose; however, he considers himself to be handsome and keeps falling in love. He often exclaims a sound like "whit!"
  • Solomon (Σολομών), a usually rich Jew from Thessaloniki, one of the less known characters, he speaks in his own fashion, sometimes uttering a very fast repeating sound often compared to a Gatling gun, earning him, by Karagiozis, the nickname "heavy arms", despite his frail build. His personality can vary, but usually plays minor roles.
  • Vizier (Βεζύρης), also called Pasha (Πασάς) in some versions, he is the dominant figure of the occupying side and lives in the Sarayi. He is usually the beginning of each new tale, by announcing trials, deeds, tests etc. to which Karagiozis usually decides to become involved.
  • Fatme (Φατμέ) is the Vizier or Pasha's beautiful daughter who has either obedient or rebellious roles; she has more than one way of causing trouble sometimes for good, opposing her despotic father or for bad in dislike of Karagiozis or some other hero.
  • Veligekas (Βελιγκέκας), an Albanian guard of the Sarai. He is the executive arm of the Pasha, always in the lookout for Karagizis and never waste an opportunity to give him a good beating. Usually gets beaten though by Barba Giorgos.
  • Peponias (Πεπόνιας), a fat officer of the Sarai, in some versions replacing Veligekas.

Some players have introduced other characters, like Karagiozis's old father and Nontas, Stavrakas' friend.

The puppets[edit]

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 (torso and legs) 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 (from Turk. 'perde', curtain). Between the figures and the player (who was invisible), 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[edit]

Conrad, also known as Karaghiosis, the protagonist of Roger Zelazny's ...And Call Me Conrad (also known as This Immortal), 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.[2] 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.

See also[edit]


External links[edit]