About Music and Literature of Cyprus

The traditional folk music of Cyprus has many common elements with Greek mainland and island folk music, including dances like the sousta, syrtos, zeibekikos, tatsia, and the kartsilamas.
• The instruments commonly associated with Cyprus folk music are the violin ["fkiolin"], the lute ["laouto"], the accordion, and the Cyprus flute "pithkiavlin". There is also a form of musical poetry known as "chattista", which is often performed at traditional feasts and celebrations.
• Literary production of the antiquity includes the Cypria, an epic poem probably composed in the later seventh century BC and attributed to Stasinus. The Cypria is one of the very first specimens of Greek and European poetry.
• The Cypriot Zeno of Citium was the founder of the Stoic philosophy.
• Epic poetry, notably the "acritic songs", flourished during Middle Ages.
• Two chronicles, one written by Leontios Machairas and the other by Voustronios, refer to the period under French domination (15th century).

• Modern literary figures from Cyprus include the poet and writer Kostas Montis, poet Kyriakos Charalambides, poet Michalis Pasardis, writer Nicos Nicolaides, Stylianos Atteshlis, Altheides and also Demetris Th. Gotsis. Dimitris Lipertis and Vasilis Michaelides are folk poets who wrote poems mainly in the Cypriot-Greek dialect.
• The majority of the play Othello by William Shakespeare is set on the island of Cyprus. Cyprus also figures in religious literature, most notably in Acts of the Apostles, according to which the Apostles Barnabas and Paul preached on the island.
The team from Cyprus