Classification Paragraph. Maria Pozniakova

Ancient Greek tragedies often contain allusions to political life of Ancient Athens in 5th century B. C. These allusions fall into three categories: reminiscenses on real political events inside the polis, international affairs, and what one might call propaganda. The first category contains reminiscences about the real events that took place within the inner politics of the polis: gradual democratization of the polis, mentions about demos and its critics, main reforms, course of the real political life and the concept of the 'ideal life', and allusions to the political leaders of the time. The second category includes mentions about the foreign policy of Athens. Praises of Athenian greatness and strength of this polis, as well as representation of the relations between polises belong to these reminiscenses. Athenian political  propaganda is the third category; those mentions refer rather to emotions and patriotical feelings of the citizens of the polis than to the actual political conditions. The main mentions within this category are about the glorification of Athenian military power and its state organization. Mythical events, the basis of Ancient Greek tragedy, are skilfully interweaved in tragedies with numerous implications of the recent political events as well as propaganda.