A central ideological issue in Greek society at this time was the Language Question, that is, the struggle for the establishment of demotic Greek, a demand that went hand in hand with demands for educational and more general reform.

Yannis Psycharis emerged as the leading figure of the demotic movement. His To Taxidi mou (My Journey) became the manifesto of demoticism, a land-mark in the language question and point of departure for the birth of a literature based on the people's language. At the beginning of the period two incidents demonstrated the size of reaction, political and intellectual, against demoticism. In 1901 a translation of the gospels into demotic Greek was published by Alexandros Pallis in the newspaper Acropolis, while at the same time another translation of the gospels, on the initiative of Queen Olga, was under way. Student demonstrations broke out for the defence of katharevousa, instigated by those opposing the translation who saw a national threat in Slavism. These were the so-called Evangelika riots. In 1903 new riots broke out, the Oresteiaka riots, instigated by Georgios Mistriotis and other conservative intellectuals to prevent the staging of Oresteia in the Royal Theatre in a translation by Professor Sotiriadis, in a language between katharevousa and demotic.