Here he began again playing exclusively the traditional dances of Crete, with the accompaniment of laouto player Stelios Lainakis . But he could not play for state radio and television. Since 1955, in Greece, to perform Cretan music with violin was forbidden in all state mass media, because of the nationalistic policy and purism adopted by Greek folklorists. The violin, imported to Crete from Italy during the Venice domination, was interpreted as a foreign instrument, basically unrelated to the Cretan musical tradition, and banned, while the lyra was chosen as the heir and symbol of uncontaminated musical folklore. In this process of remodelling Greek musical folk culture, the lyra, whose presence was already testified in the Byzantine period and whose name evoked even ancient classical Greece, could be accepted.
Music does point the way toward origins and beginnings.
This was perfectly evident to the prompters of the remodelling of Cretan culture, who chose a musical symbol to reconnect the present reality of the island to a remote past. This juxtaposition too easily joins past and present to imply a continuity which should be considered with more caution. It must be stressed that the action of remodelling the musical history of Crete begun in the 1950s underrated the very important role that the violin and violin-players had had in working out an important repertoire of Cretan dances and fostered the artificial revival of the lyra that took place after 1955. Papadakis, who had recycled himself so many times when he was far from Crete, did not do the same in his homeland. To the contrary, he resorted to cultural resistance and engaged in a personal fight in favour of the violin, since the practice of this instrument began being seriously endangered at that moment.