Newsletter  29

February 2004

Greek Letters Day: January 30 at St. George

The Celebration of the Greek Letters Day was held as scheduled on Friday, January 30 2004 at 8 pm at St. George Greek Orthodox Church. Despite the very cold weather, over 200 (members, students of Greek schools and parents) gathered in attendance.  Mrs. Lena Petropoulos, the principal of Greek schools, honored the Three Hierarchs with a brief presentation. Professor Alexander Kitroeff, the main speaker of the event, delivered a well documented and original lecture on the modern Olympics and the Olympic Movement accompanied by a series of rare pictures mainly of the 1986 Athens Olympics.

The main lecture followed presentation by Prometheas and the Education Office of the Greek Embassy of awards to students who excelled in the Olympic Games competition recently organized by the Greek Embassy and Certificates of Attainment in the Greek Language to the successful students of the 2003 exams held for the Greek schools in the Washington Metropolitan Area. At the end, Prometheas cut its traditional Vasilopitta. During the reception, Professor Kitroeff signed his newly released book Wrestling with the Ancients :Modern Greek Identity and the Olympics (New York, 2004).

Prometheas Dance (25^th Anniversary Masquerade Ball), February 7, 2004

The 25^th Anniversary Masquerade Ball was held with great success on Saturday, February 7, 2004 after a three-year hiatus. According to comments of old timers who attended this and past dances of Prometheas, this was the most successful not only because of high participation (close to 250), but mainly because of the great fun and the uninterrupted dancing until 1 o’clock in the morning. The food was excellent, the price most reasonable and the fun and the music unsurpassed. Awards were given to the most imaginative costumes for groups (the Athens Olympics volunteers) , couples, single men and women, and even young participants. The organizers were congratulated and the participants left with a promise to come back again next year all dressed up. KAI TOY XRONOY. Pictures from the dance will be posted in the website during the month of February.

Greek Cinema

"A Touch of Spice" (Politiki Kouzina)

They cringed at My Big Fat Greek Wedding, quietly fumed at Captain Corelli's Mandolin, and have grown heartily sick of the theme tune from Zorba, but after decades starved of a major international hit, Greek cinema is finally celebrating a film of its own which looks set to be a world beater.

 

A Touch of Spice, a bitter-sweet epic about the travails of the embattled Greek minority in Istanbul, has knocked American blockbusters such as Pirates of the Caribbean from the top of the box office in Athens.

In a little over a fortnight it has sold 700,000 tickets, putting it on course to be the biggest Greek film of all time, and forcing Hollywood to sit up and take notice of a film being billed as the Mediterranean answer to Like Water For Chocolate.

Like the Mexican cult hit, A Touch of Spice is about cooking and family, but packs a historical and emotional punch that leaves you weak at the knees.

Even in Greece, the story of the 30,000 Greeks who were in effect deported from Istanbul in 1964 is something of an untold story. Which is why director Tassos Boulmetis, whose family was uprooted from the city that was its home for countless generations, decided to tell their story after making a painful return to his childhood home.

Made partly in Turkey, and starring one of its best-known actors, the film is also being seen as a part of the slow and uneasy rapprochement between the two enemies who have spent most of the last 80 years perched on the precipice of war.

The film confronts prejudice in both countries. Boulmetis, whose family was thrown out of the city Greeks still call Constantinople when he was seven, claimed: "We left Turkey as Greeks and we were greeted here as Turks. We were caught in the middle, confused and ill at ease in a homeland that wasn't really our home."

Unwelcome among Greek officialdom as the country plunged into military dictatorship, in the film the family clings to the traditions and most of all the cooking of the old Byzantine capital, now home to fewer than 2,000 Greeks.

The son, based on Boulmetis himself, finds himself a job as a cook in a brothel when his family bans him from the kitchen in an attempt to turn him into a "proper Greek".

"It took me a long time to realise it but I did not really feel whole until I went back to Istanbul. Going back changed my life," he said. "As a seven year old I spoke fluent Turkish, but in the trauma of leaving I lost it. I went to our old house in Kadikoy on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus. But I couldn't bring myself to ring the bell. Just going back changed my life."

But one of his actors, Tassos Bandis, another Istanbul Greek who plays his grandfather in the film, did take that step, and was welcomed into his old house for dinner.

Boulmetis said some nationalists were furious with him for "going easy" on the Turks. "They say they are animals. That we should have shown them that way... My own father is still angry about what happened, but I can't be. The film will be shown in Turkey in March and I want them to feel what we felt and not see themselves as cartoon monsters."

The success of A Touch of Spice comes as Greek film, so long the whipping boy of European cinema, is on something of a roll, with a new generation of directors taking a cleaver to that most revered of Greek sacred cows, the family.

None more so than in Matchbox, in which a grasping, foul-mouthed clan tear themselves and their friends' lives apart in the maddening heat of an Athenian summer. While the film has been cheered as a revolution in Greek film-making at the Salonika film festival, and an antidote to the schmaltz of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, middle-aged audiences have been choking on their souvlaki and one critic was so incensed he refused to review it.

Its young Cypriot director, Yannis Economidis, who has been compared to a younger Mike Leigh on speed, makes no apology for his liberal and imaginative use of the Greek swear word malaka. "Let's face it, the characters in the film are malakas," he said. "They are low-class dogs, and I say that with love. If it was set in Sweden it would be all meaningful silences. But here life is straight and brutal and more honest.

"To me it is a political film - the last 20 years of Greek democracy is all there inside this flat, the racism, sexism, chauvinism and materialism.

"People laugh at me when I say it, but to me it is a film about love. It is about a man who loves his woman and he is suffering for it."

 

Misc Artciles of Interest

“Give Back the Elgin Marbles”

London’s EVENING STANDARD, Tuesday, January 13, 2004

British former foreign secretary Robin Cook, in the attached full-page article in London’s “Evening Standard” newspaper’s Tuesday, January 13, issue, call on the British government to return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece in light of the publication of an opinion poll on Wednesday, according to which, 80 percent of Britons agree with their return.

“The curators of the British Museum can react personally to the return of the Marbles, but they have no right to ignore the wishes of the citizens whom they represent as curators of the Museum,” said Mr. Cook, adding that it is not reasonable nor wise of the curators of Museums to undermine London’s effort to contest the 20012 Olympic Games with their refusal.

“This year is the year in which the Olympic Games will be held in Athens and, at the same time, the campaign of candidate cities for the Olympiad of 2012 will begin,” he writes in the article. He also states that returning the Marbles will restore the unity and integrity of the splendid cultural monument of the Parthenon.

“If they had dismembered our statue of Nelson and had left us only with the stomach and his legs and his remaining body somewhere else, I do not think that anybody would be at ease until the reunification . . . . Since, therefore, the Parthenon cannot be moved to Russell Square, where the British Museum is, the solution is for the Parthenon Marbles to return to Athens,” stressed the former foreign secretary.

For more info, see Web site of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

http://www.mfa.gr/english/satelites/parthenon_marbles/

 

The origin of philosophy in Greek literature

Carlos Montemayor

The cultural and intellectual life of mankind changed dramatically because of ancient Greek literature. Maybe we will never see again such a drastic and marvelous change as the burst of creativity that produced such perennial works of art as Sophocles’ Antigone, and Plato’s Republic. Today, more than two thousand years from such intellectual revolution, we must celebrate what happened then, because it shaped forever the way we talk and think to each other and to oneself. This is why we are all in some sense ancient Greeks.

At the center of such intellectual revolution is a very important Greek question, that since then, became the human quest for the sense of life. It is the question for the totality of being, which is implicit in Greek literature and art. This question fosters a variety of artistic and philosophical concerns. Before the Greek philosophers, it was the task of the poets to address the issue on the totality of being, the search for truth and justice and the meaning of life.

Although many literary styles and artistic expressions were developed in that poetic atmosphere (comedy, tragedy, fables, theater, etc.) the search for truth was always a religious affair. It was in the decisions and actions of divine creatures where writers found the meaning of life. Life has a religious meaning in the works of the poets and their act of creativity aims at capturing the secret deeds of gods and goddesses through metaphors and literary perfection.

It was very fortunate that the search for truth became a stylistic affair. The amount of beauty contained in the Iliad is incommensurable. However, according to the poet, all that beauty was a reproduction of divine deeds, captured in Greek and written with human hands. Thus, Homer begins the Iliad with the solicitation: Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.[1] Literature reached a level of perfection in Greek literature, but the collective affair of education was determined by religious conceptions.

It was in the midst of this literary activity that a new style of literature emerged. The most important concern of such literature was education (Paideia) as a discipline for the search of truth. Thus, Thales formulates the question for the totality of being and answers not with a quote from the poets or by invoking a God. Rather, he answers by noticing that water is everywhere in nature and that it is possible that everything is composed of water. This is the origin of a new style of thinking and writing. It is the origin of Philosophy.

Presocratic philosophers start writing in this new and refreshing style. Their ideas were deep and original. Two of them in particular, Parmenides and Democritus, presented ideas about nature that have never been considered before. Parmenides said that the world we live in is a world of appearance, and that there is a single substance which is a whole unit, where nothing changes. His student, Zenon, denied the existence of movement and change, formulating paradoxes that had enormous repercussions. Democritus, on the other hand, said that everything is composed by indivisible units. Atom, the Greek word for “without parts” appear in the intellectual and scientific landscape, and since then, it became a crucial term in scientific theories.

However, it was not until Plato that the issue of education became the as important as the search for truth. For Plato, both are actually the same problem. To find the truth we need intellectual discipline. We can only see the truth, as Plato says, with the eyes of the soul. And only a good soul can see the truth. Therefore, using Plato’s allegory of the cave, the soul must be well trained and mature in order to leave the cave of appearances and see the ideas that shape everything. Education is crucial to find the truth, and the truth in not only good in itself, but also the goal that liberates us from our slavish condition.

Plato starts his revolution, a scientific and philosophical revolution, by attacking the poets. He compares them with puppeteers that manipulate the chained souls of the prisoners of the cave. The souls of those prisoners have never been used, they do not know the truth and they do not even know they are enslaved. The puppeteers promise them gifts, offer them the paradise and threat them with chimeras and horrible monsters. Imitation and reproduction are the chains that keep all the prisoners inside the cave.

Plato liberated humanity by comparing it to an enslaved crowd. His attack shook the very foundations of Greek culture and opened new routes of inquiry. In his dialogues, Socrates asked apparently simple questions that everyone quickly answered. When Socrates’ interlocutors realized they did not know the answer to such questions they were ready to start training their soul, because they knew that their knowledge was a product of reproduction, their ideas were the ideas of the poets and their science was religion.

Socrates gave birth to souls. This is the function of the teacher and the philosopher. Plato’s teacher, Socrates, gave birth also to a discipline that starts by asking the right questions, impeding quick answers and inquiring into the genealogy of ideas. The importance of this analysis is that it is through it that we reach our freedom, because our soul can see the ideas that shape everything. However, in thinking about the problem of imitation, Plato faced an enormous difficulty.

There is only one idea of chair, but there are infinitely many actual and possible chairs. They all participate in the idea of chair but by reproduction we can fabricate as much as we want. However there is only one Socrates and we can never reproduce or imitate him. Where does this difference in being come from? Why instruments have a different existential condition than Socrates or Alcibiades?

It is in this context that the issue of instrumentality, nature and life became crucial to the mightiest student of Plato, Aristotle. This is very relevant to understand why his book on nature (the Physics) is essentially concerned with instrumentality, a theme that connects all of Aristotle’s work. This is why it is important to acknowledge the cultural background Aristotle’s work presupposes by referring as much as possible to the original Greek meaning of the words he used.

In the writings of Greek philosophers we find not only a new way of writing and thinking, but also an expression of the wonders of language. Language is like a tool because we use it to do things, but it is also like a living creature because, for example, we can talk to Plato and Aristotle through it, bringing them to life. The language in which these new ideas that revolutionized human history were expressed, Greek, will be forever part of our common heritage.

                                    CARLOS MONTMAYOR ROMO DE VIVAR

                                Η ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΦΙΛΟΣOΦΙΑ ΚΑΙ ΟΙ ΟΙ ΚΑΤΑΒΟΛΕΣ ΤΗΣ

(Ομιλία στον κεφαλληνιακό σύλλογο Νέας Υόρκης “ΚΕΦΑΛΟΣ”, την “Ημέρα των Γραμμάτων”, με την ευκαιρία παρουσίασης του δίγλωσσου βιβλίου του για τον Αριστοτέλη, σε μετάφραση του Ρήγα Καππάτου)

Η πολιτιστική και διανοητική ζωή της ανθρωπότητας άλλαξε ριζικά χάρη στην αρχαία ελληνική φιλοσοφική και λογοτεχνική δημιουργία και σκέψη. Ποτέ ο κόσμος δεν έζησε πριν ή μετά από αυτές μια τέτοια θαυμάσια και ολοκληρωτική αλλαγή, όπως εκείνη της εκρηκτικής δημιουργικότητας που μας έδωσε αθάνατα έργα όπως, για παράδειγμα, την Αντιγόνη του Σοφοκλή, την Πολιτεία τού Πλάτωνα, τους Πέρσες του Αισχύλου.  Σήμερα, πάνω από δύο χιλιάδες χρόνια μετά από αυτή την πολιτιστική έκρηξη, πρέπει να γιορτάζουμε αυτό που έγινε τότε, γιατί διαμόρφωσε για πάντα τον τρόπο που μιλάμε και τον τρόπο που σκεφτόμαστε. Επίσης γι αυτό, κατά μίαν έννοια,  είμαστε όλοι λιγο πολύ Έλληνες.

            Έκτοτε, και ίσαμε σήμερα, στο επίκεντρο αυτής της ελληνικής πολιτιστικής επανάστασης, βρίσκεται το σημαντικότατο ερώτημα για την καταβολή και το νόημα της ζωής και της ολότητας του είναι. Αυτό ήταν και παραμένει το αντικείμενο της ελληνικής σκέψης και τέχνης. Και αυτό το ερώτημα γεννάει με την σειρά του διάφορα άλλα φιλοσοφικά, καλλιτεχνικά και επιστημονικά ερωτήματα. Πριν από τους Έλληνες φιλοσόφους, εναπόκειτο στους ποιητές να διερευνήσουν την υπόθεση για την καταβολή της ζωής, την διερεύνηση της αλήθειας, της δικαιοσύνης, και του νοήματος για την ύπαρξη αυτής της ζωής.

            Παρ’ όλο που δημιουργήθηκαν διάφορα λογοτεχνικά είδη μέσα σε αυτόν τον εκρηκτικό δημιουργικό οργασμό των αρχαίων Ελλήνων (κωμωδία, τραγωδία, επική ποίηση, μύθοι, κλπ.), η έρευνα για την καταγωγή και την αλήθεια αποτελούσε ένα θρησκευτικό στεγανό. Ήταν στις αποφάσεις και στις ενέργειες των υπερφυσικών δυνάμεων, όπου οι ποιητές απέδιδαν και έβρισκαν την ερμηνεία για το νόημα της ζωής και του κόσμου που κατοικούσαν. Γι αυτούς η ζωή είχε μια θρησκευτική σημασία, και στο επίκεντρο της δημιουργίας τους εντοπιζόταν η προσπάθεια σύλληψης των μυστικών βουλών θεών και θεαινών, μέσα από την αλληγορία και την ποιητική τελειότητα.

            Ήταν ευχής έργο που η έρευνα για την αλήθεια αποτέλεσε γι αυτούς μόνο μια υπόθεση ύφους, όχι ουσίας. Πάνω σ’ αυτό, η ωραιότητα τού λόγου που περικλείει η Ιλιάδα παραμένει ανεπανάληπτη. Ωστόσο, κατά τον ποιητή, όλη αυτή η ομορφιά αποτελούσε μια αναπαραγωγή θείων πράξεων, διατυπωμένων στα ελληνικά και γραμμένων από θνητά χέρια. Έτσι, ο Όμηρος αρχίζει την Ιλάδα με την επίκληση στις θεΐκές Μούσες: “Μούσα, τραγούδα το θυμό του ξακουστού Αχιλλέα, / τον έρμο που όλους πότισε τους Αχαιούς φαρμάκια” (κατά την μετάφραση τού Α. Πάλλη). Η ποίηση και η λογοτεχνία γενικά άγγιξαν αξεπέραστα ύψη τελειότητας στην ελληνική γλώσσα, αλλά η συλλογική εργασία της μόρφωσης των ανθρώπων ήταν θέμα θρησκευτικών αντιλήψεων.

            Μέσα σε αυτή την ποιητική-λογοτεχνική δρστηριότητα εμφανίστηκε ένα νέο είδος γραπτής έκφρασης, που κύριος σκοπός του ήταν η μόρφωση: η ελληνική Παιδεία, δηλαδή, μια διανοητική άσκηση για την αποκάλυψη της αλήθειας. Έτσι, ο Θαλής ο Μιλήσιος σχηματίζει πρώτος το ερώτημα για την αλήθεια γύρω από την ολότητα του είναι, και απαντάει όχι με την θρησκευτική έμπνευση των ποιητών ή επικαλούμενος την θεΐκή Μούσα, αλλά με την παρατήρηση ότι το νερό υπάρχει παντού στην φύση, και πιθανώς τα πάντα αποτελούνται από νερό. Αυτό αποτέλεσε την απαρχή ενός νέου ύφους και τρόπου σκέψης. Σ’ αυτό έχουμε την αρχή της Φιλοσοφίας και των θετικών επιστημών.

            Οι προσωκρατικοί φιλόσοφοι αρχίζουν να εκφράζουν τα ενδιαφέροντά τους μ’ αυτό τον τρόπο έκφρασης και έρευνας. Οι ιδέες τους είχαν βάθος και πρωτοτυπία. Ιδιαίτερα δύο από αυτούς, ο Παρμενίδης και ο Δημόκριτος, εξέφρασαν τις ιδέες τους για την φύση με πρόπο που δε έγινε ποτέ πριν. Ο Παρμενίδης είπε ότι ο κόσμος στον οποίο ζούμε  είναι ένας κόσμος φαινομένων, και ότι υπάρχει σαν μία και μοναδική ουσία ολότητας η οποία παραμένει αναλείωτη. Ο μαθητής του, Ζήνων ο Ελεάτης, αρνήθηκε την ύπαρξη όχι μόνο της αλλαγής αλλά και της κίνησης, σχηματίζοντας φιλοσοφικά θεωρήματα που είχαν μεγάλη επίδραση στην ανθρώπινη σκέψη. Ο Δημόκριτος, από την άλλη μεριά, λέει ότι όλα είναι υλικά και αποτελούνται από αδιαίρετα άτομα, ή άτμητα, ένας όρος που πρωτοστατεί έκτοτε σε ένα μέρος της επιστημονικής θεωρίας.

            Ωστόσο, ήταν με τον Πλάτωνα που η υπόθεση της Παιδείας έγινε εξ’ ίσου σημαντική όσο και η επιστημονική έρευνα. Για τον Αθηναίο σοφό και τα δύο αυτά συνθετικά αποτελούν μέρος του ίδιου προβλήματος. Για να εντοπίσουμε την αλήθεια χρειαζόμαστε διανοητική παίδευση. Ο μόνος τρόπος να δούμε την αλήθεια, λέει ο Πλάτωνας, είναι μέσα από τα μάτια της ψυχής. Και μόνο μια ενάρετη ψυχή μπορεί να δει την αλήθεια. Ως εκ τούτου -για να χρησιμοποιήσουμε την πλατωνική αλληγορία τού σπηλαίου- η ψυχή πρέπει να είναι καλά παιδευμένη και ώριμη για να εγκαταλείψει το σπήλαιο των φαινομένων και να δει τις ιδέες που σχηματίζουν τα πάντα γύρω της. Η παιδεία είναι απαραίτητη για την αποκάλυψη της αλήθειας, και η αλήθεια δεν είναι μόνο χρήσιμη για την ιδια την παιδεία, σαν αυτοσκοπός, αλλά αποτελεί και στόχο απελευθέρωσης του ατόμου από την κατάσταση της δουλείας που το υποτάσσει η έλλειψή της.

            Ο Πλάτωνας αρχίζει την επανάστασή του, μια φιλοσοφική και επιστημονική επνάσταση (ήταν ο κατ’ εξοχήν μαθηματικός φιλόσοφος) επιτιθέμενος στους ποιητές. Τους παρομοιάζει με μαριονέτες κουκλοθέατρου που χειραγωγούν τις αλυσοδεμένες ψυχές των δεσμοτών τού σπηλαίου. Οι ψυχές αυτών των φυλακισμένων δεν χρησιμοποιήθηκαν ποτέ, δεν γνωρίζουν την αλήθεια και ούτε καν γνωρίζουν πως είναι φυλακισμένες. Οι κινούντες τα νήματα των μαριονετών, οι ποιητές δηλαδή, τούς υπόσχονται παραδείσεια δώρα, χείμερες και κόσμους ονείρων και τεράτων. Ο μιμητισμός και η αντιγραφή είναι τα δεσμά που τους κρατάνε φυαλικσμένους στο σπήλαιο.

            Ο Πλάτωνας απελευθέρωσε τους ανθρώπους, παρομοιάζοντάς τους με ένα σύνολο δεσμωτών. Η θέση του κούνησε συθέμελα το οικοδόμημα της ελληνικής παιδείας και άνοιξε νέους ορίζοντες έρευνας. Όταν οι συνομιλητές του Σωκράτη αντιλαμβάνονταν ότι αγνοούσαν την απάντηση σε τέτοιου είδους ερωτήματα, ήταν έτοιμοι για την παίδευση της ψυχής τους, δηλαδή τού εσώτερου είναι τους , γιατί ήξεραν πως η γνώση τους ήταν απόρροια της αντιγραφής, οι ιδέες τους ήταν οι ιδέες των ποιητών και η επιστήμη τους ήταν η θρησκευτική δεισιδαιμονία.

            Ο Σωκράτης ήταν μαιευτήρας ψυχών. Αυτή είναι η λειτουργία τού παιδαγωγού και τού φιλοσόφου. Ο δάσκαλος του Πλάτωνα ήταν και ο δημιουργός της μόρφωσης δια των σωστών ερωτήσεων, αντιτιθέμενος στις πρόχειρες απαντήσεις και εμβαθύνοντας στην γενεολογία των ιδεών. Η σπουδαιότητα αυτής της μεθόδου  έγκειται στο ότι μέσα από αυτήν αποκτάμε την ελευθερία μας, επειδή η ψυχή μπορεί να διακρίνει τον σχηματισμό των όντων και των πραγμάτων δια μέσου των ιδεών. Ωστόσο, φιλοσοφώντας γύρω από το πρόβλημα της μίμησης, ο Πλάτωνας βρέθηκε αντιμέτωπος με μια μεγάλη δυσκολία. Π.χ., υπάρχει μία ιδέα καθίσματος, αλλά υπάρχει ένας άπειρος αριθμός καθισμάτων. Όλα αυτά τα καθίσματα ανήκουν στην ιδέα κάθισμα αλλά δια της μιμήσεως και της αναπαραγωγής μπορούμε να κατασκευάσουμε όσα καθίσματα θέλουμε. Ωστόσο, υπάρχει μόνο ένας Σωκράτης και δεν μπορούμε ούτε να τον μιμηθούμε ούτε να τον αναπαράγουμε. Από τί προέρχεται αυτή η διαφορά ύπαρξης; Γιατί τα όργανα έχουν μια διαφορετική υπαρξιακή υπόσταση από έναν Σωκράτη ή έναν Αλκιβιάδη;

            Είναι μέσα σ’ αυτόν το συσχετισμό που η υπόθεση της λειτουργικότητας, της φύσης και της ζωής απέκτισαν υπέρτατη σημασία στον πιο ξακουστό από όλους τούς μαθητές του Πλάτωνα: τον Αριστοτέλη. Αυτό είναι σημαντικό για να κατανοήσει κανείς γιατί το βιβλίο των Φυσικών ασχολείται κυρίως με την λειτουργικότητα, ένα θέμα που ενώνει όλα τα αλλά έργα του μεγάλου φιλόσοφου. Είναι επίσης γι αυτό που έχει ιδιαίτερη σημασία η αναφορά στο πρωτότυπο της αριστοτελικής  ελληνικής γραφής, για μια πληρέστερη διευκρίνηση του νοήματος. Έτσι, οι προσωκρατικοί βάλανε τα θεμέλια για την επιστημονική και την φιλοσοφική σκέψη και έρευνα. Ο Πλάτωνας και ο Αριστοτέλης αποτέλεσαν το κορύφωμα αυτής της σκέψης. Με αυτούς η ελληνική φιλοσοφία διαδόθηκε και επιβλήθηκε σε όλον το γνωστό τότε κόσμο, ενώ το ενδιαφέρον για τις θεωρίες τους δεν μειώθηκε ίσαμε σήμερα. Κατά δε τον Βρετανό φιλόσοφο Ουάϊτχεντ: “Όλη η ιστορία της φιλοσοφίας είναι σημειώσεις στον Πλάτωνα και στον Αριστοτέλη”.

            Στη γλώσσα των Ελλήνων φιλοσόφων, τα αρχαία ελληνικά, δεν υπάρχει μόνο ένας νέος τρόπος έκφρασης και σκέψης, αλλά σ’ αυτά υπάρχει και το θαύμα των εκφραστικών δυνατοτήτων μιας μοναδικής γλώσσας. Αυτή είναι ένα εργαλείο το οποίο χρησιμοποιούμε για να κάνουμε διάφορα πράγματα, να αποσαφηνίζουμε ιδέες, είναι όμως και ένας ζωντανός οργανισμός, αφού, π.χ., μπορούμε να συνομιλούμε με τον ίδιο τον Πλάτωνα και τον Αριστοτέλη, ζωντανεύοντάς τους μέσα από την γλώσσα που εκείνοι μιλούσαν. Η Ελληνική γλώσσα στην οποία εκφράστηκαν και έγιναν γνωστές αυτές οι επανασττικές, καινούριες και ανεπανάληπτες ιδέες και θεωρίες, αυτές που ανανέωσαν ριζικά την ανθρώπινη ιστορία και τον τρόπο του ανθρώπινου σκέπτεσθαι,αποτελεί και θα μείνει για πάντα κοινή κληρονομιά όλων μας. Όπως το ιδιο κοινή κληρονομιά της ανθρωπότητας αποτελούν οι θεωρίες και οι ανακαλύψεις των αρχαίων Ελλήνων στον χώρο της τέχνης, των επιστημών και όλους τους τομείς της ανθρώπινης δραστηριότητας και σκέψης.

                                                                        Κάρλος Μοντεμαγιόρ Ρόμο ντε Βιβάρ 

THE TURKISH OCCUPATION IN THESSALY AND MAGNESIA AND THE ROLE OF THE CASTLE OF VOLOS

By Kostas Liapis

Series Editor: Achilles G. Adamantiades

The Turks Conquer Thessaly and Magnesia

In 1396-1397, the Turks conquer, after a negotiated truce, the largest part

of Thessaly, which includes the region of the old Dimitriada. However, that

occupation did not last for long because, after the defeat of the Sultan

Bayazit by the Mongols of Tamerlane at the battle of Ankara (1402) and

after the negotiations of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Palaiologos with

the new Sultan Souleiman, the regions of Thessaly and Central Greece,

which were under the Turkish occupation, devolved again to the Byzantine

Empire.

But that liberation of Thessaly from the Turks was proved to be temporary,

because, after a few decades, the troops of the new Sultan, Mourat the

2nd, reconquer the Thessalian region.

When the Turks, under General Tourahan Bey, reconquer Thessaly and

Magnesia in 1423, they show no interest in the almost uninhabited

mountainous Pelion; the mountain, with its wild vegetation, absence of

productive settlements and lack of substantial arable lands does not

present any particular financial interest for the Turks. Therefore, they limit

their occupation to the richer, flat and semi-mountainous areas, namely,

the basin of Volos, the small plain of Koropi, the rich corner of Zervochia

and the arable flat region of Argalasti. Later, they conquer also the fertile

plain of Lechonia, after the final expulsion of its Venetian exploiters; that

event occurred in 1470. In these areas, the Turks established the families

of the Turkish Officials (spahides), to whom they distribute the rich grounds

of these productive regions. In these same regions, the Ottomans will

transferred, after the removal of the Greek residents, many poor Ottoman

families that were earlier installed in the Peloponnese and mostly from the

island of Skiathos; these Ottoman settlers will take over the cultivation of

the rich lands. It has been said that the transfer of the Ottomans of

Skiathos to Pelion took place during the era of Sultan Souleiman the 2nd,

on the initiative of the prominent Ottoman Sheik Souvar Bey. He is thought

to have been the one that reestablished the almost destroyed old

Byzantine Castle of Volos; a Turkish guard settled in that Castle, from the

beginning of the Turkish occupation in Thessaly and Magnesia. Sheik

Souvar Bey took also care of the construction of the mosque Souloumanie

in the Castle.

The occupation of Thessaly and Magnesia by the Turks forced most of the

few Greek residents, who were even before the Turkish conquest, serfs

and working hands of the local or Venetian masters, to gradually abandon

their houses and to take refuge, together with their entire families, in

Mount Pelion, where sparse incorporations of monastery tenant farmers or

free farmers had existed.

There, away from the greed and arbitrariness of the Turkish despots, the

residents of the coastal zone of Pagasitikos will create their initially shabby

houses in regions where there were already installed a few farmers, cattle-

breeders, and growers, and will fight hard for their survival, trying to

subjugate the forested mountain and its wild nature.

These early and shabby habitations, which were founded on the pattern of

the first farming community, evolved with time after the arrival and

installation on Mount Pelion of fugitives from the rest of the occupied

country, in permanent and well organized centers of economic activity and

social life. By the end of the 16th century, one encounters on Mount Pelion

the first structured and organized communities.

So, one and a half century after the conquest of Thessaly and Magnesia by

the Turks, the almost uninhabited mountainous Pelion acquires many

organized communities, which will later evolve, thanks to the privileges

obtained from the Turks, into outstanding, autonomous, and self-governing

settlement units.

The Administrative and Tax Framework in Thessaly and Magnesia under the

Turkish Occupation

From the beginning of the Turkish occupation, all of Mount Pelion, which

was then known as “the Mountain of Zagora”, belonged to the properties

of the Crown. Later and until 1655, the region of the old Mountain of the

Centaurs was divided by the Turks, as far as taxation was concerned, in

five large parts or in 24 “ziamets” or “timars”; from those 24 timars derives

the often used appellation of “24 villages of Pelion”. This means that by

1655 all the large villages of Pelion had been established. It is also

historically confirmed that before 1614, a large part of Pelion was conceded

by a sultanic firman to the military commander of Constantinople, the Aga

Hatzi Moustafa; on his initiative, a new sultanic edict was issued. By this

edict, the ownership of the region that belonged to Aga Hatzi Moustafa

passed to the Sultana Asma Hanoum (the queen mother) and, as far as

taxation was concerned, the rights passed to the “Vakouf” (property

foundation) of the two holy towns, Mekka and Medina.

However, similar sultanic edicts that determined the administrative and tax

status of the villages on Pelion, were issued during the 17th century;

consequently, the villages of Pelion were divided in dependent (“Vakouf”)

and independent (“Hasia”) villages.

The first category, which was dedicated to the holy institutions of the

Ottoman government (Pyli), was the most numerous. In that category

belonged the villages of Makrinitsa, Argalasti, Metohi, Bistinika, Siki, Bir,

Drakia, Aghios Lavrentios, Aghios Georgios, Pinakates, Visitsa, Lafkos,

Promiri, Mouresi, Kissos and Makryrahi. These villages depended on the

conqueror and enjoyed particular privileges. Daniel Filippides and Grigorios

Konstantas wrote in their “Modern Geography”: “The Turks are not allowed

to enter in these villages and impose their brutality”. The villages were self-

governed by the village elders (or kotzambasides), who were elected

every year on the day of Saint George through democratic procedures by

universal suffrage, which nevertheless were not always irreproachable.

The elected (usually two) elders assumed, during their one-year service,

the responsibility to take care of everything that was happening in town

and represented the people of the land in its relations with the Turkish

authorities. They were responsible for their actions only to the legal

representative of the queen mother (known as the Voevodas of Pelion), to

whom they also transferred the residents’ taxes which were collected on

the basis of an official list by a tax collector nominated by them. His base

was in Argalasti, but later, Makrinitsa became the capital of the

independent villages on Pelion and, for a short period of time, also Aghios

Georgios.

Contrasted to the independent villages, Ano Volos, Katichori, Portaria,

Milies, Propan, Labinou, Neochori, Niaou, Tsangarada, Zagora, Pouri and

Anilio were privately-owned and did not have any administrative

autonomy. These villages depended on military or political timar-holders

(saipides), who were usually chieftains (spahides) of Thessaly, Roumeli,

Macedonia and Thrace. During the first years of their classification in the

category of privately-owned villages, they had to pay heavy taxes. Later

on, the administrative and tax status in these villages changed for the

better and there were periods of time when the central Turkish authorities

treated both categories of villages in almost the same manner.

Of course, the Castle of Volos, which was controlled and inhabited

exclusively by Turks (as was the village of Lechonia), had nothing to do

with the administrative and tax status that was in force in the villages on

Mount Pelion, at least until 1840. The Castle, having no administrative

power during the first centuries of its occupation by the Turks, became the

base of a sub-prefect who was in charge of the administration; he

exercised a general and discreet administrative supervision and

intervened, at least before the Revolution, only in cases of serious state

issues.

The Castle of the Old Golos: a Turkish Military Center

When Taharan Bey conquers Thessaly and Magnesia, in 1423, he

immediately recognizes the strategic importance of the old Byzantine

Castle of Golos (today’s Volos).

Built, according to one version, by the Emperor Justinian around a low

hillock in the Gulf of Pagasitikos (in today’s region of “Palaia”), the old

Castle constituted the continuity of a very old life and history; that fact is

also proven by the many and different archeological findings that were

discovered by the excavations in the region. The archeologists named the

region “the Citadel of Iolkos”. When the Turks completed the occupation of

the region, they must have demolished all the old fortresses that had been

built by the local lords of Thessaly and Magnesia for the protection of their

subjects from the pirates. The Turks reconstructed the old Castle and used

it, until the end of their military presence in Thessaly and Magnesia, as the

only military center in all of Southeastern Thessaly.

From the beginning of the Turkish occupation, and after the Christian

residents of the Castle had been expelled, the Ottomans installed in the

Castle a permanent powerful guard, headed by a Castle Master

(Mouhavouz), as well as the Agha of the Castle (the ruler of the Castle),

who later ceded his place to the sub-prefect, a policeman, a tax-collector, a

harbor-master, a chief customs officer and other officials with their families.

They, little by little, built their summer lodgings, in the form of fortified

towers (pyrgospita) in the lush green gardens of the today’s Ano Volos.

The area of the Castle interior comprised about 13,000 square meters (13

stremmata); its perimeter, as drawn on a plan by the famous Venetian

cartographer Vincenzo Coronelli, dated 1668, had the shape of a trapeze

with its eastern side broken and its angles curved, two of which led up to

round towers. The Turks built another 25 towers and between them many

ramparts and battlements, over which they placed, for the first time, tens

of cannons. In order to ensure the complete defensive capability of the

Castle, the Turks opened, at the foot of the rampart, a wide ditch which

they filled with water. The northeastern side of the Castle was the most

reinforced one as a last resort Acropolis, with the building of a second,

interior wall; today, that spot is occupied by the Christian church of Aghioi

Theodoroi.

Inside the Castle, the Turks built or repaired about 100 houses in order to

lodge their Ottoman families; they also constructed barracks for the guard,

food storehouses, a powder house, public baths and three pumps for

supplying water to those who lived in the Castle; the water was flowing

through underground earthen pipes from Ano Volos. They must have also

constructed a few wells inside the Castle, as well as outside it, mainly on

the western side.

At least one century after the capture of the Castle, one or two temples of

the “new religion”, are constructed according to the archeologist N.

Papachatzis. The minaret of one of them (if there were indeed two

mosques, which is highly doubtful) survived in a semi-destroyed state to

the year 1955, when it collapsed during the earthquakes of that year. It

should be mentioned that the Castle communicated with the port and its

region through two arched gates. The bigger one was decorated with

marble columns and was situated in the middle of the southern side of the

wall, communicating directly with the port. The other gate, known as

the “Black Gate”, was situated in the middle of the northern side of the

wall and communicated with Mount Pelion and the interior of Thessaly. That

was in general terms the picture of the Castle during the centuries

following its capture and reconstruction by the Turks. It was small but

strong and was used by the Ottoman conquerors as the sole military

center in Thessaly and Magnesia during the period of the Turkish

occupation.

The Port of Volos during the First Three Centuries of the Turkish Occupation

The Castle, despite its direct contact with a significant port that was

suitable for the development of commerce and therefore, a natural gate for

the exportation of agricultural products, did not evolve in proportion to its

privileged location, because neither did the particular port evolve

proportionately to its potential during the first centuries of the Turkish

occupation. The slow pace of life that the indolent Turkish administration

imposed in the Castle and its region, the frequent prohibitions for

exporting wheat which the Turkish administration imposed in periods of

shortage or of war, and the general indifference of the Turks toward

commerce, had a negative influence on commercial activity and on

economic development in the region. During this time, the climate of

stagnation is reflected in the Port of Volos where all economic activity is

almost completely dead until the middle of the 16th century. The Turkish

geographer and seaman Perry-Reich typically describes the decline of the

region in 1521, one century after the installation of the Turks in the Castle.

In particular, he does not find any town or port in the cove of Pagasitikos,

except for the Castle which is in a constant a state of war preparedness!

Things start to get better during the second half of the 16th century, as far

as the Port of Volos is concerned; the Port begins, little by little, to acquire

significance analogous to its location as a transport center. Wheat is

transported from the Thessaly interior despite the fact that large wheat

quantities are stored in the Castle’s storehouses, which the Turks intend

to use in difficult times of the Ottoman Empire – for the supply of

Constantinople, in particular- but also for the feeding of the Turkish armed

forces. Except for the Greek and foreign (mainly French) merchants, the

Jews contributed significantly to the commercial and economic development

of the Port of Volos. The Jews are installed, with the permission of the

Turks, in an area northeast of the Castle. Having rented most of the shops

and storehouses inside and outside the Castle, they became the most

active and vital part of the Castle (since Greek people were not allowed to

live in it) and the Port, thanks to their commercial acumen. As is written in a

document of 1587, the Jews first appear in Volos at the end of the 16th

century. It is possible that they were settled near the Castle much earlier.

They came from the prosperous Jewish community of the Two Almyri.

During the 12th century, that community counted, according to the Spanish

Jewish traveler Rabbi Benjamin, about 400 residents. During the following

years, the Port of Volos acquires some significance that brings it to

international recognition, despite the fact that it has no wharf to speak of.

On the 2nd of January 1625, Vailo, a Venetian, from Corfu, composes a

confidential report in which he states: “Our confidential emissary, who was

sent to gather information about the movements of the Spanish King’s spy

in Thessaly reported that Volos is not a town, not even a village, but a big

port where many boats approach”.

The significance of the port is also presented in another confidential report–

thesis of the French diplomat and ambassador of France in Constantinople

for 15 years, Sieur De Brèves. His thesis had a Greek-style title: “ Concise

essay on the sure ways for the destruction of the Ottoman leaders”. The

author sent in his thesis to the French King, Louis XIII. The thesis was

published in Paris in 1628 and among other interesting things, it states: “It

is known that the largest part of the supplies, which are destined to go to

Constantinople, comes from Volos. If that region is conquered,

Constantinople will collapse because of starvation. A boat will not risk the

transport of rice, sugar and other necessary supplies from Egypt, if the

passage from Aegean is prohibited”.

Despite all the above, the commercial and maritime activity in the Port of

Volos was not, during all these years, proportional to its full potential.

Consequently, the Turkish market town near the Castle shows no signs of

progress or development.

This lack of progress must be attributed to the lack of any interest and

political will on behalf of the Turkish occypiers. The Turks were not

interested in commerce, development, progress, or culture.

Pirate and Venetian Raids on the Coastline of Pagasitikos from the 15th to

the 17th Century

The low interest on the part of the Turks for the development of maritime

commerce and the profitable exploitation of the Port of Volos was due,

during that particular period of time, to an additional reason. That reason

was the intense and destructive action of pirate ships, which, during the

15th and the 16th century, constituted a r