CF lab-Κωνσταντίνα Φελέσκουρα

English Paper

Team: Μανώλικας Ηλίας, Ματσάγκα Μαρίνα, Μεθενίτη Κατερίνα & Μπουζαλάκος Χρήστος

Class: Γ΄3

• Search for relevant literature on refugees from your country and make a presentation in class.

Ματωμένα Χώματα, Διδώ Σωτηρίου

Farewell Anatolia (Matomena Chomata), Dido Sotiriou

• Category: Classic Hellenic Prose
• Genre: Historical / Anti-war

It has been characterized as a “book that burns” and shook the world of literature. It has been translated into turkish, serbian, english, bulgarian, estonian, french and german! The writer was also awarded with the ” Prize of Hellenic-Turkish Frendship Abdi Ipekçi”. It has been concidered the most emblematic work of the 20th century Hellenic Prose and the “absolute” book about Asian Minor Catastrophe. It was written in 1962 and sold 400.000 copies until 2008, as it radiates internationally.

A novel that, starting from national memory, preaches universal values and brings to life the last days of Minor Asia, from the triumph of Sèvres to the dramatic hours of the collapse of the Battlefront and the atrocities of the kemalist hordes in the burning Smyrna, with the Great Forces’ blessings!

Summary

The main character is Manolis Axiotis, son of a farm family tht has a lot of children, from the village Kirkinge.

Life at the village is carefree and tough, with the shadow of imperious father to meαsure the height of dreams.

Manolis is forced to erase the dream of knowledge and to work in the fields.

In the manor of Ali Bei he will see the injustice in the face of the caretaker, Anestis, and a turkish soul prone to love.

With the urging of his father he will soon search his luck at Smyrna and he will discover the lawless world of trade.

The war and the inevitable mobilization find him there, where, with the Germans’ encouragement the Turkish will displace the boys of the christian populations in the terrifing Amele Tampuru (Work Orders).

In the turkish work orders comes to life an inferno of poverty, dread and humiliating of dignity. Simultaneously, Manolis Axiotis will came across unexpected humanity, which will save his life as he will be offered a job to a tender-hearted landowner.

This development will bring him in contact with a Turkish daughter, the sweet Endavie. The passion of the Hellene Manolis Axiotis with the pretty Turkish Endavie is growing stronger and contrasts with the prejudice.

Unfortunately this illegal relationship will lose from the national passions and Manolis Axiotis will run away like a theft, leaving Endavie facing a doubtful fate… Manolis will try to settle in the hug of a refugee named Katina, but his dreams will be interrupted by the Asian Minor expedition, which Manolis will follow as a volunteer soldier, serving the National Ideal.

In the victorious march to Sagarios River he will meet, among others, an idealist reservist, Nikitas Drosakis, a college student from Crete, who will initiate young Manolis into socialistic thinking and the vision of a more fair society.

The raw farmer Manolis Axiotis will de surprised watching Nikitas Drosakis contradicting allegro opportunist Lefteris and defending the ideals that he preaches with unbearable personal cost, which is the base of a deep friendship between men…

The Battlefront’s collapse will knock down the illusion with the most painful way, finding Manolis Axiotis fight to save his friend’s life and look for way of return.

Axiotis will arrive alone and broken in a ruined Smyrna which will soon be wrapped by the flames of hell, from where the Çete (comrades) of Kemal will jump out like demons, slaughtering and spreading inconceivable perdition, which backslides the Human Civilazation itself, under the apathetic look of instigates Europeans…

The drama will be peaked at the new prisoners’ orders where the Turkish exhausting their brutality will drug the finest blossom of hellenic youth, completing the disgusting ethnic cleasing of the christian populations in Turkey, that grounded their Democracy on the bones of innocent and the most obnoxious version of racism…!

P.S.: Manolis Axiotis was a real person and also the writer of the book “Tangled Skeins” (“Berdemena Kouvaria”) (1965), which is his Autobiography.

But, the real Manolis from the one in the novel has some significant differences.