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.