by L.Seizani<\/p>\n
\u00abNumber 31328\u00bb by Elias Venezis is a book I read as an adolescent. During those years I read all the other books by the same author who belonged to the so called greek \u201cgeneration of the 30\u2019s\u201d. They were published in small hardcovers by Hestia publishing house and were masterpieces. One can still find them in the bookstores. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
by Lito Seizani<\/p>\n
\u00abNumber 31328\u00bb by Elias Venezis is a book I read as an adolescent. During those years I read all the other books by the same author who belonged to the so called greek \u201cgeneration of the 30\u2019s\u201d. They were published in small hardcovers by Hestia publishing house and were masterpieces. One can still find them in the bookstores.<\/p>\n
I found the courage to start reading \u201cNumber 31328\u201d again some days ago and after the three first pages, I realized that I couldn\u2019t go on. Suddenly I was reminded of all that I had pushed far into the unconscious, in desert areas very much alike the ones described by Venezis in his book where he himself and his comrades were taken prisoners, or \u201cslaves\u201d as he puts it, by the Turks. They were led by force to walk in the interior of the country, walked for days on end, months on end, in order to reach the cruel \u201cAmele taburu\u201d or \u201cLabour Battalions\u201d.<\/p>\n
Finally, I decided to read the whole book again. After all my grandfather and his brother, young greek boys of Smyrna at that time, had undergone the same. So far I thought that the limits of violence had been investigated by Solzenitsyn in \u201cOne day in the life of Ivan Denisovits\u201d and by Jung Chang in \u201cWild Swans\u201d but no. The limits of violence among humans, or rather among wild fierce animal to helpless animal, are better described by Venezis.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not in my intentions to shock the sensitive souls with the most violent and cruel details. Just one brief and harmless sample:
\n\u00abThey\u2019ve started giving us half a loaf of bread every day. But we begged, too, as we passed in front of the houses. Some people gave us something, others stuck out their tongues and made fun of us.
\nI didn\u2019t feel like begging, because the first time I extended my palm, a man beat me hard and spat on me. During our marching days, I didn\u2019t care at all for things like that. But now it\u2019s hard. With the time we are resuming our human habits. Still, it doesn\u2019t matter. Charge me with two cents less of human dignity\u201d.<\/p>\n
In my opinion \u201cNumber 31328\u201d is a book that every Greek should read so that we won\u2019t forget our history and be involved again in new adventures.
\nAfter this book, I decided to read another one with the title \u201cLand of Pontus\u201d by Dimitris Psathas. This Greek author is mostly known for his humourous short stories and newspaper articles. In this book, however, he recounts his childhood memories from his native city Trabizond, giving us also many eye witnesses\u2019 texts from people who survived the Greek genocide of Pontus. The Greeks of Pontus resisted the Turks with all their might, some even after 1922, in brave guerrilla groups, but met with the same fate as the rest of the Greeks in Turkey.
\nThis book may appear tiring to those who aren\u2019t interested in reading all the details of the fights on the mountains of Santa, or by the ancient river Thermodon, the mythical place of the Amazons, but it will appeal to those interested in the greek history as they will be mentally carried to these faraway lands with the strange names. It was there that the Greeks lived under a very cruel Turkish rule, waiting for the Russians to come and save them. They never did. It\u2019s proven ever so often in our greek history that the Russians always promised to save us and never did. The author tells us also of the English and the French who, according to their interests, either supported the solution of an independent greek democracy in Pontus or took Kemal\u2019s part when he appeared to be stronger. Like Venezis, Psathas also describes the deportations and death marches, the long useless walks in the interior of Asia Minor that aimed only to the extermination of the Greeks.
\nFinally, he reminds us that Mother Greece, herself, with only a few exceptions never helped her children in faraway areas. She proved to be indifferent aka ridiculously self-destructive during these extremely dangerous times.<\/p>\n
But let us now go back to Trabizond as described by the author himself: by L.Seizani \u00abNumber 31328\u00bb by Elias Venezis is a book I read as an adolescent. During those years I read […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":66,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-98","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.onliners.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.onliners.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.onliners.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.onliners.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.onliners.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.onliners.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.onliners.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u201cHere is Trabizond, the historical capital of the Komnenes, a city full of churches, byzantine castles, mosques and orthodox religion. On one side it climbs the hill of \u201cPoz Tepe\u201d and on the other feels the fresh breeze from the Pontus Euxeinos that with its blue colour strokes the sand beaches and at other times breaks in anger its enormous waves that thunder on the rocks\u201d.
\nSo, these are two very important books that I happened to read as today we are reminded of the Armenian genocide. I\u2019m not sure why people just remembered the Armenian genocide at this particular moment in time. The only thing I know is that 2012 marks 90 years after the black 1922, the most terrible year in Greek recent history.
\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Elias_Venezis<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dimitris_Psathas<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pontus<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Greek_genocide<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"