Sunday, August 25, 2013

The bicommunal oral history of Cypriots…

The bicommunal oral history of Cypriots…
 
Sevgul Uludag
 
 
00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436
 
More than ten years ago, before the checkpoints would open up between the two `sides` of Cyprus, we were meeting in Pyla and discussing about the bi-communal oral history of our island. Research institutes from the two `sides` of our island, IKME and BILBAN were cooperating despite the partition line, to try to collect stories particularly from mixed villages where Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots lived together. What were their memories of a mixed life, that no longer existed? What did they remember, good and bad? Were there mixed marriages in those times? What did people remember from each other's traditions and customs? How did they celebrate their weddings? What about the working life? Those who worked together, what did they remember? What was social life among Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots like? Did they mix? Did they help each other?
With Alecos Tringides as the director of IKME and Rasih Keskiner as the director of BILBAN, the two research institutes, one from each community, we set up on a path to collect memories from very diverse backgrounds… I would be interviewing some Turkish Cypriots since at that time, `crossing` was extremely difficult, even for a journalist – the checkpoints did not open up yet to allow free passage… Some Greek Cypriots would be interviewing some Greek Cypriots… And in the end, we would get all the interviews together, 174 of them, on a database with English summaries on a website and the actual video interviews would be available with subtitles to the researchers from the island and abroad…
It was a pioneering and first of its kind adventure – the amount of information collected was so valuable, it is still valid today, telling us of another kind of life, a life that was mixed, a life without trouble until mid-50s…
I would go to villages to find people to speak to, who had lived in mixed villages. My son, barely 13-14 years old at that time would be helping me with the camera. We would go to Gypsou to find an old lady originally from Kalo Horio (Vuda) who would tell us stories from her village… She would cut a chicken from her garden, clean it and cook it before we would go to visit her, just like in the old times… We would sit in her beautiful garden, full of flowers, enjoying the dolmades she had done for us, listening to her, Aysel Erchakica, chatting about her grandchildren… One of her grandchildren had a lamb as a pet and the lamb would follow the angoni everywhere – he would call the lamb `Chattirez` and we would watch the lamb clattering away in the kitchen, crossing the living room and coming to sit with us during lunch! It was a `Kinali Kuzu` as we would call in Turkish, `kina` meaning `henna` because it had color of henna on its ears and on parts of its body… Aysel Hanim was a real organizer – throughout her life she had struggled for peace, equality, democracy – she would write letters to our newspaper Yeniduzen, talking about the problems of farmers… She was a real hard worker and had so much energy and always a smiling face… Her husband had been bedridden and she was taking care of him like a professional nurse, never complaining, always with a smile… She would lose him later on but she had a big family around her, at least keeping her busy in order not to fall to depression for becoming alone in the house. She would watch all tv programmes and had great ideas about how to fix things – if I had had power, I would send her to the parliament – she would be someone to speak the truth, nothing but the truth and also set out practical ways of sorting things out. She was a real Cypriot woman from grassroots…
I would visit an old man in the area of Kyrenia, living in a tiny room complete with his bed, his chest, his TV, his small refrigerator, a ventilator for the summer, a soba for the winter. He would tell me about how he had become displaced five times and he had had nine kids, he was always leaving something behind, something precious never to be able to retrieve it but memories would still be fresh in his mind and in his heart…
This unusual and touching story is about an old man, 85 years old, who has become a refugee five times during the Cyprus conflict. He talks of his exodus within his own country, how he tried to survive with 9 kids and his longing for peace in Cyprus.
Born in Prastio, Paphos he was 85 years old at the time of the interview. They had very good relations in his village. Only after the conflict began that the relations began to soar.
He first emigrated in 1958 and returned in 1960.
In 1958 he was 39 years old. He had some land and worked in agriculture. In 1958 during the conflict between the British and the Greek Cypriots, the villagers were afraid and the village emigrated to different towns and villages. They returned in 1960 to Prastyo – the Cyprus government built a new village in the same village there. In 1963 they emigrated again. In a close village, a Greek Cypriot was shot at and couple of hundred of soldiers surrounded their village in 1963 so they left the village to go to Malia. They stayed there for a month and when conflict began there, he went to Avdimou… He stayed there for 10 years. After 1974 he emigrated again, this time to the northern part of Cyprus.
He had 9 kids and 20 grandchildren…
Noone wanted to treat him badly because they all knew him – only couple of times Greek Cypriots would not allow them to go to Nicosia.
There was trade amongst Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Greek Cypriot merchants also helped him at the time when they lived together.
He wanted peace now – there's a lot of discrimination in the north and he's not happy with the situation he had told me…
I knew his grandson Ahmet who was very active in the bi-communal movement of youth in those difficult years – he had raised beautiful children and beautiful angoni who were throughout the years contributing to the peace movement on the island. I would sit there mesmerized at what this old man was telling me, looking at the tiny room he was carrying out his life in and feeling so sad…
I would go to interview an old man from Kondomenos (Kordemen in Turkish) who would tell me of the first `provocation` set up by the British colonialists at the end of 1950s. He would tell me how a group of Greek Cypriots being arrested and taken to Nicosia and then being set free in Gonyeli, meanwhile someone `unknown` burning the fields and informing the Turkish Cypriots of Gonyeli that `Greek Cypriots had come to attack them, to burn their fields and to kill them…` Falling into this trap of provocation by the British, some Turkish Cypriots of Gonyeli would take their knives and batons and run to kill some innocent Greek Cypriots in those fields… Later on some other Greek Cypriots would `retaliate`, killing a very young teacher from Gonyeli, Huseyin Yalchin who had had his first teaching job at Ayia Marina village. Huseyin Yalchin is still `missing` today after so many years…
I would go to Kyrenia to interview a couple, a mixed marriage of a Turkish Cypriot and a Greek Cypriot. They had remained in Kyrenia and I would be amazed with them, not being aware at that time that there had been many mixed marriages until the 50s but because they would change name and religion, you would not be able to trace them easily… Much later, I would find advertisements and announcements in small print in the Turkish Cypriot newspapers of 1950s, declarations by the Mufti (the highest religious leader of those times) that Mrs. Eleni had changed from Orthodox religion to Islam and changed her name to Emine – many advertisements like that I would find… I would find out stories from Famagusta where there were mixed marriages and Famagusta would have a better culture of accomodating these couples, rather than attacking them like it would happen in Nicosia. Nicosia, Eleni would go `missing` and we are still looking for her burial site. She would get married with a Turkish Cypriot, the owner of the famous `Con Coffee` (`John Coffee`) and in 1963 one night after the `troubles` began, some Turkish Cypriot soldiers would come to their house, knock on the door, take her away and make her `missing`. Her husband would be heartbroken – he would search for months and in the end would leave for London and stay there many years, eventually coming back… Eleni had had a sister, Despinou, who had married a Turkish Cypriot in Famagusta, Kemal but nothing would happen to them since Famagusta, being a more accomodating town with a port, would only show respect to this marriage…
A wealth of stories, good and bad and I would travel around the northern part of the island, continuing the interviews. In a village around the Morphou area, I would interview an old man from Potamia who would tell me how he had been a witness to the killing of some priests but later on he would ask his son to call me to delete that part from the interview… Probably, this might have been the priests from the Kofinou area but at night as he would go to bed, he would think about it, feel uncomfortable and call his son in the morning to call me and not include that in the interview… Untold stories would surface, things perhaps we had heard of but never heard it from the mouth of an actual witness.
We have a group on Facebook called `The Cyprus Dream` created by Adonis Constantinides from Kyrenia and he would find a link to these interviews and share it – thanks to him, I would remember all this vast work we had done in those difficult times… I only knew the Turkish Cypriot interviews but never had had any chance to look closely at the Greek Cypriot interviews. I would read and share with my Turkish Cypriot readers the stories of the Greek Cypriots done for the bi-communal oral history project of IKME and BILBAN. I will also share with you some summaries of these interviews next week…
 
3.8.2013
 
Photo: Old Cyprus…
 
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 25th of August, 2013.

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