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bg_turk · Joined: 08 Oct 2005 Posts: 1316 Location: Bulgaria

Crete is often cited by the Turkish side as a precedent to what might have happened in Cyprus in the absence of an interveniton. The island once had a thriving turkish community, which is now completely lost. Do you know anything about the Turkish Cretans?

I found this interesting article about one remarkable Turkish Cretan:

THE TURKISH - CRETAN WHO CAPTURED HISTORY
Quote:
Rahmizade Behaedin transferred in his glass plates pictures of Crete. According to myth he was riding his white horse around the island capturing images of landscape and people, while many Cretans fascinated with the new invention visited his photographic studio for their first family photo.

Bananiot · Joined: 13 Aug 2005 Posts: 1214 Location: Nicosia

Very interesting subject. For the Greek readers I would suggest a book by Maro Douka called "Athooi kai ftaixtes" meaning innocent and guilty. Maro Douka claims that a Lady Turkish Cretan phones her regularly from Ismir (Smirni) and cries on the phone

Alexandros Lordos · Joined: 19 Aug 2005 Posts: 324 Location: Cyprus/Greece

bg_turk wrote: Crete is often cited by the Turkish side as a precedent to what might have happened in Cyprus in the absence of an interveniton. The island once had a thriving turkish community, which is now completely lost. Do you know anything about the Turkish Cretans?

As it happens I currently live in Crete - Chania to be precise, the largest town in Western Crete.

In the town centre there is a large area that used to be Turkish, as well as a few mosques that are no longer being used. A few people of Turkish lineage still remain, though they are indistinguishable from the general population.

Turkish Cretans, from what I know, generally shared the cultural characteristics of Cretans as a whole (e.g. a very short temper :) ), and the only things in which they differed were language and religion - pretty much the same situation as Cyprus.

Perhaps the common Turkish thesis that "the same thing might have happened in Cyprus if Turkey had not intervened" is not far from the truth. I only wish Turkey had chosen to intervene in a different way, to re-establish the rights of Turkish Cypriots in the Republic of Cyprus, rather than to implement a plan for partition.

Bananiot · Joined: 13 Aug 2005 Posts: 1214 Location: Nicosia

You might like to know, Alexandros, that Maro Douka comes from Chania. She has been living in Athens since 1996.

I think the Turkish Cypriots were rightly scared for the prospect of enosis in view of the fact that enosis of Crete with Greece saw the end of the Turkish Cretans. In view of what happened in Crete, If I were a Turkish Cypriot I would probably struggle to prevent enosis, even if it was the wish of the majority, because my very existence was at stake.

bg_turk · Joined: 08 Oct 2005 Posts: 1316 Location: Bulgaria

Bananiot wrote: Very interesting subject. For the Greek readers I would suggest a book by Maro Douka called "Athooi kai ftaixtes" meaning innocent and guilty. Maro Douka claims that a Lady Turkish Cretan phones her regularly from Ismir (Smirni) and cries on the phone

Quote: Little-known aspects of the past come to light when a London-based journalist of Turkish-Cretan origin arrives in Chania to study what lay behind the violent separation of Christians and Muslims in nineteenth-century Crete.
Maro Douka’s Innocent and Guilty brings to life history, national ideology, love affairs and grim, everyday reality in a fragile, incoherent society on the point of disintegration.
For her characters, memory is not individual or collective nostalgia but bitter, hard-won knowledge that enables them to understand themselves and the world that brought them into being.
Historical fiction encounters bloodied family chronicle and an investigative thread that runs through the narrative, revealing political corruption and social decline in contemporary Greece.
Douka presents colourful portraits full of lively contrasts and a convoluted web of troubled relationships against the backdrop of the island’s Venetian past.

Sound quite interesting. If there is an english translation I would love to read it.
Is Maro Douka a Turkish Cretan?

Bananiot · Joined: 13 Aug 2005 Posts: 1214 Location: Nicosia

That's the book bg_turk. Maro Douka is Greek.

Birkibrisli · Joined: 29 Aug 2005 Posts: 1404 Location: Australia

Well,I suppose we will have to learn Greek so we can read books like this,what do you say bg_turk?
Or perhaps someone like Bananiot can take up translating interesting books in Greek into English,so we can all read them.
Iwould've loved to read this book,Bananiot.Why aren't these books translated into English anyway?What a pity!

cannedmoose · Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2005 4:42 pm Post subject:

BK, once my Greek is up to a good level, that's exactly what I plan to do. There is so much literature in Greek only.

bg_turk · Joined: 08 Oct 2005 Posts: 1316 Location: Bulgaria

Birkibrisli wrote: Well,I suppose we will have to learn Greek so we can read books like this,what do you say bg_turk?

Kali mera Birkibrisli,

I might take some greek classes during the summer. I like the sound of greek, it sound like a nice language.
The Esena Mono song really fired me up. I am trying to learn the alphabet now, I can read but these vowel combinations are a bit confusing. Also some of the consonant combinations like MP are a bit funny -did you know OLIMPIA is pronounced OLIBIA :-)

I have to learn greek, it is alway good to know your enemy :twisted:

Dhavlos · Joined: 13 Aug 2005 Posts: 4697 Location: Birmingham

well, the word 'olympia', sounds more like 'olimbia'

the 'p' (pi) in greek, sounds like a B, a mistake many people make is pronounce it like 'pee'

Birkibrisli · Joined: 29 Aug 2005 Posts: 1404 Location: Australia

cannedmoose wrote: BK, once my Greek is up to a good level, that's exactly what I plan to do. There is so much literature in Greek only.

Great news,Moose.
Perhaps I'll match you book for book.There is so much literature in Turkish only as well.Let's keep motivating each other on this score in time to come. :D

cannedmoose · Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2005 5:07 pm Post subject:

bg_turk wrote: I might take some greek classes during the summer. I like the sound of greek, it sound like a nice language.
The Esena Mono song really fired me up.

I suggest you get hold of a few of the songs I suggested, some of those will really put a fire under you... :lol:

bg_turk wrote: I have to learn greek, it is alway good to know your enemy :twisted:

:madlol:

cannedmoose · Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2005 5:08 pm Post subject:

Birkibrisli wrote: Great news,Moose.
Perhaps I'll match you book for book.There is so much literature in Turkish only as well.Let's keep motivating each other on this score in time to come. :D

Agreed, if there was a book written entirely in swearwords, I'd be able to translate right now... sadly, I'll have to continue swotting... plus I've only got 6 weeks until I go to Cyprus, so my nouna and dada (my wife's grandparents) will be expecting my Greek to have improved... I'm their pet project you see! :lol:

Dhavlos · Joined: 13 Aug 2005 Posts: 4697 Location: Birmingham

Quote: I'm their pet project you see!

ah , thats sounds so familiar...taking a 'xeno' under their arms and make him more Greek Cypriot than themselves...:lol: :lol:

'tis the cypriot way i tell you! :lol:

cannedmoose · Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2005 5:21 pm Post subject:

Dhavlos wrote: Quote: I'm their pet project you see!

ah , thats sounds so familiar...taking a 'xeno' under their arms and make him more Greek Cypriot than themselves...:lol: :lol:

'tis the cypriot way i tell you! :lol:

I know, since they baptised a 'heathen', I think they see it as their mission to turn me into a Greek... :lol: Can't see it happening, since I burn in the sun and can't roll my r's...