Cristache
Gheorghiu
Volume 2
Athens,
2013
The “Colonels’ Epoch” was over. Greece
vigorously was coming to oneself again. The investments started to increase
rapidly, and the helps from abroad allowed the people to built or rebuilt
houses, buy cars etc. The tourism, one of the most important income sources of
Greece was increasing year after year. Since 1981, Greece entered the European
Union.
The colonels did not understand the epoch of
territorial recuperations from the former Ottoman Empire was over. The modern
Turkey is no the former Ottoman Empire, and the Turks are not those from the
old times. But, the colonels wanted to be the followers of the Greek heroes and
thought that it would be a good moment to take revenge after the disaster from
Smyrna. But, what happened, in fact?
The
former Ottoman Empire lost the most part of its territories. The damages
reached the maximum at the end of the First World War, when it fought and lost
along with Germany. Greece, instead, was in full course of recuperation the
territories occupied by the Turks. Smyrna was already populated with many
Greeks, so that they occupied it with the army. To want it was more than
normal, not only from historical point of view. At that time, it was one of the
most prosperous towns in this area. Athens, even if in full development,
started with only four thousand inhabitants, as it has in 1833, before to
become the capital of the new independent Greek country. Its economic and
cultural role was insignificant. Thessaloniki was another town in this area,
just larger. It was wanted by Bulgaria too. Eleftherios Venizelor, one of the
most important Greek prime-minister succeeded to include it on the map of
Greece only in 1913, following the Treat from Bucharest. For the moment, it was
an aim much too far. Besides, the Greeks were in a small percent in the
population of Thessaloniki: approximate 10%. The majority belongs to the Jews –
over 50% - followed by Turks. In Smyrna, instead, the situation was different.
There, the Greek community represented almost half from the population of the
town, and people were not at all poor. On the contrary, three from nine banks,
for example, were founded with Greek capital. There were also schools for Greek
boys and girls. Nikos Themelis, one of the most appreciated novelists, in his
book “Η
αναζήτηση” (The Quest), eulogises
the town for its cosmopolitism and its economic role at the end of the 19th
century. “According to the most recent census, Smyrna had 155 thousand
inhabitants: 75 thousand Greeks, 15 thousand Jews, 10 thousand Catholics, 6
thousand Armenians and 4 thousand people from various other parts. The rest,
some 45 thousand, were Turks. All told the Turks were a minority. . .
Furthermore, Smyrna’s activities abroad gave the city an international air, a
livelier rhythm and many more prospects. The administration and commerce in
Smyrna were in the hands of the Greeks. . . The cultural and spiritual life of
Smyrna was in the hands of Christians of all kind.”
The Treat from Sèvres (10 August 1920)
encouraged the Greeks to occupy the town, especially because Italian troops
landed in Anatolia. The moment seems opportune. After obtaining the
independence, since 1830 until the end of the First World War, Greece
recuperated territories up till the nowadays configuration. The Greeks thought the
evolution will goes on. It only seems. The Treat from Sèvres was never applied.
The Turks, instead, under the command of Mustafa Kemal – later named Atatürk,
which means „the father of Turks” – said STOP. He promised to create a modern
state and did it. First, he reorganized the army and, among other things,
recuperates Smyrna, driving away the Greeks.
But, why the Greeks thought they had rights on
all these territories? It’s true; they played an important role in antiquity,
there. As a matter of fact, the antique Greek civilisation never was a state in
the modern meaning of this word, but only fortress-states, which used to
co-operate sometimes and – more frequently – fight each other. The Macedonian
Empire was only a spark, which died out as fast as it appeared. Alexander the
Great, though Macedonian, arrogate to himself the role of the representative of
Athens and wanted to conquer its traditional enemy, Persian Empire. It was not
difficult at all, as this one was in an abrupt decline. It is very interesting
and relevant that he did not want to extend his conquering toward the North.
From the military point of view, it would be much easier. His glory, instead
would be much more small. The Hellenistic epoch followed, which is another
thing, anyway not a state.
The truth is the memory of the former Byzantine
Empire is that that give the Greeks’ nostalgia. After the collapse of Western
Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, named later Byzantine Empire, became a
Greek one. Those from Occident used to call it just with this name: the Greek
Empire. But there, in occidental Europe, after the first part of the dark
Middle Eve, the economy, culture and political power started to blowing and the
new states, appeared one after another as independent kingdoms. The Byzantine
Empire, instead, was declining because of some internal reasons, like
corruption, avarice, luxury and particularly by laziness, as yearly as before
to be conquered by Turks. It was not hard at all for the Turks to vanquish
them.
Later on, under the Turks, the Greeks from
Constantinople (recalled Istanbul) and the surrounding area must be appreciated
for the way in which they known how to protect their interests and – with
meticulousness and perseverance – made themselves useful for the Turks. We must
recognize that, on the other hand, the Turks accepted their presence. The
Ecumenical Patriarchy has its headquarters in Istanbul from the beginning up
till today. Unlike the soviets, which forbidden religion and destroyed almost
all the churches, the Turks did not do the same in Greece. The district Fanar
from Istanbul was a nursery of translators, diplomats and intellectuals, and
the Ottoman government used them in its interest and they served the Turks’
interests.
If the Greeks under the Ottoman occupation must
be appreciated, we cannot say the same about those from Greece after the
obtaining the independence, when their enthusiasm darkened their minds. They
lost the patience and wanted to conquer what was already Greek. There were
350,000 Greeks in Istanbul. Smyrna was more a Greek town than a Turkish one,
and this during the Ottoman occupation. But the moment in which the Turks said
STOP to the decline had come.
For all that, the colonels did not realize the
change. They thought to have the opportunity of enter into the history with a
great achievement. This time, the aim was Cyprus. First, they occupied it with
the army. But the Turks were present.
What the colonels did not understand was clear
for the Greek people, conscious that what had happened at Smyrna could repeat.
Consequently, a revolt followed and the dictatorial regime of the colonels
failed.
* *
*
Fortunately, all these were in the past. Now,
it is all right. A new period of prosperity for Greece came. The foreign
investments come even more than in the past. New enterprises set up, new
imposing buildings raise on the avenues of Athens, which grow up like the
branches of a tree. What was a large city proved to be only a bud that was
blossoming now year after year.
Maybe, for Anastasia’s father, it would be
better from the financial point of view to keep his job several years more,
though he reached the age of retiring. He thinks to be able to do it, but he
did not want. He was feeling too tired. Malia, the small town in which they live
was in fact a bathing resort, noisy enough due to the young tourists. While
they considered by themselves to be young, it was all right. But now, the
situation was changed; the excitement of young people was no longer in accord
with their rhythm of life and the discordance was irritating. Besides, he had
not the motivation of supplementary earnings. Anastasia did not benefit by
their financial support when she would need it. Now, their situation, even if
is not of some rich people, is better than in the past and their help would be
insignificant. Drahma has a rate of exchange in dollars much too small. As for
two of them, his pension will be enough.
Consequently, he did not wait for the second
time. He did it immediately. The first move was to look for a house in Athens.
It was the town of his childhood. He left it for an island, while most people
used to come in Athens. In the meantime, the city developed impetuously. He
noticed it every time when he was coming in the capital. In the same time he
remarked that people changed too. Besides many foreigners, the Greeks
themselves were different, which was not just on his pleasure, but he must
accept the change, even only because it means evolution, an evolution necessary
for Greece. There is no way for the other islands. A few people remained there.
Only the great ones are still populated, living from tourism. At their age, the
agitation of the tourist is exactly what they do not want. Athens is the city
where they will live from now on.
The question is: where? In what district? He knew the
centre very well since he was young. It was blatantly enough even then. Now,
the traffic on the avenues is infernal. It is not fit at all for two old
people. The town extended toward the sea and the development goes on. Piraeus
and Athens make a single town. There is not free space between them. The
foreign trading companies built high modern buildings for their offices. Among
them, they feel stranger. The places where he used to wander as a child would
be preferable. From the Patission Avenue, after you pass beyond of Polytechnic
Institute, the district on the right hand seems to be just nice. In fact, there
are more districts. The most attractive seems to be Gyzi. The same Gyzi of his
childhood. The Alexandras avenue is still crowded, but after you go beyond the
park, it is just pleasant: peaceful and civilised. There he will seek for an
apartment to rent for the beginning and, after they will move, he will look for
one to buy. He must not be in a hurry. If he will be rush to buy immediately,
he would be wrong. Et leisure, he will obtain the necessary information for a
good choice.
* *
*
In the meantime, the Fotios’ financial situation
ameliorated, Kostas grown up, so they can afford even to visit Greece. Not all
of them in the same time. Fotios did in even several times, for solving some
problems of his family. Now, it is the turn of Anastasia and Kostas. All of
them enjoy, but Kostas is in ecstasy.
-
After the rain of last night, today it is an
excellent day for a walk. The air is pure, cool and very clear. You will be
able to take photographs as you like.
o
I understand we will visit Acropolis?
-
Yes. Finally, the day has come.
o
You do not know how much I enjoy, mom. I will
have the opportunity to close my classmate’s mouth.
-
I know you want it, though the visit of the
ruins of Hellenistic Civilisation would be more than it for you.
o
Maybe it is, but I did not know how to tell
you. We will go up till Syntagma?
-
We can do it. From there, we will cross the
Central Park, then will visit the Temple of Olympian Zeus, pass by the Arch of
Hadrian, cross Plaka and climb on Acropolis.
-
Let’s go!
An hour later
-
The Temple of Zeus drew my attention every time
I pass by it from the buss, on the Vouliagmenis Avenue. I have read something
about its history. What struck me was it is characteristic for the history of
the whole Greece, even for the Greeks themselves, for their mentality.
o
What do you mean?
-
It was built on the ruins of an older temple.
They say that, here, there was an altar made by Deucalion himself, after the
Deluge. Deucalion was a Mythological variant of Noah from the Bible, but it is
the legend. What one knows is that the son of Peisistratos begun the
construction in 515 BC, after the model of those from Asia Minor. A period of
democracy followed and they stopped to work, as the Greeks did not want to
consume their energy with it. In 174 BC, the king Antioch IV Epiphanies of
Syria continued the works with a Roman architect but, after the king’s death,
the works stopped again. Only in 124 AD, so three centuries later, Roman
emperor Hadrian resumed the building and inaugurated it in 131, so over six
centuries from the beginning. After the inauguration, the degradation begun.
o
One says the greatest destructions of the
vestiges of Greece was made by the Christians from the Occident, during the
crusades, though the aim of crusades was Jerusalem and not Athens, in order to
take it from the Moslems power.
-
Theoretically. In reality, they were military
expeditions with base intentions. As for Athens, you are right; the crusades
did not affect it. Constantinople was. It was the capital of Byzantine Empire,
while Athens had lost its importance long ago. The Fourth Crusade was the most
disastrously for Byzantine Empire. In the month of May 1203 the crusaders
occupied Constantinople and, after it, divided the Empire in several small
states. Only in 1261 the Empire was rebuilt, but it never regained its former
vitality.
o
You are speaking like from books. I like it,
but we where speaking about the Greece.
-
You are right. The crusaders did not destroy
temples from Athens, but the crusades weakened the Empire. Athens, Greece and
the whole area of Greek culture from Hellenistic period were affected.
o
It means we cannot lay the blame on the
occidentals for the degradations in Athens. You said that Greece was part of
Byzantine Empire – which we take pride with, because it kept the flag of
civilisation during one thousand years – but, in the whole this time, Greek
people did nothing for rebuilt or at least preserved these vestiges. On the
contrary, the marble from the old temples was used for buildings, including
stable, fences, pavements or all kind of pigsties.
-
You are right again. So it is. We also invoke
the Ottoman occupation after 1453, but only the capital of the empire fell
then. The Turks were in Europe two hundred years ago, and from the former
empire only Constantinople remained, as the last redoubt. The famous Byzantine
Empire had become an oriental one. It had degraded itself, slowly and without external
help. If I think well, after the dismemberment of Macedonian Empire, the Greeks
did not join themselves against a common enemy, as they did against the
Persians, and made all kind of minor alliances and fight each other. It was
easy for Roma to conquer the Greece step by step. Later on, the enemy was not
of the Greece, but of the Romans. The Greeks were considering to be occupied.
Their single preoccupation was to take advantages in the back of the Romans,
but only as individuals and not as a nation.
o
I see you had documented seriously, but you
speak as if you would not be a Greek. Do not you have a drop of patriotism?
-
Oh yes, I have and just from this reason I am
suffering myself. I would like the history of my descent to be spotless.
o
This is not possible.
-
I know. What I want is to understand why it
happen that way and not the other way and then probably I will accept some
spots, the part less bright of our history.
In face of the Arch of Hadrian
-
I had read in the guide that, on one side of
the arch, is written “This is Athens, the former town of Theseus” and, on the
other side, “This is the Hadrian’s town and not that of Theseus”, but I do not
see any inscription.
o
The arch is a more grandiose variant of the
former boundary marks. I remember an image from the book of history with a
stone on which it was written: “I am the landmark of the Agora” Here, the
inscriptions were probably wiped during the time. It is amazing it resisted so
long and it did not break down due to an ears quake. It is thin enough.
-
Probably they rebuilt it. I do not think it
will resist long time because of the traffic on the avenue, just in front of
it. I never seen such traffic nor in the United States, not even in New York.
Maybe on some highways, but there are not houses there, not way for monuments.
o
You just discovered that Athens has something
specific.
-
Yes, though it would renounce at some of them.
o
In my opinion, the access of the motorbikes
would be forbidden.
-
Probably, there are people who cannot afford
cars.
o
The municipality would develop the transport
with common means. Look how much noise does some of them. There are youngsters
making a proud with it. As they are not able to do something more intelligent,
they think the noise is enough to draw the attention. They do not care for
disturbing. This is not a necessity. It is the lack of civilisation.
-
It is not the single case. Did you see a Greek
to give up his seat in the bus to you? On the street, he rushes upon you. You
are a woman but you have to avoid them. On the street, two-tree chatting men
block the sidewalk and do not think the make room to the passer-bys.
o
Well, it’s good we have crossed the street. We
waited some at these traffic lights. Two ones for a single crossing, and they
are not synchronized.
-
Look at this statue. It seems to be of a woman.
Who is it?
o
I do not know. It’s a new one. What they wrote
there?
-
Melina Mercuri.
o
After the colonels’ regime, she was the
Minister of Culture.
-
A woman as Minister of Culture.
o
She was not the first. The first was Lina
Tsaldary, after the women received the right to vote.
-
And we said that women are kept in the house,
far from the politics.
o
This is people’s mentality. The government
strives to bring Greece toward the European standards. The electoral franchise
is granted since 1952.
-
This time you impressed me. I did not know you
are a feminist.
o
Do not be brazenfaced. I am not a feminist, but
at least such simple thing I know.
-
I noticed that many men of culture were implied
in politics. I wonder if they were affirmed in culture through the politics, or
the Greeks appreciate the culture and have trust in these men. Giorgos or
George Seferis, a poet, Nobel Prize laureate, was a diplomat, the ambassador of
Greece in the United Kingdom; Constantin Tsatsos, writer, was the president of Greece
and probably many others about whom I have not idea.
o
Bravo! You have learnt a lot of things about
Greece.
-
In the United States, the actors are preferred:
Ronald Raegan, Schwarzenegger.
o
That is so, because other people do the real
politics.
-
At least, someone does it.
o
Now, we are in Plaka. Let’s visit it. Leave the
politics. Here, at least there are not cars.
-
I hope not to spend all the day here.
o
Why? You do not like it?
-
Oh, yes, it is just amusing, but you promised
we only cross it in our way toward Acropolis.
o
And so we will. Look at this shop window, what
nice handicrafts there are! We have to buy some for the friends in the States.
-
I hope not now, to carry them with us on
Acropolis.
o
No, not now, though I do not know if we will
find them other time.
-
Come on, mom, there are hundred here. What
hundred, thousands.
o
O.k. So are you; never want to stay in shops.
-
I am not the only one. I think people working
in tourism would organize city tours separately for men and women. Look to
these men in front of you how bored walk through the middle of the street,
while the women are glued on the shop windows.
o
If a tavern had been here, you would have seen
all of them there.
-
Exactly what I said: city tours separate.
. . .
-
This building is very ugly, but I like they preserved
at the grand floor this tiny church. A very interesting combination.
o
They did not afford to destroy it. It would be
a pity. Look Acropolis! It is to be seen from here.
-
Yes, and just here there is a vestige of
history. In the back of this tower a monastery was. The Turks destroyed it.
Lord Byron used to meet here with his friends. It is written on this plate.
o
Byron? I know a poet Byron. Who is this one?
-
Do not you know? Our War for Independence had
enthused a lot of people from Occident. Lord Byron, the poet about which you
said, came especially in Greece.
o
I did not know.
-
You have seen and liked the painting “Massacre
at Hios” by Eugène Delacroix. That from the album or French art.
o
You are right: a French painter who chose a
subject from Greek history.
-
Sure! At that time, the event was not yet
history; it was a just recent one. It was Turkish revenge because they were
losing in face of Greek revolutionists. Lord Byron died here, in Greece.
o
He died here for our independence?
-
He died here, but not fighting; he died of
illness.
. . .
-
This little church is very nice here, in the
middle of the street.
o
It’s true. It is a jewel of architecture in
assemble but particularly in details. Look how meticulously they engraved all
this stone, the framing of the doors and windows, the balustrades, pillars . .
.
-
And its position in the middle of the street is
great.
o
This is a proof that the Greeks knew this time
to put in value the monuments.
-
Yes, the Christian ones. Mom, I see many old
rachitic persons, suffering by rheumatism, have the feet deformed and many
others. The women are particularly affected. I thought, thanks to favourable
climate, all people are sound. And still . . .
o
Do not ask me.
-
O.k. I do not ask. I have read somewhere that,
in Hellenistic period, it was in fashion to engrave on the sole of the sandals
some inscriptions, which were printed on the dust of the road. One of the most
frequent was “Follow me”. If the women had used it, I could have understood;
but the men, what the right with thy ask me to follow them? Maybe I do not
want.
o
It must be one of your jokes.
-
The story with the inscriptions is true. The
interpretation is mine.
o
In antiquity, the women did not walk on the
streets like now. Look here something that does not seems to be recent, but nor
antique. I do not know what it is, but all tourists take photos.
-
Because it is very decorative. It has not an
explicative plate. It seems to be a door, or a gate.
. . .
-
Till here, Acropolis looks very human. You
climb among the tables of taverns smelling of fish, beer and others.
o
It is nice. I like it. Someone from Romania
told me that, on the outskirts of the former Bucharest, on the way toward the
place where the executioner waits for those who were condemned of death, there
were a lot of pubs. The charitable people used to offer those who were to die a
glass of wine. In this way, as near as they were to the place where their life
will reach its end, they were more and more merry.
. . .
-
From here, the antiquity begins.
o
We should begin with Acropolis, in the morning,
when it is cool, not now, with the sun over the head.
-
In this way you will remember that Propylaia
represents a gate, something like a ritual of passing from the common world
toward the . . . tell you what . . . you know it better.
-
Let’s say the world of gods. Anyway, there is
nothing upper, and down you have all you want.
o
Or do not want.
-
Even the sea is to be seen at the distance.
o
And here, we have an olive tree. Its presence
among the stones is odd.
-
It would been so if it had grown up alone. It
is planted and maintained carefully. They say the goodness Athens herself would
strike with her stick this rock and from it this olive tree rose. Since, people
care of it.
o
It’s nice, but I know another legend. The
inhabitants of the town wanted to choose a protector and organized a
competition. Poseidon and Athens participated. Then as now, two of them need to
obtain the vote of the citizens. Poseidon offered a horse or, from other
authors a spring, symbolising the drinking water. Anyway, his present did not
impress them much. Athens offered an olive tree. This one was unknown then and
she won.
-
I think it is the same legend, and this is the
place where the contest occurred.
o
So it seems.
-
It is very interesting to me the method of
choice: through the contest.
o
With the difference the decision belonged to
the citizens and not to a jury, which jury…
-
A real democracy!
o
And that rock probably is “Stone of Ares”. This
is the place where the gods judged Ares for his bad behaviour.
-
It was not here where the Areopag used to keep
their meetings?
o
You can believe it. The Areopag, as supreme law
court, existed between seven and five centuries before Christ. If this is the
place it is hard to think. It was composed by nine personalities of great
competence. The all of them were too old for climbing the hill up till there.
-
Maybe they were carried by a lectic or
something similar.
o
The judges. Maybe. But those who were looking
for justice surely must climb by foot. An excellent opportunity to think about
how difficult is to obtain justice.
-
I liked the path. It was an oasis of silence
between the agitation from down and that on the top.
o
Especially because there was not a law court to
judge you here.
-
Today the judgers are down.
o
Sometime very down.
-
Good point!
* *
*
There is crowd of people in this area, during
the aestival season. Except it, Stone of Ares is a good place for meditation,
and what comes in my mind now is that of the Nietzsche. “Great, very great,
huge, but limited is the number of the elements from which the universe is
composed. And then, the length of time being infinite, a moment must come, in
which all possible combinations being exhausted, those which already had been
will begin to repeat themselves. Over a number of years, of course immense, but
limited, at the foot of this rock, other man like me will conceive the same
idea, and again for infinite times in the future; and, as before this moment,
an eternity of infinite centuries flowed, at the foot of the same rock where I
am now, an infinite of myself conceived the same idea: “The Eternal Returning
of all things from the universe”. Seized by this great idea, Nietzsche
noted with his characteristic arrogance: “The beginning of August 1881, at
Sils-Maria, at 6500 feet above the sea level and much upper than all human
things”. I would note as well: ”December 2012, at a few steps from the sea,
above some human things, under more others, so among them”. As for Nietzsche,
even if his idea did not crossed the minds of an infinite others before him, it
was affirmed by some Greek philosophers with some centuries ago, not speaking
about the oriental philosophy, where “The Eternal Returning” is a fundamental
doctrine. From Anaximandru to Anaximene and so on, through orphic and
pitagoreic philosophers, we arrive to Empedocles, which – besides those four
fundamental elements of the universe (water, air, earth, fire) – affirmed that
two fundamental principle exist: the HATE and the LOVE, which
succeed each other periodically, life being possible only when they coexist.
This idea likes me, maybe because I do not know
from where hate and love come to us, though they really exist. The idea is not
entirely lost.
Be merry, as the sadness will last forever!
The same stars always will turn round in azures.
From bricks, made from you body, don’t be afraid,
Other palaces they will build for stupid men of note.
Omar Khayyam wrote these verses in “The Eternal
Change” and I have to ask for excuses because my poor translation.
Of course, we are the adepts of the contrary
idea: “unlimited progress”. Here, I have some doubts. First, what do we
understand to be a progress? Not only once we noticed that what seemed to be
progress at a moment proves to be regress later. Maybe the expression
“unlimited evolution” would be more adequate, if the sense of the evolution is
not specified. It may be toward up or down. So, we cannot know today what
tomorrow will be. And then, why take the trouble for doing anything? Of course,
the evaluation of the trend, knowing the past, would help us to meet the future
more prepared. This is at least a pragmatic idea.
For all that, a doctrine that last centuries
and still makes the base of some religion, like the Eternal Returning, cannot
be ignored. Phoenix bird symbolizes just this idea: she born again from her own
body, burned on a stake prepared by herself. It follows that what we may want
for our civilisation is to burn as soon as possible. The problem is it must
prepare his stake, but it seems that we work hardly for it.
In oriental religions, the cosmogony has not
only the sense of the primordial creation, unrepeatable. On the contrary, it is
repeatable.
In Greek language, cosmos means world,
universe, Terra, human globe, people, society. But cosmos has the meaning of
ordering. When we say that God made the cosmos, we must understand that he made
order in Chaos.
Something is true: the earth is that where
people come back.
Those that introduced the history were the
Judaism and especially the Christian religion. Time is no longer repeatable.
Only God created the Universe. As for the people, the Doomsday will come, when
everything will have its end. The time becomes lapse and received a sense of
the flow. It is neither reversible and nor repeatable.
I think John Milton, when he entitle his works
“Paradise Lost” and “Paradise Regained”, involuntarily, suggested me an idea:
the oriental conception about the origin of the man - as a fall from the
endless Universe and returning after a number of purifying transformations -
could be reduced to only one life.
Mediocre people always sought for answer
impossible to find at several questions, as fundamental as useless: how the
life appeared on the earth, man’s origin etc. Between monkey and God’s work,
the philosophical variant is the oriental one.
If we are to become pots and mugs,
then, looking at this
glass,
I think it was a fairy, a nice girl,
sensible
to my caress.
And the red wine, subtle suitor,
assures me that it is
true.
Otherwise, it would not turn round in my hand.
Some taste maybe it would have,
but there is not grape
to give me this magic.
It is from the fairy. She give birth this miracle for me.
My variant is that in every person realizes a
synthesis in certain moments of his existence. According to the accumulation of
knowledge, he builds a new personal conception about the life and world.
Further on, accumulating new knowledge, he improves his conception, modifies
his personality. He passes through deferent stages. His soul does not enter
into other body; that man becomes a different one, with other personality.
What we lost and what we regain? The life!
Where it comes from? What is so important? Our problem is how to live it, not
what it comes from.
* *
*
In the same evening, at home
-
Mom, I learnt what that door near Roman Agora
is.
o
The one that you took photos as all the
tourists?
-
Yes, and my photo is very good.
o
And what you learnt about it?
-
It was a theological school, built by the
Turks. Later, they used it as jail, during the War of Independence. There was a
plane tree in the court, from which many Greek patriots were hanged. After the
War, the Greeks used it in the same aim, hanging the Turks. As an effect, the
place became a damned one in the Athenian people’s minds. In 1843, the poet
Achilleas Paraschos forecasted that, one-day, the tree would be struck by the
thunderbird and its remainders will be cut and used for fire. In 1919, the
prophecy was carried out exactly: the tree was struck by a thunderbird and what
remained was cut and burned in fire. The building was demolished, except that
door that, in meanwhile, got aesthetic values. We do not know if it was hazard
or the demolishers intuited the artistic future of the door. I think the second
hypothesis is illusory. As the space must be fence, it was more commodes to
preserve a part from the old wall, including the door.
o
It’s true; it is a door in the middle of a wall
of stone.
-
And a very modest one. It is a proof that
aesthetic values are rarely projected; more often they are results of the
hazard. The onlooker’s sense is that who confers aesthetic values.
o
I knew that I have a clever child.
* *
*
Yes, the remark of Kostas’s mother was correct:
“Greece was part of Byzantine Empire – which we take pride with, because it
kept the flag of civilisation during one thousand years – but, in the whole
this time, Greek people did nothing for rebuilt or at least preserved these
vestiges.” Of course, the explanation is the ignorance. But first, for ignoring
the values of something, they must replace that something with other thing. The
Greeks had abandoned their faith in gods, the Mythology, and adopted the
Christianity. We may suppose the Byzantine state played a role. A proof is the
Olympic Games and the Oracle at Delphi were forbidden not only abandoned. But
there are opposite examples as well:
-
in the
former USSR, the religion was drastically persecuted, but people remained
faithful even without churches;
-
on the
American continents, Catholic church imposed its religion, but the natives,
though were obliged to come at church every Sundays, kept their old faiths up
till nowadays.
How is that the Greeks adopted the Christianity
so rapidly? The question is more interesting as they abandoned their creation,
the Mythology. Even now, other people try to make a mythology with a few
legends, while the Greeks had a wonderful one.
The answer is the Christianity is a Greek
creation as well. Its principles, Christian philosophy, were creating in time,
even before Jesus Christ. There was not the problem of adopting a stranger
religion. They already had these conceptions before. For example the Bible say
that people are equal in face of the God; it means they are equal each other.
Here is a democratic idea. Well, who invented democracy? Of course, the Greeks.
Then, Christianity is a religion for poor people. Its purpose is to give to
people a hope, if not immediately, at least in a future life. Greece was under
Roman occupation and they had not an immediate alternative.
Adopting Christianity as a more advanced
variant of Judaism is easy to understand. Still, for Greek people, the
replacing Mythology – their own creation of a huge literary and philosophical
value – with the New Testament provokes bewilderment. Maybe, some of them
thought Mythology is only a collection of stories, not just a religion, but why
they need a religion based on other stories? On the one hand, the New
Testament, partly elaborated by themselves, was a possible answer to the frame
of mind of the population under Roman occupation and in a precarious economic
situation. Christian religion made its debut as psychological support of poor
people and the idea of the equality in face of the Divinity and future
happiness were perfect for their wishes. Plato was one who wrote about a future
life that can give them the happiness, but also he implanted the doubt on their
situation after death. They have to refrain from bad facts in this life, for
fear of punishments in the future life. On the other hand, if Mythology was
original, the Old Testament took a lot of ideas from other religions.
The renunciation of Mythology and free adopting
of Christianity by the people in the first stage denote the weakening of social
order, of the state. Later, the imposing Christianity by the state, denote
that, this time, the state changed the philosophy of Christianity. In Occident,
it was simpler: there, in France or Spain, for example, there was not a
mythology worthy of mention.
For our amusement, here is a nice cosmogony
from Yucatam. People from this peninsula suggested that the man was made from
tortilla (maize porridge). In the first variant, their two divinities, Tepeu
and Cucamatz, made the man from dust, but this one dissipated itself, because
of the inconsistence of its composition. They tried again with a variant by
wood, but these men multiplied themselves in bad forms and the divinities had
to eliminate them through a deluge. Only in the third variant they succeeded,
using Indian corn (maize), making a paste from it (tortilla). They made not
one, but four men. Still, there was a small deficiency: these men were too
clever. For fear of they would want to become gods, Tepeu and Cucamatz “darken
their minds with a cloud, grew foggy their eyes, limited their horizon and
then, lulling them asleep, created four women, settling in this way the
definitive people’s destine, the human condition as we know”.
In a mythology from New Zeeland, the god Tane
makes a woman for himself. After a while, he gives her as a gift to the first
man, created by the god of war, Tu. From this primordial couple the other men
was born.
There are many cosmogonies, as people’s
imagination is rich. I would nickname them cosmo-fantasies. Still, all of them
are variants of few schemes.
Conceptions like those suggested by the Christianity
in its first stage of evolution were not acceptable by the autocratic systems,
like that of the monarchy. This is the reason of the persecutions in the first
centuries. It was accepted only after the church made team with political
power, deformed the initial principles, made from the king and Pope the God’s
representatives on the earth, like shamans, and used the Christian religion as
support for political propaganda.
People believe in simple things. The savant
complications are not convincing and implant distrust in men’s souls. Like
catholic Inquisition, there were fanatics in the past too and genial people
were persecuted. Anaxagoras and his disciples were followed and stricken,
because they affirmed the sun is an incandescent mass. He was condemned to
death, but it was commuted to expulsing, thanks to his fried Pericle.
Protagoras was also expulsed from Athens, because he had doubt in god’s
existence. His works were burned and he escaped easily with expulsion, thanks
to Euripides’ friendship. The alternative would be the capital punishment.
Pheidias himself was criticized, tendentiously interpreting one of his work. He
died in the jail. Pericles would have the same destine if he didn’t died before
by plague. As for Socrates, everybody knows about his “suicide”.
The Catholics deformed the history, making by
Rome the centre of the Christianity. When the emperor Constantine the Great had
the initiative of organizing the first ecumenical council at Nicaea, the
bishopric of Rome was among the most modest ones. Those from Asia Minor, Syria,
Palestine, Egypt, Greece and Thrace were the most important. Palestine, Egypt
and Thrace were reminds of the former Macedonian Empire, from the Hellenistic
Epoch. The most important participants were the bishops Alexander from
Alexandria, Eustatio from Antiohia, Macarius from Jerusalem, Pafnutiu from
Theba, Potamon from Heraclea, Eusebiu from Nicomedia, Eusebiu from Caesarea,
Nicolas from Myra, Aristakes from Armenia. From Italy participated Marcus from
Calabria. Not a word about a Pope.
Consequently, Christianity developed itself
step by step, from the first Christian ideas and up till its crystallisation as
a religion, on the territories occupied by the Greeks or under their influence.
The first Russian metropolitan bishop was of Greek origin till 1441.
As for the Byzantine art, from the tenth to the
12th century, it was the main source of inspiration for the West.
The mosaics of St. Mark’s at Venice and of the cathedral at Torcello clearly
show their Byzantine origin. The churches from East to West prove its influence.
Kostas won a prize in a literature contest, for
a composition about his trip in Greece. He is eulogized by the teachers,
admired by some classmates and envied by others. Anastasia is, of course, in
ecstasy. Fotios is not bellow too. He is proud as well; Kostas is his son and
looks like him. He thinks to deal more seriously with his education. Kostas is
an adolescent now and he should be guided by a man. An idea has just crossed
his mind: to take Kostas one day with him at hunting, as his father did when he
was a boy. The hunting is not a contest of target shouting. It supposes a long
walk in open air with a shotgun on the shoulder, an excellent opportunity for
talking. It is not accidentally that important businessmen, politicians and other
like them have this hobby. It is an adequate occasion for private meetings
without witnesses and hidden microphones. Yes, he will go with Kosty at a walk
on the hunting land of the club where he just enters in.
-
Dad, why is that, when I had a success, some
classmates avoid me, as I would be plagued.
o
Cleverness is not contagious. Do not be afraid.
-
Exactly. Seemingly I would have a contagious
disease. I am not cleverer or more stupid then last week. Sometime, they used
to banter me because I am a Greek, especially when the teacher of physics
tested me. This one is a clever guy. He often finds connections between physics
and Greece, like the law of Archimedes and asked me if he lived far away from
us.
o
Did not you tell him that you were born in
Australia?
-
Oh, yes. He knew it very well, but he wants to
annoy me.
o
He did not annoy you. He noticed you are good
and wanted to stimulate. He is a good pedagogue. What about the teacher of
literature. After all, he granted you the prize.
-
Not at all. It was a committee of teachers from
other schools. It was forbidden for them to be members of the committee in the
school where they are teachers. Our teacher was in a committee for a school in
Brooklyn or Bronx, I do not know exactly.
o
But you are his schoolboy.
-
Yes, he took pride as well, but not too much.
He does not like me. Maybe I put him too many questions and disturbed him, as
he did not know the answer to all my questions.
o
Now, you ride the high horse.
-
I do not. I only wanted to know. But I was not
speaking about him. As for him, I am glad I showed him that I am better than he
thought. I was speaking about my classmates. If I have one success, it means to
lose my friends? For what the success is good, then?
o
Do not think that you are good only because
some friends praise you. You are really good if some enemies take you into
consideration. It seems odd, but you will understand later what I am trying to
tell you now. A praise could be false. That’s why you must not rest on laurels.
The envy is unpleasant, but it is the proof that you really are worthy. The
envy people recognise in themselves that you are superior.
* *
*
Not so often, but regularly, Anastasia’s father wrote
them. Of course, he has some words about her mother in every letter, but she
never write. The last was a really slalom among good and bad news. Two of them
were important.
The aches in the heart region, about which he
wrote some time ago, are no longer simple aches. He visited the doctor of the
family and this one recommended him a consultation at a specialized clinic, but
he refused to be interned. Anastasia proposed to herself to talk with him
seriously when she will go in Athens. Till then, she will try to be as
convincing as possible in a long letter, in which she will tell him – though he
knows it very well – that it is not good to joke with the heart.
The good piece of news was her father has put
the house from Crete on her name. She was now an owner; not in the States but
in Greece. It is presumed that her mother foams at the mouth, but it is not
important now. She will sell the property, not only for close any possible
discussions, but also for buy a house here, in New York, for their family,
composed now by four persons. The girl grows up and will need her room. They
suffered enough so far with a small child in their bedroom.
Looking for an adequate house was a task
devolved upon Fotios. Anastasia was blocked in the house with the girl and all
domestic works. Now, they had a strong reason to buy a car and just did it.
Fotios was full of importance at the steering wheel, but all the family was
glad when they could drive in small trips, visiting houses for selling. As they
did not know the districts, had many deceptions: the houses were either too
expensive or too bad. Instead, they realized what Anastasia wanted for the
beginning: to know the town. For she, it was a natural curiosity. For Kostas it
was much more; he must know it. Not only for the man who will be, but just for
the talking with his fellows. He was able now to understand better the
happenings, knowing the places. It was not the same if the happening occurred
in Manhattan or in Brooklyn, Bronx or Queens.
One of the trips liked them more than. As there
were not other houses in that area, they decided for a small trip in the
mountains. Easy-easy, they entered deep inside the mountain. It was a wonderful
day of autumn, just when the leaves are ready to fall and their colours delight
everybody’s look. This wonderful moment was the one that attracted them in a
trip, as they never did. For curiosity, they allowed themselves a small walk
toward a ridge, like a saddle between two rocks. It was a clear sky, but with a
strong cold wind. On the saddle, they were witnesses of a miracle: out of the
blue, it started to snow. Probably the wind was bringing a humid air and here,
they were thinking, in the contact with the cold air from the other part of the
ridge, the vapours of water condensed. It was wonderful and they will remember
this spectacle in the rest of their lives.
Finally, Fotios was the one who chose the
house, following the advice of one of his fellow worker. It was a nice house,
in a peaceful and clean area. It has a small court, where Anastasia could go
outside with Nicky. There, the girl may play alone safely. Kostas was less
interested; he was occupied with the school, reading and other activities
according with his age. Still, the house needed some repairs, which means they
will not be able to move immediately and will need to invest money. On the
other hand, there was an advantage: they could rebuild the house according with
their test.
After a first stage, in which Fotios was
surprisingly active and interested, a period of stagnation followed, or at
least Anastasia thought so. Fotios used to complain he has a lot of things to
do at the office, or need more money for the house. There is not the problem to
work itself; he did not something like this in his life. To plant flowers, yes.
He liked this. For nailing something he need protective equipment, but he wore
only costume and neck tie. For working at the house, he engaged qualified
workers. If they worked fast or not, it is hard to know. Sure is that, for
Anastasia, each small stage in the long process of the rebuilding the house
seems to last ages.
But, as any eternity has its dead line,
finally, the works came to their end and they moved. This time it was
Anastasia’s turn to work. She could not engaged teams of specialists. She must
do everything by herself. It’s true, it was pleasant. It was a naivety to think
that you will put every thing at his place. For it, such placed would to exist
previously. In reality, only after you thought you found it, you will find a
better alternative. In this way, the place of each piece will be changed again
and again, not just to the infinite, but only until you will be bored to do it.
Though tiresome, it was stimulating. Nicky was
the one who used to create greater problems. Though still small, she had a
strong personality, which were manifesting by pretensions, claims and whims for
everything. Nothing was at her will; she did everything inversely as other
people asked her to do. Anastasia never speak her harshly, did not give her a
slap, she always behaved gingerly and tried to explain and not to impose. For
all that, the girl was recalcitrant.
Kostas, instead, was a good boy: serious both
in family and at school. He helped his mother as much as he could, but his main
preoccupation was to know. He read a lot, informed, was happy for everything he
learns and discontented for what he does not know. He used to ask and ask
himself, but with every answer the number of question increase. His mother was
not able to answer; sooner she learned by him. As for his father, even if he
would know – thought it is less probably – he was absent almost all the time.
The library and the teachers from the school were Kostas’ source of
information. The mother was proud and hopes he will be her support when he will
grow up.
From Greece she learned some news from her
father, but he usually wrote only about the good pieces of news, avoiding the
bad ones or covering them with a pink veil. He was finding palliating
circumstances for everything was not as it would must to be. More news she
learned from her friend, Sophia. Yes, she had a friend woman now. It was a pen
friend, but she was her first friend. They meet each other at the wedding party
of one of Fotios’ fellow workers. She was a Greek woman, a bridegroom’s
relative, and came in New York special for this event. It was the only time
they met, as Sophia returned immediately in Greece, but they liked each other,
promised to be pen friends and going on to do it.
Athens really blossoms again, after the
“colonels’ epoch”. Unlike her father, Sophia wrote about bad news too. More
then it, she seemed to look out of them. She was dissatisfied, for example,
because the Greeks are content themselves with minor jobs, like secretary,
errand-boy or menial, in the great businesses, almost all of the foreigners.
There is even the mentality that, if a Greek has a small house, he can yield it
to a great society, which will demolish the house and will build on its ground
a big edifice with many floors and he, the Greek, will become a shareholder at
that society. In this way, he and his followers will allow to live (at café)
quietly for ever, doing nothing. This strategy might work in some cases, but it
is not a solution for a nation. The prosperity of a nation lays in the force of
the middle class, how active it is, but, in Greece, just this social category
is going to disappearance. They are convinced that Greece will enjoy forever by
its geographic position, which it is naturally endowed with multiple advantages
and, consequently, the Greeks have to do nothing, because the world’s rich men
will finance their country for different reasons. If it has dower, it is good
to be married. Yes, Greece could be married. But its people? Besides, this is
not a strategy for the future. Along with the globalisation, with the
development of the communications, the great businesses are directed from the offices
situated anywhere, not necessarily in seaports.
They are angry on the Albanians – their
neighbours – because they come to work in Greece, born children, the children
go to school and – unlike Greek children – they learn well. After graduation,
naturally, they are preferred for qualified jobs and obtain better social
positions. The Greeks’ dislike face to the Albanians is old. Now, besides them,
there are many others, including Africans and Asians. Soon the Greeks will be
in minority in their country, not as number but as social position.
Partially, the Greeks who had came from the
foster USSR save the Greece. This one comes with serious intentions.
Unfortunately, not all of them are really Greeks, some not at all. Besides,
there are children from mixed marriages. Their presence is visible thanks to
their physical constitution: tall, supple, blond. But, as bad things are
contagious, these ones assimilate rapidly the natives’ bad habits. What was
interesting for Anastasia were cultural information from Sophia. It was not
clear to her if she intuited her lacks in this field and was trying to fill her
gaps, or it was her wish of astounding. Anyway, she did it discreetly, so you
cannot annoy and the information came just where and when were necessary. Anastasia
had the sensation that she had just then put to herself the question at which
Sophia gave her the answer.
* *
*
-
Good morning.
o
Good morning at noon. You feasted seriously
last night.
-
It is only one time when someone finishes
general school. Let me say that I made perplexed all of them. I showed them how
to dance on Greek music.
o
But you have not idea of how to dance it.
-
I saw it in the movie “Zorba, the Greek”.
o
Your classmates saw the movie as well.
-
Well, from the movie was the music on which we
danced, also. Besides, I had seen at the parties of the Greeks from New York.
o
How many parties saw you? Two wedding parties
and one christening. At the first wedding, I kept you on my laps.
-
At the last wedding, I danced with Sophia. She
taught me.
o
You should learn from a man.
-
I would like it, but nobody offered. By the
way, ask Sophia to send us some records with Greek music.
o
Why do you need other discs? Your father has a
lot. You never listen them.
-
This is not music. Only lamentations and
keening.
o
The soul of Greeks is so. It was an oppressed
nation and people cry their faith.
-
Like in the church. When you ask me to go at
the church I know I will have a bad day. I never understand why Orthodox priest
lament every time.
o
It is Byzantine music. Do you want them to
dance rock-and-roll, like the Negroes?
-
Maybe they better would not sing at all. Let
they simple say what they have to say and would be more convincing.
o
This is your opinion.
-
Of course. But do you write to Sophia to send
us the records? Not lamentations; merry music.
o
Well, I will, but you must say me what you
want.
-
I do not what to ask, but she will. I noticed
she is an open-minded woman.
o
What do you mean? Your father isn’t?
-
He is, but not at music. His discs, if are not
keening, resemble with Arabian music.
o
How is that? Not at all. Maybe Turkish. This
one remembers him of Hios, where he was born. This island is not far away from
Turkey.
-
And what is the difference between Turks and
Arabians? They are not both Moslem?
o
They are, but the Turks only adopted Islamic
religion from the Arabians; they came from Central Asia. And now, Turkey is a
laic, modern state.
-
Maybe, but their music does not like me. There
is Greek merry music. This is what I want.
o
I agree with it, as I like merry music too.
-
You know, I think that, besides Turkish
influence, there is in Greece Italian influence as well. It would be impossible
not to be. Everyone love Italian music; even the Chine. I think the good Greek
music is that with Italian influence.
o
It is true the Italians are cheerful, have the
sense of humour . . .
-
The Greeks, instead, has not the sense of
ridicule.
o
I see you lived only in America; you do not
feel at all like a Greek. Well, I will write to Sophia.
-
We arrived. This is Roman Agora.
o
Why all people stay in front of the door and do
not enter inside?
-
I do not know. Probably, it is crowded inside
and people enter only in groups.
o
What crowd? I do not see people inside. And
this one does not seem at all to wait. Some are even leaving. And they are very
nervous.
-
You are right. It is strike. So it is written
on this paper stuck on the gate. I thought only the workers make strikes, and
these ones claim to be intellectuals.
o
What is it a strike, daddy?
-
It is a kind of protest. The employees of the
museum ask for increasing the salaries, the direction does not want or can’t do
it, and then, they try to impose their will by not working an hour, a day or
more days.
o
Is something possible? Namely, if I want the
teacher to give me fewer exercises at mathematics, I do a strike and do not
solve them at all.
-
Well, it is not even so.
o
And how is it?
-
It is rather complicated to explain you just
now.
o
Maybe it is not so complicated. I understood
more complicated things. Do not be bumptious. Those people who left were very
angry. Do not say me they did it without reason.
-
Of course, not. They where Spaniards. They came
from thousands kilometres, spend money and fail vacancies because of this
miserable clerks.
o
Ah, you recognize it is not normal.
-
Well, of course it isn’t. Sure it isn’t.
o
And now, what are we doing.
-
We are going at home; what to do else?
o
So, we failed the day too. We have come vainly.
You are in vacancy too, isn’t it?
-
Yes, but we have more time. We are living in
Athens several days.
o
You postponed me a long so far and said that
only Sunday, namely today, you will have time for me to go at the museum. Now,
when you think you will have time for me again?
-
I even do not know.
o
You see how you are! But you still did not
enlightened me how is with the strike. How people allow not to work and they
are not dismissed?
-
It is democracy; they have some rights.
o
There is not democracy in the United States? We
learnt at school that USA is a model of democracy for the entire world.
-
It is true.
o
And then, why the Americans do not do strikes?
-
They did sometime, but understood that it does
not solve their problems.
o
It means they found a better solution? Why the
Greeks do not apply it too?
-
Well. . .
o
I know. It is too complicated to explain me.
-
You see, the Greeks are more revolutionary.
They got independence by fight against the Turks and it remains in their blood.
o
USA got the independence in 1776 and Greece in
1821. The difference is of only 45 years. I know; do you see?
-
Bravo!
o
And how did you conclude that they are some
special revolutionaries. In that movie with that old Greek, killed by Jack
Nickolson with his lover girl, he was not revolutionary at all. On the
contrary, he was a milksop.
-
What movie? Jack Nickolson is an actor, as I
know.
o
Sure. He is an actor, but I forgot the name of
the character interpreted by him in the movie. “The Postman Always Rings Twins”
is the title of the movie.
-
Oh, yes. I saw that movie. It is a good one!
That Greek was one from the United States. You are a Greek from the United
States too. We all are: I, your mother.
o
So, in the United States, we are milksops, but
here we may do strikes. What about to do one just now and give me an ice-cream
at this confectionary? Maybe you give a Coca-Cola too.
-
Maybe better across the street; they have beer
as well. I am just thirsty.
o
Let’s go.
* *
*
Anastasia’s father knew very well she is a good
cooker. She did it not only for her family, but also she followed a course of
culinary art and now she had a real worship for exquisite preparations.
One day, being in Greece, he asked her to
prepare a chicken after the famous receipt “Le Cordon Bleu”, well know
throughout the world. He said: “I will buy all ingredients and you will prepare
it for me and my friends”. Of course, he wanted to take pride with his
daughter. On the other hand, her mother quarrelled her, arguing that it needn’t
she enter in this trouble. As a matter of fact, it was a competition. She never
accepts her daughter would be able to do something remarkable. When she started
to work and she saw how thin Anastasia cuts the chest of the chicken, she could
not help saying:
-
Oh, God, do not do this. There is not need such
trouble. There is not enough chicken. You will destroy it.
o
Let me alone. I will do my job as I know and as
I want. Go and smock a cigarette.
And she went, feeling insulted. After it,
Anastasia succeeded to finish. Her father and his friends were impressed by her
know-how and skill. Only her mother was nervous, as she was not able to
recognise the success of her daughter. Her nerves were visible on her trembling
hands. She cannot say a simple “Thank you”.
* *
*
-
Mom, I want to ask you something.
o
Tell me.
-
Not here; let’s sit down somewhere.
o
O.k. I want to sit down too; I am very tired. I
know a nice café not far away from here.
-
Ah, not a café. There is noisy and smoke there.
o
We can stay outside; there is not smoke there.
-
In café people babble, do not discuss.
o
And what is wrong in it?
-
I did not say it is wrong; it is a way of
socialisation, but not a place for serious discussions. Sometime before you
finish a phrase, someone interrupts you, as he thinks to have something to say.
o
Maybe he has.
-
No, he only want to be important, to show what
he knows. He is at least impolitely, as he would let you to say what you have
to say – maybe other people want to listen – and, after it, to express his
opinion – if he has one – face to that subject. In a discussion, you want to
clarify that subject. If you deviate, the discussion becomes more difficult.
Instead to clarify, you trouble.
o
I think the contrary; you enrich the discussion.
-
Not at all. The discussion falls in derisory,
even in gossip. We can see here the difference between Germans and us. There is
difference of structure in our languages. The Germans put the verb at the end
of the phrase. The listener must listen the whole phrase for learning what he
wanted to say. The Greek, after 2-3 words, thinks he has a reply. We like to
babble. Consequently, he allows the interrupt, though he does not know what he
would must to know.
o
You, as usually, theorize too much. I keep my
opinion: the deviations, the examples can make the discussion more succulent.
-
For a chat, you are right, but for a serious
discussion the examples may be disastrous. Let me give you an example, if you
provoked me. At the teacher’s question “What is a chair?” a stupid pupil
answer: “A char is when we . . . “. The teacher will replay annoyed: “A chair
is not when”. The question had the aim to teach the children how to express
logically, to define the terms. Only stupid pupils, instead of a definition,
give examples. If one needs examples, it means the definition was not clear.
o
You comforted me. I am the pupil and you are
the teacher.
-
You do not take things just so, but, if you
provoked me, I gave you a replay. Here is an example: if in a discussion
someone pronounces the word butterfly, your man will speak how bad is the
butter for the cholesterol.
o
You did not convince me. I think that even the
subject can be more definite through some examples.
-
Did you have in view the adage “The exceptions
makes the rule stronger”? Maybe you are right when the subject is clearly
definite. If not, the examples will pollute the analysis. As for the saying,
usually it is wrong interpreted.
o
How is that?
-
Most people use it as an excuse, a motivation
for something is not clear for them, a trying to ignore the laws of nature.
o
Well, and how it would be?
-
The saying say the exception make the rule
stronger, not weaker. Any law is valuable inside of a field. The law of fluids
are valuable for fluids, not for gases or solids. The exceptions limit the
field in which a law is valuable. In this way, the law is more exact.
o
I think that what you want is a scientific
session, not a talk.
-
Tell it as you want. I go myself to the café,
when I want to socialise. There I listen more. The girls amuse me. They talk in
parallel. No one listens what the other say, but makes a break from time to
time and goes on after it, without any connection with the other’s story.
o
I did not know you are misogynist. Well, let’s
sit down on this bench and tell what you have to say.
-
I am not a misogynist one. Look, I have visited
the museums of modern art in New York. I do not pretend I understood everything
I saw, as I am conscious of my lack of aesthetic culture. I liked some works
and I did not like others. I start from the idea that arts developed from the
primitivism of those who painted on the wall of the caves up till the modern
art. The art of ancient Greece was a stage in this evolution. I told you some
time ago that I want to see the Greek monuments, or their ruins, as my
classmates used to mock at me because I am a Greek and did not know them. I was
in the four forms then. Now, I want not only to see; I want to understand.
o
And you found me as a teacher.
-
Why not? You have seen more than me. If I ask a
teacher, he recite a story from which there is nothing to understand. Or – how
someone said – after his explanation you do not understand what you asked.
o
Or you understand that they did not understand
but are ashamed to recognise and try to confuse you with tangled words.
-
Bravo! This time, you were more categorical
than me. You told it just clearer.
o
Thank you. And now, what do you want me to
tell?
-
To tell how is that this old statues – and not
only the statues – are more beautiful than many of those made later? How is that
with the evolution? My power of understanding stops at this level, or the art
run over hedge and ditch? They say that everything changed after the apparition
of the photograph.
o
The Greeks had the good sense (or
intelligentsia) to devote temples to gods and goodness, so to some imaginary
personages and not to the real ones. Everything real and of present-day is
perishable. But I am a Greek woman and take pride in the art of my ancestors.
Modern art does not interest me.
-
I see you slip away. I think the aesthetic
value of the Greek statue has increase after they lost their colours. Maybe the
same will happen with more of the modernist paintings. Let me tell you
something more interesting. How is that people of that time did not wear
spectacles?
o
?!
-
It means they were seeing well, were
clear-sighted, far-seeing.
o
You are joking.
-
Still, there is a problem: if they were so
far-seeing people, why the Romans conquered them? They fought with the
Persians, a much bigger empire and even beat them, and were defeated by Rome, a
small country at that time.
o
The historians say the Greeks were considering
the Romans like friends.
-
This is a stupidity even greater, but the
historians may allow it. They may allow anything; anyway, nobody think them.
Sparta fought with Athens and did not fought with Rome. Let’s be serious.
o
I think they did not wear glasses because they
were not invented yet.
-
Not at all! They invented a lot of things and
were to stop with some trifles. At a battle, they set fire to the Persians’
ships with many mirrors. They were clever men. Eratostenes said that the Terra
is a sphere and calculated its circumference, starting from the length of the
shadow at different latitude. The true is they did not know they did not see
well. This is why they made so many mistakes.
o
I see you always have a contra-argument at what
I say.
-
This is why it is good to start with the
contra-argument. As soon as someone find that things are not all right – and
usually so it is – he comes with the argument and explain us what was wrong,
though we knew it better just before.
o
O.k. You have convinced me. Now, let’s go at
home. Tomorrow we have a lot of work to do.
-
I think I began to adapt myself to the place:
during the night I speak and sleep in the day.
o
You are too young for this. You have to learn
yet.
-
Do not tell me to work. Do not forget that I
have Greek blood, not American.
o
It seems you are already adapted from this
point of view.
-
O.k. We go, but first I want to tell you
something.
o
What are you more in your mind?
-
As a matter of fact, I want to congratulate
you.
o
This is something new. And for what do you want
it?
-
You impressed a lot the grandfather with your
chicken “Le Cordon Bleu”. He was very proud of you.
o
He had reasons, isn’t it?
-
At the beginning I was doubt too you would
succeed, after listening the grandmother bantering you. She said you want to
food nine persons with a chest of chicken.
o
She saw only the chest during I was cutting it.
First it was not only the chest, but also whole the chicken, and was not one,
but two chickens. Besides, there are garnishing and other.
-
I was thinking there was not a chicken-boy but
a chicken-girl and, maybe she has some silicones . . .
o
I thought you are speaking seriously.
-
I was joking, but the chicken really liked me.
o
O.k. Let’s go now.
* *
*
If we start from the definitions in dictionaries, we
come soon to the conclusion the kid was right. Their authors did not understand
more than him, maybe even less, as they did not put to themselves their
questions. Here are some definitions:
-
Aesthetics
– which belongs to aesthetics;
-
Art –
a kind of human activity that mirrors the reality through expressive imagines.
The first one is a simple tautology. Maybe the
authors did not hear what it is. Still, the word is correct definite in the
same dictionary, but probably another one wrote it, because more people work
for such a great opera like an encyclopaedic dictionary. The second reflects
only the preoccupation for imitating the nature (mirrors the reality), which is
only a minor aim of art.
The explanation of changing produced after the
apparition of the photograph is insufficient. It is not at all true that,
earlier, the only aim of art was to imitate the nature. In Byzantine art, for
example, on the contrary, the accuracy reproduction of some real models was
prohibited. The saints are stylised. They must render the idea represented by
the Biblical personage and not a portrait of a certain person. The onlooker’s
mind must be directed toward the message of the parable and not how nice is the
portrait. The true art never proposed the imitation. The paintings on the walls
of caves were not endeavours of primitive men to design. They were symbols,
important for the message. It is a proof of intellectual mediocrity to judge
the quality of their design, not knowing the message.
In the nature, the trunk of a tree is thick at
the base and thin toward to top. The columns of some temples, instead, are a
little thinner to the base and thicker toward the top, for making the onlooker
to think the column is a perfect cylinder. From Doric to Corinthian style, the
art of the architects improved through the innovation, not through the
imitation.
From the aesthetical point of view, the Greek
artist from antiquity reached a top, because they wanted to find the beauty in
absolute value. They invented the gold proportion as a mathematic equation.
Their statues are perfect not because the men and women of that time were more
handsome or beautiful than those of today. On the contrary, there are reasons
to think the opposite. The Greek artists invented the beauty; they did not copy
it. The artistic works were not appreciated if they represented something new,
but if were more beautiful than the similar ones, made till then.
In literature as well, there are few models,
few themes, repeated thousand times. Claude Lévi-Strauss founded his opera on
this idea, being considered the father of the structuralism in literature, just
because he observed that, in all nations, there are only a few models, repeated
in numerous variants.
An artist was appreciated if he succeeds to
surpass his predecessors doing better the same works.
In time, the arts had different objectives. The
European Middle Age launched the Christian religious art. The recent epochs
that of the harsh soldier and others, well-known. There is even an art of the
ugly. This does not mean that art must be ugly; the subject is ugly. The art
may be beautiful even in this case.
Paul Cézanne, one of the first and remarkable
representatives of the Impressionism said: “Painting after nature does not
means to copy the objective world, but to give form of your sentiments”. And
the art critic Jules Castagnary wrote in 1871, when this current appeared:
“They are impressionists in the sense they render not the landscape, but the
sensation produced by the landscape”.
The legend says about Kandinsky that, one
evening, entering his studio, he saw a painting that he did not recognized but
he liked it. Only after a while of contemplation he realized that it was one of
his paintings laid top-down. (One does not specify if the artist was drunk but
– thinking at his name – it was less probably the answer to be negative.) The
legend affirms that abstract paintings appeared in this way. A painting may
represent nothing; what matter is the play of forms and colours. It is correct,
under the condition to be nice and to induce to the onlooker a sentiment, a
thought, an artistic emotion.
The main role of abstract painting is a
decorative one. I recognize that I like some abstract paintings. Not those by Kandinsky.
Some like me just very much. Instead, for some horrible ones, I think only the
absence of the elementary good sense of those who, by mistake, dishonestly gain
money through art, could justify their existence.
My opinion about the future of the art is an
optimistic one. As the faith (and not a certain religion) will not disappear
(in spite of the priest’s efforts), the art will not disappear, because the
people’s wish for beauty is forever, in spite of those who misappropriate its
aim from petty interested.
* *
*
Fishing
-
Daddy, I was expecting in Athens to meet many
Americans, French, Italian people and especially Englishmen. I found everywhere
lots of Russians. How is that?
o
I am afraid it is rather complicated for you.
History, economics and politics mixed here.
-
Try me!
o
In the past, Greece was full of foreigners,
especially Englishmen. I do not speak about the period when it was under the
Turks.
-
Do not let it even from Adam and Eve.
o
Not, after the independence. They considered
Greece a revolving table in international commerce and invested there. We can
see even now imposing buildings made then by foreign companies. Now, due to
globalisation, the great businesses can be managed from anywhere. There is not
necessary to have an office in port. From this reason, you do not see the
Englishmen there any longer. They may stay in London or on a paradisiacal
island.
-
Why the Russians do not do the same?
o
They do, but the ones you see on the street are
not the great businessmen. Some complications intervene here. We need a little
history.
-
I am good at it. I always received good marks.
o
t is about recent history and some politics.
Russia appeared on the map of the world later and developed in the last
centuries.
-
Like the United States of America.
o
Yes, like the United States of America. The
tsar Peter the Great gave them the start and, in extern politics the Russians
still follow his indications, not matter of the political regime. Among others,
he said Russia must have openings to all seas. He succeeded to reach as far as
the Baltic Sea. Mediterranean Sea remained an unfulfilled target so far.
-
And now, they try on different ways.
o
Exactly. You got it! You really are a clever
boy! They are involved in economy, but send people of all categories. The best
opportunity was during the Second World War. With all their defects, the Greeks
are some qualities as well: in the face of a common enemy they join each other.
During the war, they did it against the Italians first and Germans later,
creating groups of partisans. Their initiative liked to the Allies, who helped
them. The most active countries were the former USSR and Great Britain.
-
Good for them!
o
Yes, it was all right so far, but, when the war
came to its end, the leaders of the partisans did not understand one another.
Each of them wanted to be the great head. First, they quarrelled. The United
Kingdom agreed the first government. We know today that, on 9 October 1944,
Churchill was in Moscow and, together with Stalin, decided the areas of
influence after the War.
(A decision so important could not take by
them. In the play were also the United States of America and other countries.
It was a collective decision, but people like to personalize such events. The
talks became official a little later, at The Yalta Conference (4-11 February
1945) and finished after the War, at The Potsdam Conference, where Churchill
and Roosevelt did not participate. At Yalta, among the other problems, they
discussed then the statute of Austria. Finally it was considerate a neutral country;
thus those who want to emigrate from one area to the other to find refuge here.
From this reason, Austria received founds from UNO up till 1990 for the
expenses of organizing camps for refugees and for their transfer. As nobody
from West wanted to go in East, people considered Austria a western country.)
Kostas’ father went on with his explanations:
-
For all that, the USSR, with its well-known
ability, instigated the opponents of the government till the quarrel turned
into real fights, and so the Civil War began. In Mythology you have some
similar examples. Even you told me one.
o
You refer to Eris, the goddess of feud, the one
that, at the wedding party of the goddess Tethys, where she was not invited,
threw an apple with the inscription “For the most beautiful”, arousing the
rivalry between Hera, Athens and Aphrodite.
-
The Romans said them Discordia, from which the
“apple of discord”.
o
The Civil War was not just a novelty. What the
Grecians knew better to do – and did it successfully – was to fight each other.
They kept intact the feature of their character from ancient wars between
Athens and Sparta and up till nowadays.
-
The legendary War of Troy – also one between
the Greeks, is not by hazard in Mythology.
o
And, as any legend, this one conveys a message
too.
-
But, let’s continue. As any war need weapons,
the USSR provided his adepts too. The Russians could not do this directly,
because the accord previously established, so they did it via Yugoslavia, which
organized for them camps for training. During the war, Yugoslavia had serious
troops of partisans against the Germany.
o
As concerning the Russian people, there is a
joke, appeared after the invasion of Czechoslovakia, in 1968. One says that the
representatives of USSR, USA and UK met for discussing the problem. In order
not to be disturbed, they decided to talk on a steamer, on open sea, off the
any country. But, the steamer had sunk and they shipwrecked on an island, which
seems to be deserted. Fortunately, they found a she-goat and – instead of
killing and eat her – they decided to care of her and use the milk that she
could give then daily. In turn, every day, one of them used to drive the goat
to pasture. The plane works up till the Russian, in his turn, did it. He left
in the morning with the goat, but returns in the evening without goat.
§
Where is the goat? – asked everyone.
·
Which goat?
§
The goat along with you left this morning to
graze.
·
A, that one?
§
Yes, that one. Where is it?
·
Who?
§
The goat, man!
·
Which goat?
§
Look here! Do we have a goat here and one after
the other we drive her to pasture for drinking some milk?
·
Yes, we have.
§
Today was your turn. It was you who left this
morning with the goat. Do you recognise?
·
Yes, I recognise.
§
And now, where is the goat?
·
Which goat?
This was the way in which the talks on withdrawing Soviet army from
Czechoslovakia occurred. This was the style of the Soviets in international
intercourses.
o
Amusing! Let’s continue. Fortunately for
Greece, everything finished after Stalin quarrelled with Tito. Coming to the
conclusion that providing endlessly Greece is without sense and, in the
meantime the United States of America took the place of England, Stalin put an
end to the helps and the war stopped. Not without consequences. Many of the
former fighters with communist inclinations had took refuge in the countries
under the Soviet influence, like Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, R.D.
Germany, Czechoslovakia and, of course the USSR. After several years, these
ones came back in Greece indoctrinated with communist ideas and made from Greece
a country with communists without communism. If in Russia they are healed of
it, ours are in the stage of naiveties, yet. There are here more communists
than in Russia. This is the main reason of the nowadays-economic disaster.
Strikes and protesting manifestations organized by K.K.E. – the Greek Communist
Party – strongly supported by the Russia, disorganise the economy and go away
the possible investors.
-
What interesting is the politics! Maybe I will
become a politician.
o
Till then, you need to learn.
-
Is it necessary to follow a school for
politicians?
o
There is not something like that.
-
The politicians do not have a school? It is
interesting.
o
Do not be ironical. Some of them are high
educated, other less. Oh, you have just caught a fish. What do you thing with
that rod? You were ready to drop it.
-
I was just wondering if there are fishes here.
Since we are here, nobody caught one. And they are tens. Most of them have the
fishing rods fitted with sophisticated devices and they stay on the bench
solving crossing words.
o
They are amateurs.
-
Amateurs for sunbathing.
-
Mama called me this morning
o
What happened with her to yield giving money on
telephone?
-
Dad was hospitalised.
o
Oh, this really is a reason. And what he has?
-
His heart. Last night he fainted and emergency
service carried him in the cardiology. As early as in the noon he said his
heart gallops. Now, the doctors investigate him to become precise with the
diagnostic. In a few days we will have the results.
The diagnostic was ischemic cardiopaty and
atrial fibrillation. Consequently, the disease is serious, the fibrillation
being the most dangerous. With such a disease, one can die at any time, in a
few seconds. He must stay in the hospital until the doctors were sure he is
stabilized and can go home safely. Of course, he will follows treatment and
take care of himself more than he did so far: without efforts, without
emotions, without stress. It’s true, physical efforts he did not so far, but
with the emotions is more difficult, as one never knows when and from they
come.
* *
*
From Kostas’ diary
The stones of Athens? It
depends how you look them. Sometime, just through dead rocks the past revives
from the ash of years. Here is a great phrase! I should be a poet. I noticed
they die young. The better way is to be an economist, like dad. You learn a
little and pretend to be important. I see he knows mathematics less than me and
this is my weak point. Sometime, I envy the policemen. They are the strongest.
Unfortunately, people mock at them. This is what I do not want: people mocking
at me. A stone I should be. Maybe someone will make me a statue, to be admired
by the visitors. Till then, he must strike me with the chisel; otherwise, I
could be used for pavement, to step on me all ninnies.
-----------------
In Byzantine Empire,
not only the centre of power was moved from Athens to Constantinople. The old
Greek sense fell in desuetude, beginning with the prohibition of the paganism
and ceasing of the Olympic Games – a symbol of the old Greek sense. Renouncing
at paganism means to renouncing at Mythology too. They closed the Oracle at
Delphi – considered by the old Greeks the centre of the world. The majority of
the questions are the same, 3000 years ago as today: what career to follow, if
to have or not trust in the one who wants to became your partner of life etc. I
have the same questions and must find other way of finding answers. I thing
this is the main pity of religions: they want to give prefab answers at some
questions that, maybe, you do not have
-----------------
It is interesting that many
Greek people from Athens pretend to have come from Constantinople. They could
say Istanbul, but they hate this word and replace the Turkish name with the old
one, before its conquering by the Turks. As a matter of fact, they did not come
only from Istanbul, but from a large area around it. The Romans gave it the
name of Constantinople. The older one was Byzantz, from where the name
Byzantine Empire. We would expect the Greeks of today to use with pride this
name, Byzantz, but they prefer Constantinople, creating in this way an
unfavourable confusion. Or, maybe, I do not understand the subtlety but, if I
do not understand, it means other people do not understand too, which multiply
the disadvantage.
--------------
If you limit to the
culture, Athens may become tiresome: too many monuments, ruins, museums; Plaka
is the place that could contra-balance the sensation of stress. A walk in this
district is welcome. This is true if you succeed to avoid the ridiculous art.
Not a way! They are too many. The only solution is to amuse yourself and
neglect them. Generally, Plaka offers fanny things to the visitors. Besides,
among trifles, there is real art. Anyway, none tourist misses Plaka; as it is
at the foot of Acropolis.
-----------------
During democratic regimes
one did not build remarkable monuments. Not only in Greece.
-------------------
I have just read a nice
phrase: “The link of the Greeks with the pass is the sky and sea, to which they
added some stones and assigned them senses. Yes, here, the stones represent
gods or legendary heroes.
-----------------
Besides “Zorba, the Greek”,
Nikos Kazantzakis wrote “The Last Temptation”, which seems to by much more
appreciated by the specialists. I have read it. It is a book of philosophy more
than a novel. I heard there is a movie, named “The Last Temptation of Christ”,
but I did not see it. In fact, it is an essay. It seems a misconstruction of
New Testament, but it is more than it. The characters are described as people
with different personalities, each of them with his preoccupations and his
philosophy of life.
-
Jesus is a dreamer and is
good-hearted;
-
Judas is preoccupied by
current problems (Roman occupation etc.) and unsolving them dislikes him. He
accuses Jesus, because he does not imply in the real problems, as he is
fearful. (You, the fearful, you do not steal, do not kill, because you are
fear; all your virtues are daughters of fear”.)
-
Magdalene is a realist
fighter. She say also Jesus is fearful.
o
I fight alone, do not ask
for help neither from people nor from demons, nor for gods; I fight to escape
and I will escape.
o
To escape from what? From
who?
o
Not from mire, as you
thinks; be blessed it. In it I put all my hopes; it is for me the way toward the
delivering.
o
. . .
o
you catch yourself by your
mother’s hem, sometime by mine, sometime by the God’s. You can stay alone,
because you are fear . . . And you go in desert and hide yourself, shove your
nose in the sand, because you are fear.
It seems that even by the
Greeks, one of the most faithful Christian nations, begun to reinterpret the
New Testament. As a matter of fact, even from the parabola of Wasteful Son, we
learn that the one who choose life and risk is forgiven. His brother, a model
of obedience is a fearful.
---------------
All the research workers of
religions consider the faiths as immanent for primitive man, that they would
appeared from their desire to have an explanation of natural phenomenon and for
finding a support in some difficult moments. False! If the religion had been
immanent to the man - as man descends from the monkey - it would have meant the
religion is immanent to the monkey as well.
The desire to find a
support is a result of the fear, and the fear in inoculated. A child does not
know what the fear is. Also, the explanation of natural phenomenon does not
characteristic for the common man. He does not have such problems. Besides,
such “explanations” do not start from real findings. On the contrary, they are results of the imagination. Their
authors did not believed in the truth of their inventions. These ones, their
inventions, had as purpose to find a way to make simple men to behave in
according with the ethic of that time, or with the will of their leaders. In
this way, some rituals were fixed and the simple man was guided to respect the
ritual, for example to bury the dead persons. Without ritual, the men would be
lazy enough to abandon the corpse. They need some more than a simple
indication, like “it would be good to do it”. The authors of the myths are the
spiritual leaders of the primitive tribes. The intentions of moulding people’s
mentalities were good or bad, depending on their authors.
What is surprising is the
fact the religions – even the recent ones – are less sagacious than some old
mythologies. That is so probably because the theologians want the believers to
be confident. For this, they must not be able to verify the truth of the
doctrine. As odd are its ideas as better. In this respect, they advanced a lot
in comparison with the primitive ones.
-----------------
At any attempt to
persuade a Greek that the merits of the past belong to those of that time, and
that he must do something as a follower worthy of them, he will repeat like a
poem what everybody know: from those seven wonders of the ancient world, four
are Greek, from which three are in Greece and two just in Athens:
-
Statue of Zeus, 12 metres high, by Pheidias, in the
temple of Zeus, 5 century BC;
-
Temple of the goddess Artemis at Ephesus, 356 BC;
-
Colossus from Rhodes, 30 metres, a statue by bronze
devoted to the god of the sun, Helios, 280 BC, at the entrance of the harbour;
-
Lighthouse from Alexandria, 280 BC, 134 metres.
Unfortunately, none
of them exist today. The wonderful antic civilisation became an imaginary
construction for those who want to know and understand its significations. It
really left something to the posterity, but the common Greek has nothing with
it.
* *
*
-
Mom called again.
o
It means something is grave. It is the second
call since we are in New York.
-
They will come here.
o
With his illness?
-
Exactly. With it and because of it.
o
From your mother part it was expected not to
have the intention to care of him. She dispatched you, your own daughter; what
an ill husband would be more important?
-
This time is not her decision.
o
She always has put the others to “decide” what
she had wanted.
-
Now it was really. She said they consulted more
doctors and all of them, even some friends, advised him to go in Europe or
America. The Greek medicine cannot do much for him.
o
Here they are right. I think my father would
have been alive yet if he had been better treated. The true is Greece is still
far for a European country. It is still oriental and the evolution in the last
years worries me. Those few men educated in Occident are preoccupied to make
fortune, while the other are . . .
-
I am speaking you about my father and you think
to politics. Use your economic knowledge at the office. Now, tell me how we
will manage.
o
And what I have to do?
-
You? Nothing, as usual. They have discussed
with a clinic of cardiology from New York – I did not memorise its name, but I
will ask – and from the airport will go directly there, but mother will stay
with us.
o
This is a problem.
-
A great one.
Anastasia’s father was hospitalised. Under
treatment, his health is improving from one day to another. All people are
optimistic, but the most optimistic is Anastasia. Her almost daily visits in
the hospital, her concern and the interest for everything happens there have
drawn attention of the staff of the hospital. They began to consider her one of
them, especially because she often offered herself to fulfil any work she can
do.
In the room next door with that of her father,
there is a family of two old people. The both suffer of the same disease. A
coincidence! She thinks their presence in the hospital, besides the illness, is
a deed of charity of the staff of the hospital. They are too old for care of by
themselves, there in nobody to help them and in an asylum they would be died long
ago. For Anastasia, this is even a psychological case. They are alone and no
one has time to speak with them but what is strictly necessary. She feels the
need of caressing them. This is all she can do for them, but see that her small
gestures produce a great pleasure in these people’s souls.
Curiously, in the hospital, besides the
patients the healing of which is wanted by everyone, there are some who are not
wanted at home and the family use the hospital like a hotel. Some patients are
incurable; the other could be healed. Their treatment depends on the humanism
or scientific interest of their doctors. For others, they are only a business.
Impressing situations are also of the opposite
alternative. The husband of a patient, for example, for covering all expenses
necessary for a good treatment of his wife, made all sacrifices depending on
him; abandoned all his interests, sold his things etc. Finally, she was saved,
but he died before seeing her at home. There are situation that shock everyone,
Anastasia particularly.
She observed the evolution of illnesses depends
on the psychic of the patients. She realizes she cannot judge the effect of the
medication face to the gravity of an illness, but her statistics remove any
doubt. He noticed that optimist people who leave the hospital recovered are
much more numerous than the pessimist ones. The most convinced case was the
most amusing. A lady, immediately she was hospitalised, sat down on the bed,
with the pillow at her back and started to crochet. With the speed of which she
was handling the knitting needles – and it was clear that she had a great
practice in this occupation – she was turning the words as well. She took
breaks only between four and six o’clock in the afternoons, after her son, who
used to visit her everyday, was bringing her several pages of a magazine with
crossed words, her passion. Resolving them needed a little concentration. In
the rest of time, with all the discontent of her partners of suffering, she was
speaking. Most women covered her head with the pillow, for not to hear her, but
they could not stay all the day in this position. At any question about her
disease, she answers: “This is the doctor’s work. I do not know.” In short
time, she – the last entered – left the hospital healed. Unfortunately, her
optimism did not contaminate the other women.
More difficult was at home. Kostas and Fotios
are resourceful. Fotios feels well eating outdoors. Anastasia thought that
Kostas would have been happy if she would have given him money to eat at
McDonald’s. Before, he sometime envied his classmates eating there, but now,
after a few days, he began to prepare himself some simple foods. Maybe is too
much to say foods; fried eggs, roast pork and others like these, but especially
fried potatoes with eggs. This is his preferred food, if he does it by himself.
With Fotios is simplest; he come at home as little as possible, but he must
forgive, because he go to the hospital instead and inquires of his
father-in-low’s health.
The problem is the mother. The same mother, the
same problem. Anastasia, though cares of two children, was going to the
hospital to see her father as frequently as she could, anyway more frequently
as his wife, without any occupation in New York. Seeing the shop-windows or
just visiting them were activities that could not be neglected for her. She
could take care of her granddaughter, Nicky. At least to oversee her, as the
girl is capricious, sometime does inverse than one asks her to do and do not
want to be implied in family’s problems. Now, she avails herself of the
opportunity and plays truant from the school. Nobody knows where she wanders
and what she does, as she is not at home, at school or at some of her known
friends. She does not want to eat but fresh food prepared at home by an adult
person, in no case by Kostas. She could go with Kostas to eat at McDonald’s,
but she does not want. She waits Anastasia, as she wants to create a
supplementary problem. Her grandmother does not want to hear anything about
preparing foods. She says, “I am not a cook-maid”. These to women,
granddaughter and grandmother, do not realize how much they look like one
another. It’s interesting that they, instead to love each other, they hate each
other. As a matter of fact, only the granddaughter hates her grandmother; the
grandmother simple ignores granddaughter.
In the hospital, the chief of the department
where her father is interned, a dour man at the first sight, but very kind in
fond, proposed to Anastasia to follow a course of speciality, at the end of
which she would be able to work in a hospital, maybe just here. If she wants,
he will speak with the manager of the hospital, but he is sure this one will
agree. Of course, she answer on the spot she will be happy to do it. This was
her dream as early as a child.
It seems that – finally – a favourable moment
arrived for Anastasia. Their main problems are now solved in a great measure:
Fotios has a job well remunerated now, even if not great, Kostas goes to school
with good results, so Anastasia could think to herself. Does it a lucky
occurrence, or the fait? The hospital is not just near; the transport takes one
hour with the bus. Another hour for returning, how long she stays there, all
the day is full. No matter of the effort, it deserves. It is her first chance,
after that from the childhood, when she trained to become a swimmer. A Greek
girl Olympic champion. All people would speak about her, at least till the next
Olympiad. It did not was to be! A stupid accident eliminated her. Now it is
something much more serious: she wants to help people in suffering. This is her
dream from the time when she was a pupil in England. Her suffering there marked
her less than that of the others. And the great satisfaction she feels now,
when – even only with a caress or a good word – she can soothe a patient, and
receive as recompense a smile or a look of gratitude.
She had not time to say her joy to her father;
he was sleeping when she left and did not want to wake him up. She will tell
him tomorrow morning. She still conveys her joy toward those at home,
immediately as she arrived. She did not remember to finish all she wanted to
tell them, when noticed that her joy was unilateral. For the others it seems to
be a calamity. “You are crazy?” was the first replay coming from her mother.
The dialog that followed does not deserve to be put down on the paper. The
arguments were the same she had heard in the childhood, as the women from their
family do not work out of doors. Now, there was a new one: the fear of the mother
that she will be put in the situation to care of her granddaughter. The quarrel
that followed put an end to the relations between mother and daughter. If her
visit at the hospital had been tolerate – not always without reproach, though
her father was there – the idea to have graduated and a permanent job was not
agreed.
During the night, she thought how to tell her
father, if to tell him, knowing that, in the past he had the same mentality.
Maybe, meanwhile, he changed his mind. She cannot asleep, as the same thoughts
were racking her brain, when the telephone rung up. It was the hospital. “What
is going up?” “Your father does not feel fine.” With all her requests toward
the driver, who was running as fast as he could in the night, when she arrived
at the hospital, her father had died. She did not tell him her joy, unfulfilled
this time again. And the dream stops!
She had sobbed. All her life she obeyed to her
father’s decisions. From respect but also from trust in his wise, though she
has some doubts, especially because not all his decisions were of good augury.
Still, he was the single who she loved.
Fotios was very happy for his new job in
Florida. His life improved, with more money, responsibilities and
opportunities. He renounced long ago at that usual dream of Greeks of having
his own business. He was educated in England and is an American now. How is
that every Greek wants to be an employer we could suppose: the centuries of
foreigner’s domination induced in them this wish. And if they leant their
ancestors deal with commerce, opened a booth at the ground floor of the block
of flats, where he has an apartment. To work in a factory? To wake up in the
morning and spend the best hours working there? No way! He thinks he is free
doing nothing. His freedom is a theoretical one. In reality, he is slave, but
he does not know. For a Greek, money is the single thing that counts. Probably
the similarity between the words „leftá” (money) and „lefteriá”
(freedom) is not
accidentally. So, you are free if you have money. But, the disciples of Zeno,
stoic philosophers say us the contrary.
Anywhere in the world, most people prefer to be
obedient instead of assuming the risk of initiative. When the Egyptians were
ready to catch up the Jews, they frightened and said: “it had been better for
us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness” (Exodus
14, 12) There needs a man like Moses, a leader, for getting them out from the
impasse. The mob prefers the slavery. As everywhere, there are among the Greeks
people with the gift of the leaders, but most of them do not know the way they
should go, or use their gift for themselves.
But Fotios had learnt that, together with other
men, he has more possibilities than alone. Besides, his character was not of a
man with much initiative. Now, he found what he needed. He was not the boss.
Another one had the initiative and was the president of the company. He,
Fotios, was vice-president. Still, he was in the staff and makes the company to
work efficiently. He feels to be important and really he was. Many others from
the same field appreciated his knowledge and respected him.
He used to read many books about business and
economy, skim through two-three newspapers daily, to be posted. He was known
and was in connection with many businessmen like him.
Miami is a locality well known throughout in
the world. It sound well when you say that you visited it. To live there, it
means you are an important man. It is not just their case, so they bought a
modest house, not even in the centre, but with the possibility of arranging it
according with their taste, if possible with many flowers. They, the flowers
will remind Anastasia of Greece. There, the climate is dry and ground stony,
but just from this reason the love of the Greeks for the flowers is a special
one. Here, in Florida, it is wet and vegetation grow up everywhere, even there
where nobody want it. People cover the ground with concrete, but they will have
a garden.
Kostas follows a private college and was ready
to go to the university. Nicky, though very young, was difficult and
refractory. She made a lot of bad things and created many problems. She did not
want going to school and, one day, she pretended her father abused her. It
seems that she was similar enough with her grandmother.
Although he should be preoccupied by the
education of his children, Fotios came at home rarer and rarer, pretending that
he works all the week, from morning till night and has not time even for
hunting and fishing. The family? It is not among his passions. The mistresses,
instead, were. Of course, he was not speaking about them, until he open
announced he wanted to divorce, as he loves another woman, one of his former
secretaries.
* *
*
From Kostas’ diary
The Elgin’s marble
“In 1801, Thomas
Bruce, the duke of Elgin, was the British ambassador in Istanbul. Turkish
government allowed him to take some stones and sculptures from Acropolis, which
he sent to British Museum in 1816. The most famous of them, the friezes of Parthenon,
are known as Elgin’s marble.” This was written in the guide about Greece, which
I have in hand. Throughout in Athens, in museums, they affirmed this, proving
how much they want to recuperate the national patrimony. Good for them, real
patriots.
Still, the true is
that, in Greece, there are enough vestiges of the past and a few more would not
modify the situation. Instead, if all vestiges had reminded at their place,
very few of them would be preserved, knowing the people’s predilection for
destroying. The marble of temple was used as material for all kind of banal
buildings, not only by the Turks, but also by the Greeks themselves. Instead,
in the museums of important cities, people from throughout the world learn
about the art of Greece. The tourists visiting Greece first saw some exhibits
in the museums and albums. Their interest for Greece was generated just for
these exhibits. Otherwise, the Greek peasant would ignore them and, eventual,
would try to use what remained in his farm. For him, a temple is just good for
a stable, if it is entire, yet. If not, some plate would be fit for the
pavement. Friezes, metopes, what are these? Trifles! The columns even hinder
him. Maybe this is the reason they resisted in time better.
We can say that the
scattering of Greek patrimony was something like a microbe, something like
Trojan Horse. From London or Paris, they contaminate the world with ancient
Greek art.
------------------
Zantipa, Socrates’
wife, was a nagging woman. Is it a condition for philosophy?
------------------
In antiquity, the
artist sculpted or painted necked men and dressed women. Today they do inverse.
People easily pass
from one extreme to the other. The excess of chastity, imposed by the church
during the Middle Age, preceded the nowadays excess of sexuality.
I have read that, in
an old copy of the Bible, it was written that “God took one of parts of Adam
and then tighten the flesh as it was. And the part that he took from the men he
changed into the woman and bring her close to man”. So, it was not a rib. Why
just a rib? It means that, before, the man had 13 ribs. It would be very
painful.
This version is
logic and has connection with the myth of the androgynous. God made the man
bisexual and them separated the sexes. Here, again, the excess of chastity made
the theologians to change the text. If only for this they changed the original,
it is expected there are many others much more important that they modified.
A girl studying
medicine told me that a supplementary rib can exist in cervical area and wears
the name “rib of the devil”. This means that men like Adam are born yet, but
the surgeons do not know what to do with the ribs. I like its name: rib of the
devil.
Even the cosmogony
is transparent in the Bible. In Genesis 2.7, it is said that "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of
the ground...". Not from mud, clay, or simple earth? It is not
mentioned that he would use water. I think it had to be difficult to mould in
dust. Is this a mistake, or an accidental expression? Not at all! From the next
paragraph we learn that "And the
Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he
had formed." Therefore, Eden has points of the compass. Interesting!
From the paragraphs 10 to 14, we learn that "a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was
parted, and became into four heads". Their names are Pison, Gihon,
Hiddekel (Tigris) and Euphrates. We cannot help thinking that Eden is the old
Sumer and what the Sumerian civilisation means for old times. Yes, Summer used
to be a pleasing and charming place in comparison with the surrounding areas,
namely exact what this word means in their language. God probably was a
Sumerian king, who accepted a Jewish tribe on his territory for different works.
This one seems to have been the best period from the Jews history. It was that
king was God for them, their father, because he made them men. They were like
dust and became like the Sumerians. This is the correct meaning when one says
that God made man like him, and not that a divinity could look like us. As the Jews did not keep the arrangement and
aimed higher than it had been allowed to them (testing from the tree of
knowledge), the king expulsed them. More than that, God, observing the sin
committed by Adam and Eve, declared, "…
the man is become as one of us . . ." (Genesis 322). Consequently, God
was not alone. He did not speak that man would be “like me”, but “like us”. He
spoke in the name of the leadership of Sumer and accuses the Jews that exceeded
their rights as employees, infiltrating themselves among the employers. We see
now why in the whole history recorded in Bible, with all its details, Sumer
does not appear at all. That's so because it was the beginning. It was the
heaven. In the whole of their history, the Jews do nothing else but beg God's
pardon, hoping to be accepted again in Eden's garden.
The metaphor of
making the man by dust suggest the idea the tribe of Jews was like the dust
carried by wind. Even the name Adam is suggestive: in old Greek language, the
meaning of the letters ADAM: Ανατολή
(East) Δύσις (West)
Άρκτος (North)
Μεσεέμβρη (South). That’s so,
because God would be used the dust from all points of the compass.
These ideas are not mine. I have read them in a comely
book. I forgot the name of the author, but know the title. It is “A boulder’s
philosophy”
-----------------------
Theoretically, the
historians must present the deeds, recorded in documents. The interpretation of
the deeds belongs to the readers, depending on their intelligence and cultural
level. Those who show not only the deeds, but also their explanations, are not
scientists, but teachers or people working in fields in which the history is
implicated. They introduce their point of view, which is not only subjective,
but can have – and in the most cases have – a tendentious interpretation, with
propagandistic implications.
For the
schoolchildren, the explanations are useful, even necessary, because they teach
them how to interpret the deeds. Why it happened in this way and not in a
different one? Which were the reasons of the people who took a decision,
people’s mentality, their aspirations, their religion, patriotic sentiments
etc. They will notice that the deeds are consequences of people’s mentality and
not inversely. At its turn, the mentality change itself in time, as a
consequence of the conclusions that people have drawn from the passed deeds.
The two of them are reciprocally influenced.
The literature is
the one that can promote different points of view, different hypotheses – all
of them subjective –influencing the reader’s opinion.
-----------------
Hypocrites was not a
hypocrite. It was the opposite. He was born in 460 BC in Cos and died in 370 BC
in Larissa. This locality still exists. I visited it. His oath is theoretical
valuable today as well. I am not sure the all doctors observe it. I read
somewhere that, in the 16th centuries, the Pope Clement VII took a
medicine composed by precious stones well pounded in value of 40,000 ducats,
namely over three millions Euros.
-----------------
Before visiting Greece, I read more books about it,
even a novel, the story of which was in Greece, and I imagined the places.
Later, I was there and I find the reality was different. I am not sorry for
that. In the meantime, I read again that novel. Only now I really understood
it. Three visions about the same places: two real – mine and the author’s – and
an imaginary one, that from the first lecture. This one was the best.
It would odd to say about Fotios he was lucky. For all
that, after the seriousness of the accident, it is surprising he is alive. Of
course, it was possible thanks to the doctors who treated him. After 45 days in
the hospital, where he was enter first, he was transferred in New York, where
some specialized surgeons operated him. Other days of waiting, other emotions,
other expenses. Fotios must be saved and they succeeded it. Now, the
retrievable is the problem. He was alive, but like a baby: he was not able to
walk, the movement of hands and feet were uncontrolled, cannot speak, not even
to eat. An eye is lost forever. All hopes were in retrievable, of course, with
much work and patience. Complete normal he will never be. Anastasia and Kostas
are ready to do all they can for him. Nicky left to Greece at a relative. She
does not implied in family’s problems.
Excepting her husband and children, who created her
more problems, Anastasia was alone almost all her life. Kostas is a good boy,
but – so far – he was only a child. The accident of his father was the first
serious trial in his life. He proved with this occasion having a man of
character. Face to the hardness of the happening, he behaved excellent. We
cannot say the same about Nicky. But Kostas is at the age when must build his
career. He is still far for assuming the role of the head of the family with an
invalid father. Anastasia remains on alone, with increased responsibilities.
Besides, she is in a foreign country, without relatives, relations and friends.
According with the Greek mentality, the relations belong to the husband. Now,
all them abandoned, excepting Nikos, an old friend, but he lives in Canada.
(Otherwise, he will die soon.) The woman of whom Fotios was fell in love – his
last amorous conquest, with whom he spoke he is about to marry – was the first
who went back on her word and did not want to hear about his existence.
Of course, financial problems claimed urgent
solutions. Fotios needed permanent social assistance and, for the following
months, maybe years, professional recuperation in a specialized institution. In
the United States of America, such expenses would be much over her
possibilities. Besides, Fotios lost his memory and only with difficulty he
remembers some Greek words. English language seemed not to know ever and those
who help him in the process of the recuperation need to communicate with him.
The only possibility is to go in Greece.
Unfortunately, there is nobody there to help. On the mother help one does not
lay account. Still, she will be at home, will not be a foreigner, an alien, and
Greek language is their mother tong.
She knows that, in Greece, she will have many
problems. For about forty years she lived abroad, is accustomed with the
occidental style of life, different enough face to the Greek one. In her short
visits in Greece, she found lots of such differences. Some of them are
explainable. The problem is how she will adapt to them?
* *
*
-
Hallo!
o
Sophia, you are? Anastasia is speaking.
Sophia was her old friend woman, the one who
met in New York and went on to correspondence.
-
Before long, Fotios will leave the hospital. We
cannot stay here, so we will come in Greece.
o
Do you think it will be better here?
-
I do not know, but we cannot stay longer in
States.
o
You will stay with your mother?
-
Oh, not! It is impossible. We do not speak more
than ten years now. For the beginning we will stay at a hotel and then will
rent an apartment.
o
But she has enough space. I even wonder what
she does in all her rooms. In one of them she sleeps, in other eats, in other
smokes . . .
-
She smocks everywhere and all the time.
o
That’s true.
-
I do not control her life, but we cannot stay
with her. I have a favour to ask for you: help me to find someone to stay with
Fotios. He cannot stay alone.
o
A social assistant would cost enough. But there
is a lot of foreigners here working for a few money. Albanians, Bulgarians,
Romanians and lots of Russians invaded Athens.
-
Excellent! Anyway, he is not able to speak but
very difficult. He is like a baby learning to walk and speak. Maybe he will
learn a foreign language.
o
You can laugh after all. Good for you. Until he
will learn, it is you who must understand with them. The Albanians and
Bulgarians know Greek better, as they are our neighbours.
-
O.k., find someone.
o
It is better for you to avoid the Albanians;
the Bulgarians ask for more money. The Russians and Romanians are cheapest.
-
The Romanians are not gipsies?
o
Oh, no! There are gipsies among them,
especially beggars, but the majority of the Romanians are normal people, even
hardworking. Many of them live next to us, upper to Omonia and in Kipseli. The
Russians are farer, in Kalithea.
-
O.k., take a Romanian.
o
I even know someone who engaged a Romanian
woman for cleaning. Surely she knows other ones. We will manage with this.
-
O.k., thank you. See you soon! Bye-bye!
* *
*
The Anastasia’s American stage will come to its
end. A new one will begin, this time on the native realm.
Under the influence of extreme-oriental
religions, especially of those from India, the orphic and Pythagorean
philosophers took the ideas of metempsychoses. As they cannot thank with this,
they invented the “Elysium Planes”, where those without sin will go. The
opposite of this fairy realm is the Tartar, destined to the evil ones. We are
not said if these ones have a second chance, through a new reincarnation, which
means that – in this moment – Tartar must be very crowded.
Homer places the Elysium Planes beyond the Okeanos
stream. Hesiod identifies them with the “Islands of the Happy Ones” and thinks
they must be in the same place. Some supposed exegetes said about Canary
Islands, but much others contradicted them. French people, with their
characteristic arrogance, put them just in Paris, as Champs-Élisées Avenue. We
should place them on the American continents, as it means “beyond the Okeanos”.
Unlike the Heaven, where the souls of the immaculate
people go for an endless boredom, the Elyseum Planes offer only a transient
staying, until a body adequate them will be found for a new reincarnation.
The Anastasia’s American stage was something like
this? If yes, we must modify the concept according with Elyseum Planes offer an
idyllic life, as that of her was not at all like this. Or, maybe, it was a
stage of purification, one in which the Divinity tried her character. If yes,
we have to see the results of the test.
The hotel, where Anastasia reserved two double
rooms, was not far from Omonia Square. The area around was far from what she
knew, yet, a crowd of taverns and cafés, in the middle of a net of streets
large and narrow, in which she always had problems of orientation.
Why its name is Omonia, namely “harmony”, she
never knew, but supposed that, in the past, the men used to come here for a
coffee or a glass with ouzo, to reconcile after violent discussions in Agora,
where the important problems of the city were debated. They were those who had
invented the democracy. Before deciding, before voting, the problems and the
solutions must be discussed, which could create animosities. In Omonia, the
harmony was restored. If this was just so, we do not know. The Greeks’ mind is
a little odd. Harmonia is the name of the goodness of “harmony and concord”,
the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. The first oddity is just the join of the
two ones, considered to be illegitimate. As revenge, when she married with
Kadmus – the one who found Thebes – received as present from Hephaestus a
necklace and from Athens attire impregnated with poison. Her life was without
problems, but one of her daughter loses her mind, another one gets drowned and
the third one was thundered by Zeus. Besides, the gifts received at the wedding
party attracted others’ interest, being the pretext for “Those seven against
Thebes”, from which only the leader escape. In other words, harmony in Greek
variant.
Now, Omonia is a huge building site. In its
centre an important metro-station will be, but, for the moment, there are dust,
a continue noise and the traffic blocked on a street or another. Anastasia
should look for an apartment to move in as urgent as possible. Foreigners, more
than by Greeks, populate the aria now, and they are not those working on the
site, but Africans, Asians and Europeans, who came from the former Soviet
republics and the countries occupied by the Russians, after the Second World
War.
The mixing of the languages that can be hear
here make you thinking that Babel Tower was an experiment at reduced scale. The
world is changing. Today, they build towers much taller than Babel Tower. Not
long ago, they finished one over one kilometre high. It is very interesting that
such works are realizable only thanks to co-operation of people with different
mother tongs, but speaking the same international languages, for understanding
each other. According with Old Testament, God wanted people no longer
understand each other and gave them different languages. In fact, he set them
again each other. It is not for wondering: Judaism is a nationalist religion
asserting the existence of the “choice nation”. Instead, in the New Testament,
God gave to the apostles the gift of languages, in order to preach in the world
the new ideas. It was natural, as Christianity is an international religion;
everyone may be a Christian, not matter of his ethnic origin.
Starting from Omonia toward Syntagma Square,
the environment is more and more different. The street becomes even elegant,
even if workers still work at the façades of some buildings. Those of the
University are pride of every Greek, especially because they were made in antic
style. There are not apartments to rent here. The other street, that going
toward Acropolis, looks like an oriental bazaar. She would not want to live
here, even if free apartments had been, but it is not the case; there is non a
single notice.
Instead, north from Omonia, it is full of
advertisements. Almost every building has at its entrance at least one; it is
written black on yellow paper: ENIKIAZETAI. But the area is not at all a
pleasant one, because of the Africans who lay sheets on the pavement, on which
they offer to sell all kind of things. Some of them are from their countries,
but others are Greek at smaller prices than in shops. How they obtained them is
a mister. Near the Museum of Archaeology, on a small lateral street, tens –
sometimes more than one hundred – of doubtful persons sell and buy drugs and cigarettes
from contraband. On the secondary streets you never know what could happen, so,
in the evenings, she would be afraid to pass through them.
A little far, the aspect is better. Pedion
Areas Gardens is a beautiful park. It was nice before too, but now, well
neatly, it looks splendid.
Someone frightened her, saying that she had
just learnt that two Arabian youngsters had stolen the pocket of one of her
neighbour lady. Unlike the Africans and Asians, who come in Europe with good
intentions, hoping in a better life and, for what, they look for a job, the
Arabians come for illicit gains, especially petty thefts. They work
professionally, in well-organized groups. Unfortunately, the Greeks have become
xenophobe and think globally about them. They forget that, in the past, some of
their ancestors emigrated, because their country was poor. Were they the single
hardworking and enterprising Greeks? She does not like to think so – she is
Greek too – but there are rather many things that annoyed her in the recent
behaviour of her conational people.
But now she must find an apartment. The hotel
is uncomfortable and cost a lot, though it is one of the cheapest. Besides, the
things from America will come soon and she will not rooms to put them.
A little more toward the North, on the right
size of the Patission Avenue, Kipseli district seems to be decent enough,
especially after Kipsely Square climbing toward Ano Kipsely. Here, many Greeks,
who have came from islands and mountains, built houses and rent apartments now.
There are many people from Romania. Fokionos Negri, the riverbed of a small
brook in the past, is not an elegant street, for far the nicest from the
district, maybe from the entire Athens. It is more an alley than a street, as,
instead of road for vehicle, there are trees and benches. At the grand-floor of
the riverside buildings, the cafés, bars and taverns forms two rows almost
continue. Many of them extended themselves on the pavements, some very large
ones. Here, the word “riverside” is just fitted, as – under the street – the
old brook, covered, still flows. Unfortunately, this street, near enough to the
Patission Avenue, is unsafe, due to many dark-skin men seeking a job.
More far away, but in the opposite direction,
toward the sea, the atmosphere becomes more and more different. It is visible
that, during the favourable periods, the Greeks assimilated some good things
from the Occident. A good part of Singrou Avenue, especially the third part
near to the littoral, a newer one, is impressing, thanks to the modernism of
its architecture. On the other hand, in the centre of Athens, some buildings
are in ruin, though – in other country – they would be considerate monuments of
architecture.
What for the beginning seemed to be only an
impression become now more and more clear. The centre of Athens is no longer
what she thought. Elegant district moved to the periphery. The city is very
extended now. Kifisia is one of the richest districts, but it is far away and
the houses are very expensive. Also expensive, but with the advantage of the
sea are the new districts on the littoral. In top is Glifada. It deserves to
try.
A great regret tries her at the thought of
renouncing at the centre of Athens, but it is clear that it is no longer
attractive. Of course, some areas still keep their elegance, especially near
the Parliament, but just here the crown and pollution are disagreeable. After a
few hours, you want to withdraw yourself at fresh air and silence. The centre
of Athens remains attractive only for the tourists.
For understanding its evolution, we must go a
little down in history. When the Byzantine Empire appeared, the centre of
interest moved from Athens to Constantinople, the new capital. After the Turks
conquered the Empire, all Greek towns declined much more. If, during Byzantine
period, Athens fell in provincialism – both proper and figurative sense – under
the Turks it fell completely. Sparta is even today a village. On Acropolis – a
Greek symbol -, the Turks built a mosque and turned Parthenon into a deposit
for armament, that produced a huge explosion, which destroyed its roof.
The real development of modern Athens began
after Greece obtained its independence and Athens became the capital of the new
stat. The interest of Occidental countries for this region made from Athens a
modern city. But, in the same time, the town was populated with people from
islands and mountains, looking for a better life in the capital. Nobody had the
interest to come from Istanbul, from two reasons:
-
there
was a modus vivendi between Turks and them long time established;
-
those
who fought for independence, the patriots, accused them for making a covenant
with the enemy, considering them as traitors. It was preferable for them to go
to any other country except Greece, which many of the just did.
In these conditions, Athens did not have the
capacity to assimilate all people from rural medium, so they imposed their
mentalities in face of those few ones with urban conceptions.
Time, instead to improve the situation,
worsened it. As a result of the conflicts with Turkey and especially after the
massacre from Smyrna, in Greece came about 1.5 million Greeks. All them were
very poor. They could not live in villages, without means of life. They invaded
the towns, particularly Athens, where they received helps from the state.
Today, Athens sized more than one third from
the population of entire Greece and their insistence of keeping the customs
different from those of the European ones are to see even today. This is one of
the reasons because of the new centres of business and residential districts
moved in other directions, like Kifisia or toward the Aegean Sea. Glifada is
one of them; maybe the most elegant at that time, thanks to the shops, like the
best from Occident. Of course, such shops need clients, which gives an idea
about its inhabitants: many rich foreigners, remarkable for the diversity of
the languages that are to be heard here.
After she moved in Miami, Anastasia was used to
driving. She likes to do it, with all her weak eyesight. Still, through the
centre of Athens, she would dare to drive. The traffic in New York looks like
an entertainment in comparison with this from Athens. On the main avenues, the
stream of cars and motorbikes – enormous many motorbikes – is endless. Some
motorbikes make a deafening noise, due their owners – youngsters with little
mind – do not know the meaning of the word civilization. If you draw their
attention, they answer “it is democracy, so I may do what I want”. This is only
what they know about the democracy. Unfortunately, they are not a few.
* *
*
The Romanian recommended by her friend is a
nice lady, who knows rather little Greek, but you can understand her. Her name
is Ileana. She takes care of Fotios, is clean and decent, so Anastasia got rid
of this trouble. She is able not to look for a house. Ileana insist on the
Kipseli district, where she live and where she hope to find an apartment for
rent, but Anastasia inclines to Glifada, much more elegant and full of
foreigner, who speak English language. Many of them are rich Russians. The
shops from here are at least as elegant as those from the Occidental. Of
course, the prices are the same, if not even higher, which gives an idea about
the financial potential of the clients. Though she will never be at their
standard, as a woman, the shops play a role among other criterions.
The Romanian lady has a merry nature. One day,
she related an amusing happening from her country. Long ago, in an evening, the
prime-minister took a taxi to go to the headquarter of the radio where he was
to keep a conference. At that time television was not invented yet, and most
people did not know how the politicians look like. At the destination, the
prime-minister asked the driver to wait him, but the driver said that he cannot
wait, because he want to go home to listen the prime-minister, who will keep a
speech. Flattered, he gave him a good tip. Seeing so much money, the driver
said: “I . . . on prime-minister. I am waiting for you.” The story was told just
by the prime-minister himself.
* *
*
One of the difficulties remarked for the
beginning – it is true a minor one – was Anastasia’s mother tongue. In those
forty years as she was abroad, the Greek language suffered important changes,
and now she is considered by the others a foreigner who understand very will
Greek language, but speak it with some anachronisms. Any language evolves in
time. A language is an advanced one if it is able express complex ideas in
simple words. Besides this general evolution, Greek language was modified due
to other two particular causes.
-
The
first was demographic changes. Some time ago, the elevate dialect was
katharévusa (καθαρεβούσα), which is almost forgotten now.
-
Secondly,
in those four centuries of Ottoman occupation, the language evolved very
slowly, and not it must recuperate the lagging. More than odd is that, when the
government tried a reform of the language, the teachers – just they, the
teachers – protested and made a strike.
On the other hand, Greek diaspora in the United
States, where Anastasia could talk in Greek, used to speak an original dialect,
a mixture of words from English and Greek. Now, she must learn again her mother
tongue. It was not just a problem, but in first months it was unpleasant
enough.
If only the language had been a problem… Used
with occidental mentalities, the some customs of the Greeks annoy her even
today. She could not accept, for example, the discrepancies between men and
women. She is not a feminist, but some conception from antiquity or borrowed
from the Turks are really revolting. Interesting is that women adapt herself
faster. Generally, they are more polite than the men. In public spaces, a man
does not offer his place, while the women do it even to men, if they are old or
ill.
Another example is their wish to show in public
their “love” for animals, in most cases a false one, a fanfaronade. Annoying is
they walk along the dogs in order to evacuate their dejection in the street,
without any intention for collecting it. As a result, the pavements are
sprinkled with such little hillocks and the pedestrians must pay attention and
avoid them. Anastasia really love animals. In the United States she had a true
collection of dogs, cats, parrots and others, but she never got them out for keeping
clean the apartment. In Greece she brought only Lucky, not only because he has
the same name with her first dog, but because he is the most loving. Of course,
she wants to have again her “zoo-garden”, when the conditions will allow it.
But the most annoying is political agitation.
The Greeks have a peculiar appetite for anarchy. The Civil War, the colonels’
dictatorship and others, all this frightens her. Maybe they will not repeat,
though the recent events from Cyprus bold the distrust in the capacity of the
Greeks to rule by themselves. Erare humanum est, perseverare autem
diabolicum.
Greece
is her country and she should adapt.
* *
*
The Greeks of today consider themselves they
are, not only followers, but also continuers of those from antiquity, which
invented democracy. We could have passed over the absurdity of this pretension
if it had not been ridicule. There are at least two things that they do not
have in view.
First, in antiquity, not any imbecile was
listened in the agora. The first conditions for having the right of speaking
there were to be graduated as efeb – a kind of students in our language – and
have more then thirty years old. Besides, only the most convincing scholars had
been taken into consideration. The other ones could be happy to listen them.
The society was strongly structured. The chatterers from the modern cafés
surely are not able to do what they ancestors did. They boast with them, are
even proud, but they do not realize they are only epigones.
Secondly, the Greeks from antiquity themselves
established the lack of efficiency of the democracy and renounced at it. That’s
why the coming of Alexander Macedon was welcomed in Athens. Of course, it was
in his interest to set himself up for a representative of the Athens and not
one of Macedonia, about which nobody heard till then. Besides, from Macedonia
he could not recruit so many soldiers as he needed.
It was not for the first time when the Greeks
renounced at democracy. They did it many times in the past, and just these
frequent changes allowed to Aristotle to synthesis the evolution of political
systems. He shows there are three main forms of government, according with the
number of the leaders: one for the monarchy, a few ones for aristocracy, and
all people for politea (from póli (πόλη = town). As no one
of these forms is perfect, in time, the society degenerates into some degraded
forms: tyranny, oligarchy and democracy), after which the next form is adopted.
In this way, all three forms are repeated cyclically. As we can see, Aristotle
himself considered that democracy is a degraded form. Important is not the form
of the government, but the stability and peace, the only ones able to bring the
progress. Nokos Kazatzakis, maybe the most famous Greek writer, wrote in “The
last temptation”: “The harmony of the earth and heart, this is the kingdom of
heavens”.
In my opinion, Aristotle’s opinion has a gap. A king
cannot rule alone. Also, the country cannot be ruled by all the citizens. The
king has a camarilla around him and, in democracy, people elect a team of
leaders. Finally, a group of leaders rule in all forms of government. It is no
need to say the group will defend their interest. The rest is political
propaganda. The real difference between different systems is the way of access.
There are two ways:
-
hereditary,
in which the future leaders are educate as early as children for the role they
will play in society;
-
aleatory,
in which those who want to become leaders need to fight with other claimants,
using political means.
In the
second case, only after the winner will have obtained the job, people will see
if he is a good manager. As those two qualities – political fighter and manager
- are not to be found in the same person, in most cases, the winners from the
first stage have not the qualities for the second stage and, more grave, they
have not the education and culture for that job. This does not mean I am an
adept of the monarchy. We may conceive other forms of government as well. Let’s
call them “elito-craty”, but not with the meaning of selection the leaders from
a social category supposing to be superior. The future leaders have to be
educated as it and then they will be promoted according with their real
abilities.
Why the
Greeks from antiquity renounced at democracy? Because they observed its
negative effects. In agora, those having the gift of the gab are more
convincing and not the most clever and good intentioned. Also, they noticed
that people with less culture are sensible to arguments according with their power
of understanding and deeper reasons are ignored. The mob always votes for
Barabas and not for Jesus. The one who strongly criticized the democracy was
Aristotle.
Zeus is
not a simple invention. He is an abstract synthesis of the ruler. He has
qualities, but great defects too, like any man. Still, he is a great ruler.
Like God, from chaos he made order. His spirit cannot disappear, because the
humanity, human society, needs order. Without order it could not exist. Cosmos
means order in old Greek language. Zeus, God and any other divinity made the
cosmos from chaos, made order in society. Mythology is a book of wise.
Democracy as anarchy is the opposite of mythological wise.
The
modern philosophy is no longer a filo-sofia (love for wise), but only a collection
of simplistic ideas, dressed in affected words, designated to those with little
mind and great pretensions. The questions like “Who made the hole in the
macaroni?” are characteristic for such philosophers, but I am afraid that this
one is much too difficult for them. Is this one of the reason of the nowadays
chaos? Maybe!
As
concerning the Greeks of our days, they think to be democrat by vocation,
though most of them are communist by “education”. In their chats, there is not
a dialog, because each speaker recites his ideas and does not pay any attention
to others’ arguments.
* *
*
In a café-bar, the talks between two-three
persons can become collective, when the subject from a table is one of general
interest.
-
It had been ascertained that, in Europe, the
women’s hope of life is greater than the men’s one. It means they grow decrepit
later. So, it is wrong they retired earlier. They should, on the contrary, to
retired later than the men.
o
This anomaly has an explanation in the past,
when men used to keep the family and were older then their wives.
-
Yes, but today, when women are equal with men,
this situation is anachronistic.
§
Men’s pride is guilty; when some women began to
word, they considered unnatural that men might retire or to become househusband.
-
A correction would be possible if people would
change the mentality and the bridegroom would by younger than the bride.
o
This already occurs in many cases. I think
that, if the women want to be equal with men, then they would retire at the
same time.
§
Correct! Equal towards the law, equal towards
the God.
·
Up till the God, the saints eat you.
o
In front of a saint, the woman hangs at her
neck a small cross. The saints’ sight slides close by and the woman’s wish will
come true.
·
With a better pension.
o
Between Eros and Thanatos, it is good to be a
woman.
§
Your mind is always in Mythology. When you make
love, speak about it too?
o
When I make love I do not speak. And Mythology
is boring only for fools.
-
I hope this is not a hint. As for love, it was
occurring you last century. Do you remind what was you making then?
o
Well, if it is better to be a woman during the
life, what do you want to be beyond it?
-
Do you think about those souls wandering
through the universe for another body? It seems souls are not sex.
o
Man will disappear on Terra, as the dinosaurs
did, even if there are lizards, which look like them. They destroy everything
around and will not resist longer.
§
In comparison with the dinosaurs, the lizards
are just nice. I am wondering if the future men-lizards will be nicer than us.
-
And, if the humanity will disappear, how the
souls of the dead will reincarnate?
o
You have a fixed idea. Maybe in a plant.
§
The elephants will trample under foot my soul.
o
You should be afraid more because other people
trample down you just in this life.
-
The idea of reincarnation belongs to those
failed the life and hope in a second chance.
o
This is life! We are not in Arcadia.
-
Boy, a coffee to this man, not to fall asleep
with the Pan’s pipe.
With the ears attentively at an adjoining table,
somebody turns the conversation on the subject discussed there. The talk
becomes collective.
-
Globalisation is not a political doctrine. Not
even an economical one. It is an effect. An effect of technological
development. Today we have cars, trains, aeroplanes, telephones, Internet,
television etc. The communications made possible the globalisation. The one who
is against the globalisation must renounce to all these. He would life with the
products of nature, like Adam and Eve.
o
Without apples. They are dangerous for people’s
intellectual health. The consciousness is the gravest mistake in our evolution.
§
I knew you are adept of the evolutionism. I
have been expecting you would take as example the orang-utan.
o
The human DNA looks like with that of the
orang-utan in proportion of 95 percents. So, there is a little progress.
§
As a doctor, I say that the NDA of pigs is
better. Most organs for transplant are drawn from pigs.
·
I think the cucumber is the best.
o
Wrong! The ideal is the nut. It’s true that its
skin is hard, but the kernel has circumvolutions.
§
Exactly that proved to be dangerous for men.
-
In conclusion, we choose the nut without
kernel.
o
Magister dixit. Quod erat demonstrandum.
This was a droll talk. Most of them are on
political topics, uninteresting to be put down.
* *
*
The woman from Romania remembered Anastasia
about Dracula. He will try to learn if he really existed or not, how much is
legend and truth, as something must be; there is not smog without fire, isn’t
it? This idea with vampires, though haunts people’s minds, troubles her. There
are a lot of horror movies and just these do not like her. She does not need
horror at all. On the contrary! Still, the mister must be elucidated and it
seems the moment has come. Ileana will enlighten her. She would be an expert on
this topic.
She was not lucky. Ileana is ignorant about
Dracula. She only knows there is a castle of Dracula near Brasov, where many
foreign tourist come and that a ruler received Dracula as nickname, but this
one was not at all a vampire, but only very hard with those who did not respect
the law.
The surprise came from Kosty. He knew more. An
English writer, Bram Stoker, launched the idea. His book was successful,
especially because it appeared in a psychological moment. People had just
abandoned the religion and, as they need to put something instead, they
invented all kinds of substitutes. Instead of the devil, they put the evil
among men. In English language, there is the expression “To suck the very
marrow out of somebody”. There is not a great difference between marrow and
blood. The association Dracula – Transylvania is not accidentally, as “drac” is
the Romanian word for the devil. Besides, there was a ruler with this nickname.
He was not just Vlad Tepes, but this is not Stoker’s guilt. The Romanians
brought their contribution and developed the legend. Not because it would like
them, but from commercial reasons. The truth is that at the origin of the
Romanian word “drac”, there was an Athenian lawgiver. His name was Draco. In 621
BC, he created a set of hard laws, which limited the power of rich men. People
called them “draconic laws”, and this is a usual express in Romanian language
of today. (Only the expression, not the laws.)