Anatolia, history and myself
Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor ,
is the large, near-rectangular
peninsula that lies to the south of Russia and to the north of the
Arab world, stuck between the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea (also known as
"White Sea" to the Turks and the Bulgarians) and the Mediterranean.
The Greeks longed for Anatolia since Homer's times, and did lay the
foundations of Western civilization on its Aegean shores, inspired
by numerous gods and civilizations they encountered there; the Greek
language flourished all over Anatolia thanks to the military genius
of Alexander and the spiritual power of Christianity, but it all had
to come to an end: after a painful process that lasted approximately
eight and half centuries ( 1071 -
1922 ),
Anatolia turned Islamic and
Turkish and forms nowadays the bulk of the Republic of Turkey. Gone
are all those gods and empires, and of all the languages spoken
there throughout history, only the Kurdish
one rivals Turkish. Greek also survives
in some corners of Turkey, albeit in somewhat unexpected ways.
For me, Anatolia is the land of my grandparents, who were forced to
leave due to the events associated with the Balkan Wars, World War I
and the ensuing Greco-Turkish war. More precisely, my paternal
grandfather never managed to leave, as he died in exile shortly after
my father was born: the same happened to many ethnic Greek civilians
in Sille and other Greek towns throughout
Anatolia during the 1914-1924
period; my mother's family was luckier, even though they had to flee first
persecution by the Turks in Pontus and then
communism in Russia (where
my mother was born). As this Anatolian background and associated events
have largely shaped me, and have become more and more important to me
over the years, I do maintain a strong interest in the history of the
region (despite the fact that I have been in Turkey only once, visiting
the Pergamum area for half a day). My attitude towards all this bitter
history is somewhat ambiguous, but leans more and more towards the
possibility of cautious reconciliation rather than eternal hatred
(between Greeks and Turks); it is in this spirit that I posted the
"Adventuring with Anatolia College" series
in the winter and spring of
1995, providing a motivation for the readers of soc.culture.greek and
soc.culture.turkish -- and of the web page you are visiting right now --
to dig into the past and their own souls as they see it fit.
Back to "Adventuring with
Anatolia College"