Tassos Karanastassis remembered
Sadly, Tassos (Anastassios) Karanastassis passed away at 55 on March
18, 2010, after a brief struggle with pancreatic cancer. As much as we
knew from the beginning that his chances were minimal to none, we
still struggle with the facts and his untimely passing: Tassos was
full of humor, passion, and energy, much younger than his age, with so
much more to offer to family, friends, colleagues, and the study of
Medieval Greek.
I came to know Tassos in the early 90's thanks to my interest in the
"Entertaining Tale of Quadrupeds", and curiosity about two words
("apofoumistades" and "gagkladoradatos") I had found in a small
segment of that poem in particular: "he may stop by if he has any
further questions", he simply and generously told a common friend,
starting a friendship of over 15 years. It turns out that I had many
more questions over the years, and so did my coauthor-to-be, Nick
Nicholas: Tassos generously adopted our project -- like several
projects of others,
it must be said -- and remained keenly supportive
even after the publication of our book in 2003, always sending us news
and facts related to the Tale; incredibly, for example, it was from
him and his endless sources that we first learned something missing
from our book but widely known to this day, namely the use of
water-buffalo milk for the production of Southern Italy's mozzarella cheese!
Tassos' brief notes kept arriving over the years and provided further
incentive for visits to his office during my annual or semiannual
trips home from America. Each such visit was like a journey to a
wonderland, with all that philological material dotted by improbable
small items that Tassos avidly collected over the years. (These
collections overspilled to his apartment and even bedroom, and we
cannot forget him showing us his trophies a couple of hours after
midnight with childish enthusiasm.) I still remember a small present
to me, a bookmark featuring a nude woman and the comment "simple things
are hard to explain". And how excited he was to find a cardboard box from
the
days of U.S. emergency aid to Greece in the mid-40's. And how proud he
was of the cactus plant he transplanted to his small office balcony
from his native Lamia (already almost too north for it, me thinks) and
the single cactus fruit he tasted from it. But, above all, it is
impossible to forget the way he so knowledgeably and
intelligently discussed all things Byzantine and
Medieval, lively and detached at the same time, sounding both
centuries old and eternally young. He would for example report on a
medieval priest's improper offer of baptizing oil to the godmother
(for application to a very special part of her body, that is) with a
naughty gaze and a firm smile, that's all.
Early in 2003 Tassos' professional affiliation changed, and he moved to
the Centre for Byzantine Research, located in a 'neoclassical'
building in Eastern Thessaloniki, close to the waterfront. A sizeable
garden there offered new opportunities, and Tassos soon became the
benefactor of numerous cats, delivering yet another blow to the myth
of the exclusively female stray cat feeder. Feeding the cats on his
way home -- Tassos typically worked in his office from early afternoon
to late evening -- was a nightly ritual I was lucky to participate to
on a number of occasions. And we are talking about choice leftovers
from home, not friskies! (Hence his immortal comment "but, George, you
eat so little anyway, how could you ever save for cats?!") It is such
memories that enriched my waterfront walks in the past and make them
so painful nowadays: before he fell ill, I would always think of
Tassos working in his wonderland as I walked by, and I could on
occasion drop by (for a few minutes, in fact hours); now the Centre is
still there, but the bastion of Greek that he was has fallen...
For over twenty years Tassos was the driving force behind the ongoing
Dictionary of Medieval Greek of Professor Emmanuel Kriaras. He has not
been given the due credit for his silent contribution, for which the
best testimony in this writer's mind are two vases full of pencils
shortened beyond future use. Luckily, Tassos found the time for several
publications and, mainly, his 2003 dissertation: in a work requiring
a
deep knowledge of both medieval culture and living tradition that only
he could produce, Tassos argues persuassively for the massively
scatological 'liturgy' of "Spanos" ("Beardless Man") being a hostile
reaction of local
Greeks toward the influx of Sephardic Jews from Spain in the early
16th century; sadly, this work remains unpublished, for
Tassos was
distracted in recent years by zillions of likewise unpublished
emendations to Trapp's ongoing Dictionary of Byzantine Greek (a few of
which he has described to me in unimaginable detail).
One more sign of Tassos' devotion to his work was his total abstention
from the joys and sorrows of the internet: he never used e-mail and he
briefly acquainted himself with the blogosphere, and the blogs of Nick
Nicholas and Nikos
Sarantakos in particular, only during his illness; the similarity
he pointed out, over the phone, between the obscure "lagogeros" and
the exotic "ippopotamos" was probably one of his last intellectual
exercises.
Tassos is survived by his wife Chryssoula (they married at 19),
sons Apostolis and Yioryos, daughter Katerina, brother Vaggelis, and
sisters Eleni, Frosso, Christina, and Maria. The funeral took
place in Nea Kallikrateia (Chryssoula's hometown and Tassos' swimming
heaven), and snow-capped Mount Olympus across Thermaikos Bay did its
best to bid farewell.
George Baloglou -- Thessaloniki, March 24, 2010