A revealing tour, with soul testimony and highlighting unknown aspects of the historical route of Patras, is presented with his valuable book, one of our own, a well-to-do apanochorite, a reputable lawyer, an accomplished self-administer with a left-wing progressive sign, Nikos K. Antonopoulos, in turn years vice-mayor and municipal councilor in charge of And. Caravola.
The author, a dedicated Patrino-lover, with his micro-history, proceeds to reconstruct a historical district, above Pantokrator, known as Kantrianika and describes in a relief, as well as a figurative way, snapshots and situations that have been experientially imprinted in the memory of the older Patrinas.
The book by Nikos K. Antonopoulos is a libation to historical memory as a presumption of patriotism and memories of an era, the era of innocence, which unfortunately passed irretrievably as the concrete unfortunately crushed human characters, habits and lifestyle.
Nikos K. Antonopoulos remembers the dirt roads of the neighborhood with the potholes and stones, the wounded feet of the children and the rickety shoes. “The feet, he writes, were melting from the game, the soles were hanging, the soles and vardus were coming off, the heels were opening, the toes were missing and we ran out of shoes.
We didn’t have many shoes either. Just one pair for good and another for everyday. We used to go to the neighborhood cobblers for repairs.”
Through the book, valuable, useful and highly interesting information is provided, such as that from 1205 to 1267 Patras grew stronger, the fortress and the port were strengthened. At the same time, Patra was the seat of a barony of the principality of Achaia. The first Franco-French ruler Alemanos in 1267 will sell the barony of Patras to the Latin archbishop of Patras. From that time, Patras will be an independent state, ecclesiastically attached to the Holy See. In fact, from the 15th century, further down from Kantrianika, there was a Frankish church. It was from this that the famous Latin archbishop of Patras, Benedictus, began in 1413 as a great cantor, who later founded the great choral school of Cantors in Rome.
The excellent itinerary edited with scientific depth and documented evidence by the author, is a tribute to the upper city and the wider area that until now remained on the fringes of local history, as a degraded district with the doros and the picturesque heroes of the carnival.
With his writing style, Nikos K. Antonopoulos was at the forefront of all the democratic struggles of the “114” generation of the Lambrakis murder, etc. in his youth, student and student years. he leaves a valuable legacy for those who want to indulge in his micro-history, as he modestly calls it.
It is no coincidence that in the book there is an interesting section with an introspection of international politics entitled “The Great Rift and the Ideological Effervescence”, with reference to Moscow-Beijing relations.
For the sake of history, let us mention that the elegant book was published by “Epikentro” publications and contains rare anecdotal photographs, not only of Nikos’s family environment but also of Skagiopoulio which hosted children of warriors from 1912 – 1922, the entertainment of members of the pre-dictatorship EDA in the Nursing Home, his late father Konstantinos with his fraternal friend for a number of years activist and executive of the Left Takis Stathatos et al.
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