What does the writing of the novel “Gi tis pikrameni Panagia” by Psychogios publications mean for you, Mr. Papatheodorou?
The tragedy of Cyprus is the most recent wound of Hellenism that is still bleeding. Observing the proportions and sizes, a wound comparable to the Asia Minor Catastrophe, but also with the pathogens of Hellenism, division and civil strife visible. After my historical novels regarding the Civil War and Asia Minor, the need to deal with the Cypriot tragedy was overwhelming.
How did the idea for this book come regarding? How would you describe the “yeast” of your novel?
I was born and raised in Dikaia of Evros, on the Greek-Turkish border. I remember very well the day of conscription in July 1974, when all the men of my birthplace, sons and fathers, took up arms and camped in the river trenches. I remember very well the autumn of 1974, when in our home, but also in the school, the community and the church we prepared boxes for the uprooted and the refugees of Cyprus. I remember my childhood crying when I made drawings and wrote notes to the Greek children of Cyprus and put them in the boxes together with my few toys. Despite the passage of so many years since then, this sad flame has never ceased to burn within me. And she was the one who pushed me to write “Land of the Bitter Virgin”.
But it was also the sad realization that in Greece, this Greece which was the burning desire of the Cypriots who fought, bled and sacrificed for the Union with her, for a long time Cyprus has been treated by almost everyone with indifference. The source of this sad indifference is undoubtedly the ignorance of painful facts. A small stone in dealing with this ignorance tries to put this novel.
“Land of the Bitter Panagia” by Psychogios Publications
Is your story yet another cry of anguish on the Cyprus issue?
I would say that it is more of a record, a memory deposit. No historical facts, the book is not an essay, it is a novel and aims primarily at reading pleasure, without which it will not have achieved its goal.
But it is a historical novel, which treads on the facts, as far as possible, with truth and accuracy, since the greater part of my time was devoted to historical research. My aim, as in all my historical novels, is for each and every reader, closing the book, to enjoy the reading experience, to empathize with the entire era. Not just to read, but to live History with all his senses, to feel it, to experience it by sympathizing with my heroes and heroines.
Maritsa from Famagusta, desperately looking for her little boy who was lost in the fire of the invasion and the war. Eleni and Eleftheritsa from Nicosia, who roam the streets and squares dressed in black with two images hanging on their chests, looking for a brother and father. Chara from Gerolakkos, doubly raped and driven away by everyone, together with Filitsa, her four-year-old daughter. Chrystallitsa from Skylloura, who melts with agony outside the prisons, wanting the English to hang her condemned nineteen-year-old Michalakis. Andreas, Markos and Savvas, who remained black and white photographs in front of lit candles. All of them forms and symbols of martyred Cypriot Hellenism.
What can be the solution and how can we strengthen our role and effectively resist at the level of peoples?
Every nation has the leaders or the leader it deserves. Cynical, but nothing truer than this. For example, the political leaders of the Cypriot people, in Greece and Cyprus, have proven throughout time to be few and insufficient, even nonexistent. Bar none. Never mind Makarios, who is called in Cyprus “Ethnarchis”, and who due to his selfishness, arrogance and inexperience, the worst combination for a political leader, has made tragic mistakes.
“In History, always there are reasons”
Despite the dark theme of the book, in your narrative there is often a need to justify some situations. Is this a choice of a technical nature or a psychological defense mechanism of the narrator once morest the sad things he narrates?
It is simply the mechanism of History that always proceeds with the relation of cause and effect. But sufficient time must sometimes pass to understand this relationship. Often, at the time when the events occur, this relationship is not clear, nor is the eye of the people suffering their painful consequences cool enough to reason or justify these sad situations. In History, however, there are always causes. Always.
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