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I welcome to Cyprus Evanthis Vassiliou, who together with his colleagues, without any exaggeration, was the man, beyond being an academic, beyond being a scientist, who highlighted the importance of Cyprus in Greece. He always approached Cyprus as part of the wider Hellenism. I was sure that this exhibition would come to Cyprus as well as future actions. And I would like on behalf of the official state to thank you for all that you do for Cypriot Hellenism.
On 27 August 1922, Turkish troops occupied and then set fire to Smyrna, the only city in Asia Minor where the Greeks have a population majority. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Asia Minor Greeks and Armenians are trapped on the waterfront, between the hammer and the fury, between the burning city and the raging waves. There scenes of the Apocalypse will unfold. Atrocities, massacres of civilians, looting, a scene before which even Dante's Inferno would pale.
The destruction of Asia Minor was a huge humanitarian tragedy, a war crime of the 20th century. It is estimated that some 150 to 200 thousand Asia Minor Greeks had to lose their lives before foreign powers became aware of the situation and began their transfer to Greece.
After the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne and the evacuation of eastern Thrace, nearly a million refugees flooded into island and mainland Greece.
The violent eradication of Hellenism from Asia Minor, where its presence had been uninterrupted over the centuries, was now complete. The nobility and glory of the Asia Minor world would be transformed into endless lines of tents, crudely erected to house the myriad ragged souls.
Some of them, around 1700 Asia Minor Greeks and Cypriot refugees, according to surviving records, although their actual number is not known, would find refuge in Cyprus. With their pride, their brave soul and their philanthropic spirit, qualities that no conqueror could take away from them, the Asia Minor Greeks will manage not only to revive themselves from the ashes but also to contribute to the progress of Cypriot society, which embraced them warmly, as the publications of the time testify. Many, in fact, would work as teachers and contribute to the consolidation of Greek education at a time when Cyprus was a British colony.
This year marks one hundred and one years since the Asia Minor Catastrophe. The exhibition we are inaugurating today commemorates the anniversary of this shocking and unfortunately tragic milestone in Greek history, highlighting the cultural wealth of Asia Minor in a special and original way, with the exhibits revolving around music and song.
Music, according to Plato, has the ability to penetrate the depths of the soul and make it receptive to decency and beauty.
Music, according to Plato, has the ability to penetrate the depths of the soul and make it receptive to decency and beauty. It is the art that accompanies man throughout his life, from infant lullabies to funeral services, or as Oscar Wilde has said, "it is the art that is closest to tears and memory." Tears, however, not only of lamentation for calamity, for uprooting, but also tears of optimism and hope. This is exactly the joyful message sent by the exhibition "Images and Music of the Refugees of '22", by the Hellenic Parliamentary Foundation for Parliamentarism and Democracy, hosted in Cyprus by the Cultural Foundation of the Bank of Cyprus, a message of hope! Singing as a source of courage to rebuild their lives from scratch. "Inside the tents they danced and sang and celebrated the refugees", the Asia Minor refugees testify in ERT's special "Refugee Memories".
Every night the shacks and settlements were flooded with music that served as a balm for the Asia Minor refugees. At the same time, music, as the testimonies document, became an integral part of their cultural identity. "We had lost everything else, the song had been saved in us, we contained it, we should not let it be lost too." Music also emerges as an instrument of memory. Through musical tradition and folk songs, we learn about the experiences of our ancestors.
At the same time, music has the power to give us such intense emotions that their mark on memory remains indelible, it awakens memories that the oblivion of time has tried to "bury", it regenerates the desire and hope that lies in the depths of my soul.
The music of the coasts of Asia Minor, especially that of Smyrna, is one of the most important chapters of the Greek musical tradition. This is because since antiquity the region has been the most cosmopolitan, a centre of trade where, along with goods from all the Mediterranean countries, there was an exchange of ideas and intangible goods, a place of cultural osmosis. All this wealth, the confluence of different elements, the influences of Europeans, Armenians, Jews, Persians, Arabs is reflected in Asia Minor music, making it a unique mosaic.
After the Asia Minor Catastrophe and the settlement of refugees in Greece, through the blending of the Smyrna and Piraeus genres of the so-called "Magiko" genre, a new genre will be born that will speak to many hearts and will leave an era, and this is none other than the rebetiko song, of course. The "Asia Minor School of Rebetika" brought out top musicians and singers who graced the interwar discography, while in our homeland, in Cyprus, Greek island folk music and Asia Minor traditional music enriched its Cypriot counterpart.
I want to refer to what is happening today in Ukraine, but also what happened in Cyprus, in a European territory much earlier than these unacceptable things that are happening in Ukraine. Today, we are saddened to see that conflicts continue to rage around the world, making refugeeism an issue that remains timeless and topical. We note with pain that we have become familiar with this gaze of the uprooted. The gaze that mirrors the devastation of war. That which awaits the return. We know it very well in Cyprus too. The Cypriot refugees who took a handful of soil from their neighbourhood to plant an orange tree, the Karaviotes and the Morphites, the Lapithians a lemon tree.
I would like to extend my warmest congratulations and thanks to the organisers, to all the participants, the Hellenic Parliamentary Foundation for Parliamentarism and Democracy, the Cultural Foundation of the Bank of Cyprus. I am sure that the Exhibition will offer visitors a unique learning experience and a real contact with our roots and history, which cannot be captured so vividly by books in the school or university classroom.
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(PM/IS)
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