Mr. Yiannis left the village of his ancestors and the town of Arta and emigrated: he ‘threw a black stone behind his back,’ as the Greek saying goes, never to return, and studied to become a teacher at the Pedagogical Academy of Athens. That would be a remarkable accomplishment at that junction of modern Greece’s history and under the circumstances, family and national. Even more commendably, he completed a postgraduate course in Pedagogy, offered to select few young and ambitious teachers, under the auspices of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Athens. During his studies, he also allowed time to develop a dexterity in playing the violin; a violin that is still preserved amongst other family relics in his house in Magnesia, but which I never heard him play. In short, the light of knowledge and education illuminated an open mind and he undertook, as he was approaching the prime of his life, to propagate it to a whole generation of refugees.
How he ended up, a young teacher
in the early 1920’s, from Athens, the power base of Greece’s over-centralized administration,
to the region of Macedonia and, eventually, the relatively deprived western outskirts
of Thessaloniki, a cauldron of multiculturalism with complex and colorful
characteristics, albeit also heir of an unshakeable, and, for the enlightened
few from the old Greece of the south, unbearable Balkan heritage, remains
unknown. In a historical phase that was characterized, if anything else, by the
uncertainty of what tomorrow would bring and social volatility, it is difficult
to imagine the grandfather I met and conversed with as a child, a rational and
measured, a prudent and shrewd personality, undertaking on his own impulse a
venture with substantial risks, potentially injurious to his career and life; a
career that was seemingly built honorably with tenacity and toil. He never came
across as overambitious or romantic; he was level-headed and a pragmatist. One
can only presume that it was a kind of a ministerial directive or decree of
appointment that dispatched him from the safety, peace and quiet of the South
to this volatile region of the new Greek
dominions, in the admittedly portentous drive of the Greek State to improve the
literacy of the refugees, instil a national conscience and assimilate the still
sizeable ethnic minorities, rather than an inherent
propensity in search of diversity and a professional challenge into the
unknown. After all, waves of migrants from Epirus and the provinces of modern Greece
converged in unison towards Athens. But Greece’s territorial expansion and
population explosion that the influx of refugees effected, the imperative of reconstruction
and economic development also gave rise to centrifugal forces from the capital
to the relatively more affluent and dynamic towns in the
country, particularly the greater metropolitan area of Thessaloniki in the
north, which established itself as the Second City, euphemistically called
the joint-capital. Thus, he was appointed
teacher to the primary school of Magnesia and, shortly afterwards, he became
the principal of a school in the locality of Bosphorus, in the refugee working
class district of Menemeni. But in which new district of Thessaloniki back then
was not the refugee element from Asia Minor and the Black Sea becoming dominant,
even surpassing in numbers some of the ethnicities cohabiting in and around the
city for centuries, like Slavs and Jews? The school to which he devoted his
teaching energy and passion, and most of his life for that matter, became known
to the locals as the "School of Mr. E…", an informal title of
recognition and honor. The worlds of his and theirs were still small. A few
years before his retirement and despite the detrimental post-war political exploits
in which he was involved and eventually repented, he was promoted to a School Inspector
of the broader areas of Goumenissa and Ampelokipi, thus reaching the peak of the
national teacher grades, albeit in rather unillustrious regions away from the
capital.
In the interwar years, as a
newly appointed teacher in the village, he met grandmother Vasiliki, Koti’s
beautiful daughter. Some matchmaking must have been organized; that's how
things were done then: with a coffee and a teaspoon of sweet preserve or
vanilla as a treat to one’s guests. Where and when exactly this matchmaking
process was initiated, the background behind it, the matchmaker and the parties
involved in the ‘negotiations’ and arrangements, any signs of consent or
disapproval by the bride or groom, or any details of the discussions would
remain unknown. They were married under a tree, with the matchmaker appointed
by default as the best man, and the blessings of the local priest and, of
course, Kotis and Dominique. The family of Mr. Yiannis was conspicuously absent.
Both of his parents had long since died, and he himself had been declared on
paper as an orphan. Prior to the wedding his brothers and cousins, however, had
made the long journey from Arta for the engagement and to acquaint themselves
with the prospective bride and her family. But they were insolent in their
discontent: neither did they like Vasiliki and Koti's broader family, nor Mr.
Yiannis’ new homeland, in which he endeavored to set-up home and raise a family.
Many things did they resent, and they made their displeasure rather unashamedly
clear with the boldness of uneducated mountain people. Their recalcitrance and conduct,
which could only be induced by prejudices and notions from a culture entrenched
in the mountains of Epirus, provoked the wrath of Mr. Yiannis. He sent them
away in anger and he would never see his brothers and relatives from Epirus
again until the very last days of his life.
Nevertheless, the matchmaking
proved to be successful in retrospect. It led, if not to a life of bliss (that
rarest outcome of anyone’s destiny), to a rather peaceful, satisfying and, one dare
says, mildly happy marriage and a content family life, always with respect to
the standards of their generation, milieu, and environs. Let us stress again
that Vasiliki was a beautiful woman – this was what all her photographs of the
time portrayed. Based on external appearances, she seemed too good looking next
to an early balding and short in stature Mr. Yiannis. She was also fairly cultivated,
thanks to the relative prosperity her family enjoyed during her early years in Istanbul,
although she fell short of obtaining a formal education and degrees –extremely
difficult for women at that time. She was barely inferior in mind and spirit
compared with her husband. Yet, she got on and by in life in his shadow, having
accepted his role as the sole breadwinner, the major decision-maker, and
undisputed head of the family. "You! Little woman of the common people...,”
was a phrase Mr. Yiannis frequently used mockingly to address Vassiliki in some
of their domestic disputes. It was an unjust, no matter if, for the most part,
was expressed light-heartedly.
The evidence overall suggests
that Mr. Yiannis and Vassiliki spent a reasonably good life in the village,
given theirs and the village folk’s expectations and ambitions. They might have
at some point loved each other – like most people who start a family and share
a home and a life together, regardless of the small likelihood that this might
have been “love from the first sight,” a personal experience of instantaneous
and thunderous love at the matchmaker’s first rendezvous, or of the possibility
of love of some durable intensity. More important in marriages thus arranged, was
that the unwritten agreement between Kotis and his sister was adhered to: in Vassiliki’s
dowry, on the piece of land in front of their little house that sheltered them
after their arrival from Istanbul, and the vegetable garden, next to the plot
where uncle Leonidas set-up his home and grocery store, the newlyweds built a new
house, with personal work and the help of Kotis and two or three local builders.
There they brought up their offsprings, Mother amongst them, and spent the rest
of their lives.
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