Ancestry 19 - Yiannis & Vasiliki: A Discordant Speech

It would be the last notable episode in the life of Yiannis’ young family. Other than death or birth, that is. Since then, in the triviality of everydayness at home, of work at school, and the shrinking with age social circle of Mr. Yiannis, his intercourse with politics and public life was strictly regulated, despite the political turbulence and struggles outside those microenvironments. Mr. Yiannis retained a core of progressive beliefs -in the broadest of senses, in discourse almost exclusively with himself and within the family boundaries. These beliefs were surrounded by a veil of opacity: he did not want to divulge the more "militant" past of his, having learnt his lessons. In the school, where he was headmaster, he confined the education of pupils and management of junior teachers, his communication with guardians over the progress of the children and the operation of school, within boundaries delimited by government mandates and directives without the subtlest deviation and initiatives, coming across as incorruptible by revolutionary or potentially "subversive" dogmas. Yet, there were still a few fires raging in Greece's political landscape, despite the meticulous suppression of such dogmas on this side of the Iron Curtain.

Once, I read a hand-written transcript of one of his speeches during a school celebration of anniversary of the "Struggle for Independence" of 1821, duty bound to deliver as a headmaster on such occasions. It included some political content, rather unconventionally for the given level of politicization of the audience he was addressing, although superficial and non-controversial from a political activist’s point of view. As far as I knew him, he would not have given credence in most of the content of such speeches in a previous life. Then again, he must have deemed necessary to introduce some stereotypical phrases eulogizing the ruling ideology of the era, especially when celebrating national anniversaries. It was all presented in front of priests, the local authorities, army officers, and other prominent members of the local community. A few standard phrases always gratifying to such ears had to be delivered, in the interests of the emerging nationalism and the political establishment of post-war Greece.  English translation. 

“The Greeks of '21 commenced the national struggle for independence on strong foundations... They were descendants of the ancient Greeks and conscious of their democratic rights of freedom and independence. The heroes of '21 are also heirs of the Orthodox Christian faith. The national struggle was inspired by Christianity for love among people, for justice among people, for equality... The Cyprus issue remains unresolved... Let us hope that the new political democratic leadership of Greece, the one that emerged from the elections of the 16^th of February, under the inspired guidance of the veteran political leader Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou, and the support of the free and democratic peoples of the world, will find a solution to the Cyprus issue that would be based on self-determination and democratic principles. And now, friends, as I do not want to become tiresome, I would like to invite you to cheer for the Nation, for the 25^th of March, and our new constitutional King of the Greeks, Constantine: Long live the nation!! Long live the 25^th of March 25!! Long live our King!!”English translation. 

His ideological-and political metamorphosis, from the initial stage of him embracing leftist dogmas at the end of the German Occupation and the beginning of the Civil War to the adoption of sterile nationalistic stereotypes and a whole-hearted acceptance of the political status quo, was concluded upon retirement. His political digressions had reached a blind alley, and a historical cycle, after the post-war normalization and the establishment of a Western-style bourgeois democracy, had closed. His alignment with the dominant nationalistic dogma consolidated in post-war Greece, now tied for good to the chariot of America and the Western hegemony, an alignment even symbolic, even for the eyes of the simple world the people of the working-class districts of western Thessaloniki who did not dig much into politics and ideology, was completed.

What I read one afternoon in the faded folder with a collection of several naïve pedantic speeches did not correspond to the image I had formed of my grandfather, from the accounts of his daughters and the legends surrounding his family history and name. The young teacher-intellectual, the bearer of progressive, almost revolutionary ideas and opinions, through to the end of the war, might have been disguising a compliant individual in his core of existence. He was the son of a priest after all, and certain things may leave indelible imprints on one’s personality. Or, perhaps, I was carried away by my own beliefs (and corresponding prejudices, of course!) of that time and molded that image of grandfather into my own ideological patterns. After all, in the individual’s mind, such views either constantly change in form and essence in a dialectic relationship with the environment, or, in the absence of substance, they make up a colorful patchwork, often a patchwork of vivid contrasts, that coexist side by side or in succession of each other, chosen and expressed by the individual in accordance with the external circumstances.