Cyprus-Forum.com

[the_scribe]

I'd like to learn more about everyday life in mixed Greek-Turkish villages in Cyprus, before the July 1974 events. By everyday life, I mean social structures, patterns of communication (cooperation or non-cooperation), economic interdependencies, love and marriage, customs, etc. Internet pointers are great, though 1st or 2nd degree accounts are even better.

(Also, what is the most appropriate forum for historical discussions that do not pertain to a future solution?)

[humanist]

Hi there, it is impossible to get any idea of what you are asking. I have tried many times to do so without luck. One experience I had I was 4- years of age visiting my grndmother in a village called "Xeros" in North West Cyprus. I remember my grandparents intermingling with Turkish Speaking Cypriots although looking back it was limited as neither really were fluent in each others language .... but very clearly remember interminglings often.

[the_scribe]

I'm drafting a story set in Cyprus in June 1974. I need your feedback on the plausibility of several ideas that might be in the story:

1. The economy of a mixed village in Mesaoria plain would most likely be agriculture-based, just as the economy of non-mixed villages was.

2. Though the economy/agriculture may have been separate in many or even most mixed villages, it is plausible that the agriculture efforts would be shared and even coordinated by the two mukhtars.

3. People intermingled, but not beyond the scope of the economic activities. That is at the end of the working day, they were back into their separate communities.

4. Practically any mixed village would have Turkish and Greek neighborhoods that were separate.

[humanist]

Hello Scribe, is it possible that the story can be set in 2007 .... where Greek/ Turkish Speaking Cypriots live together in harmony and partnership, working collaboratively in a new Cyprus that is build on trust, friendship, equality & peace.

Thanks

[cypezokyli]

this guy is quoted in almost every serious book concerning the cyppro.
i havent read the book my self but it is for sure on my list :

Peter Loizos, The Greek Gift: Politics in a Cypriot Village (reprint of the 1975 edition), (2004), 344 pages, 8°, hard cover,ISBN 3-933925-55-X, 36.50 €

This study was one of the first to spell out how modern ideological politics affected a rural community in a post-colonial state. Cyprus, under British rule, had permitted the Greek and Turkish Cypriots only limited experience of democratic participation in national politics. The last five years of colonial rule in Cyprus [1955-1960] witnessed a major struggle by Greek Cypriots for “freedom” - by which they meant, a political Union with Greece, a goal which had obsessed them since the turn of the century, but which had alienated Turkish Cypriot nationalists.
Independence in 1960 was soon disrupted by violent conflict between Greek and Turkish paramilitaries, and the retreat of many Turkish Cypriots into enclaves, both defensive and secessionist.
The village described here, [later identified as Argaki, near Morphou in W. Cyprus,] had produced an active unit of anti-British guerillas, members of the underground organization EOKA, led by Col. George Grivas. It had acted as a hiding place for EOKA fighters dodging the British, men like Nikos Sampson, and Nikos Koshis. It was also a mixed village, with a large Greek majority, the subjects of this study, and a small Turkish minority. Twenty five miles from the capital, prospering from irrigated agriculture, the village found itself intensively caught up in the rivalries between Greek nationalist leaders. President Makarios, Interior Minister Polykarpos Yorgadjis, [later assassinated] Glavkos Clerides, [later President] Dr.Vassos Lyssarides, and Nikos Sampson [a “president” imposed by the Greek dictatorship] are all major actors on the national political stage, but they are also connected by ties of friendship and political patronage to their Argaki clients – the village political activists who have variously identified with these national figures, but find that when the big men start to quarrel, the effects are felt disturbingly at the village level. Men who might otherwise be helping each to prosperity and planning to see their children marry each other, find themselves at each others’ throats, and only the skillful diplomacy of the more far-sighted village leaders keeps the village from tragedy.
While giving his lively first-hand account of a single village, Loizos is compelled to place the political processes he documents within the wider context of national and international politics. This book has been required reading for specialists on Cyprus, when they sought to understand how Greek-on-Greek political passions played out at the grass roots level. The Greek military dictatorship [1967-74] casts its shadow over these pages, recruiting young villagers to overthrow their elected President. Cold War rivalries between NATO and the USSR also play their part. The village cannot be isolated from decisions taken in Athens,m Ankara, Moscow, Washington and London, but could village activists really understand how high the stakes were in the games they were playing?
The book ends shortly before the 1974 Greek coup against Makarios and subsequent invasion by Turkey, which turned these prospering villagers into refugees, the subjects of a subsequent study The Heart Grown Bitter.
Peter Loizos book is one of the few classics of the Cyprus Problem studies.

http://www.bibliopolis.de/peleus26.html

[cypezokyli]

try also this site , you can find historians, political scientists, as well as sociologists /anthropologists

http://www.cyprus-conflict.net/www.cypr ... tents.html

also books that are dealing with the average cypriot and not the politics of the cyppro (even though are not directly concerned with what you are interested in ) are :

the oysters that lost their pearls , by sevgul uludag (she is a tc reporter who has been searching for human cypriot stories. i guess oyu could also contact her if you are interested)

echos from the dead zone , by jannis papadakis (he is an anthropologist at the university of cyprus )

[the_scribe]

humanist - good idea maybe for a sequel
cypezokyli - promising lead on Loizos, will go browse through the book at the local library...

my story is one of relationships and "everyday trouble" set against the backdrop of the imminent coup and invasion, but does not try to make the political events central to the story... however for realism, the tension that develops in the backdrop will have an effect on the characters. the Loizos book might have enough information to help me. thanks!

[cypezokyli]

in papadakis book, you can find stories about a part of nicosia (tahtakallas) and from the only village that is up tp date bicommunal, since it somehow stayed exactly on the border. (interesting story since the gc saved the their covillagers in 1963 and they in turn did the same in 1974).

but answers to the economic questions you have asked you are not going to find....

besides that you could consider leaving california for a while, and take a small tape recorder and visit cyprus

[annaka]

The Turkish Daily News has this week been printing a four-part description of life in mixed villages during the early 60's, finishing today, which may be of interest to you. As it is long I can't paste them on the board, but if you like I could try pasting them on email when it works.

Regards, Annaka.