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Stratis Doukas: Ιστορία είνος εἰμφαλώτου (A Prisoner of War’s Story)
This is a very short book, no more than a novella but it is here because it is an important book in about one of the key events of twentieth century Greek history – the expulsion from Western Anatolia of the Greeks whose ancestors had lived there for hundreds of years. This is not the first book on this site on this topic and many were written, both fiction and fact, and, as in this case, a mixture of the two. Some have focussed on the fate of the newly arrived refugees in Greece. This one, as the title tells us, is about those Greeks who did not get away from Anatolia easily but, as happened in many cases, were imprisoned and/or killed. As we know Greeks were not the only victims. Large numbers of Armenians were driven out and many were slaughtered. This is touched on here.
This one is based on the story of Nikolas Kozakoglou. Doukas actually wrote several versions of this story, amending each one, partially because of comments by Kozakoglou and partially to improve the story.
The story is told in the first person. Our unnamed hero lived in a part of Anatolia where there were a lot of Turkish speakers and he spoke fluent Turkish which, as we shall see, helped him a lot.
I could almost sum up the book in a few sentences. Our hero is captured by the Turks, he and his fellow Greeks are sent on a forced march and are very badly treated. A few of them escape and hide out and, eventually he escapes to Greece. of course it is more complicated than that.
He was with his parents at Smyrna. As we know the Greeks occupied the town but the Turks recaptured it, driving out and/or killing theGreeks. Our hero is with his parents and they get separated. He is arrested and taken to some barracks with many others, where they are beaten and, in some cases, taken away and shot. The next day they are taken to the marketplace where they are set upon by the local Turks. The survivors were then driven on a forced march. They had no food or water though those with money were able to bribe the guards for some.
The journey was hard. They had no food or water, the locals would attack them and the guards were cruel. Some died on the way.
Eventually they got limited food and water but had to work disposing of the corpses. Some of them had skills and carried out that work such as baking bread, though when they were caught stealing it, they were shot.
A group of them, including our narrator, hatch an escape plan and get away at midnight. They hide out in caves and steal from local mills. They decide to look for work and split up, our narrator finding work as a shepherd. He does very well so much so that his master wants to marry him off to his niece. He is all the time worried he will be found out as he is not far where he used to live and fears being recognised while his master wants to take him to the mosque but is afraid that as as he does not know the procedure, he will be found out. He hears the story of another Greek who was found out this way and hanged.
He manages to escape on the pretext that he has to go and visit his sister. His master trusts him so much, he gets him the appropriate identity papers. He manages to make his way to Smyrna and, not without some difficulty, from there to Greece.
It is a well told and perhaps unusual itale in that there have been several versions. Clearly we feel for our narrator and his fellow Greeks. Most of the Turks come out very badly and, after this even, there was clearly no love lost between the two nations.
Publishing history
First published in 1929 by Kedros
First English translation in 1999 by Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham
Translated by Petrou Alexiou