Cover Page
The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/84694 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation.
Author: Irakleous, S. Title: Atalialu Serapheim and the Turkophone Orthodox Christians of Anatolia: A study of eighteenth-century Turkish texts in the Greek alphabet (Karamanlidika) Issue Date: 2020-02-06
‘Ολιοὺµ γκελήρ, ὀλιοὺµ ἀλὴρ, ‘Ελὴµ γιαζὰρ, τοπρὰκ ὀλοὺρ, Μποῦ νασιχὰτ κιταπὴ τουνιατὰ καλὴρ, Γιαζὰν οκουγιάν, Ῥαχµὲτ ἀλὴρ.1 Atalialu Serapheim (APK1782:51)
Introduction In 2008 one of the last living Turkophone Christian Orthodox Anatolians who arrived in Cyprus as refugees after the Greco-Turkish war of 1919–1922 was interviewed. When Yorgos Panayiotou set foot on the island he was nine and a half years old. His family was one of the many Turkophone Christian Orthodox who had to flee Asia Minor, ending up in a place where the majority of the population was Greek-speaking. While mentioning the difficulties of attending a Greek- speaking school, he recalled the linguistic and educational situation back in Asia Minor:
We attended school, our school, the alphabet was Greek the pronunciation though, everything in Turkish. We only knew Turkish. Turkish. We had no knowledge of Greek language. It was prohibited to speak Greek. In the churches everything was in Turkish language written in Greek letters. The psalms again in Turkish. But even if they would have chanted in Greek, we would not understand a thing. What could we have done?2
He talked with enthusiasm about his homeland but when the discussion touched upon language he hummed and hesitated. The obvious guilt when he mentioned that the did not know the Greek language, and blaming the Turks for that fact, of course came from the spirit of those times and the idea of Great Greece, the one of “two continents and five seas”. This shows a change in mentality and beliefs for the aforementioned community over time. Yorgos was probably unaware of the long tradition that this Turkish language in Greek letters had, that the size of the community had aroused the interest of the Patriarchate centuries ago, the role of Cyprus in all this and the fact that he belonged to a community which distinguished
1 ‘Death comes death takes (lives), my hand writes (but soon) it will become dust, (but) this advice book will remain in the world, (may) the one who writes and reads take the mercy of God.’ 2 Syndesmos Mikrasiaton Kyprou, Ηµερολόγιο, (Λευκωσία: 2016), 198. Part of interview given to Angel Konnari and Maria Panayiotou (07.04.2008)