From refugees in Greece to migrants in Germany (the literary portrayal)

Yorgos Ioannou’s short story ‘Up there in Eski Delik’ portrays the life trajectories of two refugee families in the writer’s expressive, experiential language. The writer follows the characters from Thrace to Thessaloniki to Eski Delik (Old Gate), an area in Sykies adjacent to the western Portara (Great Gate), and from there to Germany, where the second generation migrates.

The themes of the short story include the arranged marriages performed to facilitate claims on better Turkish land plots, the downfall of the affluent Thracian families upon becoming refugees, the history of Thessaloniki’s walls and their multiple uses, the sickness and death that plagued the refugees, the civil war and the post-war migration of second generation refugees.

It is noteworthy that the writer cites in the story a popular song called ‘If your mother doesn’t give you forty bonds’, with its lyrics altered to refer to places in Thessaloniki (p.13).

‘If your mother doesn’t give you forty bonds,

Forty bonds

Yes, forty bonds

And a shop in Mevlane

Still, they’re not enough

Oh no, they’re not enough…’ ^[1]

The version cited by Ioannou speaks of a shop in Mevlane, namely the area of Mevlevihane around the church of Panagia Faneromeni where a renowned Ottoman tekke (dervish monastery) was located, run by the religious order of Mevlevi. The compound included a mosque, a madrasa (a Muslim school), dormitories, a water pump and a cemetery (for more, see XT017).

Additionally, with the phrase ‘the coffee shop that touches the walls’ (p.15) the writer probably refers to a coffee shop called ‘Makedoniko’ which used to abut the outer wall next to the western Portara. The coffee shop had been operating continuously from 1920 to 2017, when it closed down after becoming a tavern for a few years. Today, the coffee shop’s sign, which was embedded in the walls, has been removed.

In the TV programme ‘ERT in northern Greece: The refugee capital’, produced in 1982, Yorgos Ioannou presents the history of the Pontian refugee settlement in Kalamaria through the personal narratives of refugees. The extract provided here is from the beginning of the programme. It focuses on the refugees in Ano Poli and takes the viewers on a tour of Eski Delik, with a short stop outside the ‘Makedoniko’ coffee shop.

^[1] The most popular versions of the song refer to Kokkinia in Piraeus: ‘If your mother doesn’t give you the house in Kokkinia, yes, the house in Kokkinia…’.