Skip to content

Main Navigation

100sources
  • ΕΛ
Home
Cities
ChaniaPireausThessalonikiVolos
The Project

The research project “100memories”, starting from the refugee movement of 1922-1924, takes up the multiple migrations that followed over the next 100 years until today. The study of the past and memory meets the digital world and shapes new (analogue, hybrid and digital) narratives. More here: https://100memories.gr/

The Platform

The 100sources digital platform is a digital repository documenting a century of arrivals and departures.

Narratives

Let us think of our cities as spaces that are constantly woven through the journeys, histories and experiences of their inhabitants, through encounters and conflicts, separations and arrivals that always leave traces – more or less visible – in urban space. By unraveling, but also by intertwining, these threads of movement, habitation, work and daily life, we tell aspects of the history of refugee neighbourhoods.

Bibliography

The bibliography concerns all the research aspects studied in the project on the history of migration in Greece.

Map

The map identifies institutions with archival material related to the history of the refugee settlement of 1922-24, collectives and monuments.

Scripts

See the educational scripts developed during the project.

100places

Visit the 100places.gr platform.

Contact

Do not hesitate to contact us for any issue. [email protected]

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

City

Thessaloniki

Migration Period

Internal Migration Migration to Europe

City Narratives

Castropliktra

Tag

Literature/ Poetry/ Music

Category

Labour

Full Description

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…’.

Exhibits

Files

Ψηλά-στο-Εσκί-Ντελίκ.pdf
footer-logo

Visit the project website 100memories.gr.

Terms of Use

Website Structure

CITIES

  • Volos
  • Thessaloniki
  • Piraeus
  • Chania

PAGES

  • Bibliography
  • Map
  • Entries

Το ερευνητικό έργο υλοποιείται στο πλαίσιο της Δράσης ΕΡΕΥΝΩ – ΔΗΜΙΟΥΡΓΩ – ΚΑΙΝΟΤΟΜΩ και συγχρηματοδοτείται από την Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση και εθνικούς πόρους μέσω του Ε.Π. Ανταγωνιστικότητα, Επιχειρηματικότητα & Καινοτομία (ΕΠΑνΕΚ) (κωδικός έργου: Τ2ΕΔΚ-04827)

Manufactured by Sociality