Nicholas Gage

“‘Eleni' and ‘A Place for Us' are verbalpaintings of a particular time, place andpeople, all of which are faded now,” explainsauthor Nicholas Gage. And like any paintingof enduring worth, his written photograph ofhis family's immigrant experiences touchesupon and explores several eternal themes - thesearch for one's father, the meaning of familyand of home, and the exhilarating but oftenturbulent and painful adventure of coming tolive in a new land.

Page 4

Harry Mark Petrakis Internationally renowned writer, Harry Mark

Petrakis, who will turn 83 years old this June, is stillhard at work. In a career spanning nearly 60 years,

Petrakis has written 10 novels, four volumes ofshort stories, three collections of memoirs and

essays, three biographies/histories and has seen hismovie script, “A Dream of Kings,” made into a

major motion picture.

Page 16

Books

TheNationalHerald

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May 27, 2006

www.thenationalherald.com

The Deans of Greek American Literature

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 20062

The late Theano Papazoglou Margaris, an award-winning au-thor who used to write for The National Herald, burned extracopies of her first published work, “Efteyhia and Other Sto-ries,” in bitter disappointment when she had no place to store

them. She discovered that Greek Americans were not interested inbuying the book, written in demotic Greek and based on the experi-ences of the early pioneers who immigrated to America in the early1900s. The early immigrants were too busy working long hours es-tablishing their businesses and raising their families. Often they hadattended only a few years of school. They had neither the time northe interest in reading literature.

Today most of the Greek Americans, especially the second andthird generations, are college educated. They include professionalsand academics, as well as executives and entrepreneurs. Today thereis an interest in Greek American literature, as witnessed by large at-tendance at venues such as the Hellenic Museum and Cultural Centerin Chicago, where 120 people recently came to a presentation by Ni-cholas Kokonis featuring his first novel, “Arcadia, My Arcadia.”

To make you aware of the best in Greek American literature, thisspecial feature will not only bring renowned authors, like Harry MarkPetrakis, Nicholas Gage and Charles Moskos to your attention, butwill also showcase less known but talented authors, like NicholasKokonis or Beatriz Badikian-Gartler.

We will feature not only their books but personal glimpses intotheir lives, their struggles and dreams, and what propelled them towrite.

We publish this issue, with another to follow in November, to giveGreek American authors a forum for a discussion of their work. It willalso give you an opportunity to know them and to read their work.Not only do we intend to whet your appetite for reading but alsohope to encourage you to put pen to paper.

We intend to publish at least two special issues a year and possiblymore and to feature book reviews on a regular basis in the NationalHerald.

The National Herald welcomes review copies of published work inEnglish. The books can be fiction or non-fiction, poetry or essaysabout Greek Americans or Greece. Translations of books from Greekto English are also welcome. Send books to The National Herald, 37-10 30th Street, Long Island City, New York 11101.

Elaine ThomopoulosManaging Editor

Welcoming “Books”A New Feature of The National Herald

GRST 100-MODERN GREEK CULTURE AND CIVILIZATIONCODE 2859 Mondays 1:40-4:30 pm Prof. Dan GeorgakasThis course will survey major cultural practices, intellectual pursuits and ideological currents frompost-Byzantine to the present period. Will examine the development of Greek identity, and the role of"national culture" in modern Greece. 3 Credits

HISTORY 200-20TH CENTURY GREECE: HISTORY, POLITICS & SOCIETYCODE 1354 Tue & Thur 3:05-4:20 pm Prof. Theodore TheocharisThis course will look at the history of Greece in the 20th century, the formation of political institutions,the evolution of democracy, social formations and trends, the role of civil society, & Anglo-Greek andUS-Greek relations. 3 Credits

HISTORY 209-THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE, 324-1025 A.D.CODE 2860 Tuesdays 1:40-4:30 pm Prof. Vasileios MarinisThis course will examine the history of the Byzantine Empire, the founding of Constantinople; thetransfer of the Imperial Capital to the East; the Christianization of the Empire; the wars with Persians &Arabs; and the Empire’s cultural expansion. 3 Credits

ART HISTORY 211-EARLY CHRISTIAN AND BYZANTINE ARTCODE 3476 Wednesday 1:40-4:30 Prof. Vasileios Marinis This course will explore the origins of the first Christian art with focus on the art of Byzantium.Architecture, Church mosaics, frescoes, marble decorations, illuminated manuscripts, textile, will beexamined along with the secular art of Byzantium. 3 Credits

URBAN STUDIES 265-ETHNIC COMMUNITY POLITICS IN THE U.S.:THE CASE OF THE GREEK AMERICANS

CODE 1145 Tue & Thur 10:50-12:10 pm Prof. Christos P. IoannidesThis course will examine the role of Greek Americans (G/A) in U.S. politics, the 1974 Cyprus crisis ascatalyst for G/A politicization, the creation of the "Greek Lobby," the Turkish arms embargo (1974-1978) & the emergence of Dukakis, Tsongas, Sarbanes, Snowe, Angelides and other G/A as nationalpolitical figures. 3 Credits

GRKMD 112-ELEMENTARY MODERN GREEK IICODE 2287 Mon & Wed 10:15-12:15 pm Prof. Yiannis Zikoudis

Prereq: Modern Greek 101 or equivalent or Department permissionThis course is a continuation of Modern Greek 101. A graded reader is introduced to present literaryand cultural aspects of Greece and to offer topics for simple exercise in composition. Class hoursinclude use of the language laboratory. 4 Credits

GRKMD 231-MODERN GREEK TRANSLATIONCODE 2255 Mon & Wed 1:40-2:55pm Prof. Yiannis Zikoudis

Prereq: Modern Greek 203 and English 110, or Department permission.Intensive practice in translation from Modern Greek to English and vice-versa. Texts will be chosenfrom literature, journalism, advertising, and business. Techniques of translation. 3 Credits

GRKMD 306-MODERN GREEK LITERATURE IICODE 2256 Tue & Thur 4:30-5:45 pm Prof. Michael Skafidas

Prereq: Greek 305 or equivalentAn introduction to the principal genres of 19th & 20th Greek literature. Selections will be read from lyricand narrative poetry, novels, short stories, drama, & essays. 3 Credits

GRKMD 335-MODERN GREEK NOVELCODE 2261 Tue & Thur 1:40-2:55 pm Staff

Prereq: Sophomore StandingCross-disciplinary study of authors and dominant themes in Greek literature and culture. Taught eitherin Greek or in English as announced by Department. 3 Credits

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THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 2006 3

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 20064

By Aphrodite MatsakisSpecial to The National Herald

“‘Eleni' and ‘A Place for Us'are verbal paintings of a particulartime, place and people, all ofwhich are faded now,” explains au-thor Nicholas Gage. And like anypainting of enduring worth, hiswritten photograph of his family'simmigrant experiences touchesupon and explores several eternalthemes - the search for one's fa-ther, the meaning of family and ofhome, and the exhilarating but of-ten turbulent and painful adven-ture of coming to live in a newland.

The books are a testament tothe enduring strength of the Gat-soyiannis family as they face diffi-culties in Greece and the UnitedStates, as well as a memorial to theauthor's parents. In his interna-tionally acclaimed and prize-win-ning book, “Eleni: A Savage War,A Mother's Love, and a Son's Re-venge: A Personal Story,” Ni-cholas Gage immortalizes hismother. In “A Place for Us: AGreek Immigrant Boy's OdysseyTo A New Country And An Un-known Father,” he immortalizeshis father.

Just as “Eleni” captivates thereader with its emotionally vividportrayal of Eleni and her childrenand those who shaped the family’sfate in Greece, “A Place for Us”reveals the inner struggles andcomplex dilemmas facing the fam-ily in the United States. Gagewrites: “This story of the childrenof Eleni Gatzoyiannis in Americais the recollection of an immigrantwho arrived at mid-century, oldenough to be molded by the tradi-tions left behind but young enoughto belong in the new world. Theparticular calamities, heartaches,and triumphs in these pages arenot unique to my sisters and me,but our odyssey is as old as the na-tion: the arduous journey acrossthe bridge that separates an old fa-miliar world from a new andfrightening one, to find a place forourselves on the other side.”

Upon entering Americanschool, Nicholas finds that “all thechildren … seemed bigger” thanboth he and his sister combined.As if this didn't make him feelenough like an outsider, becausehe doesn't know English, he isplaced in classes for the mentallyretarded. His subsequent efforts tohave his intelligence acknowl-edged and to be accepted by hispeers will ring a familiar bell tomany Greek American readers.

Gage’s sisters face similar hur-

dles but their adjustment processis complicated by the fact of beingfemale. The Old World restric-tions on women did not evaporatesimply because the sisters nowlived on American soil. Gage’s sis-ters, like many other Greek Amer-ican women, struggle with the ten-sions between the strict Puritanicalvalues of their Greek village andthe more modern expectations forwomen in the United States.Gage’s descriptions of the some-times irresolvable conflicts be-tween the old and the new stan-dards for women are written withsuch clarity and such compassionthat they would meet the approval

of even the most exacting teacherof the psychology of women.

Of all the sisters, Olga, the el-dest, adheres most closely to thetraditional role for women and thecustoms of the past. Upon comingto the United States, Olga wants tocontinue wearing mourningclothes for her mother for at leastfive years. But her sister, Kanta,can’t wait to toss aside her blackdresses and stockings and donmore colorful and softer Americanapparel. Olga also balks at the ideaof going to church. As she explainsto her father, “No self- respectinggirl beyond the age of 11 lets her-self be seen in church until herwedding day. You know that!”

Olga eventually finds solace,

dignity and purpose in marriageand maternity. In contrast, Kantadevelops a keen business senseand comes to negotiate financialtransactions advantageous to herand the family. Instead of waitingto be chosen as a bride, Kanta isproactive in finding herself aGreek husband of her liking. Shealso skillfully avoids being stran-gled by the traditional obligationsof a daughter-in-law to her hus-band’s parents, prevalent inNorthern Epirus at the time.

In recounting the many dramat-ic events of his life and the life ofhis family, Gage does not restricthimself to psychological truth. Just

as “Eleni” contains an astoundingamount of meticulous historicaland sociological research onGreece in general and on Epirusand his birth village of Lia in par-ticular, “A Place for Us” providesa detailed explanation of how theparticular twists and turns of na-tional, international and local eco-nomic, social and political forcesaltered his life and the lives of hisfamily and other Greek immi-grants.

Indeed, Gage has been widelyacclaimed for the thoroughnessand scrupulousness of his re-search. He states that he never re-lied on just one source for infor-mation, but on several historical orother documents and on numer-

A Son’s Growing Love for his Father

Nicholas Gage

A Place for Us: A Greek ImmigrantBoy’s Odyssey to a New Country andan Unknown Father By Nicholas Gage Chandler House Press, Inc., 419 pages, $16, Paperback

ous interviews. According toGage, none of the facts in any ofhis books have been disproved.

His careful detailed research isevident in other of his books. Forexample, his account of the tem-pestuous love affair between Aris-totle Onassis and Maria Callas in“Greek Fire” is not based on puregossip, sensationalistic press re-ports or on his own personal spec-ulations. In preparation for writingthis book, Gage reviewed a multi-tude of newspaper and magazinearticles on Onassis and Callas, andconducted numerous interviewswith those who knew these out-standing individuals the best.Gage’s “Greece: Land of Light” ischuck full of information and in-sight into Greek history, art,mythology and village life and his“Hellas: A Portrait of Greece” re-veals his vast knowledge of Greekculture, both past and present.

In his book, “A Place for Us,”Gage describes the developing andsometimes stormy relations withhis father. Like Telemachus whoset sail in search of his long-lost fa-ther, Ulysses, the hero of Homer’s“Odyssey,” who among us has notsought to find or better know ourfather? And who among us has notwrestled with conflicting feelingstowards that father? Hence Gage’swork speaks to and has been ap-preciated not only by GreekAmericans but also by a muchwider audience.

According to Freud, love andhate, longing and contempt, andother strong contradictory emo-tions towards a parent are to be ex-pected. But for the young Ni-cholas, any “normal” ambivalencetowards his father is intensified; hebelieves that his mother would bealive if his father had brought thefamily to the United States priorto the outbreak of war. Yet whenthe nine year old Nicholas arrivesin the United States, it is not onlyanger he feels towards his father,but “love (and) longing” as well.“Like any child who has only oneparent left, I longed to admire myfather,” he writes.

The course and ultimate resolu-tion of the inner turmoil resultingfrom this cauldron of emotions to-wards his father is one of the cen-tral themes of the book. Gage hasdescribed “Eleni” as a love story -a mother’s love for her childrenand their love for her. In manyways “A Place for Us” is also alove story - a father’s love for hisson and the son’s growing love forhis father. As Nicholas grows intoadolescence and adulthood, hecomes to see and appreciate as-pects of his father of which he wasunaware as a child. For example,he learns about the many peoplehis father has helped come to theUnited States and the generous

checks he has been sending over-seas to relatives and other Greeksstill suffering from the ravages ofwar. Over time, Nicholas becomesincreasingly aware of the self-cen-teredness, dishonesty, pettinessand disloyalty of some of his fa-ther’s peers (fellow Greeks) andcomes to see and value his father’sgood-natured soul more than ever.He also develops a deeper appre-ciation of the hurdles faced by hisfather, who arrived in the UnitedStates with just a few dollars in hispocket. He admires him for man-aging to support his family byworking hard and making the mostof every opportunity.

Gage states that as he enteredadolescence and adulthood andfound himself making foolish mis-takes, he became more forgivingof his father’s errors. For example,one reason his father hadn’t sentfor his wife and children was hisassumption that since his familyhad survived the Nazi occupation,surely they would survive theGreek Civil War. After all, Greekswould certainly not be as mercilesstowards one another as the Ger-mans had been. Christos was notalone in this assumption, for thecruelty of Greek against Greek inthe Civil War was a shock to many.

Another fascinating aspect ofthis book is Gage’s descriptionabout how he became a writer.After writing a eighth grade essayon his mother’s execution and hisand his sisters’ escape and observ-ing the deep impact of this essayon his teachers, classmates, andothers, Nicholas began to appreci-ate the power of the written word.His writing skills grew as he helpedhis father write letters to govern-ment and other officials on behalfof impoverished Greeks in Greeceand struggling Greek Americanimmigrants.

After college, Gage went on tobecome an investigative reporterand foreign correspondent and in1970 began working for the NewYork Times. He investigated andwrote exposes on organized crime,the international drug trade, cor-ruption in the judicial system,Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.After being made chief of the NewYork Times Athens bureau in1977, Gage wrote articles aboutthe turbulence in Lebanon, theleaders of Iran and Iraq, and theRussian invasion of Afghanistan.He was awarded an honorary doc-torate from Boston University, hisalma mater, and has produced sev-eral films, including “Eleni” and a1970's television series, “The An-dros Targets.” In addition to thebooks mentioned thus far, Gagehas also written “The Mafia is Notan Equal Opportunity Employer”and “Mafia U.S.A.,” both non-fic-tion, and two novels, “Bones of

Contention” and “The BourlotasFortune.”

There are many unforgettablescenes in Gage’s “A Place for Us”and not all of them are tragic. Whocan forget Nicholas’ little boy de-light as he eats a “sandwich” hemakes by stacking five bars of thatAmerican wonder - chocolate -one on top of another, or his fami-ly’s “very Greek” reaction to hisreceiving the Hearst prize in 1963straight from the hands of Presi-dent John. F. Kennedy. Aftermeeting with Kennedy, Gage de-scribes how he rushes to his hotelroom to call his family “and tellthem about the president. They lis-tened politely, but all they askedwas whether he had offered meanything to eat.” (My “yiayia”would have asked the same ques-tion.)

In his book and in interviews,Gage talks about how he drawsstrength from staying close to hisGreek American community andto his sisters and their families.

When asked what he thought itmeans to be Greek in America to-day Gage mentioned several fac-tors. “Greekness,” in his view, in-volves not only a deep attachmentto one’s family, but a commitmentto give back to one’s community. Italso involves an appreciation ofthe many sacrifices and strugglesour Greek and Greek Americanforefathers had to make to pre-serve and pass on their culture andvalues, and as a result of that ap-preciation, assuming some respon-sibility for continuing their efforts.His philosophy, he states, is to takethe best of both worlds.

Gage has given back not only tothe Greek American communitybut also to the American and in-ternational community as well,though his writings. He continuesto be active in the Greek OrthodoxChurch and community inWorcester, Massachusetts, thearea where he currently resides, aswell as in various Greek concerns,such as the Cyprus issue and the

status of the Greek minority inMacedonia.

When Gage is asked what heconsiders his most importantachievement, he says that it is histhree children, Christos, Eleni andMarina. He takes pride in their in-telligence and creativity, but mostof all, in the fact that “they aregood people,” for which he givesmuch credit to their loving moth-er, his wife Joan.

For more information aboutGage see the website, www.nick-gage.com.

Aphrodite Matsakis, Ph.D., apracticing counseling psychologist,is the author of 12 books on a rangeof psychological topics. She is alsothe author of the book, “Growing-Up Greek in St. Louis,” (ArcadiaPublishing, 2002) a personal ac-count of the challenges of growingup (female) in two worlds in a vi-brant Greek American community.Matsakis' website is www.mat-sakis.com.

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 2006 5

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THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 20066

By Antonia CallasSpecial to The National Herald

When I first learned that thePulitzer Prize-winning novel,“Middlesex,” was written by aGreek American writer, I pickedit up with anticipation. In a worldwhere we increasingly expect ourstories fed to us in easily digestiblebites, it's hard to believe thatmyth, fate and epics on the scaleof “The Odyssey,” are relatable,much less relevant to us today.

Yet author Jeffrey Eugenidescreated a sprawling whopper of amodern Greek epic so compellingHomer himself would rise fromhis grave to dance the “Syrtos.”And judging by the receptionfrom the literary world and thebook reading public, epics on thescale of Homer still have the capa-bility to astonish. The novel hasgarnered impressive reviews sinceit was published in 2002 and hassold over a million copies since itwas released in paperback the fol-lowing year.

Jeffrey Eugenides' first novel,“The Virgin Suicides” (1993),brought him literary fame and wasmade into a beautifully dreamyfilm. Then it took Eugenides 10years to write “Middlesex.” It waswell worth the wait. It is the storyof a hermaphrodite. “I was borntwice,” Calliope/Cal tells us, “Firstas a baby girl … and then again asa teenage boy, in an emergencyroom…” The story is narrated byCal, who is inspired to trace hisheredity back several generations:“Sing now, O Muse, of the reces-sive mutation on my fifth chromo-some!” And it's with that Homericvamp that we get a glimpse of thegreat sweep of Eugenides' inten-tion.

This exuberant novel opens itsexpansive arms and sings. Livesand characters burst from thepages, taking you along for a wildride through time from the tinyvillage of Bithnyios on the slopesof Mount Olympus in Asia Minorto the streets of Detroit; speedingthrough the American landscape,blurring myth and reality in oneglorious air-cushioned ride.

The odyssey begins with Cal'spaternal grandparents, Lefty andDesdemona Stephanides, a pas-sion-smitten brother and sisterwho barely escape with their livesfrom the burning of Smyrna in1922. On the boat to America,they are married and begin a new

life in Detroit, where no oneknows their true identities save forone cousin sworn to secrecy.Steeped in classical Greek refer-ences, the novel is a coming of agestory as well as a tragicomic familychronicle of immigration and as-similation.

“Middlesex” unspools throughDetroit's automobile assemblylines, through prohibition, the De-pression, World War II, the Na-tion of Islam, the 1967 Detroitrace riots and 1970's suburban

America. Eugenides uses theseevents to explore the gap betweenmale and female, nature and nur-ture, fate and freewill, Greek andWASP, black and white, OldWorld and New. If this soundslike a lot - it is. But Eugenidesstitches it together firmly withimagination and wit along with abig helping of mythic subtext.

These themes of transforma-tion, myth, fate and what it meansto be a second generation GreekAmerican were the subject of a re-cent phone conversation I hadwith Eugenides.

As it has been almost four

years since the book was pub-lished, I ask him how he is feelingabout the ongoing success of“Middlesex.” Eugenides pausesfor a moment before answering,“Everyone has wild dreams of suc-cess … usually it doesn't happen,but it's nice when it does.” TheGreek community's response toEugenides has been building sincethe book was published. He re-ceived invitations to speak frommany Greek organizations andwas recently honored by the Elios

Foundation in San Francisco.Although “Middlesex” is a

coming-of-age story, it also a bigfamily saga that traces three gen-erations of Greeks in America andtheir coming to terms with theidea of the American Dream. Eu-genides tells me the novel didn'tbegin as a book about GreekAmericans, but about a geneticcondition, hermaphroditism.When he started thinking aboutgenetics it made him think aboutheritage and then about his ownheritage. The subject had a classi-cal Greek theme, making it a nat-ural thing to use. Says Eugenides,

MIDDLESEXBy Jeffrey Eugenides Picador, 544 pages, $15, Paperback

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“While the Greek part of the bookcame after the original impulse, itbecame a major feature of thebook, and I was glad about thatbecause I didn't want to write abook about someone changinggenders. I wanted to write a bookabout lots of different transforma-tions of identity that had many dif-ferent plots and storylines andmost of them involve someonechanging his or her identity. Thereis the transformation of the Greekimmigrant obviously trying to be-come American, but there aremany different switches that goon. My narrator presides over thelarger tale of metamorphosis.”

The transformation of theGreek immigrant to American cit-izen is recognizable in the storiesof our families: the intense driveof our parents and grandparentsto forge a life for themselves fromthe great American Dream of be-ing a self-made person and risingto the heights of success. Eu-genides is half Greek. He is theson of an American-born fatherwhose Greek parents emigratedfrom Asia Minor and an Ameri-can mother of Anglo-Irish de-scent. Eugenides says, “I think it'sdifficult for the first generationborn in America and they tried toassimilate as much as possible tobecome American. My own fatherwas super American. He wasproud to be Greek, but it wasn'this initial identity. He grew upspeaking Greek to his parents butnever went back to visit Greeceand his main allegiance was defi-nitely to America.”

The themes of transformationand assimilation in “Middlesex”also neatly cut a groove down themiddle of my own life as well. Ob-viously many second-generationchildren find themselves changingfrom the very thing they mostidentified with growing up. Cal'sstory parallels this metamorpho-sis. While his identity is formed bya complicated history of family, bythe end of the novel, he has movedto Berlin, having left all that is fa-miliar, and is waiting to see whatcomes next. I ask Eugenides if hethinks having been a product ofthat particular era and generationwe've been more prone to driftaway from our roots.

He responds, “I think it's typi-cal for the second generation to beinterested in reclaiming and redis-covering the ethnic heritage thatyou have,” he says. “I never felt Ihad to prove my Americanism; itwas something my father felt hehad to do. It was not a risk for meto be interested in my Greek her-itage. Having said that, it doesseem to be slowly disappearing.The Greekness of the Eugenidesline seems to be increasingly adul-terated - which is inevitable when

you have successive mixed mar-riages.”

Eugenides is married to KarenYamauchi and they have a daugh-ter. I tell him that I am married toa non-Greek and have a son. I findit can be a struggle to continuewith traditions, especially withoutan extended family. So I'm tryingto redefine what being GreekAmerican means for my son.

Eugenides agrees: “Since mymother wasn't Greek, I didn'tgrow up with so many of the tradi-tions after my grandparents died.(His grandfather passed awaywhen he was about 10 and hisgrandmother in his teen years.) Ithink if your mother is Greek youtend to hold onto it a little bit bet-ter because they are often the pur-veyors of culture. My father wasnot a big churchgoer so we didn'tgo. I remember very stronglywhen I was young our house beingfull of immigrant Greeks andGreek being the major languagebeing spoken. It was childhoodwhen that was present and it justsort of faded away. In a way, in or-der to write “Middlesex” I had tobone up on Greek culture myself.”

The discussion turns to theage-old concern of Greek story-tellers - the conflict between fateand freewill. In “Middlesex” itplays out as contemporary geneticdeterminism. Eugenides says hewas trying to modernize the con-cept of Greek fate and put it into amodern, scientific, biological con-text. “It occurs to me today thatpeople are locked into an idea ofgenetic determinism which is nodifferent than the ancient Greekidea in Sophocles and other writ-ers, that you are born with a fateyou can't escape. My narrator issomeone who is fated to have agenetic condition, yet that doesnot determine his life. So the bookis really about how this personfights and achieves a measure offree will within a determined situ-ation.”

Eugenides has said that whatCalliope goes through in becom-ing Cal is normalized by the wayhe tells the story. His point was towrite the story of a real hermaph-rodite instead of a mythical onelike Tiresias who'd been both aman and a woman and whom thegods have given the gift of prophe-cy. “Reading about Tiresias theseeker who has been a woman anda man, that is something thatstruck me early on - how useful acharacter that would be,” says Eu-genides.

When I ask him if the inclusionof the mythology of ancientGreece was something consciouson his part or if it flowed natural-ly, he replies, “Nothing flowed outvery easily when I was writingMiddlesex! But I was conscious

that the book would be a comedyand that it would also have mytho-logical references, but not in avery serious way.”

Eugenides completely under-stands the humor, pride and ironyof being Greek, saying, “It is a fea-ture of being Greek that you sortof think that you are connected tothe golden age of Athens andAlexander the Great was a distantuncle. Those kinds of feelings arefunny and I wanted to use themobviously.”

What is most interesting is thatEugenides says he doesn't think ofhimself as a Greek Americanwriter yet he has succeeded in cap-turing the very structure of our so-ciety from a Greek Americanpoint of view. “I'm an Americanwriter and I'm trying to under-stand my country,” Eugenidessays, “I never think about havingany duty to being Greek. I amGreek, I've learned to write aboutit.”

I tell Eugenides, “When I read

‘Middlesex' I felt this wonderfulsense of relief - finally! Names,words, thoughts, and expressions Irecognized as coming from myheritage were being used on thefront page of an American novel.It's about time!”

He chuckles, then says, “Ineverything I grew up reading, peo-ple were called Quinn or Foster. Itwas a big breakthrough for me tocall someone Stephanides in anovel. What I am interested in do-ing now is trying to let my Greekidentity exist in my books in a waythat it actually exists in my life,which is, definitely there, butmore in the background of my life.‘Middlesex' is a book that reallytreats it head-on and it's more ofan urban Greek, first generationGreek.”

I think it's more than that. Asthe world shrinks, naturally wequestion who we are, our place inthe world and where we are goingwith more frequency. In America,scholars such as Charles Moskos,

Nicholas Gage and others queryin print about the future of GreekAmerica. While even Tiresiasmight not be able to divine the an-swer to the future of Greek Amer-ica, Eugenides stakes a seriousclaim on the legitimacy andstrength of our present.

Christopher Janus once said,“We were brought up on mythsand we must believe in myths.Maybe the whole idea of the an-cient Greeks being in us is a bit ofa myth, but we still have to believeit ...”

Jeffrey Eugenides has written anovel that not only makes us be-lieve but illuminates a brilliantpath toward the future.

Antonia Callas is the Media Re-lations Manager for the HellenicMuseum and Cultural Center inChicago. She is a produced screen-writer and has written and directeda short film. In her spare time sheenjoys writing for various publica-tions.

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 2006 7

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THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 20068

By Beverley MacDougallSpecial to The National Herald

“Gates of Fire” by StevenPressfield is a testament for whypeople should read historical nov-els. Few storytellers can take youto a place that existed over 2,500years ago and make you believethat you are really there. StevenPressfield breathes new life into anold story.

We know the ending so whybother reading about brave menwho gave up their lives for theirideals? The answer is simple; theyhave something to teach us. Whatis courage? What is fear? Is lovethe opposite of fear? Pressfield's“Gates of Fire” tackles these time-less themes by using the ancientSpartans to dramatize the mean-ing of valor.

My next question is, “How cana writer, who when he started writ-ing the book had never been toGreece and until today only ad-mits to knowing one word ‘nai' inGreek, teach Greeks about them-selves?” Proof of his understand-ing of Hellenism lies in the factthat the author was made an hon-orary citizen of Sparta in 2003, andhis book achieved number one onthe Greek bestseller list. Maybethe muses had something to dowith the inspiration required toweave through history and revive astory that still needs to be heard.

Pressfield declares in his blogthat he wrote this book because, “Ithought Sparta always got a rawdeal. To readers of history, it wasalways Athens, Athens, Athens.”He also mentions how the men atThermopylae knew what sacrifice“the hour called for, and they kepttheir dry laconic wit right up to theend.” As proof of their courage, hecites the Dienekes' anecdote fromHerodotus: that when the Spartansfirst occupied the pass and had notyet seen the Persians, a native ofthe area reported to them that “thePersian archers were so many thatwhen they fired their volleys, themass of arrows actually blocked outthe sun.” Dienekes, quite undaunt-ed by this prospect, remarked witha laugh, “Good. Then we will haveour battle in the shade.”

In the actual Battle of Ther-mopylae there were no Greek sur-vivors. The author uses a make-be-lieve survivor of the battle,Xeones, who narrates his story. In-terestingly enough the storytelleris not Spartan but a Hellene fromAstakos who died at Thermopylaewith fellow Spartan and Thespian

warriors. But Apollo the FarDarter snaps death away fromhim. Feeling the Greek men'sagony, the god chooses Xeones totell the story of the battle, so it willnot perish with the men. Thus, thePersian king's physicians miracu-lously revive Xeones.

“Gates of Fire” begins withXeones blindfolded in the pres-ence of the Persian King Xerxesand his Immortals. Xeones is theonly man alive who can tell the sto-ry from a soldier's eye. King Xerx-es wants to know what kind of menwere these Spartans who in threedays killed 20,000 of his best men.How did they live? What madethem fight the way they did? Whatdid they believe in?

Pressfield's technique of creat-ing a non-Spartan to recount thesacred deeds of those who foughtand perished at the Gates of Fire isbrilliant. It would have appearedlike boasting (an impossibility fora Spartan warrior) had one of theThree Hundred survived to tell thetale. Rather, Xeones, the only wit-ness from the Spartan camp of theBattle of Thermopylae, reverentlyrecalls the lives of those withwhom he shared their final hours.Xeones, the narrator, has been inawe with the Spartan way of lifefrom childhood.

At the age of 10 the young nar-rator is orphaned, and his village isannihilated by the Argives. His fa-ther's slave, an old man by thename of Bruxieus, cares for theboy like a father and teaches himthat: “A man may call uponcourage only one way, in the rankswith his brothers-in-arms … Aman without a city is not a man.(pg. 39).” This theme of devotionto the city-state is a commonthread throughout the story.

When the narrator turns 12, heis caught stealing a goose. Hisfarmer captors mangle his handsso badly that Xeones realizes thathe will never be able to grasp aspear like a warrior. Almost halfdead the child resigns that thespear is an inelegant weapon andthat he will use the bow to pre-serve himself.

After Bruxieus dies, the Spar-tans take in young Xeones andplace him on a farm to work withthe helots, but his physical weak-nesses make him useless. As hewas born a freeman, at the age of14 he is elevated to the class ofsparring partner for the youths en-rolled in the “agoge” (the 13 yeartraining program that turned boysinto Spartan warriors). He is as-

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signed to Alexandros, son ofOlympieus, a Spartan polemarch.Each of the boys in the program isassigned a mentor (other than hisfather), who protects, teaches,guides him and becomes his confi-dant. Alexandros' mentor,Dienekes, was the bravest of allthe Spartan warriors according toHerodotus. Xeones learns by lis-tening to Dienekes while he isteaching Alexandros, and eventu-ally Xeones is rewarded and be-comes Dienekes' squire.

The reader learns, along withAlexandros, values and idealsthrough the deeds and words ofother Spartans. Dienekes, mentor

to both Alexandros and the read-er, teaches the principles thatmade the Spartans the greatestfighters. For example Dienekesasks his protégé: “Answer thisAlexandros, ‘When our country-men triumph in battle, what is itthat defeats the foe?'” He answershis question, “Fear. Their own feardefeats our enemies (pg. 34).”

Xeones and Alexandros areoverwhelmed when they witness aSpartan youth brutally whipped todeath not for stealing - but for get-ting caught. The young soldier iswhipped to death because he re-fused to call for an end to the lash-ings, as was the Spartan way.Dienekes comforts them by ex-plaining the meaning of courage.He describes how the flesh pro-duces fear. When the young Spar-tan soldier was whipped to deathbecause he did not call to end thelashings, the boy went beyond fear,beyond his body. That nobility ofdeed was more powerful than sur-vival.

Pressfield goes into great detailabout the weapons, armor and rit-uals of these ancient warriors. Hisdepth of research makes this his-torical novel convincing. Howeverhis choice of coarse language is de-batable. He seems to justify it as atactic used to dispel fear. The

Spartans believed that any armymight win while it still has its legsunder it. The real test comes whenall strength is fled and the menmust produce victory on will alone(pg. 68). One method that theSpartans employed to de-person-alize the act of war was to makethe enemy faceless and nameless.The use of obscene words andphrases was also a tactic used tode-mystify the enemy. It is at thispoint that I believe the authortakes too much liberty in usingcoarse language. The usual filthyvocabulary, which we hear today inany movie or book about trainingrecruits to become soldiers, is evi-dent in the first part of the book.Perhaps, when humans have to killone another they must find a wayto cope with that fear. Coarse lan-guage may be the remedy.

“Gates of Fire,” as a whole, ap-peals to women as well as men be-cause of the way the author caststhe role of women in ancienttimes. The Spartan women are notmere baby machines for futurewarriors. They too have their placein the “polis.” Pressfield's bestwriting is when he describes thecourage and the strength ofwomen like Arete, Dienekes' wife,and Paraleia, Alexandros' mother.

Spartan women, according tothe writer, surpass all other Greekwomen in beauty. One of theircharms is that they do not considerit as important as other Greekwomen do. Their goddess isArtemis, the Huntress, notAphrodite, the Goddess of Love.

One of the most touching pas-sages in the book is when Xeones issummoned to Arete's house to beinterrogated by Alexandros' moth-er, Paraleia. Naturally what Par-aleia wants to know most of all iswhether her son possesses courage.She wants Xeones to “evaluate his‘andreia,' his manly virtue, as ayouth who must soon take his placeas a warrior (pg. 145).”

The lady Arete asks Xeones an-other question: Why does he haveso much loyalty for the Spartans,when he is not one of them? He re-sponds that when he no longer hada city, he was free to choose one.When the lady asks him why hechose Sparta when greater oppor-tunity existed elsewhere, his replygoes to the heart of the book:“Other cities produce monumentsand poetry; Sparta produces men(pg. 149).”

When the Three Hundred arechosen by Leonidas, one of thetwo Spartan kings, he calls on Par-aleia to speak with her. He statesthat many have speculated how hechose the three hundred: bribes,favors or favorites? “I chose themnot for their own valor, lady, butfor that of their women (pg. 372).”Leonidas goes on to say that when

the Three Hundred have died inbattle all of Greece will look uponSparta to see how they will bear it.The Spartans will, in turn, look atthe women of the fallen warriorsto take their example - they willkeep a dry eye to honor their dead.

Pressfield's historical novelabout the Battle of Thermopylae isa must read for not only militaryhistory buffs, but for anyone who isinterested in understanding thehuman condition. Ultimately, wewill all face death. It is somethingthat most of us fear yet we striveforward in spite of our mortal fate.Fear is cast away by courage. TheSpartans gave us the example ofhow to be courageous when thereappears to be no hope on the hori-zon. Their deeds are an insight in-to the human emotions that zigzag

through the realms of courage andfear. The author underlines theprinciples of the Spartan way oflife to exemplify the meaning ofcourage, and how important thisvirtue was for that society, as wellas how integral it should for ours.

Although the author allows usto escape with him to a placewhere history meets legend on acraggy mountain pass in northernGreece over 2,500 years ago, theprinciples and ideals of that timemust never become a thing of thepast. This book is extremely perti-nent for every century. It delves in-to the psychology of sacrifice andduty for home and country. It is nowonder that “Gates of Fire” hasbecome part of the reading list forthe cadets of the American NavalAcademy at Annapolis. This book

is an excellent read because theauthor suspends our disbelief longenough to teach us the glory of thepast. Be prepared to laugh, cry andfeel like a Spartan - even if it is on-ly for a short time.

For additional information onancient Sparta as well as Greekwarfare, the interested reader canconsult non-fictional accountssuch as those of Victor Hanson,“The Western Way of War: In-fantry Battle in Classical Greece”(2000) and Paul Cartledge, “TheSpartans” (2003).

Beverley MacDougall is a free-lance writer based in VancouverCanada. She has studied the historyand culture of ancient and modernGreece and has traveled extensivelythroughout the country.

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 2006 9

Steven Pressfield

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 200610

By Dan GeorgakasSpecial to The National Herald

The Greek American publicbest knows Charles C. Moskos asthe author of “Greek Americans:Struggle and Success,” by far themost widely read history of theGreeks in America. Moskos alsoenjoys a heady reputation amongscholars. In a poll of the leadingwriters on Greek America recentlycompleted by Queens College,“Greek Americans” was named asone of the top 10 books in thefield. Moskos also has written ex-tensively in journals, given impor-tant speeches before organizationssuch as AHEPA, and supportedthe research of others. For manyyears, Moskos, a sociologist, alsohas taught a heavily attendedcourse on Greek America atNorthwestern University where heis now professor emeritus.

The American public knows an-other Charles Moskos. When hemakes guest appearances on pro-grams like ABC's Night Line,Moskos does not talk about GreekAmerica, but about the UnitedStates military. Unlike so many oftelevision's chattering heads,Moskos actually knows what he istalking about. He is universallyrecognized as American's leadingmilitary sociologist. The WallStreet Journal has gone so far as todub him the quintessential behind-the-scenes expert. That reputationstems from more than fourdecades of fieldwork in every sig-nificant deployment of UnitedStates forces. His work as a mili-tary sociologist sometimes takeson a Greek aspect. In the 1970s hespent eight months with the UNpeacekeepers in Cyprus and in the1980s, he was one of the firstAmericans to visit Albania. Thelatest honor he has received re-garding such work is that RobertBishop, a financier, has estab-lished a Charles C. Moskos Chairfor Public Policies at Northwest-ern University.

“Greek Americans: Struggle and Success”

Charles C. Moskos tells peoplehe has just met that he prefers thatthey address him as Charlie. Thatflair for putting people at ease isevident in the writing style of“Greek Americans.” Starting withTheodore, the first known Greekto arrive in America (1528)through the analysis of the presi-dential bid of Michael Dukakis,Moskos offers an account of theGreeks in America that is asmooth read for the general publicyet scrupulous in its authenticity

and detail. Moskos sees himself asthe heir of Theodore Saloutos, thefirst professional historian to writeabout the Greeks in America.Moskos, however, is not justSaloutos-for-beginners. In addi-tion to carrying forward Greek his-tory three decades beyond whereSaloutos ended, Moskos's com-mentary on Greek Americanpoliticians, his analysis of commu-nity dynamics, and his memoirabout his own family are signifi-cant additions to the Saloutos her-itage.

The account by Moskos of thepresidential campaign of Dukakisand the political tide that pro-duced him is compelling. The erawhen Paul Tsongas, Paul Sarbanesand John Brademas had enormousinfluence in the federal govern-ment, a time when the GreekAmerican lobby also was a force tobe reckoned with, is vividlybrought to life. We learn how anelement in the defeat of Dukakiswas American xenophobia.Moskos also neatly contrasts theview that Dukakis failed becausehe was too Greek and too ethnicwith the view that he was notGreek or ethnic enough. His judg-ments are shrewd and insightful.His concludes that, “More thananything else, Michael Dukakiswas the beneficiary of the goodname made by Greek Americansin their home communities.”

Equally absorbing is Moskos'autobiographical chapter. Much tothe consternation of rigid acade-mics and much to the joy of read-ers, this kind of memoir has be-come common among Greek his-torians. Such self-reflection addsconsiderable verve to chapters thatare told in the third person. Forexample, in a single sentenceabout his own Epirus-born father,Moskos captures a multitude ofthemes about the Greek immi-grants, “In December, 1916, my fa-ther - who had been born underOttoman rule, who spoke Alban-ian as his first language, who wasethnically Greek, who was pre-sumably recorded as an Italian im-migrant, and who was to becomean American citizen - arrived atEllis Island.”

His mother's family was alsofrom Epirus, but they immigratedto Constantinople where she wasborn. They would make their wayto America in 1918. Moskos re-veals that his grandmother lived inthe United States for 50 yearswithout ever learning English,while his mother, having immi-grated at an early age, spoke Eng-lish without an accent. The fami-ly's struggles and successes per-

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sonalize the broader story of theGreeks in America that Moskos isrelating. Capturing yet another as-pect of being Greek American,Moskos end this section by dis-cussing his travels to the old coun-try and his discovery that hisGreekness could be a great advan-tage when working abroad.

Military SociologistThe co-author with Moskos of

“All That We Can Be: Black Lead-ership and Racial Integration -The Army Way” is John SibleyButler, an African American (NY:Basic Books, 1996). In their intro-duction the authors assert thatone of them benefited from affir-mation action. But it was not But-ler, who was the fourth person inhis family to achieve a college edu-cation. The affirmative action wasfor Moskos, who got accepted toPrinceton despite some poor mathgrades because Princeton wantedto recruit students from the South-west. This cleverly made pointabout the complexity of affirma-tive action is a signal to readersthat Moskos and Butler are notgoing to give the usual politicallycorrect argument on how to inte-grate an American institution.

The major thesis advanced byMoskos and Butler is that affirma-tive action as practiced in universi-ties and elsewhere is inappropriatefor the military. In the military,there must be absolute obedienceto higher command and that onlyhappens if officers are known tohave met the same standard of ex-cellence. The authors, of course,know full well that African Ameri-cans often face official and unoffi-cial discrimination during their ed-ucation. Their solution is to havethe military create schools thatanyone can attend to master theskills needed to advance in rank.Soldiers can take the courses as of-ten as needed, but ultimately theyhave to pass the standardized ex-ams with no compensation fortheir race. The authors think thearmy should be aware of colorwithout discriminating. Thus, if aunit has too few or too manyAfrican Americans, they can berotated with other ethnic groups.The authors do not think the mili-tary should be concerned aboutwhat racial terms soldiers usewhen speaking with one another,but only that their behavior in re-gard to other soldiers meets allarmy standards.

Moskos had been advancingsuch ideas since the 1960s whenhis fieldwork showed that theVietnam effort was seriouslyweakened by racial animosity.Many of his ideas had been put in-to practice and he notes that thearmy is now the most integratedinstitution in the United States.His expertise is so valued that for-

eign nations frequently call him asa consultant. The South AfricanDefense Ministry, for one, askedhis advice on how to integratetheir post-apartheid army.

The debate about gays in themilitary has also concernedMoskos. In a noted article in 1991,he outlined numerous problemshe thought would arise if openlygay soldiers were posted in inti-mate military quarters. His viewswere in sharp contrast to a $1.3million dollar study by the RandCorporation that posited therewould be few problems. This intel-lectual debate became a policymatter when President Clinton de-cided to ease the ban on gays inthe military and immediately raninto problems. Clinton called onMoskos for advice.

The solution offered by Moskosmade national headlines whensummed up in the phrase, “Don'tAsk, Don't Tell.” The basis of thisidea was that the military shouldbe sexually blind rather than sexu-ally judgmental. The gay move-ment didn't like the solution, con-sidering it a slight to the concep-tion of equal rights, and many inthe military thought it was too per-missive. Moskos replies that thiswas the best solution given the sit-uation as gays would be judgedsolely on their military perfor-mance. The policy remains in ef-fect. When faced by the accusationthat his policy is hypocritical, asmiling Moskos candidly respondsthat all great civilizations arebased on hypocrisy.

“Greek Americans”The Third Edition

With the assistance of PeterMoskos, his son, Moskos is work-ing on a third edition of “GreekAmericans.” The Moskos teamaims to carry the story of GreekAmerica through to the presentera. Some of the themes to be ex-plored are evident in Moskos'most recent writing and speaking.Among his favorite topics are theteaching of the Greek language,the Greek Orthodox Church, andthe state of Greek American Stud-ies. He has spoken about these inan interview in this newspaper andhas written important essays thatare included in “Reading GreekAmerica” which is edited by Spy-ros Orfanos (NY: Pella, 1992).

Moskos argues that since mostGreek Americans of the third gen-eration do not speak or readGreek, the language retentionstrategies used for decades need tobe rethought. He believes the em-phasis should shift from primaryschools to language education incollege. He states that the collegeyears are when individuals serious-ly define who they want to be. Giv-en that most colleges require

learning at least one foreign lan-guage, having attractive Greeklanguage programs would met apractical need while simultaneous-ly bringing young men and womeninto contact with contemporaryGreece. Obviously, Greek lan-guage programs already exist inmany universities, but Moskos issaying that supporting such pro-grams must become a major com-munity priority. He would like tosee Greek Americans spend awhole year studying in Greece it-self in a junior-year abroad pro-gram, but he also recognizes thegreat value in more modest effortssuch as summer seminars inGreece.

Another topic Moskos writesabout passionately is Orthodoxy.Although he understands quitewell that not all Greeks are GreekOrthodox, he knows that the onlymass-based national organizationof Greeks is the Orthodox Church.That being so, he believes the fu-ture of Greek America is inextri-

cably linked with what happens inthe church. He advises artfullyAmericanizing the church in amanner that keeps it as an incuba-tor of Greekness while openingthe door to converts. He notes thatin Great Britain, Orthodoxy is thefastest growing Christian denomi-nation.

Moskos bases his views on hisfamiliarity with established andongoing scholarship on GreekAmerica. Although he does not doa lot of primary research himself,he is very supportive of and atten-tive to the work of scholars such asthe National Herald's own SteveFrangos. Moskos laments the real-ity that Greek American Studiesare not treated very seriously bythe majority of Modern GreekStudies programs and that Greekphilanthropists seem reluctant tofund Greek American researchprojects. He notes that the last ma-jor conference of Greek Americanscholars, one that he was instru-mental in creating, was in 1989

when the Saloutos papers wereopened at the University of Min-nesota. A new major conference islong overdue.

Moskos is neither optimistic,nor pessimistic, about the future ofGreek America. He has writteneloquently about the virtual end ofGreek immigration to America.Rather than judging this a dooms-day scenario, he thinks that thelack of new immigrants should bea spur for Greek America to knowitself better and to set out a ratio-nal course for survival. In “GreekAmerica,” he writes, “Between theScylla of assimilation and theCharydis of ethnic chauvinism, thestraits are narrow. So far GreekAmericans have navigated well.May they stay on course.”

Dan Georgakas is Director of theGreek American Studies Project atQueens College. His book, “MyDetroit: Growing Up Greek andAmerican in the Motor City,” isscheduled for publication this fall.

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 2006 11

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 200612

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 2006 13

By Penelope KarageorgeSpecial to The National Herald

When Leandros Papathanasiouleft “Voukarini, the smallest townin Macedonia,” for New York Cityin 1952, the 17-year-old had notyet decided on a life calling. Firstthere were stints washing dishesand working as a busboy in the Au-tomat, then sewing for a furrier.Fortuitously for Greek Americanletters, the furrier was near Hel-lenic Printing, on Ninth Avenueand 26th Street. During his sparemoments, Papathanasiou enjoyedwatching the linotype operators atwork there. When a partner inHellenic Printing offered him ajob on a linotype machine, it was“Eureka!” for Papathanasiou. Oneof those people with “ink in theirveins,” he fell in love with printingand publishing and began an im-portant career that would lead tothe founding of Athens Printing in1962, and Pella Publishing in 1974,named after the ancient capital ofMacedonia.

These intertwined enterpriseshave made an extraordinary con-tribution to Greek American intel-lectual and literary life. Cited bymany as the unsung hero of Greek

American studies, Papathanasiousays, “It's work that I like. I don'ttire of it.”

Papathanasiou's story is bothtypically and uniquely GreekAmerican, how he evolved fromthe Greek world to the Americanworld without losing touch with hisroots, or the motivating impulse tokeep Hellenism alive. For in-stance, he began his serious read-ing in 1958 while in the U.S. Armystationed in San Juan, Puerto Ri-co. Working in the library, he dis-covered literature including thegreat writer Nikos Kazantzakis.‘The Greek Passion' had just beenpublished in English, and as soonas I saw it, I put it away for myself.From two until seven o'clock,that's when I did my reading. Sothis was a good job, and I was evenpaid for it. Fifty cents an hour,”Papathanasiou recalls with a smile.

A charming man with drive anddetermination that can only becalled “Greek,” he has almost sin-gle-handedly published and kepttwo important art and intellectualpublications thriving and viable:The Charioteer, a critically praisedannual cultural review, and theJournal of the Hellenic Diaspora,an academic publication focused

on Modern Greek Studies with aspecial emphasis on the explo-ration of Greek America. TheJournal can be found in the li-braries of Ivy League schools andimportant universities, and in allschools with programs focusing onmodern Greece. Says Papathana-siou, “I believe the Journal is go-ing to be of help to anyone who isgoing to do some research onwhat's going on in Greek Ameri-ca.”

The Journal's distinguished ad-visory board includes scholars Pro-fessor Emeritus Spyros Vryonis,Jr. of New York University andProfessor Emeritus Robert Faglesof Princeton University.

Alexander Kitroeff, an editor ofthe Journal and an associate pro-fessor at Haverford University,one of the United States' top tenliberal arts colleges, says: “TheJournal of the Hellenic Diasporais unique in many ways. No otherjournal has really focused on theimportant study of Greek-Ameri-ca. And one of the truly unique as-pects of the Journal is Leandros'input and personality. He's devot-ed tremendous time and energy toit. Other journals are backed bystudies associations or particular

academic departments, or theyhave some institutional back-up.Not the Journal. It's underwritten,supported and produced by Lean-dros in all ways with the help of theeditors, and it's survived as long asit has thanks to Leandros' perse-verance, and the editors.”

“Leandros is very particular,and anxious that it always comesout on time. He's known to havephoned the editors up and say,‘We need to bring it out. Send mesomething.' In a sense, he's the un-sung hero of Modern Greek Stud-ies in the United States. He's anextremely modest man, and shiesaway from a lot of publicity. Hedoes it because he believes in itand doesn't want to show off inany way. The result is that notmany people realize how impor-tant he's been.”

Editor Dan Georgakas, direc-tor of the Greek American StudiesProject at Queens College and aNew York University professor,who has worked with Papathana-siou for years as a reader and edi-torial advisor, sees the Journal'srole as crucial. “The Journal of theDiaspora is an independent schol-arly journal which doesn't oweanything to big foundations. It's aplace where scholars can expresstheir views and plays a crucial rolein keeping Greek studies from dry-ing up and merely being the effortof eager scholars on an academictrack.”

Professor Kostas Myrsiades,another Journal editor says: “I'veknown Leandros since the 70swhen I became a co-editor of theJournal. I believe him to be one ofthe most important figures in theadvancement of Modern GreekStudies in this country. Because ofhim the Journal of the HellenicDiaspora has been able to publishimportant articles on Greek cul-ture, which other journals wouldhave been reluctant to accept be-cause of their politics. Leandroshas enabled certain importantvoices to be heard, which wouldnot otherwise be heard. He has al-so provided an avenue for contem-porary Greek culture through Pel-la's … Modern Greek Research(Series).”

The Modern Greek ResearchSeries that emerged from the Cen-ter for Byzantine and ModernGreek Studies at Queens Collegeincludes “The Greek AmericanFamily in Transition” and “Read-ing Greek-America.”

The Charioteer, an annual re-view of modern Greek culture and

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 200614

Pella Publishing:Keeping Greek American Letters AliveCongratulations

to

Greek Americanauthors

for their contributionin keeping alive

our heritageand culture.

Through their storieswe learn about our distant pastin the old land,

Asia Minor or mainland Greece,

about the lives of our grandfathers

and fathers,their hard work,

difficulties, successes,

hopes and dreams.

These men and women take the

Greek experience to a wider audience making our children

proud of their heritage and our fellow

Americans aware of who we are.

www.papadatos.com

Ιερός Ναός Αναστάσεως

Τίρανα

a b

a literary treasure trove, has sur-vived while other reviews havecome and gone. Special issues ofThe Charioteer have focused, forinstance, on poets Nikos Gatsos,also a great modern music lyricist,George Seferis and Yannis Ritsos.A special double issue presented acollection of the work of severalimportant Greek poets. A recentissue, “The Greek American Ex-perience” including the poetry ofGeorge Economou and NicholasSamaras, as well as an excerptfrom an unpublished novel by He-len Papanikolas and an intriguingessay on film-maker and authorElia Kazan.

Professor Harry J. Psomiades,founder and director of the Cen-ter, one of the first Modern GreekStudies Programs in the U.S.,worked with Papathanasiou andPella from the beginning and says,“Nobody can ever take the placeof Leandros.” According to Pso-miades, Pella, in the great tradi-tion of small book publishers, es-chewed commercialism to makescholastic significance a priority.Pella published much-neededworks for minimal financial profit.“We could not have taught thecourses without the books,” saysPsomiades.

“Leandros Papathanasiou isthe longest-serving member of ourAdvisory Council. He supportedus during those early years whenwe had no money at all and helpedus get started with our publica-tions series. Our first book cameout in 1976 on Cyprus. And sincethen we've published about 14 or15 volumes. During the Junta

years, he did a lot of printing forstudent organizations and gavehimself in every way possible topromoting Greek letters and hasbeen at it ever since. He's a man ofgreat character and a great “patri-otis,” as we say, very much in-volved with Hellenic issues, and ofcourse he's a stalwart Macedon-

ian.”Furthermore, Psomiades points

out: “If we don't have books, wereally don't have Greek studies assuch. The books we used in ourclasses were published by him at atime when we really didn't havefunding, and we needed the books,and he obliged. He's just a fantas-

tic person. In Queens College,from the very beginning, we werethe only ones to consider GreekAmerican studies an important as-pect of the Greek studies program.We had the largest Greek Ameri-can student population in thecountry. So at one point, we had1,800 students. Today there areabout 1,000 students at the collegeout of 17,000 students, studentsfrom Greece or Cyprus.”

According to Psomiades, re-search and publishing will contin-ue to be vital to the survival ofGreek America. “As a communitywe're probably shrinking, andthere are problems in terms of thecommunity as such, that's why weneed historians and sociologists.Obviously there's a problem withlimited immigration, with inter-marriage, with the fact that ouryoung people now have several an-cestries that they can call upon, soyou don't have an automatic audi-ence. You have to work on it. Thebooks are important,” he says.

Along with work in academicstudies, Pella also publishes ex-quisite poetry books, with the“Lady of the Vineyards” by YannisRitsos a top seller. The back list in-cludes several important, ground-breaking works, among them“American Aphrodite, BecomingFemale in Greek America,” byfeminist Constance Callinicos, and“Realms of Gold, an Iliad of Our

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 2006 15

Continued on page 20

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Leandros Papathanasiou, is joined by his sons, Spyros, on the left, and Thomas, on the right, at Pella Pub-lishing, 337 West 36th Street in New York.

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By Steve FrangosSpecial to The National Herald

Internationally renownedwriter, Harry Mark Petrakis, whowill turn 83 years old this June, isstill hard at work. He is most oftenassociated with the Chicago Real-ism School of writing, which in-cludes Nelson Algren, Saul Bellowand Kurt Vonnegut, among oth-ers. The short stories, novels, es-says, plays and other works by thiscollective group of authors arenow recognized as among Ameri-can literature's most critically ac-claimed literary achievements.

In a career spanning nearly 60years, Petrakis has written 10 nov-els, four volumes of short stories,three collections of memoirs andessays, three biographies/historiesand has seen his movie script, “ADream of Kings,” made into a ma-jor motion picture.

Most recently, several stageplays and made-for-televisionmovies based on his short storieshave also been produced. Thispast May 11, he received an hon-orary doctorate from IndianaUniversity.

Even after all his literary suc-cess, however, Petrakis is carefulto note that it took him nearly 10years to first get into print.

While many new writers ofGreek descent are publishingmore than ever before, it is HarryMark Petrakis who is most associ-ated by critics and readers alikewith the Greek American experi-ence, and especially with theGreektown of Chicago's fabledHalsted Street.

When The National Herald in-terviewed Petrakis on April 26, hewas in his studio in Chesterton, In-diana. The text of the interviewfollows below:

TNH: What is your latest pro-ject?

PETRAKIS: It's a sequel, 25years in the making, to “The Hourof the Bell,” the first book on theGreek War of Independence,which I wrote between 1973 and1976. Since it covered only the firstyear of the War of Independencein 1821, war in the mountains, andwar at sea and war on the island ofCrete and the viewpoint of thePrincess of the Mani, PetrobeyMavromichalis' wife, that's why Iplanned to do at least one or possi-bly two other novels. But life andother books got in the way, so itwas only a couple of years ago thatI thought, at this point in my life, itmight be a good final work, a big

work for me, to either succeed orfail on. I started it, and have about95,000 words out of what I imaginewill be a book of about 130,000words. This will carry the War for-ward, probably ending somewherein the area of October 1827, whenthe combined (Great) Powers - thefleets of France, England and Rus-sia - destroyed the Turkish fleet ofalmost 83-84 ships at Navarino.Now, the war went on for severalyears beyond that - until 1830,when the Great Powers, again, im-posed a truce on Turkey. But forall intents and purposes, afterNavarino, the Turks could not win.So I'm taking some of the samecharacters from “The Hour of theBell” - not all of them, but some ofthem - and utilizing them in thenew book, “The Shepherds ofShadows.”

TNH: What's the significanceof the new title?

PETRAKIS: “The Shepherdsof Shadows” comes from a refer-ence, which I made a note on whenI was working on “The Hour of theBell.” Some writer of the era madereference to the Cretans as shep-herds of freedom, and becausefreedom is so elusive, they were, ineffect, shepherds of shadows. Thecontracts I've signed are withSouthern Illinois University Press,and the book, probably at the ear-liest, will be published in the Fallof 2007. At the same time, theyplan to reissue “The Hour of theBell,” both in new hardback edi-tions - if I finish it. All of theseplans are contingent upon my be-ing able to finish “Shepherds ofShadows.”

TNH: Do you feel you can fin-ish the new novel?

PETRAKIS: Well, I think so.But you know the Roman philoso-pher and statesman Seneca wrote,“Never rise in the morning think-ing you'll find your life the same asit was the night before.” So I don'ttake anything for granted at an agewhen health can, within an hour,become an issue. As it is, I workwith much less energy than I had20 years ago. So I work in shortersegments, in shorter increments oftime. But I think the quality ofwhat I'm doing is as good as any-thing I've done in the past. Still, weare Greeks, and we do not pre-sume.

TNH: Why did you choose thisparticular topic for what might beyour last novel?

PETRAKIS: To my knowledge,no English language novel hasever been written on this war. It is

a forgotten moment that deservesmore attention. In part because, inthe end, the Great Powers werepressured (to aid the Greeks) bytheir respective populations, whowere caught up by Greek poetryand art: Delacroix in France, By-ron in England and a number ofthese other (European and Ameri-can) poets writing of small, suffer-ing, enslaved Greece, which hadgiven the West its culture and theorigins of its civilization.

TNH: Since 1980, there hasbeen a growing trend amongGreek American writers to self-publish. Others say that, unlessyour book is issued by a majorpublishing house, your work iswithout value. What is your re-sponse to that?

PETRAKIS: It's best to gothrough some publisher. There aremany fine small publishers today.The ease with which books cannow be published has broughtmany more small publishers intothe field. It used to be that, tomake a printing worthwhile, apublisher had to print 1,000 or1,500 copies. Now, firms likewww.iUniverse.com can print fiveor 10 copies; in other words, theydon't inventory books anymore;they simply print on demand. So,the number of books published - Iforget the exact figure - we're talk-ing of a huge number each year, toinclude new books and thenreprints. In that vast mass ofbooks, it's hard to get a review; it'shard to get a publisher. The majorpublishers look for blockbusterbooks (and proven authors), like abook by John Grisham, or ScottTurow or Victoria Holt. So if youwant to see your book publishedand you've made the effort (to gothrough the submission processwith the large publishing houses),then it's now feasible, if you have afew thousand dollars to spare, toget some copies made. Spend a lit-tle money on the artwork. Makesure you have a nice looking dustjacket, good quality paper and therest. And get it published. I don'tthink the younger writer shouldrush to self-publish. There is a nat-ural inclination to want to see yourwork in print. Just wait. Try theconventional route. If not with thefirst book, then with the secondbook, with the third book. The im-portant thing is not to get disillu-sioned. I've been to writer's con-ferences where I hear writers say,“Oh hell. I put in two or threeyears into a book, and it comes outand barely gets any reviews. It sells

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 200616

The Lion in Winter:An Interview with Harry Mark Petrakis

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barely enough to make back sixmonths of the time I spent on it, letalone than three years.” Butyou've got to get over this businessof thinking that you're going to be-come famous or wealthy throughthe work. You do the work be-cause it's what you want to do.And you think beyond the imme-diate returns. If they come, that'sfine. Whatever honors, awards andmonies come, that's fine. You'renot going to reject it. But that isn'tthe reason you're kept working.

TNH: Your time in Hollywoodis not as well known. Can you tellus something about that period?

PETRAKIS: We were theretwo years (1968-69). I did thescript of “Dream of Kings.” Thenwe had some problems with it. Thestudio thought it was a wonderfulscript. They offered the part ofMatsoukas to Dean Martin be-cause he was top box-office drawat the time. He is a good actor anda fine singer and personality, buthe would have been totally wrongfor Matsoukas. He didn't have thegravitas (heaviness, seriousness)for Matsoukas. Then they offeredthe part to Omar Sharif. Eventual-ly, we got Anthony Quinn andIrene Pappas. After that, I wentover to Paramount to work onwhat was to become “Nick theGreek,” for which a finished scriptstill exists. But I really didn't carefor the environment. I didn't carefor the culture which we foundourselves immersed in. You thinkthat you're immune to it. You

think you have enough stabilityand sense. But you still get caughtup in it.

TNH: In what sense was it neg-ative?

PETRAKIS: It's negative inthat everything has to do with thetrappings of success. I drove aChevy, which we had driven downto California. So I was taking myfamily out to dinner, to a nicerestaurant one night, and the car

in front of me was a BMW, and thecar behind me a Mercedes. And Igot the impression from the car at-tendants that I was somehow afailure. I felt their scorn. There's acorrosive quality to this way of life.I was going into the studio every-day. We were living very well witha weekly stipend. We were in a stu-dio-provided home, a luxurioushouse that, in California today,would be selling for two or three

million dollars. But I didn't like it.I sensed in another way, too, that itwould probably have a detrimentaleffect on our family. The availabil-ity of women there - attractivewomen trying to get ahead in theindustry - had been proven to meseveral times. We made the deci-sion to come back. And I don't re-gret it. We could have stayed onthere and made money, probablymore money than I've made in theensuing years. And yet I don'tknow that Diane and I would havebeen married, or what would havehappened to our son. And I cer-tainly know that I probably wouldnot have written the books I'vewritten back here.

TNH: In your latest volume of34 short stories, “Collected Sto-ries,” I was forced to pause be-tween stories. Not out of a lack ofinterest, but because of their emo-tional impact. This isn't “enter-tainment” in a light sense.

PETRAKIS: Frank O'Connorsaid, “A short story should be amoment of revelation.” It shouldprovide some aspect of enlighten-ment to the reader about some as-pect of life and human beings. Andso I think my stories, even the fun-ny ones, are, in a way, small illumi-nations on life, and as a conse-quence, you think about them af-terwards. In other words, theydon't just bounce off like drops ofwater. They should settle, and youfeel the emotion of the people (inthe stories). Sometimes, in the hu-morous stories, that emotion is

one of laughter and relief. Thenagain, in some of the darker sto-ries, there is a tension that it leavesyou with because you sense thecomplexity of human beings. Icame to writing through the shortstory. “The Hour of the Bell” and“Shepherds of Shadows” will bemy longest novels because I have avast canvas I'm working on. But Ican't write a long bulky novel be-cause my training has been in theshort story. So I tend to set thescene briefly and handle dialoguesparingly, and there aren't longpassages simply of description andelaboration to make these big pon-derous books. I'd like to be able towrite a “War and Peace,” but I'm ashort story writer, and I think agood short story writer. I think theshort stories I've written are someof the best written in this countryin the last 50 years. That they dealmainly with Greeks is incidental tothe fact that they are little revela-tions with life.

TNH: Thank you for your time,and we look forward to “Shep-herds of Shadows.”

PETRAKIS: Thank you.

Steve Frangos, a regular contrib-utor to The National Herald, is afreelance writer who resides inRound Lake, Illinois. He travelsthroughout the country investigatingand gathering historical informationabout the Greek American commu-nity. Readers interested in contact-ing him are encouraged to e-mailhim at greekwrite@yahoo.com.

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 2006 17

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THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 200618

By Marianthe KaranikasSpecial to The National Herald

This is no cold pastoral, thispoignant tale of the struggles ofAngelos Vlahos, a lad from a poorvillage in Arcadia, near the barrenVirgin Mountain. Unlike Keats'sylvan paradise, the real Arcadia isa rugged, mountainous and isolat-ed region. The real Arcadians facepersistent drought, starvation anddisease.

Angelos Vlahos is a bright boy,his village schoolteacher tells him.He can make a better life for him-self and his family. As the novelopens, Angelos leaves his villageto travel to Polis, to take the en-trance exams for high school.

“The road is a door to civiliza-tion,” Angelos thinks, recallingsomething he read in grade school,as he tries to avoid the rocks anddry, thorny acorns in his path tothe high school. Angelos also re-members the words of his teacherand first mentor, Nikos Theoharis,who says that civilization origi-nates in the countryside not the“polis,” and speaks of the Arcadi-an mountains as “eternal monu-ments,” where it is much easier tohear God than in the bustlingtowns. Nevertheless, Theoharisurges Angelos to leave the village,attend high school in Polis, andfind his destiny.

A coming-of-age story, “Arca-dia, My Arcadia” by Nicholas D.Kokonis has been compared to“The Catcher in the Rye” and “APortrait of the Artist as a YoungMan.” But Angelos is far more vir-tuous and less cynical than HoldenCaulfield. Nor does he suffer a cri-sis of faith as does StephenDedalus. Like Dedalus, Angelosconfronts many obstacles. In Polis,Angelos lives in a small room in abarn strewn with hay and eatsmeager servings of potatoes and“bobota” (cornbread). He suffersbeatings at the hands of his class-mates who call him, “Hobnails”and “Garlic Boy.” He often skipsclass to return to the village andhelp his parents who are exploitedby the corrupt village priest. YetAngelos endures, with his faith in-tact, inspiring us to live ourdreams.

“Angelos is like the Arcadianwildflowers that grow out of sheerrock, with no trace of nourish-ment,” Kokonis says. “He survivesthrough faith in God and faith inhimself.”

Education, family and honor

stand as the cornerstones of thisfaith. Angelos wishes to becomewell educated to help his family.Deeply religious, he strives tomaintain his integrity, even whento do so he must defy authority.

“Arcadia, My Arcadia” is sub-tle, evocative and uplifting. Thisriveting tale is a must-read not on-ly for Greeks and Greek Ameri-cans but also for all those whostrive toward intellectual excel-lence while cultivating spiritualvirtue.

“In an increasingly callousworld where traditional values arequickly eroding,” Kokonis says,“Arcadia, My Arcadia” is a re-markable tale worth telling be-

cause it stresses ... the limitless in-fluence of education, the power offamily, and the potential of the in-dividual.”

The Influence of EducationEducation, Kokonis maintains,

is a great equalizer of the condi-tions of humankind. At the heartof this transformation stands thededicated teacher.

“With ‘Arcadia, My Arcadia,'”Kokonis says, “I wished to payhomage to those dedicated teach-ers who patiently and compassion-ately mentor the disenfranchised

new generations in one-roomschoolhouses in every poverty-stricken corner of the earth. A for-tunate beneficiary of such a men-tor's influence, I always thought Ishould write a story as a paeanhonoring him and those who maketeaching the best profession thereis. To paraphrase Henry Adams, ateacher affects eternity; one cannever tell where his or her influ-ence stops.”

Two mentors influence Ange-los Vlahos on the road toward in-tellectual excellence: his villageschoolteacher, Nikos Theoharis,and his high school historyteacher, Zises Palamides. Bothmen help to instill in Angelos a

thirst for knowledge and a sense ofpurpose. And most important,these educators encourage Ange-los to draw his strength from hisArcadian roots, whether he plantsa mulberry tree on the mountain-side or writes an essay in the city.

Palamides advises Angelos towrite with words and imagery, tolet the Arcadian farmers and shep-herds fire his imagination. “Thenyour mind will be fitted to the mat-ter as the hand plow to the fur-row.”

Thus inspired, Angelos em-barks on an in-class essay that em-

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An Arcadian Journey:Nicholas D. Kokonis' “Arcadia, My Arcadia”

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bodies a central theme of the nov-el. Another instructor, who treatsthe village boys with prejudice,asks the students to comment onthe Latin adage, “Et in ArcadiaEgo.” Angelos takes issue with theromantic sense of the saying,“Even I have lived in Arcadia,”which suggests the notion of Arca-dia as pastoral paradise and drawsinstead on an interpretation he hasread in books in the public library:“Even in Arcadia I (death) ampresent.” Angelos explains, “Evenin Arcadia death can come. Arca-dia has never been a paradise. Ithink man has lost the true Par-adise and the new Paradise he canhope to find lies not in a countrybut in himself.”

Education allows Angelos todiscover his internal Paradise. Butthis is no isolated, internal land-scape. The more educated Ange-los becomes, the more connectedhe remains to family and culture.

The Power of Family“Many readers are struck by the

powerful presence of the family inthis story,” Kokonis says. “In ‘Ar-cadia, My Arcadia,' the family iscontainer of narrative, theater ofcharacter, agent of significance.”

Angelos' parents, despite thehardship it will cause, support hismoving to Polis to attend highschool. When Angelos’ motherhelps him move into this room inthe city, she warns him to bewareof the “eaters,” the merchants, of-ficials, politicians, and judges whofeed on poor people.

It is family who nourishes An-gelos. His mother brings him veg-etables. His sisters pick potatoesfor him. His Aunt Anna adviseshim, “Through patience, the mul-berry leaf becomes a silk worm.”Within the arms of his family, An-gelos finds consolation, help, ad-vice, and allies.

In return, Angelos helps hisfamily. He waters the farm plot,tills the soil, cooks food and showshis love for his father by searchingfor him one desolate night. “Son, Ican't believe you walked so far inthe dark for me,” Angelos' fatherexclaims as the two walk home to-gether.

Throughout the narrative, An-gelos confronts the specter of prej-udice, and travels beyond thedarkness of his own doubts, tohelp his parents. “From family,”Kokonis says, “Angelos learns loveof work, faith, and all those virtuesthat would ultimately enable himto redeem himself.”

The Power of the IndividualKokonis believes, “The human

being is capable of the most extra-ordinary achievements. Nothing isunthinkable; nothing is impossiblefor us. Every person has in him/her

the seeds of success. We are budswith the potentiality to open up intime.”

Through emphasizing the com-mitment to education and family,Kokonis hopes to inspire readersto unlock the potential withinthem. “Mind matters,” he says.“The power of a trained, disci-plined mind is incredibly immenseand gives stature to the individualin society.”

Angelos Vlahos transcends hisoppressive circumstances becauseof his values. His love of family re-mains inseparable from his growthas an individual. As Kokonis putsit, “Angelos Vlahos was not bornto fear; it is not in his Arcadiangenes to measure the height,depth, or width of obstacles. Thesurvival courage of his peasant an-cestors will be the equalizeragainst the rich and the high-born,the smarter and the stronger.Courage will keep his soul higherand even higher. Atlas carried theworld; Angelos must carry hiswhole family on his back.”

“Arcadia, My Arcadia” speaksin a strong cultural voice imbuedwith a universal tone. “Clear andvital,” Kokonis says, “the narrativesounds through every culture, in-spiring tears of hope that are partof the eternal human condition.The stage of ‘Arcadia, My Arca-dia,’ has room for every person'shomeland.”

Kokonis' vision is inclusive. Hedoes not pit rich against poor butrather invites us all to transcendthe limitations of exclusivethought, to break the egoisticshackles that imprison us in the il-lusion of self and other. Throughparticipating in Angelos' journey,we are transformed.

How Nicholas D. Kokonis cameto write “Arcadia, My Arcadia”

Entranced by the story of An-gelos Vlahos, I asked Kokonis,who came to the United States ona student visa in 1963 and earned adoctorate in psychology, how hecame to write his novel. The impe-tus for the novel occurred at a timeof great tragedy. “When Kennedywas assassinated,” Kokonis recalls,“I felt the world was going to col-lapse.” Kokonis felt compelled torecord his tightly packed and vividmemories of his childhood.“While working as a busboy, I de-cided to record ... (my) remem-brances as ‘My Story,’ using a bor-rowed old Greek typewriter andonly two inept fingers. I wrote this(just shy of 120 pages) with the on-ly intention that it might somedayserve as a convenient anamnesis.”

Through the years, Kokonis re-visited his homeland only to wit-ness with dismay the desolation ofthe land and the departure of theshepherds. The goats, donkeys,

mules and horses had also van-ished. The clay-mouthed Arcadianhills were falling into decay.

He says, “Standing stunnedamidst the metamorphosed land-scape a few years ago ... I pon-dered, ‘Et in Arcadia ego.' Instant-ly I knew I had to write a story as aliterary document of the bygoneera. Upon returning to my Ameri-can home, I took out ‘My Story,’buried in a deep drawer of a base-ment cabinet and nearly forgotten... in those precious pages, yel-lowed by time, I thought lay theleaven that would make the doughof my new story rise.”

Kokonis kneaded his memoirsinto the literary bread of fiction,and shaped the story of AngelosVlahos, composing and revising iton his laptop. He chose to writemuch of the manuscript at thepopular bakery, Panera, while heenjoyed coffee and baked goodsserved to him by hard-working im-migrants. Kokonis donated a copyof “Arcadia, My Arcadia” to the

owner of Panera, in honor of hismulticultural staff.

The Next Chapter of “Arcadia,My Arcadia” on Film

Since its publication, “Arcadia,My Arcadia” has a growing cadreof admirers.

“I feel greatly honored,” Koko-nis says, “that the board of thenewly formed OPAH Book Club ofthe Hellenic Museum and CulturalCenter chose to launch its programwith a reading of “Arcadia, My Ar-cadia” and that upon the recom-mendation of the book club, theHellenic Museum of Chicagoasked me to present it to a largeraudience. Presenting this storythere ... remains one of the mostgratifying moments of my life.”

Directors John Kousakis andJames Chressanthis, among oth-ers, have expressed interest in tak-ing the story of Angelos Vlahos tothe big screen. The screenplay ispresently being written by Alexan-der Karanikas, Ph.D., Professor

Emeritus of English at the Univer-sity of Illinois at Chicago.Karanikas' recent screenplay,“Marika,” won the NeptuneAward at the 2003 Moondance In-ternational Film Festival in Boul-der, Colorado.

It is our hope that “Arcadia, MyArcadia” will continue to delightreaders and filmgoers for manygenerations to come.

“Arcadia, My Arcadia” can bepurchased for $25, plus $4 ship-ping and handling, from St. Basil'sPublishers, P.O. Box, 1155, Deer-field, IL 60015. Read more about“Arcadia, My Arcadia” at Koko-nis' web site at www.myarcadia-book.com.

Marianthe Karanikas, Ph.D.,teaches professional writing and cre-ative non-fiction at Missouri StateUniversity, where she is an AssociateProfessor. Her essays have appearedin “Mondo Greco.” Read moreabout her work at www.anothersun-rise.net.

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Time” by Arthur N. Frangos, abrilliant, satiric novel in which thewar between Greece and Troy hasbeen transferred to two diners onthe plains of New Jersey.

Carmen Karkas, who taughtGreek at New York University, isthe author of “Six Hundred GreekVerbs,” an essential work and in-valuable tool for anyone studyingthe Greek language.

The bread and butter operationthat makes the books possible,Athens Printing, demonstrates Pa-pathanasiou's talents as an artisan.One of the last printers to useLinotype machines, his craftsman-ship rated a New York Times storyin the Business Section: “Offeringold-world printing charm amidstthe digital revolution, Papathana-siou creates beautiful bookssought after by aesthetically awareorganizations including theQueens Museum of Art and theBrooklyn Academy of Art.”

Papathanasiou's five Linotypemachines are among 1,000 hot-metal typesetters still in operationnationwide. He launched AthensPrinting working out of a 4,000-square-foot site at 461 Eighth Av-enue, now 5 Pennsylvania Plaza. In

addition to printing and publishingcompanies, the building alsohoused the headquarters of thePrinting Industries of Metropoli-tan New York, later known as theAssociation of Graphic Communi-cations. In an interview with Print-ing News, Papathanasiou recalledwelcoming students to his shop onmany occasions during his 20 yearsthere.

Instructors from the ParsonsInstitute of Technology also wouldcome to Athens Printing to showtheir students how the printingprocess worked. In 1982 the com-pany moved into its present home,a 10,500 square foot site pur-chased by Papathanasiou at 337West 36th Street.

Papathanasiou admits that ithasn't all been peaches and cream,or, in the Greek sense, ouzo andolives. Shortly after starting Pella,he published several books includ-ing an important poetry collection.“I put an advertisement in theOrthodox Observer, with a circula-tion of 50,000, and didn't get a sin-gle inquiry about those books.That was my first disappointment.If I was just doing books, I couldn'tsurvive. But the fact that I have theprinting business made the bookspossible.

“I do hope I'm helping to keepthe Greek literary spirit alive, be-cause although I am 100 percentpatriotic American, I have also al-ways thought of myself as a Greekin America.”

Papathanasiou has watched theneighborhood where Pella andAthens are located evolve, andvoices some nostalgia for an erawhen you could buy a Greek news-paper, or dinner in an authenticGreek Restaurant. “I've seen a lotof changes in the New York Greekcommunity,” Papathanasiou says.“When I came, there were Greeksand Greek restaurants. In 1975,they all moved to Astoria. Thereare very few Greek stores hereanymore, and you cannot find allthose gift shops on Eighth Avenueor newspaper stands. Rememberthe Pantheon restaurant? Thatwas the best restaurant in NewYork. And the Acropolis. Therewas even a Greek movie theatre.”

Regardless, Pella continues tomove forward, with all of its booksnow available on Amazon, andplans for a web site in the offing.

Married to Anthoussa Pap-athanasiou, who was originallyfrom the island of Cephalonia,they are the parents of three sons,Thomas, Spyros, and Nikos. BothThomas and Spyros are an impor-tant part of the enterprise.Thomas, who attended FordhamUniversity and Farleigh Dickinsonbefore joining Athens and Pella,recalls working with his father onSaturdays early on and regardshim as an outstanding role model.

Says Thomas: “My father al-ways worked seven-day weeks. Itwas rare for him to be home on awhole weekend, very rare. He stillhas an old school work ethic, that'sfor sure. There are very few peoplewho love their work and are goodat it. My father is one of those peo-ple. For him, it's not work. Hedoesn't get up in the morningthinking, ‘Oh, I have to go to workagain.' He really does enjoy it. Ihope that I can continue my fa-ther's legacy.”

A freelance journalist, PenelopeKarageorge is the author of a poetrycollection, “Red Lipstick and theWine-Dark Sea,” and two novels,“Murder at Tomorrow,” and“Stolen Moments,” published inEngland as “Winners” and in Ger-many as “New York, New York.”Her film script, “The Neon Jungle,”recently emerged seventh out ofmore than 3,000 entries in the presti-gious Final Draft competition.

Pella Publishing: Keeping GreekAmerican Letters Alive

Continued from page 15Hellenic civilization at New YorkUniversity, has done a tremendousservice to Hellenism with his histo-ry of that Turkish atrocity. “TheMechanism of Catastrophe” givesus a painful glimpse of the orgy ofthe 1955 Turkish violence againstthe Greeks in Istanbul. After read-ing this carefully researched book,one should be no longer in doubtthat the Turks hate the Greeks andWestern civilization.

Vryonis, an eminent historianof Medieval Greek, Ottoman andTurkish history, studied archivalmaterials in Turkey, England,Greece and the United States. Heinterviewed survivors and used thefindings of secondary literature,including the pictures of thepogrom taken by courageousGreek photographer, DemetriosKaloumenos.

The Turkish pogrom against theGreeks of Istanbul did not happenby accident. And neither was itmerely a “property” crime, a spon-taneous reaction of the Turksagainst rich Greeks. It was, instead,a well planned and coordinated at-tack designed to extinguish the eco-nomic foundations and hopes theGreeks had for a decent life inTurkey. The Turks had decided toget rid of the Greeks in their midst.They had used genocidal methodsto kill and expel the vast majority ofthem earlier. But a substantialnumber of Greeks still remained inIstanbul and Smyrna. The Turkswere determined to kick them outof the country.

While the Turkish governmentwas preparing for attack against theGreek population of Istanbul, in-ternational developments made theTurks' premeditated crime evenmore vicious. The revolt of theGreeks in Cyprus against the Bri-tish forces on the island convincedEngland to bring Turkey into theCyprus crisis. British diplomatsurged the Turks to launch a “riot”against the Greeks, a cue that solid-ified and speeded up the monstrousplans of the Turks. In addition, theBritish convinced the Turks theyhad a strategic interest in Cyprus.

Thus while Greek, British andTurkish diplomats met in Londonin late August - early September1955 on the Cyprus crisis, the Turk-ish government headed by PrimeMinister Menderes unleashed itspogrom against the Greeks of Is-tanbul. Vryonis documents themechanism of this catastrophe: Us-ing buses, railroads and privatecars, a state-funded organization,

KTC or the Cyprus Is Turkish As-sociation, imported into Istanbulsome 20,000 Turks for the pogrom.On the eve of the attack KTCpogromists marked the propertiesof the Greeks for destruction. Theyhad learned from the experience ofthe 1572 Saint Bartholomew Daymassacre in France. On the eveninghours of September 6, 1955, theTurkish terrorists attacked the 45Greek communities of Istanbul inwaves. Armed with crowbars andfire, they destroyed homes, busi-nesses, churches, cemeteries, hos-pitals and schools. Within less than10 hours, all that the Greeks hadbuilt over decades, including theirbusinesses, apartments and homes,were in ruins.

Vryonis says that the pogromwas the result of the “continuity ofhatred, suspicion, and envy withwhich a significant segment of theTurkish people viewed the Greekminority among them.” Just as sig-nificant is the history of the rela-tions between Turks and Greeksand Turks and non-Muslims overthe centuries. Turkish Islam devel-oped a “historical hatred for every-thing non-Moslem.” This put reli-gious fanaticism “at the core of thepogrom's fury.” The pogrom wassimply the “exterminationist strate-gy” of Turkey against the Greeks.This should be a warning to theEuropean Union, which is review-ing Turkey's application for mem-bership. This lesson should alsoring bells in Greece, which, ignor-ing history, pretends it can shakehands with its potential killer.

We should be grateful to Vryo-nis for bringing to light a story that,for the most part, has been buriedin England, the United States andTurkey. England and the UnitedStates, ignoring morality, have seenfit to side with Turkey, policies thatled to deceptive and dishonest re-search in those countries. Turkey,meanwhile, tested in Cyprus thelessons it learned in cleansing Is-tanbul of Greeks.

Vryonis' book is useful and ex-traordinary and brilliant for anoth-er reason as well. It's a model ofdisinterested scholarship, using evi-dence from all sides, allowing thefacts to speak, bringing out of dark-ness stories of heroism and tragedy.The book is also thorough in its ex-amination of the origins and evolu-tion and effects of the pogrom.

E. G. Vallianatos holds a doctor-ate in Greek history. He is the authorof “From Graikos to Hellene” andthe forthcoming “The Passion of theGreeks.”

Continued from page 24

The Exterminationist Strategyof Turkey Against the Greeks

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todaytoday

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 2006 21

By Elaine ThomopoulosSpecial to the National Herald

In “Old Gloves: a 20th CenturySaga,” Beatriz Badikian-Gartlerpaints a picture of immigrant lifewith bright colors and vivid im-agery; with pain, pathos, unful-filled promises, as well as hope fornew beginnings. In describing hernovel, she says that the novel isbased on her family's history: thatthe family's story is the skeletonand she adds the flesh. Flesh andblood is what she does add, mak-ing each of her characters alive, asif they are in the room with us. Itshows them in all their humanity,including their imperfections andfoibles, as well as their love,courage and perseverance.

The saga, which spans 70 years,starts with two families, one Ar-menian and the other Greek, liv-ing in small villages in Turkey atthe turn of the century. In 1922,Turkish soldiers force the families,along with thousands of otherChristians, from their homes andon a horrendous “death march.”The families escape to Greecewhere the son of the Armenianfamily, Grigorios, and the daugh-ter of the Greek family, Eleftheria,fall in love, get married and begintheir odyssey to Buenos Aires,New York, Los Angeles andChicago.

Badikian-Gartler relates vari-ous compelling vignettes about thefamilies, including the loss of fami-ly members and friends during thedeath march and their difficult re-settlement in Greece as refugees.She tells a riveting story about howthe Greek refugee mother, who es-caped to Greece with her children,is reunited with her husband.

“A bearded haggard-lookingman faced her, a faint smile on hislips. ‘I have nothing to give you.Go away,' she said in a loud, angryvoice. His clothes in tatters, hisface smeared gray, his hand ex-tended, she looked at his finger-nails, brown and long. ‘Go Way,'she repeated and moved back toclose the door. Then he said, ‘It'sme, Evgenia, your husband. It'sme, Odyssea.'”

Badikian-Gartler enables herreaders to feel the fear, pain andanger of the young Armenian,Grigorios, during the German oc-cupation in Greece. He narrowlyescapes the clutches of the Ger-mans after being out with hisfriends at a kafenion after curfew.Badikian-Gartler writes, “Every

morning they printed in the news-paper the names of those who hadbeen executed the night before.The next morning, as Grigorioswas having his usual coffee in thesame kafenion of the night before,he read his friends' names in thenewspaper. The coffee cup shookso that he spilled it all over thenewspaper.”

Life in Argentina is not the par-adise that newly married Grigoriosand his wife Eleftheria imagined.The young wife writes her mother,“One thought plagues me day andnight: will I ever see you again?”The couple struggles and we arewitness to their quarrels and diffi-culties, including their youngdaughter Alicia's illness with polioin the 1950s. As the years pass, wealso witness teenager Alicia's as-sertion of her independence andher dream of becoming a poet.

The book goes on to describethe family's life after they arrive inthe United States in 1971. Theylearn that the streets are “pavedwith garbage not gold.” Alicia ex-periences the meanness of hergreat-aunt who wants them towork 12-hour days, seven days aweek. The family escapes the NewYork aunt, joins friends in Los An-geles and finally settles in Chicago.

In 1978, Alicia's parents leaveChicago to return to Greece, leav-ing her in Chicago. She pondersthe questions many immigrantshave asked, “Where is my home?”and answers, “I've been trying tofigure that out ever since I left Ar-gentina. Back there it never oc-curred to me to question it. Buthere…I don't feel completely athome yet. I'm not as miserable as Iwas in the beginning, but there is atiny part of me that believes I justarrived yesterday and will be re-turning tomorrow. Strange. I feelvery temporary. I see my sur-roundings as new all the time, andyet I feel a certain ease coming andgoing in this city. Maybe if I stay afew more years, I'll accept it ashome. Or I'll just get so used to itand never question it again. Ormaybe I should go back to Ar-gentina. But I have no one there,except friends and neighbors. “

She also questions her identity,saying, “When people ask me,what's your nationality? I neverknow what to answer. What dothey mean? Where was I born? Orwhat are my parents' nationalities?Everybody is something else in thiscountry. Nobody is just American.But if I say Argentine, am I dis-

missing my parents and grandpar-ents? Am I forgetting everythingthey went through and pretendingthey didn't exist? Am I Greek andArmenian then? I don't feel Greekand Armenian; all I know is thestories I heard from my parentsabout their own struggle, their par-ent's struggles and so on and soforth … Later, after lunch, I'm go-ing to jot done the stories theyused to tell me - before I forgetthem. They'll come in handysomeday. I can use them in poems- maybe I'll even write a novel.”

This is exactly what she hasdone. Badikian-Gartler has writ-ten an outstanding first novel,based on the family stories sheheard over and over again eversince she was a small child.Badikian-Gartler says that manyof the incidents relayed in thebook actually happened. Both hermother's and father's families suf-fered in the Asia Minor deathmarch. Her maternal grandmothertruly did not recognize her bedrag-gled husband when he appeared ather door. The Germans executedher father's friends during the Oc-cupation. She and her mother andfather faced the same kind ofstruggles in Argentina and theUnited States that she writesabout in her book.

Questions of identity that both-ered the young Alicia of the novelare the same questions that the au-thor faced when she emigratedwith her mother and father fromBuenos Aires to the United Statesin 1970 and which continue to nagat her today. Life as an immigrantis not all about going from rags toriches, but also about not fitting in,pining for family and friends leftbehind, prejudice, quarrels, sick-ness, and unfulfilled promises.Yet, as illustrated in the novel,there is also love and an unendinghope for new beginnings and a bet-ter life. Badikian-Gartler herselfstruggled to achieve that new be-ginning. Despite the opposition ofher father, she enrolled in collegeand became a writer.

Badikian-Gartler, who speaksfluent Greek and Spanish, earned adoctorate in creative writing fromthe University of Illinois at Chicagoand has been the recipient of nu-merous awards and grants in thelanguage arts. She was named oneof “100 Women Who Make a Dif-ference” by Today's Chicago Wo-man Magazine. She is the author of“Mapmaker Revisited,” a collec-tion of poetry, “Akewa is a Wo-

man,” a chapbook of poetry and isco-editor of “Naming the DaytimeMoon,” an anthology of Chicagowomen writers. Badikian-Gartlerhas taught at Chicago's RooseveltUniversity, the University of Illi-nois at Chicago, and Newberry Li-brary. She currently teaches atNorthwestern University and willbe conducting a writing workshopon the island of Andros, Greecefrom July 1st to July 3, 2006. Shelives with her husband David inChicago. For further informationand to order her book see her web-site: www.bbGartler.com.

Elaine Thomopoulos, who has adoctorate in psychology, is a free-lance writer and independent schol-ar. She edited and contributed to thebook, “Greek-American PioneerWomen of Illinois” and is currentlyproject director and curator of theexhibit, Greeks of Berrien County,Michigan. She can be reached atthomop@msn.com.

“Has all the elements of a great novel...buckle up,

you are in for a great ride.”

--Greek News

“Filled with international intrigue,

romance and revenge.”

--Sophia Apessos, The National Herald

“Fun, breezy and suspenseful.”

--Bill ErvolinoThe Bergen Record

The book is available at Amazon.com,

BarnesandNoble.com and most

online book stores

LeeAnn Pappas

Eternity’s Song

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Old Gloves: A 20thCentury SagaBy Beatriz Badikian-GartlerFractal Edge Press, 160 Pages, $15, Paperback

An Immigrant Family's Unfulfilled Promisesand New Beginnings

Beatriz Badikian-Gartler

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 200622

By Steve FrangosSpecial to The National Herald

“Rain in the Valley” is the lastnovel we will ever see by HelenZeese Papanikolas (1917-2004).“The Fortress and the Prison,” herfirst published short story, ap-peared in the Utah HumanitiesReview in April 1947.

For those not readily familiarwith Greek American Studies, He-len Zeese Papanikolas was, and re-mains, one of the leading practi-tioners of cultural and historical re-search in Greek American Studies.The author of numerous ground-breaking articles, books and mem-oirs, as well as several volumes offiction, Helen earned her reputa-tion as one of the preeminent ob-servers of the Greek American ex-perience.

Just prior to her final hospital-ization, Helen had completed a fullfirst draft of “Rain in the Valley.”It was her ardent hope that, aftershe left the hospital, she would beable to re-read, revise and then seethe novel published. This was notto be.

The dedication page reportsthat, at some point, she entrustedthe final editing of this book to herson, Zeese, and her grandson, NickSmart.

The importance of this novel forGreek American Studies can't bestressed enough. It will stand as ahighly respected writer's last state-ment to her audience, and to hercommunity. It is a novel centeredon the lives and concerns ofwomen. The book's action focusesinitially on the interactions be-tween Greek immigrant pioneerwomen and their daughters.

In due course, the life Lia, thenovel's main character, undertakeswith her husband Jim gains centerstage. Given that the title is takenfrom a Greek folk poem, “SnowFalls on the Mountains and Rain inthe Valley, but the Door of Wed-ded Lovers is Made of Gold,” it isclear that the novel is directed toLia and Jim's relationship.

The grandchildren of the Greekimmigrants are also included in thestory, but only in passing. All theaction really pivots around thewomen born of Greek parents inAmerica.

This choice will surprise no onefamiliar with Helen's nearly 60years of writing and research. Sheis attributed with igniting the studyof ethnic groups in the AmericanWest in the 1970s. Aside from herhistorical studies, she also closely

observed the folk customs and be-liefs Greek immigrants broughtwith them to North America. Curi-ously, for decades, she remainedone of the only writers who dealtwith the extended history of labordisputes in the West. What may ini-tially strike even the most diligentstudent of Greek American historyas odd is her choice of Greeksheepherders and their labors asthe novel's backdrop.

In “Rain in the Valley,” welearn of three first cousins, all bornto Greek immigrant parentsaround 1916. The daily experiencesof growing up in a small coal min-ing Greektown district (which isnever named) somewhere seven

miles outside of Price, Utah standsfor hundreds of such industrialboom towns which first broughtEuropean immigrants and othersto the American West soon after1900. Given the volume's focus onthe lives and experiences ofwomen, much of the home and in-tra-community life of Greeks inthat part of America sees minuteexamination.

NEARLY FLAWLESSETHNOGRAPHY

This novel is engaging both as awork of fiction and as a nearly flaw-less ethnography. Every nuance ofthe past cultural and historical ex-periences of the Greektowns at the

turn of the last century is narratedeffortlessly. The cultural attitudesof Greek immigrants in theirprime, and then their gradualtransformation into Greek Ameri-cans, masterly unfold. Folk sayings,holiday events and attitudes aboutthe proper roles of men andwomen, as well as the women's dai-ly duties permeate the novel.

As a longtime student of the lateHelen Zeese Papanikolas' writings,I am always amazed by the fore-sight she demonstrated in herwork. In “The Fortress and the Pri-son,” for example, her main char-acter, Alexandra, expresses ideasand goals which would graduallycome to direct the life of the author

for the next half a century:“Alexandra wanted to write itdown, to capture the feeling ofthose days and put it on paper, sothat her children could read ofthose wonderful men before agehad finally unnerved their sinewylimbs and weakened their ironmuscles; before they had becomeold men who people would forgetwere ever young (pg. 140).”

Uncertainty about retaining herown interests in this area of study ishonestly posed: “Alexandra hopedthat time would not alter her feel-ing for those immigrants and dimher remembrances of their won-derful zest for the living; their

Rain in the Valley: Helen Papanikolas' Final Farewell

Rain in the Valley By Helen PapanikolasUtah State University Press,248 pages,$17.95, Paperback

Helen Zeese Papanikolas

It was 1908 when our pioneersgave heed to their inner calling tocarry on our Hellenic ideals in thishospitable, multiethnic society,establishing the first HellenicAmerican school in our region, aswell as the first in the entire UnitedStates - Socrates School.

Under the guidance of the first andmother church in our region - theparish of Holy Trinity - SocratesSchool contributed and continuesto contribute quality education toHellenic American youths in ourcommunity. Armies of childrenhave attended and graduated fromSocrates School. Great was the toilof their parents, their teachers andour parish, along with many othermembers of our homogeneia whoassisted and supported theeducational mission of Holy Trinityand Socrates School.

The smooth functioning andperpetuation of Socrates hasinvolved much struggle and agony.However, the joys we experiencedalong the way have been many.Our renowned school has receivedcountless awards and honors and isa jewel in our community. It is ouraspiration that it will remain avibrant bastion of Orthodoxy andHellenism. The graduates ofSocrates have distinguished andcontinue to distinguish themselvesin all disciplines and strata of theAmerican society in which we live.

Outstanding in our community'sconscience, Socrates continues itsprogressive journey. With thetireless efforts of Holy Trinityparish for the establishment of theHellenic American Academy, theappropriate preparations areunderway. Socrates School will,thus, be relocated and operationalin the Hellenic American Academyin the upcoming academic year(2006-2007). The moment hasarrived for the justification of theefforts of all those who havelabored and who continue to laborfor our parish's growth, as well asthat of the community at large.

May the Hellenic American Familyalways be our launching point,purpose and passion. May ourambition be the expression of theChristian ethos harmoniouslylinked with the Hellenic spiritualtradition. In this way, the distillateof spiritual experience shallmanifest itself daily - not asgrammar and narrow-mindedethnochauvinism - but, rather, as abroader, remarkable spiritualcontribution. It is these ideas andideals that were imparted fromHellenism to embrace the worldthat have especially brought honorand nobility to humanity and itsbeauty and sensibility.

For the Public Relations Committee

Kyriakos J. Pontikes, Chairman

THE HELLENICAMERICAN ACADEMY

AND SOCRATES SCHOOL1085 Lake Cook Road

Deerfield, IL 60015Tel.: 773-625-4918

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 2006 23

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. It is wholesome and bracing for the mind to have itsfaculties kept on the stretch. Sir Richard Steele 1672-1729, British Dramatist, Essayist, Editor

The National Herald BookstoreExercize your mind...

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deep, binding friendships; theswaying, yielding emotion in theirnative dances; their songs andlaughter; the clutch of Greece up-on them; the peasant customs; theweddings, baptisms, the name daysand the wonderful foods (pg.143).”

After histories such as “Toil andRage in a New Land: The GreekImmigrants in Utah” (Utah Histor-ical Quarterly, vol. XXXVIII, no.2, 1970), or memoirs like “Emilyand George,” (Salt Lake City:University of Utah Press, 1987, re-cently republished in paperback as“A Greek Odyssey in the AmericanWest” by the University of Nebras-ka Press/Bison Books in 1997), inwhich Helen documented the tra-vails and triumphs of Greek immi-grants in the West, her last novelmay come as quite a surprise to herdevoted readers.

In “Rain in the Valley,” whichHelen well knew would be her finaland perhaps even her most endur-ing statement, we hear herstrongest protests ever over thelives of young women born andraised in the Greektowns of theAmerican West.

Lia Demas/Papastamos the pro-tagonist, soon after she marries JimPapastamos, experiences anepiphany during an otherwise un-eventful family gathering: “Thenan aversion rose up to Lia's throat,an aversion she did not know shehad, for her life in the Demas fami-ly; for her childhood; for the stran-glehold of being together at alltimes, everyone knowing each oth-er's affairs, their grief, shame,anger. Lia sat with the aversiongrowing, encompassing the talking,laughing, gossiping women at thetable (pg. 117).”

Lia is very clear-sighted aboutwhy she feels this aversion, whichshe ultimately expresses to Jim: “Ispent twenty years being swallowedup by the Papastamos family.That's not the kind of life I want.Like my aunts and my poor moth-er, no. I don't want to be togetherall the time. I don't want to be attheir beck and call, like Greekbrides are supposed to be. I don'twant to have to run over to helpyour mother with cooking and can-ning. I want some order in my life.I'll have big name day parties on St.Demetrios Day for you and somefamily dinners, but not all the time.I've got to have time to myself (pg.118).”

In conversations I had with He-len, I can honestly report she hadlongstanding concerns about thefact that nothing substantial hadbeen documented concerning theGreek immigrant sheepherders ofUtah, Colorado, Nevada and Wy-oming. She herself wrote a verybrief account of those men in theUtah Historical Society's children's

publication, “Beehive.”But Helen consistently ex-

pressed her dissatisfaction, not withthat particular account, as much aswith the fact that she had not writ-ten more about this aspect of theGreek experience. Certainly, theGreek community of CraigColorado - which sees repeated, butunfortunately only limited, discus-sion in the novel - was and remainsa leading center for sheep produc-tion. Aside from all those Holly-wood cowboy movie references tothe battles between cattlemen andsheepherders in 1900, the twolargest industries in Colorado werecoal production and the sale ofsheep- and goat-related products.

There is so much about this nov-el which is splendid and unexpect-ed that I believe any reader, oncethey know that the author neverhad the opportunity to revise andfinish the volume as she intended,will forgive some of the momentsin the last two chapters. The pre-sent, which is where the novel's lasttwo chapters end up, is of unevenquality. I'm not as convinced by theexchange between Peggy andBessie in the second-to-last chap-ter, for example, as I am by the restof the novel.

That said, there are momentswhich ring all too true: “At the fu-neral, half of the nave on the rightside was taken up by the deadwomen's families. The great grand-children of the patriarchs had solittle Greek blood in their veinsthat they looked no different fromchildren seated in a Protestantchurch; that is, all except oneteenager with the prominent noseof the Demas clan (pg. 237).”

It is no secret that the greatGreek churches of the AmericanWest are of “mixed” congrega-tions, or that they are sadly closingdown.

Art and life, which imitateswhich? In simple straightforwardprose, Helen Zeese Papanikolashas once again served as a clear-eyed witness for a time, place andentire generation of people. Thosewho read this extraordinary novel,where real life is translated into fic-tion, will come to learn this is her“telefteo fili” (last kiss) to us all.She gave much more than she wasgiven, and I can't imagine any oth-ers like her will ever be born to usagain. She was, simply put, a rareand gifted writer.

Steve Frangos, a regular contribu-tor to The National Herald, is a free-lance writer who resides in RoundLake, Illinois. He travels throughoutthe country investigating and gather-ing historical information about theGreek American community. Read-ers interested in contacting him areencouraged to e-mail him at greek-write@yahoo.com.

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By E. G. Vallianatos Special to The National Herald

The Turks originated in Mongo-lia. As early as the sixth century,they started their migration andconquests in Asia. They reachedthe borders of the Eastern Greco-Roman Empire or Byzantium in1071 when, in the battle of Manzik-ert, they defeated the Greek armyand conquered Asia Minor. Nearlyfour centuries later, in 1453, theycaptured the rest of Byzantium, in-cluding Greece.

By the time the Turks becamethe Greeks' neighbors and, eventu-ally, conquerors, the Greeks hadseen numerous other plundererscoming through their country,burning, looting and enslaving, theroutine business of roving barbar-ians. But there was something dif-ferent about the Turks. They settheir sights on Greece as a perma-nent settlement. They were non-Europeans enslaving Europeans.As Moslems, in addition to the usu-al humiliations of conquest, theyused their religion as a weapon,converting and abusing the Greeks.

Greece under Turkish occupa-tion sank into illiteracy and ex-treme poverty. The Turks tried toprevent any future uprising among

the Greeks by kidnapping theiryoung sons, making them the per-sonal guard of the Sultan. But,against huge odds, the Greeks per-

severed. They knew they had to wintheir own liberation. Those who leftfor Europe studied medicine or thesciences or went into business,making money to help those leftbehind. In 1821, conditions wereauspicious for rebelling against theOttoman Empire, and the Greekswon their freedom.

Despite the emergence of an in-dependent Greek state in 1830, re-lations between Greeks and Turksnever became normal, much lesscordial. The Turks hated the infi-dels, and the Greeks were full ofanger and revenge for their pastsuffering and the Turks' bad treat-ment of the Greeks still living in theOttoman Empire. These feelingsalways floated under the surface ofGreek-Turkish relations.

By the early 20th century, how-ever, the Ottoman Empire began tocollapse. In the chaos of the disinte-gration following World War I, theTurks launched a genocide killing1.5 million Armenians and 1.0 mil-lion Greeks. The unsuccessfulGreek occupation of Smyrna from1919 to 1922 gave them another op-portunity to cleanse Asia Minor ofGreeks.

By mid-20th century, most ofthe remaining Greeks in Turkey -some 80,000 - were living in Istan-bul. Despite the adversities theGreeks faced in the first fourdecades of the twentieth century,they had, by late 1940s, a vibrantcommunity in Istanbul with goodschools, outstanding hospitals, wel-fare services, numerous churches,and about 4,500 stores selling andmaking all that one could possiblywant. The Greeks were medicaldoctors, bankers, engineers, archi-tects, lawyers, pharmacists, teach-ers, artisans and businessmen. OnSeptember 6-7, 1955, the last phaseof the Greco-Turkish tragedy un-folded to consume these Greeks.

What is extraordinary about thisatrocity is not that it happened, butthat the Greeks were unprepared.Their memories of Byzantium andtheir deep roots in Ionia-Asia Mi-nor blurred their real assessment ofthe Turks. Greeks knew that theylived in a dangerous country. Theyknew that the Turks were jealous ofthem. Their long history of living ina Moslem country was full of peri-odic atrocities and hatreds. Theyshould have known that, as infidels,they could go on bribing the Turksfor so long. Yet they were caughtunprepared by the blow the Turksinflicted on them during the bloodyevening of September 6-7, 1955.

Speros Vryonis, emeritusAlexander S. Onassis professor of

THE NATIONAL HERALD MAY 27, 200624

The Mechanismof Catastrophe:The Turkish Pogrom ofSeptember 6-7, 1955, and theDestruction of the GreekCommunity of Istanbul

By Speros Vryonis, Jr. Greekworks.com, 660 pages, $75

The Exterminationist Strategy of Turkey Against the Greeks

Speros Vryonis

Continued on page 20