Page 37 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

younger, these groups encouraged the transmis- say that it is support, associated with a set of
sion of language and national sounds from old- rules and points of reference’ (Piette 2010, 361).
er to younger generations. The participation of Forged by common experience of war and dis-
these groups in festivals held in other towns and placement, albeit varied according to age, and
then in other countries – a strong incentive to place within the war: partisans, civilians, adults,
take part – created encounters and friendships and children, the sub-categories of this ‘collec-
between refugees living in other countries, and tive being’, such as children, able-bodied adults
links with ‘our own’ people who, like them, were and disabled people, lived together in the new
refugees elsewhere frameworks of life in exile assigned to them by
A sort of prelude about the social life of ref- their host socialist countries. This form of living
ugees on the host countries also gives, musician’s collectively, among their own people, alongside
photography (Figure 7). Savas remembers during their life with the natives has enabled refugees,
his interview: during exile, to build their lives, and gradually to 37
adapt to the host societies.
ti I saw that they were coming and I wished By Way of Epilogue
they would, and I expected it, there were too
many young people coming, young children
What do the photographs of refugees tell us
ta with suitcases, they were coming to see their about the crossing of refugees through Eastern
parents who lived there (in Těchonín), but
Europe in the past, and what can they reveal to
they were also coming for another reason,
us today? According to Sanjay Subrahmanyam
there was, let’s say, not a festival, but choirs
from different towns would gather there, (2014, 14–15),
di the refugees started to organize themselves ry is created, both currently and in the past,
to better comprehend how a global histo-
because this continued after the ‘50s, when
we must highlight a fact that may seem ap-
here, i.e. in every big town, there was a dance
and singing choir and they existed (every-
parent: history is an egocentric narrative.
here one in Jeseník, in Ostrava, in Krnov, […] they es from one’s family, clan, and ethnic group, remembering the former eastern bloc: who owns the legacy – the case of těchonín
The concept of the ‘self’ in history progress-
where) in the Czech Republic, […] there was
used to get together in Jeseník to hold a fes-
to their city, homeland, or region, and ul-
timately to the nation-state, beginning in
tival, they used to come a lot in the summer,
the eighteenth century and continuing on-
all afternoon, [I’d see] expeditions with suit-
cases, young children, let’s say 18 to 30 years
wards. Despite this egoistic tendency in
historical narratives, it is imperative to ac-
old, [they] used to come there, and I always
knowledge the existence of others?
listened to the rehearsals in the summer,
studiauniversitatis
from morning to night […]. I would listen to
In line with this thought, the experience of
the accordion, the mandolins […] they would the crossing ‘Czechoslovak Greeks of Tehonin’
give a performance or a program to those recounts the history of post-war Greece, as well
who were there, but the important thing as of Communist Czechoslovakia. The recep-
was to establish a sort of link with the oth- tion of refugees from Greece in Czechoslovakia,
er Greeks.
as elsewhere throughout Eastern Europe, reflects
Τhe most important element that Savas the polarity of the post-World War II world, on
Těchonín’s photographs highlight is the fact the one hand, and on the other, a conception of
that the refugees from Greece made up a ‘col- the reception of refugees collectively, in terms of
lective being’, in the sense that A. Piette notes: a group, unlike the post-1989 period where this
‘What is a collective being, if it is not in a sit- reception policy is becoming more of a case-by-
uation the liaison of human beings? We would case examination. Today, in a unified Europe