Page 51 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

can happen. Then their village fell into ruins. that he had hidden by taking them to Al-
Now it’s more than ruins. bania. They went to Sopik and found him.
They killed him and stole his animals to eat.
This disturbing impression of civil war is
even more present in this account (interview 6): Another confirms this rapid transforma-
tion (interview 10):
One morning, we were all ready to go and
work in the fields when we heard cannon Before the war, relations with the people of
fire from the village of Smerto towards Sa- Liopsi were very good. The inhabitants of
giada. Then the Germans arrived, followed Sagiada were traders, while those of Liop-
by Chams from here, Liopsi and other vil- si were agricultural producers. They didn’t
lages in the region. The Germans arrived compete. But it was with the war that rela-
in the village and burnt down the hous- tions deteriorated. People from the Tcha-
es. And what did the Chams do, the lo- pouni family had already killed 2 or 3 people
cal Muslims [οι ντόπιοι μουσουλμάνοι]? They from Sagiada in the fields and then helped to 51
ti took everything they could from our hous- set fire to the village. That’s when we broke
es. The Germans only burnt a dozen hous-
off for good.
es. But they took horses, donkeys, and an-
He added:
ta ything else they could get their hands on. I It’s a good thing that the EDES came af-
saw them from a distance. They had found a
wedding dress and they dressed up a guy, a
terwards to drive them out, otherwise we
simple shepherd, and sang him Sagiada wed-
ding songs to make fun of it. When they re- would have had a minority here like there is tales from the greek-albanian borderland ...
in Thrace.
di said to them: “Where are you from? Did A border Narrative Embedded in Places and
turned to their village, an old Muslim man
you burn down Sagiada? You wretches! You
Landscapes
burnt down your own houses!”
These stories of violence are echoed today by
here were not so unanimously hostile during the pre- ures 2–5), which highlight the way in which
It seems, however, that these neighbours
the presence of singular monuments (see Fig-
vious period. As an old lady in Sagiada told me,
this history has left its mark on the construc-
“Some were good, others were not.” (interview
tion and symbolic appropriation of the territo-
7) Even so, one resident recalls distant relations
ry, and how this in turn feeds memories. These
with the children of Liopsi: “We met them some-
monuments were erected at the very scenes of
times. We were children and we used to meet
the crimes (crossroads, roadsides) or in symbol-
their kids when they came to Sagiada to do their
studiauniversitatis
shopping. But we didn’t have any friends there,
worked, such as the former prefecture of Igou-
we lived separately” (interview 8), while anoth- ic places (in front of a building where the victim
menitsa, or on the peribolos of a church, as in
er, more used to working in the neighbouring Kestrini). These are steles commemorating the
village, says, “They were Turks of course, but we dead by name, but often also by age and some-
like each other” (ήμασταν όλοι αγαπημένοι). He times by nickname. These people are not pre-
concedes, however, that the war was a powerful sented as having been killed by the regular ar-
moment of polarization (interview 9): mies of the occupying Italians or Germans, or
After they took part in the burning of the by the belligerents in the civil war, but rath-
village, there was no question of going to er by their hostile neighbours. The aggressors
work for them. Ten days or a week after they are clearly identified in explicit terms reported
burnt down the village, the Chams killed on the monuments: they are “people of anoth-
my father-in-law because he had some sheep er religion” (Αλλόθρησκοι), therefore non-Chris-