A Greek Odyssey, in Three Servings

Sujata Massey 

Our trip to Greece was impulsive.

Let’s go! I said to Tony,my husband and frequent travel mate. Let’s go to the islands again.

I’d made the same suggestion 35 years ago. We were former college classmates whose deep friendship was becoming a fledgling romance. A two-week trip was a celebration of Tony’s medical school graduation—and also a special time for our budding romance. 

I researched the islands that were supposed to be high in beauty and lower on tourist kitsch. I bought reasonable tickets from a travel agent. Tony applied for his first passport and gamely agreed to the islands I’d selected: Sifnos, Naxos and Santorini. 

Greece in the spring of 1990 had just a sprinkling of European tourists, excepting of course, Santorini. Overall, in the three places, we recall the kindness of the people, the grandeur of the mountains and azure sea, the crispness of the salads and the sweetness of the honey. 

What nobody could have expected were the inevitable travel hiccups. Episodes like getting off a ferry to wait on the dark, early hours on Sifnos  beach; arriving in ourswimsuits at water too cool to swim in; Tony’s ankle sprain on the erratic staircases of Naxos, and my full-throttle sickness traveling on a hydrofoil. Tony was the one who held the bag. And the genius of these troubles were how they proved we could work together even through embarrassment and pain. The relationship was sailing ahead! A year later, we married.

Old Venetian Port, Chania

Kucuk Hasan Pasha Mosque

This year, as news about the difficulties of airport exit and entry spread, I felt urgently that I still wanted to travel—to be free innthe world. Having already been in India, I felt the European Union countries calling. And I remembered the birthplace of my lasting love: the Greek islands. 

Once again, I was the primary trip planner, and with over 240 inhabited Greek islands, there was a lot left to see. I landed on Crete, Greece’s largest island, with many places to go and a distinctive cuisine; Syros, the longtime legislative capital of the Cyclades, a marvel of marble sidewalks and grand Venetian style houses; and Mykonos, an international party hub truly chose only because it’s a seasonal home of my dear friends Jeff and Barbara Siger.

Even though we are older and wiser, we still had a big travel snafu. Hiccup One was arriving in the charming and small Chania, Crete airport on a British Airways flight that hadn’t loaded our luggage at Heathrow. We were in Chania two-and-a-half days without suitcases . 

My plane outfit carried me for days

Our historic Airbnb, Casa Regina Luxury House, was in a tiny lane and wasn’t an easy delivery address, so it was only thanks to our kind landlady calling the airport that our clothes were ultimately delivered.  In the meantime, we washed our travel clothing, and I bought a linen dress at a shop in Chania’s Oldtown to feel more culturally appropriate for visiting monasteries. The two monasteries we visited, Moni Ayia Triadha mear Chania, and Moni Arkadhi near Rethymno, were remote, uncrowded sanctuaries. 

Ayia Triadha’s lovely gardens

Ayia Triadha is still inhabited and has lovely gardens and produces its own olive oil and wines. Arkhadi dating to around 1100 AD is preserved clearly as a museum. The monastery was famous in the 17th and 18th centuries for exquisite goldwork embroidery and manuscript copying. It is best known as a holocaust setting in 1866, when 966 Cretan Christians came to stay with the monks to themselves during the period of Ottoman Turkish reign. A fierce battle attack from soldiers led not only to deaths by gunfire, but also of self-immolation in the compound’s powder keg. The treasures and tragedy are both brought forward in the tranquil location. 

We rented a small car—and driving to this monastery, and then bringing the car through a medieval town to park, was very hard. I’d label driving Hiccup Number Two, and Tony was gracious enough to handle all of it!

Scenes from Akhadi

Rethymno port

 Next stop: another of Crete’s medieval Venetian-Ottan towns, Rethymno.

Rethymno was slightly less crowded with tourists than Chania. It has a similar Oldtown to Chania marked by winding lanes and picturesque narrow houses. Here, many local people lived in these homes, and while tourism employs some citizens, the majority are involved in other work. We noticed a strong emphasis on restaurants serving locally sourced food and “Creative Cretan Cuisine.” A very good omen!

   

We hit gold with our small hotel, Avli, located on a tiny lane in an 18th century palazzo with a courtyard garden restaurant. Our small boutique hotel was quiet at night and gave us the pleasure of feeling like we were in a neighborhood with people of all ages, going about with their everyday lives.

A fortification at Forteza

The big historic site in Rethymno is a Venetian-built fort known as the Forteza. Its walls were too low to serve as much of a stronghold against the Egyptian pirates and later-arriving Turks. Chiefly, Forteza was a location for Venetian administrators to live and work, while native Cretans preferred to build houses lower down in the city. We were impressed by the finely woven textiles, basketwork, ceramics and wood and stonework at the Historical and Folklore Museum in Oldtown. 

Rethymno Historical Folklore Museum

This small and special museum was created by local family donations, just like a wonderful small museum we found in a historic house in Gavalochori, a village in the Apokouronas area near Chania. 

Ayios Nikolaos Greek Orthodox Church

During our time in Crete, I pondered over something with Tony. I know that I especially enjoy  places that are beautiful and retain history. I love planning for these places and will read about them ahead of time. I know just a few words of the Greek language, which makes me dependent on local people speaking a bit of my language when I get there. I hope to visit “friendly” places, with locals not being angry about the disruption of foreigners. Such a welcome is the essence of being a tourist.  Yet at the same time, I carry a secret wish not to want to see that many other outsiders around us in the streets. And what an impossibility it is to hold both things—but it did happen in some places on this  trip.

We had a strong feeling of gratitude to the land and people of Crete when we boarded a Seajets Ferry early on a Wednesday morning, heading for Island Number Two: Syros.

History on Trial: Heinz Richter

Jeff—Saturday

I was going to do a comedy piece about what people like to read about and what people don’t like to read about. For instance, people don’t like to read about the Greek crisis—they’re tired of it.  People don’t like to read about other people’s grandchildren—because they’re other people’s grandchildren. People do like to read about Donald Trump—because they’re fascinated by impending train wrecks even though no one knows yet who the inevitable victims will be.

But then I read the following article by Lina Giannarou prominently displayed as an "Editor's Pick" in Ekathimerini, Greece’s equivalent of The New York Times.  I emphasize it is a significant Greece-based paper—albeit not the favorite of the current ruling government coalition—because it is a story of a 75-year-old German scholar of Greek history being prosecuted by the Greek government under new “anti-racism legislation” for his differing take on World War II events from the version celebrated by the Greek people. He is on trial at this very moment for taking a position on history that the government does not like.

 

By the way, Professor Richter has received an Honorary Ph.D from the University of Crete, and The Gold Cross of the Order of The Greek Phoenix from the Greek President for “services to Greek history.”

I wonder what they’d do to a fiction writer who writes novels that seem to come true on less than complimentary issues, burn him at the stake?  Hopefully not, sunburn is painful enough. 

By the way, if they’d simply ignored the book I can’t imagine it would have attracted the attention it now has.  But that’s an old story.  Here’s the new story:

“I have been visiting Greece since 1958 and it has become like a second home to me. For 45 years, I have worked as a scholar on Greek history and for over 30 years on Cypriot history. There is no one in Western Europe who has done more for Greece than me. And now this.”

Heinz Richter makes no secret of his bitterness. It’s hard to blame him. He is German but the country which he has dedicated most of his life to is dragging him to court. Some have gone as far as to call him a Nazi.

It all started last year when the University of Crete decided to honor the 75-year-old former professor of Greek and Cypriot modern history at the University of Mannheim by awarding him an honorary doctorate. His critics, offended by his 2011 work “Operation Mercury: The Invasion of Crete,” in which he debunked some charming myths about resistance on the island during WWII, were quick to cry foul.

University of Crete

Protesters, led by former chief of the National Defense General Staff Manousos Paragioudakis, ruined the event (Richter actually received the award a few days later). Furthermore, he was charged by a Rethymno prosecutor with “denial of defamatory nature of the Nazi crimes committed against the Cretan people.” It was the first time that an individual had been charged under anti-racism legislation introduced in Greece the previous year.

One of the charges Richter faces is that he belittled the Cretan resistance, describing it as “dirty.”

“It wasn’t just ancient Greece that was full of myths; modern Greece has its own myths too,” he says. “It is true that at the beginning Cretan irregulars attacked and killed wounded parachutists – after all, early on there was no organized resistance. The Germans reacted by taking reprisals. I wrote that until Operation Mercury, WWII had been a ‘clean’ war in which neither side committed war crimes but respected the international rules of war [Hague Conventions]. But when attacks by noncombatants and reprisals began, the war became ‘dirty,’ i.e. the participants no longer obeyed the rules of war. This is the view of international historiography. Whoever has read my book on the occupation of Greece knows that I sympathize with the resistance movement and I condemn reprisals.”

Debunking the myth

Another popular myth, according to Richter, is that Hitler lost the war because Greeks resisted German forces for six weeks, thus delaying Berlin’s attack on Moscow. In “Greece in World War II” I analyzed and rejected this story. I was even able to trace the myth’s origin: A speech delivered by the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden in October 1941. International historical research comes to the same conclusion. Neither [Operation] Marita [the invasion of Greece by Germany in April 1941] nor [Operation] Merkur [the seizure of Crete by German paratroopers in May 1941] had any influence on [Operation] Barbarossa [Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941],” he says.

Richter’s interest in Greece began when he visited the country for the first time in 1958. “I walked from Edessa to Ioannina along muletracks. I came in contact with people who spoke about the occupation and the Civil War. I saw ruins of villages destroyed by the Italians, the Germans, the Nationalists and the Communists,” he says.

After completing his studies (history political science and Anglistics) at Heidelberg, he started a PhD on the history of Greece in WWII. “I lived in Athens for one year during the junta (1967/68). Seeing fascism in action again I learned my lesson and since then I have been a convinced active democrat,” he says. Richter became a philhellene but not an “ellinolatris” – someone who loves Greece unquestioningly.

“For me, Greece became a second homeland,’” he says. “As a historian, I am obliged to speak the truth and I have always tried to stick to this principle. Of course I encountered criticism but this is normal and under normal circumstances it leads to scholarly discussions and perhaps to a scientific controversy. But never in my life had I been dragged to court. The historical truth is not a subject of the judicial system. If courts decided what the historical truth was that would be the end of scientific historiography.”

For what it’s worth, he gave his daughter a Greek name, “Danae.”

The trial is ongoing.

I wonder how the prosecutor will react to the ending I’m working on for the next Andreas Kaldis book.  Perhaps I should send him an ARC?  Nah, I’ve seen enough courtrooms for a lifetime.

—Jeff

Vendetta in Modern Greece.

I guess you could say I’m a big believer in fate. At least I am today.  You see, I injured my finger a while back and, until it heals, typing is a bit of an awkward experience.  Yet I wanted to write something about the pivotal element of my new book coming out October 7^th (Sons of Sparta): The concept of vendetta in the Greek family. 

But that would require a lot of typing. Then lo and behold I came across this article in Tuesday’s Ekathimerini (Greece’s NY Times equivalent) focused on traditional efforts by mountain villagers in Crete to overcome the murderous aspects of vendetta still prevalent there today. It’s an eye-opener on every level.

Although the concept of vendetta may be more ingrained in popular culture from an Italian perspective, it has deep roots in two closely linked parts of Greece, the island of Crete and its nearest mainland neighbor, the southernmost part of the Peloponnese known as the Mani (where my book takes place). 

So, with a six-finger typing salute, here is an extraordinary bit of reporting by Yiannis Papadopoulos titled, “The Mediators of Crete’s Warring Families.”

The elderly highlander with the thick mustache knows he must be wary of what he says. And so what if he never finished elementary school? In the streets of Livadia he has the power to change people’s minds.

“We are mountain men here. We are generous and honorable, but we are also proud and will not tolerate being insulted. This often results in situations that can also lead to murder,” he says when I meet him at a coffee shop in the village.

Christos Chnaris is an 85-year-old livestock farmer who has also served as president of the local agricultural cooperative. For the people of Livadia, however, he has always stood out for his ability to keep a cool head and ever since the 1960s they have been asking him to step in and solve differences between them. In this village on the southeastern Aegean island of Crete, his is the role of “mesitis,” or mediator, and for over half a century he has been striving to reconcile warring parties before they resort to violence.

In every village in the region there are two or three men like Chnaris who act as local peacemakers. A fist fight, the theft of an animal, trespassing, some misunderstanding, even a scuffle between kids can set off a chain of confrontation that could escalate to violence without the mediators’ intervention. Murder is the only incident over which they cannot attempt a reconciliation.

In Livadia and nearby Anogeia, as in other villages on Crete, the compromise achieved by a mediator is known as a “sasmos.” It is a process whose origins have been lost in the mists of time but it survives to this day. It is a complex institution that has become a part of the local conscience and often operates in tandem with official authorities or can even influence a court decision. Lawyers on Crete estimate that the mediators help avert dozens of crimes every year.

Livadia is slightly to the left (west) of Anogia

Amari is slightly southwest of Livadia

Three years ago at Amari in Rethymno a man shot and injured another man in the knee during an argument between their two families. By the time the case went to court, the families had reached a reconciliation. The court imposed a smaller sentence on the defendant, finding him guilty of assault rather than attempted murder.

“For the 16 years that I have had my practice in Crete, the sasmos system has operated with unflagging vigor, to the extent that courts will take it into account when dealing with criminal cases,” says lawyer Nikos Kotzabasakis.

The mediators are also often called in by the authorities to play the role of negotiator to bring fugitives to justice or to forge compromises in prison.

Kotzabasakis does not think their role interferes with his own. The mediators do not assume the role of judge – it is not their job to parcel out blame. When trying to bridge the problems dividing two sides, they make sure not to bruise anyone’s ego or mar anyone’s public image.

“Keeping the peace is the most important thing. It means nothing to take on one case, one time, that may end up in a family tragedy,” says Kotzabasakis.

“We believe the court is of secondary importance,” says Stefanos Hairetis, a livestock farmer and president of the local agricultural cooperative at Anogeia. “Courts can solve financial differences, but they don’t do baptisms,” he said, suggesting that they don’t participate in the day-to-day life of the local community. “There are cases all the time when both sides put themselves in the wrong by the way they behave. You go to court when you’ve exhausted all other means of recourse. Courts are used in the lowlands, not in the mountains of Crete.”

“The people who specialize as mesites are just a handful,” says Chnaris. “If you don’t know the right way to talk you could end up doing more harm than good. A single misspoken word could shoot a case to hell.”

Like other mesites, Chnaris is self-taught. “We are educated by nature and by the cases that come our way, and we know that every case matters a great deal to someone,” he says.

In 1992, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Crete, Aris Tsantiropoulos, spent a year at Livadia studying the way Chnaris works. After gaining the locals’ trust he was allowed to sit down at the negotiating table with them, observing the process from the inside.

He explains that the role of mediator is assumed by individuals who are widely respected by the local community. They are, in the local dialect, “kozoi,” people who are known to be just and whose opinion matters. They are normally above the age of 30 and livestock farmers rather than crop growers, as they are considered to be free and not constrained or prisoner to their land as the latter. Teachers, doctors and priests can also become mesites.

Father Andreas Kokkinos has overseen several mediations in Livadia.

“The existence of the sasmos means that people’s word, their dignity, still counts for something,” he says. “If we didn’t have that we wouldn’t have equilibrium.”

An agreement between two sides is often sealed by a member of one family in a feud becoming the godparent of a child in the other, creating a familial bond.

At the coffee shops in Anogeia, there is an oft-repeated story: Some 60 years ago, or 70 according to others, two villagers got into a fight and one stabbed the other. Both were difficult, stubborn men, according to all who tell the story. The wife of the injured man asked his assailant to baptize one of their children before her husband was released from hospital and able to seek revenge. Such “synteknies,” family bonds, are often forged under the most unexpected circumstances, preventing more serious conflicts.

Father Andreas has conducted baptisms even in the late hours of the night.

“Families are very big here, a lot of children, a lot of young people, and you can't always tame them all to conduct a discussion,” says the 40-year-old. “You sometimes need the sacred rites as well.”

The process adopted by mediators depends on the case brought before them. They start getting a feel for the issue and talking about it with the two sides as soon as a disagreement become common knowledge. They often use friends and relatives as a means of approaching the people at the center of the argument. The negotiations can run on for days, even months, during which one side may be ordered not to walk down a particular street so as not to run into their adversaries. Once the two sides agree to seek a compromise, a meeting is arranged on neutral territory, often the mediator’s home.

As Aris Tsantiropoulos describes in his book about blood feuds in the mountains of Crete, a meal that is attended by the two most influential members of each warring side follows an agreement.

Chnaris, the oldest mediator in Livadia, believes that the institution of sasmos dates back to World War II and the German occupation.

“We went through lawless periods. There were times when laws simply didn’t function and we had to protect ourselves before it all turned into a jungle,” he says.

Tsantiropoulos has found evidence suggesting the existence of the institution during the Venetian conquest.

“The two families would sign an agreement in the presence of a notary to cease all enmity,” the academic says. In fact, 33 such documents dating from 1612-39 have been found in the archives of a notary named Ioannis Krousos, who described them as “instruments of love.” They consist of agreements written up by the warring parties themselves or by the notary to settled disputes regarding theft, rape, arguments and so on.

Centuries later, another form of reconciliation emerged on Crete. Before the civil war that gripped the rest of Greece made its way to the island, entire villages publicly vowed to cease all hostilities. Again, individuals of a certain standing in the community would guarantee the truce and the minutes of the agreement would be published in the local press.

One example of such an arrangement was found in the archives of “Eleftheri Kriti” (Free Crete), a newspaper which acted as mouthpiece for the parties of the National Liberation Front (EAM), on the front page from May 16, 1947. The top story was a reconciliation agreement between the residents of Skaliano. They had gathered five days earlier in the village and in the presence of a priest and the teacher decided to be more loving and united in the future, and for their reconciliation to be based on mutual respect of their respective political beliefs.

Throughout the island’s history blood has been shed and vendettas have been declared where compromises could not be reached. Even today there are families that still wear black in public to signal grief, villages that have been deserted by violence, and places where church fetes are no longer held. Death in a blood feud is, according to Tsantiropoulos, “a wrinkled death,” in that there is nothing heroic about it and its wounds run deep and long.

This is why mediators come under a great deal of stress until an agreement is sealed. If they fail, they risk their own reputations as well and feel responsible. At the age of 85, Chnaris is no longer prepared to take risks. He walks tall through the streets of his village and always grabs tightly onto the arm of anyone who shakes his hand. Until three years ago, he was an active mediator.

“I didn’t miss a single agreement,” he says. “Now I am gradually retiring because I need to protect myself. I can speak my mind and give some directions. But if a deal falls through and someone is injured or killed, you bear part of the blame.”

Despite the fact that he has more or less given up the work, Chnaris still remembers all of the cases he mediated. But when I ask him to mention a couple, he refuses to go into any depth. “They are asleep and I don’t want to wake them,” he says.


In the larger villages on the slopes of Rethymno’s Mount Psiloreitis, with populations of around 2,000 residents, where the wind chisels the rock and scores lines on faces, life moves to the beat of a very different drum.

Efforts are being made to curb the use of guns, yet at any festivity there will be some man with a gun in his belt.

Most locals marry young and have many children. The majority are livestock farmers and on the streets two in three cars are off-road vehicles, used to climb the steep, remote roads to their flocks.

Rustling was and remains one of the main sources of conflict between the locals. Enemies will steal each other’s animals when they feel threatened.

In Livadia, locals reached an agreement in the 1960s to abstain from animal theft. But in 2011, 47 such cases were reported to the police and in 2012 another 26 in all of the Rethymno regional unit.

Ten days before I arrived at Livadia and Anogeia, another case of animal theft had taken place. It wasn’t certain whether it would be reported to the authorities, but the mediators were already on the case. They would find out who took the animals and after approaching them get them to agree to return most. The thief would probably get to keep a few of the animals – to save face – and the owner would never learn who it was. The mediators would simply tell the owner where he would be able to find his missing animals at some remote location.

Around 20 years ago, Giorgos Manouras knew the family that had stolen his animals.

“They stole sheep from us and we were angry. I reached a sasmos. With one thing and another, if you don’t have a sasmos, people may die,” says the 43-year-old livestock farmer.

“How you talk to each person and make them understand a situation makes a difference.”

Amen to that thought. And for those of you who prefer the film version.

Jeff—Saturday