LAMENT OF THE PONTIANS
(The hymn has elements from Aeschylus’ fable “Prometheus Bound”
with clear reference to the unknown fighter – soldier).
An eagle was flying high in the sky
his claws were red and his coat black,
holding in his sharp claws, a lad’s arm.
Please give me what you’re holding and tell me where it is?
I won’t give you what I’m keeping, but I’ll tell you where it is.
Take an iron rod and copper shoes
and follow this road and the whole path
At the opposite mountain, behind the Christmas’ tree,
they killed a Trantellina and he is lying on the ground bleeding,
black birds eat him and white birds carry him around.
Eat my birds, eat, eat this wild,
who was in the sea an excellent swimmer, in the plains a brave wrestler,
in the war Trantellinas, a Greek lad.
UPROOTING OF THE GREEKS
With the uprooting, the cycle of the 40-year presence of the Greeks in the Kars Governorate of the Caucasus was definitively closed. Pain and sorrow made people to write poems and sing their woes. One of them was:
When we started, to go to Greece,
we waited for the steamer all week.
Steamers come and go in the deserted Trabzon,
dreams are all lost and hearts bleed.
Come steamer, come steamer, come seashore – seashore
and bring me to Greece and go to well.
I wish I knew which steamer would bring me to Greece,
on it to light a golden candle.
Sea, Black Sea, don’t be a beast,
for Greece we are starting, lowered a little.
The sufferings and lamentations of the Greek Pontians of Kars are vividly depicted in the song:
We started for Greece at two o’clock
in the stables we left our life tied up
And Pylorof was shouting, get ready the carts
If the Turks come, they would steal the brides.
We came to Greece, the months were hot
we forgot butter and ate quinine
cursed and deserted Karaburnu, round and round graves
open and look at them, all children of Kars
and for forty days the refugees were quarantined there
the remains from the steamer were thrown into the sea.
| DESIRE OF THE ANCESTRAL HOMELAND*
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| I lost my homeland,
I cried and suffered I loosen up and I want to, I can’t forget.
One more in my life, in my well in my yard, let me drank water and washed my eyes. |
I lost my graves,
the ones I buried and didn’t forget, I remember ours and in my soul I carry
Deserted churches, monasteries without candles, doors and windows were left wide open.
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| *Christos Antoniadis, Professor of Medicine at AUTH,
neurosurgeon in AHEPA hospital |
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NATIONAL ANTHEM OF PONTUS
The National Anthem of the Greek Citizens of Pontus, which was written by Doctor Filonas Ktenidis with the aim of “Pontian Independence” and approved by the Pontian National Assembly in 1918, clearly expresses the ideas and purposes of the National Assembly of the Greeks of Pontus and of southwestern Russia. It is a work of great breath for those conditions and of great propaganda value. It is a revolutionary proclamation of the citizens, which professes a political program to prepare the consciences of the Greek Pontians; it is a wake-up call of the “patriotic forces”. It heralds an uprising of the people and a revolutionary armed uprising for the liberation struggle of the Greeks and an independent Pontus from the Turkish oppressive yoke.
The day has come, the time has come,
that we waited years in chains,
in contempt and Turkish slavery.
In Pontus mountain peaks,
blackened guns bear the Twenty-one,
they sing Freedom.
The Resurrection means, the big bell,
let each of us put on the brightest uniform
and in front of the saint icon of the homeland
let him offer for sacrifice youth, wealth and life.
In our Pontus soil, at every step,
the tyrant knife opened a tomb of martyrs.
We are called avengers, living and dead,
our desolate homeland calls us forward children.
Filon Ktenidis (1918)
Born in Trabzon in 1889 – Died in Thessaloniki in 1963.
Doctor, playwright and journalist.
Publisher of the folklore magazine “Pontian Hestia” (1950)
Inspirer of the retelling of Panagia Soumela in Kastania Imathia.