Maltese survivors of Smyrna

Abstract

To the Greeks, Smyrna represents the 'Hellenic Genocide'; to the-Turks, the 'National War of Independence'. Independence, or 'liberation', this may certainly have been, an achievement now fully-ingrained in the mythology of secular Turkish nationalism, symbolized by the steely-eyed portrait of Kemal Ataturk in military uniform staring down at you from every public and not-so- public edifice throughout modern-day Turkey. But it was, nevertheless, a 'liberation' born of a tragedy so riveting that it is as difficult as it is disturbing to perceive or to portray. Some historical film footage and photography survive in the public domain of the Smyrna shore-line bellowing smoke like a colossal furnace, almost completely destroying what was for millennia a prime centre of Hellenistic, later Roman and Christian culture, before the advent of Islam, the crusades, the fall of Constantinople and the rise of the Ottoman Empire, at its height in the sixteenth century. The ancient sites of Pergamon and Ephesus still partly stand, and are not too far. [excerpt]