Transcript of Πληγωμένες Αλάνες (Wounded Fields), a documentary on Agios Sozomenos

I transcribed and translated the following documentary created as a project by journalism students at the University of Cyprus, which includes interviews with both Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot former residents of Agios Sozomenos. I am grateful to Danae Michael, Andreas Paphitis, and Raphaella Stavrinou for their work and letting me translate their video.

[NARRATOR:] Agios Sozomenos: a village of the Nicosia District, between Geri and Potamia. A small village, which was once shared by Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, living peacefully under mud-brick roofs. The only thing that separated them was a road.

If you happen to pass by the fields of the village, you probably don’t realize the history hidden in their soil. The fields were once playful, carefree places — symbols of unity, coexistence, and trust.

All of this until 6 February 1964, when the village’s fate would take a decisive turn. That was when the fields were transformed into symbols of suspicion, division, and conflict. The occasion for this transformation was the intercommunal strife of 1963–64, which could not have left the village unaffected.

Walking the dirt roads of the village, it is difficult to imagine that these ruins hold within them a caged past full of life. The monuments and ruins that survive today in Agios Sozomenos prove the coexistence of different cultures and civilizations. In 1960, there were 172 Turkish Cypriots and 25 Greek Cypriots living in the village. Until the desertion of the village, the inhabitants lived in mud-brick houses, which today are in quite bad condition, while many have vanished entirely. Around the remains of these mud-brick walls, only a few monuments survive: the unfinished Latin church of Agios [Saint] Mamas, built in the 15th century; the Byzantine church of the 12th century; the cave chapel with wall paintings in which the hermit Saint Sozomenos lived; the medieval flour mill; the Turkish school; and some Ottoman tombstones are all that remain in the deserted landscape. By contrast, only ruins remain in the places that once prominently held on the one hand the Greek school and on the other the mosque.

The history of the village is revived through the narratives of the people who lived and grew up in it. Huseyin Ahmet was born in Agios Sozomenos in 1935 and was one of the last inhabitants to leave the village on 6 February 1964, on the eve of the battle of Agios Sozomenos.

[HUSEYIN AHMET:] I was married for three years with a child when I left. I left when I was 28. For 11 years we were in Louroujina.

[NARRATOR:] Christodoulos Paskottis was also born and raised in Agios Sozomenos, and left the village at 25 years old.

[CHRISTODOULOS PASKOTTIS:] I left in ’58 and came to Dali where I got married. My father and my mother stayed, just the two of them.

[NARRATOR:] The daily lives and relations between residents made up a miniature of Cypriot society from the period of British colonial rule to the intercommunal strife of 1963–64. Their lives were simple. To meet their daily needs, most of them were involved in agriculture, animal husbandry, and similar occupations.

[CP:] We’d get up in the morning to tend to the sheep, to feed them, to get water — because like I said, we’d go to the fountain to get water, we didn’t have water at home like we do now. My late mother would make something for us to eat, and then we’d leave until the night.

[HA:] At 22 years old, I got a drivers’ license, and I’d drive a truck. For seven years, until we left, I’d drive a car.

[CP:] Carefree years. Even though life was tough, they were carefree years.

[NARRATOR:] Even though Greeks and Turks went to separate schools, there were still times when they shared the same classroom.

[HA:] When we were young, there were 5 or 6 Greek [“Romious”] students and an old Greek teacher. Later on, the Greek teacher wouldn’t come because two or three of the kids wouldn’t come and many times the kids of the Christians — the Greeks, let’s say — went to our school. There were two rivers and they usually went to Potamia, but because the kids were small, when the rivers were running in the winter they wouldn’t go [to Potamia] but rather come to our school.

[NARRATOR:] The fields were the reference points for their common daily activities.

[CP:] When we took the hay bales to the fields, we’d go at night and play hide-and-seek, we’d play lingrin, pente petres, skapoullika, tchoulli [all traditional Cypriot games].

[HA:] Together, of course. Together we’d go to the coffee-shop, we’d play cards, we’d sing together, there was nothing [we wouldn’t do together.]

[NARRATOR:] Communication wasn’t difficult, since both Greeks and Turks spoke both languages, while each community had their own mayor [mukhtar]. Relations between the two communities were good.

[HA:] People got on well.

[CP:] There may have been disagreements, but they didn’t show.

[NARRATOR:] These disagreements couldn’t always stay below the surface, and by extension neither could the relations of the villagers remain unperturbed by the surrounding historical events. The start of the national liberation struggle of EOKA in 1955 was the first wound in the relations of the villagers. It was in this way that suspicion and fear began to be cultivated among the Turkish Cypriots.

[CP:] The Turkish Cypriots didn’t want enosis [union with Greece] to happen.

[HA:] In 1955, EOKA started. “Hooray for EOKA! Hooray for enosis!” There wasn’t a rock that didn’t have that written on it. What should we Turks think? Would we go too and dance sirtaki [a traditional Greek dance not really found in Cyprus] and live in Greece?

[CP:] When the struggle started, our relations started to be affected. In ’55, others went and did things against the Turkish Cypriots, and so they also changed in their relations with us. Denktaş [the TC leader] came and talked to them every once in a while in the village. But our own Turkish Cypriots didn’t [… make trouble], because they were afraid. They were landholders. They were afraid because the surrounding villages were Greek-Cypriot, there were more Greeks, so they were afraid to stir up mobs and all of that.

[NARRATOR:] Fear didn’t take over just one community. The organization of TMT as an answer to EOKA, and the strength in numbers [of Turkish Cypriots in the village] caused a rise in suspicion among Greek Cypriots in the village as well.

[CP:] We were afraid, and they were afraid too.

[HA:] We started to separate too. We [Turkish Cypriots] got organized in 1958 as TMT. As they [the Greek Cypriots] got organized and prepared [for fighting], we did the same. If you’re 22 or 20, they’d grab you for the military.

[CP:] We were afraid, since they were 30 families and we were 6.

[NARRATOR:] Despite the fear on both sides, there was no actual conflict. Nonetheless, with the declaration of independence of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960 and the constitutional guarantees of rights for both communities, divisions between them became even stronger.

[HA:] Until 1960, things were good because the British were in charge. After that when we made a government on the island, we couldn’t share Cyprus.

[NARRATOR:] The countdown towards conflict had started and any possibility of restoration of relations was becoming more and more distant.

[CP:] The Turkish Cypriot complaint was when Makarios proposed his Thirteen Points. That really eroded their confidence.

[NARRATOR:] No one could guarantee the peaceful coexistence of Turkish and Greek Cypriots in the village any more.

[CP:] In ’55, the muhtar [leader] of the Turkish Cypriots went to my father and told him not to be afraid, that nobody would hurt us. Because he was in charge, his word was important. Afterwards, though, with [parade?] he invited my father to his house and said: “Petri, I can’t guarantee your safety from now on, because others came into the village, and these strangers do whatever they want. Do whatever you can to leave.”

[NARRATOR:] The first Greek Cypriots started to leave the village even before fighting seemed to be approaching.

[CP:] The Greek Cypriots, meanwhile, had left earlier. There was only one old man and one old woman on the day of the fighting.

[NARRATOR:] It was the 6th of February 1964 when fighting broke out in the fields of Agios Sozomenos.

[CP:] The battle started when our own [GC] went to start a machine to take water to Pyroi and from there to go to Athienou.

[HA:] Villagers from Athienou came with their guns in order to start the machines to get water flowing.

[CP:] When the Greeks went to start the water, Turks from Agios Sozomenos ambushed them. They shot at them.

[HA:] The Turks had five or six rifles, and the Athienites came, and they started shooting.

[CP:] The car they shot at was the police’s, so it had a wireless radio in it. As soon as the Turks shot at the car, they let [headquarters] know and they sent reinforcements.

[NARRATOR:] The strange thing about the battle was that most of those who fought were Greeks and Turks from nearby villages. Only three or four hours of battle were enough to destroy the village, for it to become deserted and for its inhabitants to flee.

[CP:] The British army intervened and the Greeks were made to leave. In the morning the Turkish Cypriots took their things and went to Louroujina.

[HA:] That day they told us to leave, since we were too few in the village. So we went to Louroujina, where people lived one on top of another. On the last day when we left, there were two Greeks left too, and they left with us.

[CP:] Some went to Geri, some to Pyroi, and some to Potamia. After we were separated, we didn’t see each other again.

[NARRATOR:] In this way, the fate of the village was sealed forever. The Turkish and Greek Cypriots were scattered in the nearby villages, forced to start a new life. The only things they left behind were moments and memories.

[CP:] We were born there, we grew up there, we were fine, we played with the Turkish Cypriots, they came over here and we went over there. Now?

[NARRATOR:] Now, the possibility that the village might be resuscitated seems like a faint dream. Keeping whatever Agios Sozomenos taught them, the old residents continue their lives. The fields, however, will always be there to remind of their tragic end: wounded.