Sometimes we forget how special and important our daily lives are. We often think that everything can be even more beautiful, bigger or better because of all the outside influences, such as social-media and social pressure. We forget to look at what we do have and that it is not for granted that we have it all. Our daily life, in which we go to school, go to work and do fun things, is not as normal as we think it is. 200 years ago, those normal daily-lives were disrupted by Ottoman troops (the Turkish empire). The daily life of four-fifths of the population on Chios island just disappeared. Only 90 years later, on the 11th of November 1912, the daily life on Chios Island returned. That is why we celebrate the Independence Day of Chios on the 11th of November, to reflect on the past and be grateful for what we have nowadays.
As an ESC-volunteer working in a primary school, there is a lot going on around the 11th of November. There is also a long history behind Chios’ Independence Day to learn, which began in the 14th century;
After the Genoese took over the island of Chios in the 14th century, the Turks recaptured the island in 1566. Nevertheless, the island had more advantages than any other part of Greece because it exported Mastic to many countries and sold it to the Sultan. Chios became a prosperous island, and fascinated in art and literature. The population of the island grew and everything seemed to be going well, until the Massacre of Chios. Revolutionaries from Samos island encouraged the inhabitants of Chios to join their troops to fight for freedom during the Greek Revolution. When the Sultan heard about this, he took revenge.
In 1822, he sent a fleet to Chios to punish the inhabitants for their participation in the Greek Revolution. Under the command of Kara Ali Pasha, 7.000 Turkish soldiers slaughtered 25.000 inhabitants. They also forced nearly twice as many people into slavery, resulting in only 2.000 people being left on the island. This event is also known as the Chios Massacre. Two months later, Konstantinos Kanaris took revenge for the massacre by killing the Turkish Admiral ‘Kara Ali Pasha’. In 1832, the first refugees began to return to Chios. However, Chios remained under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. It wasn’t until the 11th of November in 1912 that Chios was liberated and reunited with Greece.
Every year, on the 11th of November, even 110 years after the reunion in 1912, people on Chios Island celebrate the Independence Day in full glory. It is celebrated with an impressive parade in Chios-city were children, students and soldiers march through the streets. Women and men show their traditional clothing while dancing Greek dances on the main square. During the period before the Independence Day, children get taught about this day and its history. All of this is also how I experienced the Independence Day of Chios on the 11th of November in 2022.
On the 8th of November, I went with the first and second grade of the third primary-school of Vrontados to a local theatre to watch a movie about the history of the Independence Day. In the movie, they looked back on the events that happened in the past, such as the Massacre of Chios. It was shown how many people were affected by it and how many years the consequences were still visible. Families were split apart and others never saw their loved ones again. Even after the death of the Turkish Admiral, it took a while for the normal, daily life to return to the island.
The celebrations in my school took place on Thursday, the 10th of November. In the morning, the director of the school asked Marieke and I to prepare the auditorium. Marieke is another volunteer from Germany. The third grade was going to perform a play about the Independence Day in the auditorium of the kindergarten that belongs to the school. We had to set up all the chairs in the right place and put some decorations on the stage. At 9 o’clock, the play started and while I had to take some pictures of the play, I could learn more about the history of the Independence Day.
On the next day, the 11th of November, everyone on the island looked back on the past and celebrated their 110 years of independence. We (the four other volunteers and I) had been looking forward to this day for a long time, and were therefore really excited for everything that was going to happen. A taxi picked us up at 10 o’clock in the morning to bring us to Chios-city. We had enough time to find a perfect spot to watch the parade because it started at 11 o’clock. That is what we expected at least. What we thought would be a perfect spot turned out not to be the case during the parade. A lot of people ended up standing in front of us, blocking our view of the parade. Nevertheless, we were still able to enjoy the Greek music, impressive army, beautiful costumes and the scouts, who were part of the parade, while we cheered and clapped for everyone. In contrast to the other parades that I saw before on Chios island, there were a lot more people in traditional clothing. Girls and women wore beautiful dresses while boys and men wore fancy uniforms.
After the parade was over, all the people in traditional clothing came together on the main square. None of us knew what was going to happen but once the music turned on, the whole atmosphere changed and everyone started dancing. We were standing in the middle of the square and that resulted in us being surrounded by hundreds of dancing people. There were a lot of things happening around us, that I didn’t even know where to look. As my phone’s storage slowly started to fill up, we were overwhelmed by all the different Greek dances in the square.
After 30 minutes, some dancers and people in the audience slowly started to leave. Most of them went to restaurants all around the city to have an extensive lunch with their families and friends. We, the four other volunteers and I, thought this was a great idea and decided to do the same. After we walked around in the city-park for a while, we went back to Vrontados where we ate crepes in a restaurant at the beach. While we were enjoying the delicious pastry, we were able to reminisce everything we had seen during the celebrations.
After I learned more about the Independence Day of Chios island and its history, I became more aware of the vulnerability of our daily-lives. Nobody knows what the future holds and what tomorrow is going to look like. The inhabitants of Chios also didn’t know that the will to fight for freedom would effect their lives for the next 90 years, if it is not more. It is very important that we will never forget what happened back then and that we keep commemorating all the victims.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chios_massacre, 22-03-2022, Wikipedia
- https://www.greeka.com/eastern-aegean/chios/history/chios-massacre/, Greeka, 22-03-2023
