Orthokostá (33 page)

1.
ELAS: Ελληνικός Λαϊκός Απελευθερωτικός Στρατός (Greek Popular Liberation Army), founded on February 16, 1942, as a special branch of the Communist EAM (Εθνικό Απελευθερωτικό Μέτωπο, the National Liberation
Front). Founded on September 27, 1941, EAM was the military arm of the Communist Party, created to resist the Occupation during World War II.

2.
Dionýsius Papadóngonas (1888–1944): A politically conservative major general in charge of the Security Battalions in the Peloponnese.

3.
Prophítis Ilías: A hill in northern Greece near the Albanian border named after the prophet Elijah and made famous during the 1940–41 Greco-Italian war. The battle that took place there on November 2, 1940, marked the first victory of the Greek Army against the onslaught of two Italian mountain divisions that had recently invaded Greek territory.

4.
George Tsolákoglou (1886–1948): A general in the Greek Army who signed the armistice agreement in which Greece capitulated to the German and Italian forces in April 1941. Pressed into assuming the premiership of Greece, Tsolákoglou appointed Major General George Bákos (1892–1945) minister of military affairs.

5.
Aris Velouhiótis (1905–1945): Born Thanásis Kláras, he was the leader of the ELAS forces during the Occupation.

6.
KKE: The Greek Communist Party (Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας), founded in 1918.

7.
Várkiza Treaty: On February 12, 1945, representatives of the Nikólaos Plastíras government and EAM-ELAS representatives of the Communist Party of Greece met in the coastal town of Várkiza, south of Athens, and signed a nine-point agreement, chief among which was the disarming of the EAM-ELAS guerrillas and their withdrawal from the cities of Athens and Thessaloníki.

8.
Antónis Katsantónis (1785–1808): A legendary guerrilla leader who fought against Turkish occupation of prerevolutionary Greece.

9.
Grigóris Soúrlas: The organizer of armed anti-Communist farmer bands in central Greece during the Civil War.

10.
Plebiscite: On September 1, 1946, the government of Constantine Tsaldáris conducted a plebiscite to determine whether King George II, who had left Greece during the Occupation, could be reinstated to the throne of Greece; 69 percent of the voters favored the restoration.

11.
Litóchoro and Pontokerasiá: On March 30, 1946, thirty-three leftists attacked a gendarmes station in the town of Litóchoro in the prefecture of Piería. On June 5 another group attacked a Greek Army company in the town of Pontokerasiá in Kilkís. These two incidents are generally considered the beginning of the Greek Civil War.

12.
Haroúlis: Diminutive of Harís.

13.
Napoléon Zérvas (1891–1957): A retired lieutenant colonel and the founder in September 1941 of the right-wing Resistance group EDES (Εθνικός Δημοκρατικός Ελληνικός Σύνδεσμος, Greek National Democratic Union), committed to fighting against German, Italian. and Bulgarian Occupation forces. An anti-Communist, Zérvas openly accused EAM-ELAS of striving to impose a Soviet-style government in Greece following the end of the Occupation.

14.
Athanásios Yiannakópoulos: An infantry colonel who, along with army officers Telémahos Vrettákos, Panayótis Katsaréas, and Stámos Triantafýllis, formed a Resistance group that eventually ceded power to ELAS; an agreement to this effect was signed by Yiannakópoulos.

15.
SMA: Στρατηγείο Μέσης Ανατολής, the Near East Command Headquarters, which was established in Cairo, Egypt, by the British Expeditionary Forces under Colonels Eddie Myers and Christopher Woodhouse. Their liaisons in Greece pressured right-wing Resistance groups into submitting to mostly leftist ELAS leadership.

16.
Metaxourgheío: A poor neighborhood in south-central Athens.

17.
OPLA: Οργάνωση Προστασίας Λαϊκών Αγωνιστών (Organization to Protect People's Fighters). The OPLA operatives, commissioned in late spring 1943 and active until 1947, were charged with the protection of KKE members and the extermination of suspected anti-Communists and their relatives.

1.
Voúlis: Short form of Paraskevoúlis, the diminutive of Paraskevás.

1.
“He saw her as a bride”: Dreaming of a bride is considered a bad omen in Greek folklore.

2.
Panayótis Stoúpas (1894–1944): Army major and commander of anti-Communist Security Battalion units.

3.
Ayiórghis: Local way of referring to the village of Ayios Yiórghios (Saint George) in the Argolis prefecture.

4.
Gaïdoúras: Nickname derived from
gaïdoúra
, a she-donkey, a jenny.

5.
Koumbároi
: Plural of
koumbáros
(m.) or
koumbára
(f.), a person one has close ties with by having been mutual best men or maids of honor at each other's weddings;
koumbároi
also denotes people who were godparents at each other's children's christenings.

1.
Ioánnis Metaxás (1871–1941): A lieutenant general in the Greek Army who was appointed premier of Greece in 1936, and soon assumed wider dictatorial powers, which brought about strong popular opposition. He is best remembered for the efficient preparation of Greek land defenses and for rejecting Italy's ultimatum on October 28, 1940.

2.
Konstantinos Maniadákis (1893–1973): Chief of the State Security Police under Ioánnis Metaxás.

3.
Castor oil: Castor oil was used to torture prisoners; it causes diarrhea and rapid dehydration.

4.
Sokrátaina: In local parlance, the wife of Sokrátis. Similar constructions where the suffix “-aina” is added to the root of a masculine name to denote a female relative are typical in the provinces. See also in this chapter Mavroyiórgaina (the wife of Mavroyiórghis) and Mákraina (a female member of the Makrís family), and Kóstaina (the wife of Kóstas) in
chapter 11
.

5.
Yiórghis: A variant of the common first name Yiórgos.

6.
Petroú: The wife of Pétros (Pétros Tatoúlis, father of Mihális).

7.
Saint Paraskeví: A widely venerated second-century martyr and saint of the Greek Orthodox Church. Numerous locations, urban and rural, are named after her. Her feast is celebrated on July 28.

8.
Ayiánnis: Local variant for Ayios Yiánnis (Saint John), a village in the Argolis prefecture. “Apáno” designates a community built on a higher elevation than the village.

9.
The Feast of the Virgin: A religious and national holiday celebrated on August 15 and preceded by a fifteen-day fast.

10.
Mýloi: District on the western outskirts of Athens whose name suggests industrial grain mills.

11.
Léla Karayiánnis (1898–1944): Leader of a resistance movement who as early as 1941 and until her arrest and execution ran a network of anti-Axis saboteurs. She is also commemorated in Israel as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

12.
Kifisiá: Verdant, posh suburb north of Athens.

13.
Saltadórissa
: From the Italian verb
saltare
, “to leap”: typically an agile teenager who leaped on the backs of occupation supply trucks and emptied them of their contents.

1.
“Like a tax”: The owners of an olive press usually withheld one-tenth of any amount of oil it pressed as a fee for the pressing. This payment in kind allowed the press owners to accumulate quantities of oil they could use to speculate, buy property, bribe officials, and so on.

1.
Certificates of “Recognition”: In 1982 the Greek government offered pensions to tens of thousands of persons who claimed they had fought against the German, Italian, and Bulgarian occupation armies during World War II.

2.
The December Uprising: Known in Greek as Τα Δεκεμβριανά, the term refers to the period between December 1944 and January 1945 during which EAM-ELAS Resistance fighters, on one side, and the British-backed Greek Army, metropolitan police, gendarmes, and the royalist “X” faction on the other, engaged in street fighting in Athens and Piraeus, with thousands of combatant and noncombatant casualties.

3.
Mýloi: A seaside town in the Argolis prefecture, not to be confused with the district in Athens.

4.
X: A royalist-backed military organization founded in June 1941 by Colonel George Grívas of the Greek Army. Its name was changed to X, the Greek chi (pronounced “hee”) in March 1943. The new name was emblematized by the crossing of two Greek capital gammas, one standing for King George II of Greece and one for Grívas himself. Those wearing the X insignia on their berets or armbands were called Heétes.

5.
The Feast of Saint Ilías: Celebration for the prophet Elijah (“Ilías” in Greek) held on July 20. Early in the history of Eastern Christianity Elijah, from the book of Kings in the Hebrew Bible, was proclaimed the patron saint of mountaintops and venerated in small churches, often erected on the foundations of former shrines to Zeus.

6.
Lighting the oil candles: A service often performed by women in small neighborhood churches that have no sexton. Since the Greek culture has no tradition of a book of prayers, asking someone to light the oil candles (a floating wick in a glass of oil, typically hung in front of holy icons) amounts to asking for extended prayer.

7.
Siege of Trípolis: When the flourishing multi-ethnic town of Trípolis was under Turkish administration in the nineteenth century, it was besieged by Greek forces under Theódoros Kolokotrónis. The siege lasted from
the beginning of June until September 23, 1821, and became the subject of a well-known Greek folksong.

8.
Panayótis Kanellópoulos (1902–1986): A statesman and historian of ideas who was a member of the Greek government-in-exile during the Axis Occupation. He served briefly as minister of defense and minister of reconstruction, and twice as prime minister. He spent seven years under house arrest during the Colonels' Junta in 1967–74. Kanellópoulos's landing in the southern Peloponnese in 1944 marked the return of the government-in-exile to power.

9.
Meligalás: A town in the southern Peloponnese where a well-known battle took place on September 13 and 14, 1944, between ELAS forces, which prevailed, and the Security Battalions.

10.
Gargaliánoi: Locality in the southern Peloponnese in which ELAS troops were victorious in the September 21–23, 1944, battle against the Security Battalions under Major Panayótis Stoúpas.

11.
Spýros Tsiklitíras: ELAS division commander in Laconía, in the southern Peloponnese.

12.
PEEA: Πολιτική Επιτροπή Εθνικής Απελευθέρωσης, the Political Committee for National Liberation, active from March to November 1944; a mostly EAM group created to administer the regions of Greece recently vacated by German Occupation troops.

13.
Kolonáki: Upscale residential neighborhood near the center of Athens.

1.
Gólfo
: A pastoral romance in five acts by Spyrídon Peresiádis (1854–1918) that was a staple of Greek amateur acting companies and a perennial favorite of audiences.

1.
Valtétsi: A mountain village in the Prefecture of Arcadia, the site of important events during the 1821 Greek Revolution.

2.
Theódoros Tourkovasílis (1891–1976): A nationalist parliamentarian, cofounder of the Populist Party, minister of education, and founder of teachers academies. As head of the Bank of Greece during the Axis Occupation, Tourkovasílis was jailed by the Germans. Thodorís and Thódoros are colloquial variants for the name Theódoros.

3.
EDES: Εθνικός Δημοκρατικός Ελληνικός Σύνδεσμος, Greek National
Democratic Union, a rightist coalition founded in September 1941 by Napoléon Zérvas to fight against German, Italian, and Bulgarian occupation forces.

4.
Óhi Day: National holiday celebrated annually to commemorate October 28, 1940, when Prime Minister Ioánnis Metaxás famously responded no (
óhi
) to Italy's ultimatum to Greece, thus sparking Greece's entry into World War II.

5.
The Liberation: The withdrawal of German occupation forces from Greece in October 1944.

6.
Ádonis Kýrou (1923–1985): an influential left-wing activist, son of Achilléas Kýrou, owner of the conservative Athens daily
Estia
.

1.
Mávri Trýpa: A village in Arcadia known since antiquity for its deep geological crevasses. It has since been officially renamed “Trýpi.”

1.
LOK: Λόχοι Ορεινών Καταδρομών (Alpine Assault Companies) were special army units trained to engage the Communist guerrillas active in the mountainous terrain of Greece during the 1947–49 Civil War.

2.
Tsakónikan: See note 3 to the “Prologue.”

1.
Loukoú: A monastery near the town of Astros, in the Peloponnese. It is dedicated to Christ of the Transfiguration, its foundation probably dating to the sixth century. Like Orthokostá, Loukoú was used by the guerrillas as a detention camp and as a center of military operations during the Civil War.

2.
Tray: A Greek kafeneío tray, typically of tin or brass, with a handle attached to the rim by three long thin metal strips.