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CHRISTOS FIFIS AND THE FIRST GREEK COMMUNITY OF AUSTRALIA
Are we, as Greek-Australians, defined by the institutions that we create? Do we make them in our image so that they reflect us and our aspirations? If so, what can a study of the institutions we...
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GAME OF ECCLESIASTICAL THRONES
“Valar Morghulis,” quoth Jaqen H'ghar, in the Song of Ice and Fire series. “All men must die.” Not being conversant in High Valyrian, our community was completely unprepared for the death of our own...
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Ο ΒΙΖΙΤΑΣ
It was a hint of petal that stopped her mid-shuffle. Relinquishing control of her lime-green vinyl shopping trolley, filled with the remains of flowers, she hobbled purposefully up the path. The sign...
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BEYOND MAGHEIRITSA
“You will forgive me If I light up a cigarette,” the polite old man asked as he reached for his lighter with gnarled, trembling hands, as we stood outside the church toilets. His bulbous bald head,...
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JABBERWOCKY: A GREEK BABBLEMENT
I lament the absence of artful nonsense words in the modern Greek language, especially since such words have been with us since times ancient. Yet to φλυαρεῖν, ληρεῖν, φληναφεῖνor ὑθλεῖν (and it is...
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THE GREEK WRITER'S FESTIVAL
Is there such a thing as Greek-Australian literature? If so, what language should it be written in? Who is its target audience? In what way can it be considered to be Greek? In what way can it be...
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ACTS OF GENOCIDE
Approximately 300,000 Armenian and 25,000 Assyrian subjects of the Ottoman Empire were killed during the Hamidian massacres of 1895. It is estimated that 100,000 “Greeks” were also killed, although...
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AN ANTIPODEAN PALETTE
For a people that have been around for a considerable length of time, it is astounding that we still struggle to define ourselves. When coupled with an antipodean hypostasis that causes us to grapple...
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PROPERTY PROPRIETIES
“You see this pile of bricks?” The old lady gestures around the room. Her living room is decorated in a mish mash of styles, reflecting trends from the fifties to the eighties. But not beyond. In that...
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ALI PASHA: ARCHAEOLOGIST
“Ali deemed anchorite, or saint a pawn –The crater of his blunderbuss did yawn,Sword, dagger hung at ease….… for Janina makesA grave for thee where every turret quakes…” Victor Hugo.To the Albanians,...
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TATOYAZ
When I was growing up in the eighties, only criminals or ultra-cool denizens of the margins of society who could transcend boundaries, possessed tattoos. As my parents determined at a very young age...
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DALI, DESERT AND GREEK REGENERATION
“I woke up with this marble head in my hands;It exhausts my embows and I do not knowWhere to put it down.” Giorgos Seferis.“Trilogy of a Desert Mirage,” painted in 1946, is one the most arresting of...
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ΧΟΡΤΑ
“Here have some of this,” my grandmother dipped two the forks in the salad bowl and offered it my Australian friend.“What is it?” his eyes grew wide in shock.“Grass,” my grandmother replied simply. “Is...
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BITTER LEMONS
“But that is what islands are for; they are places where different destinies can meet and intersect in the full isolation of time.” Lawrence Durrell, ‘Bitter Lemons of Cyprus”I grew up among people who...
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LORD BYRON vs LORD ELGIN
“The slightest object from the Acropolis is a jewel.” Lord Elgin“but molest not yon defenceless urn:Look on this spot – a nation’s sepulchre.”Lord ByronLord Byron famously remarked, probably in...
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ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ
From the sunken pillows of the weathered leather couch, Yiayia’s pinprick black eyes peered intently at the bulky form of the priest looming over her. Slowly, he fumbled with a small metal case, the...
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MUSEUM OF SHARED INANITY
Some months ago, I heard something that shocked me. An elderly lady was recounting her early, difficult years in Australia, when, as a new migrant, she worked double shifts to make ends meet and...
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BOMBING THE LONSDALE AKROPOLIS
At 10pm, on Saturday evening, 1 December 1928, Melbourne was rocked by the sound of two explosions. The Akropolis Club in Lonsdale Street, a premises owned by Samian immigrant Nikolaos Manolitsas since...
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ON NAMING AND SHAMING
One Greek community experience that has been indelibly etched within my memory, took place just a few years ago. A Greek community organisation had recently replaced its committee with members of the...
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A GREEK AT THE ALL NIGHT VIGIL
When the envoys of Kievan Rus returned home from Constantinople, told their master, Prince Vladimir: “We did not know where we were, on heaven or on earth; and do not know how to tell about this. All...
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