CHAPTER TWO - In history there is no revolution without victims

CHAPTER TWO - In history there is no revolution without victims

A door was heard slamming in the hallway but the deafening sound quickly disappeared. Everyone in the room went silent as Suvogorski made a motion to express his thoughts.

“A person never knows where time and life will take them,” he said and shrugged his shoulders making it obvious that things were very clear. “Every revolution is paid for with victims and there is no revolution without victims. The entire history of mankind is a history of sacrifices…” he added.

Rumena listened motionless, only blinking her eyes.

“Sometimes it seems very simple for a person to be a communist. Then years pass, like a flowing river, and all that is collected is a handful of memories… and you don’t know whether you are right or wrong…” said Dobrin ending unexpectedly. He remembered all sorts of things, both important and trivial. He sighed, and turned to Rumena who was terribly confused when she interrupted him without waiting for him to finish talking.

“Oh Dobrin, Dobrin…” she said while raising her eyebrows, “Save your memories for your memoirs. I know you very well. I look at you and feel chills down my spine every time your mind gets these memories. But I am still waiting for the Party to do something for you… perhaps in the near future…?”

Dobrin walked over and sat on his bed looking like he was lost.

“What are you trying to tell me?!” Dobrin asked Rumena loudly. “What are these things you are saying? Are you anti-communist?”

Rumena put both her hands over her face and kept quiet until her anger subsided and then said: “You communists are as hard as a walnut and just as stubborn.”

“For God’s sake woman…” he replied and looked at her.

She looked back at him and said: “You are still a fanatic. You still believe what your comrades tell you and you refuse to think of our future. That work you did was the work of the party. Your fellow fighters are now sitting in front of a colour television and have shelves of unopened books...”

“There are so many things you think of… Well I don’t think of all those things because I would need two more lifetimes to get up that high in the Party and to get a party post to suit your taste,” he replied.

“I think it is easier than you think…” she said.

“God damn it… all you think about is money, money, money…” he replied angrily and looked away.

“I am just talking…” she said. “It makes it easier for me when I talk about it. Not because I want to pester you, but I want us to look at the truth in the eye together. These shelters have become our higher educational institutions and we should not remain silent about things.”

Dobrin was silent… deep in his own thoughts.

After a short pause Rumena smiled and said: “Dobrin, you have not told me how you became a communist?”

Dobrin looked at her and smiled then said: “Good idea… I will tell you.”

He repositioned himself on the bed and began to talk. He said: “I remember. All I remember from World War I was the thundering of cannons at the Solun front and the local hosts hiding the bodies of certain army personnel belonging to the warring armies. When the French army left we had peace in our village.

Before that all of Lerin was full of Serbians and Montenegrins who declared that from now on they would be the authority here. There were there for six months doing what they felt like doing, swearing and cursing and grabbing everything that passed within three

hundred metres of the house. The Montenegrins were not like that. There was this one fellow named Velko who was as tall as two of our people. He said that this was the Lord’s heaven, not rocks, but soil and foliage to fill your eyes. He wanted to bring his beloved wife here, have more than ten children and start a mini Montenegro. Maybe he died like that… with hope.

One morning in 1913 the Serbians moved towards Bitola. We hardly took a breath before the Greek army arrived and took their place. They too began to do whatever they felt like… to people of the same faith. They tormented the people and showed them what hell was like. Then in 1924 the first settlers and colonists appeared in the village. They arrived together with the police chief. They were called “Madzhiri”.

The police chief’s name was Spanos Petrakis. He arrived in the village Kleshchina without much fuss. He was settled in Gele Bizgovski’s newly built house which was two houses away from ours.

The police chief showed my grandmother Risa a piece of paper; an official letter… which frightened her.

She first ran up to us all flustered. Unable to understand what she was saying, my grandfather Ilia asked her: ‘Who is this man?’ ‘A bigwig,’ she replied with a crackle in her voice, and continued: ‘He set up a table and chairs and with a large nail he attached a picture of his king, which he brought with him.’

‘Big deal… Where is this uninvited ‘bigwig’ from?’ asked my grandfather. ‘Even the stately Turkish Aga’s did not do that. We cannot trust him...’ my grandfather said to us in confidence. Then my grandmother Risa, with a worried tone of voice, said: ‘But he said that now he is the police chief of Kleshchina...’

My mother Maria was beautiful and a smart woman. She was holding my hand. She knew how to take care of the family, keep the peace and bring happiness to everyone. I felt her eyes looking at me, stabbing at me from the depths of her heart.

As the people poured towards the middle of the village, I felt fear clutching at my heart. I watched my grandfather march like a soldier on the way to meet the man of power.

The police chief turned towards us and showed us his grim face. It looked elongated. After a long silence he finally spoke.

He said: ‘Peasants! I was named police chief for this village...’ but we did not understand whether he was talking to us or to the Madzhiri. He called us Turkish-speaking Greeks from the Pond in Asia Minor. He said we were the descendants of some wandering Greek people, Greeks by genus, and that we had been sent here to share the empty houses and fields. I suppose he was talking to the colonists and settlers.

Some of the Madzhiri looked like living skeletons. The women wore tight pajamas. Their skin was sagging and looked like tanned leather. Their eyes were huge and hungry looking. There were empty houses in the village, emptied a few days before when fifteen Islamized Macedonian families were violently uprooted, loaded into wagons and deported to who knows where in Anatolia...

We called the Islamized Macedonians ‘Torbeshi’. They were good people, but felt like they were carrying the guilt of their ancestors. My grandfather liked them. He used to say that they are our people. We were of the same blood but of different religion. They were our people who had to change their faith because they were very poor. They changed their religion about 200 years ago when the terrible Turk Tchaoush Kaliman was in charge of our village. They spoke Macedonian just like the rest of us here, with a Turkish word here and there. But because they were Muslims they were deported to Anatolia. They screamed and yelled saying that they were Macedonians, native to this land, but the Greek authorities did not care.

My grandfather Ilia took a few steps forward and, in front of everyone, told the police chief a thing or two about the ‘Torbeshi’. He even told him why they were called Torbeshi. He told the police chief that these houses and lands belonged to them, to our people,

from time immemorial, and even the worst kind of Turk would not disturb them.

We, the children, having nothing interesting to do, gathered around my grandfather Ilia and listened to him talking.

Spanos Petrakis stood there with his hands behind his back and his chest sticking out. His coat was decorated with shiny buttons and pockets. Suddenly he stood up straight and, with clenched teeth, yelled out ‘Silence dog! Silence…!’

There was dead silence. My grandfather Ilia stood up straight, looking like he had gotten his youthful vigour back, took another step forward and courageously said: ‘They were good people, that’s why you exiled them. And so what if they were of another faith…? They were of Macedonian blood...! We know nothing of the ones you brought here now… We know nothing of their faith or their language. Who in God’s name will now help us communicate with them, and understand what they say...? The soil here needs to be dug and ploughed… These people came with empty hands. They have no tools… Who is going to support them? May God forgive me, but why do you mix the people like this? Are these people victims?’

‘Silence!’ yelled the police chief, taking out a folded piece of paper from his chest pocket and began to unfold it. He then looked at the faces of the newcomers sitting in front of him, looking guilty, waiting to be shown their houses and properties. After that he gazed at those stuffing their mouths with corn bread and ingesting horse meat out of a can. He then turned his gaze to the young women suckling their babies and rocking them to keep them quiet.

Excited, the police chief began to speak. He said: ‘This is an order! I am ordering the arrest of this rebel because he is opposing the noble cause to provide care for these people and is in opposition of his majesty the king of Greece.’

Then, while pointing at the Madzhiri, the police chief added: ‘These people have been afflicted by our blood enemies - the Turks! Rather than offering them a helping hand, this rebel and well-known freedom fighter, who has fought for the freedom of some united

Macedonia, is asking why these good and tormented people are coming to their own homeland Hellas?

This rebel wants to desecrate our faith but he does not know that he too has remained here only because he is Christian...’

My grandfather Ilia got very excited, raised his arm up and interrupted the police chief. He said: ‘Excuse me Mister! Those are your words! But that’s not how it is! We are people, Christians, now we are a people without a country!’

The police chief became very upset and yelled: ‘I arrest you in the name of the law!’

My grandfather then yelled back: ‘Mr. Police Chief, you are making a big mistake!’

Among the people in the village square there were Greek policemen with whips in their hands. They ran towards my grandfather and began to beat him. He fell to the ground and curled into a ball trying to defend himself.

The women began to weep and begged the police chief to stop the madness,” concluded Dobrin and then looked at Rumena in the eyes and said: “This is history, evidence, well-preserved in the very corner of my mind.”

Dobrin then continued with his story of how he became a communist. He said: “I can still see my grandfather Ilia lying there, black and blue, wrapped in a fresh calf skin. Then suddenly he had a heart attack and was fighting to breathe. He opened his eyes. They were bloodshot… He never spoke again… Even today I still hear a voice whispering and ringing in my soul about that old man.”