The warriors, according to the autobiographical accounts of the Greek chieftains of the Greek revolution, from Ioannis Makriyannis« »Memoirs« (1907) and Nikolaos Kasomoulis» "Military Memories of the Greek Revolution" (1940-1942), two works published only in the 20th century.ο century by Yannis Vlachogiannis, they themselves point out that they brought the tamboura with them until the battle. In fact, the Macedonian Kasomoulis adds the yogari and the bouzouki, an additional argument in support of everything national through Greek music. The uninterrupted use of the tamboura from classical antiquity, otherwise known as the trichord or pandouris, the Byzantine thamboura, today transforms three musical instruments in the traditional taboura, the lute and the mandolin on the popular bouzouki known to us.
Heroes of the Revolution became a theme in popular folk singing, with the family of Kolokotronia being a striking example. The following poem thematizes the thieving war between the Greeks of the Peloponnese and the Ottoman state and the escape of Theodoros Kolokotronis to the island of Zakynthos in 1806.
Of the Kolokoronai
| The snow shines on the mountains and the sun shines in the valleys, shine and the’ lighthearted the swords of the Colocronians, They have the silvery pales of the many inglorious ones, the five lines the buttons, the six lines the chaprase. Who will not suffer the earth to be trodden down. |
| Riding they eat bread, riding they fight, They go to church on horseback, they worship on horseback, astride the horse’ Counterfoil by the priest's hand. They throw ferns at the Virgin Mary, they throw ferns at the saints And to the Lord Jesus the silver staves. |
| «Christ, flame the swords, flame our hands.». And Thodorakis spoke, and Thodorakis says: I saw it in my sleep, in my reverie, I was crossing a murky river and I couldn't get across. |
| Come on, let's scatter, let's have some fun. Sire, George ...in your place, Nikita in Londari- I go to Karytaina, go to my people, to leave my will and tes orders mine, what I'll cross the sea, I'll go to Zakynthos». |
Folk folk song is primarily historical. Centuries ago in Eastern Thrace, «The Kursos of Adrianople» refers to the Turkish fall of the Greek city of Adrianople in 1368, a historical folk song recorded in Crete only in 1837 by Pasley.
The Kuros of Adrianople
The nightingales of the East and the birds of the West
they cry slowly, they cry fast, they cry at noon,
they weep for Adrianople the much-crushed,
where the crunch the three holidays of the year;
of Christmas for wax, and of Vayu for wax,
and the Lenten Sunday for Christ is Risen.
The same popular folk song as a variation with the title of its first verse «T’ Nightingales of the East» survives to this day in Fthiotida for the conquest of Rumeli as a synonym for the entire enslaved Hellenism, in other words for Romiosyne. Two examples that prove that the popular Muse refers to the unhealed wounds of the New Hellenism.
The Nightingales of the East (variant)
The nightingales of the East and the birds of the West
they cry slowly, they cry fast they cry at noon
weep for the treacherous Rumeli the much-embattled
where they took her for the three holidays of the year
of Christmas for wax and of May for wax
and the Lenten Sunday for Christ is Risen.
Moreover, a great trauma of the Greeks is still the numerous massacres during the Greek Revolution, for example on the eastern islands of Chios and Psara, but less known is the the genocide in the island of Kassos where the island was completely abandoned. The Christians were left helpless because the ships from Hydra and Spetses were unable to help because the sailors had not been paid in time. Eventually the Cassians became the carcasses of the Turkish-Egyptians on June 7-8, 1824 and that is why the memory of Musa preserves the recent history with the following chant.
The Massacre at Kasos
A black bird sits on the wild boar of Kasu
...and he makes a sad little voice and a black lamentation,
- Mana the weeping and groaning in the island of Kasos!
The mother weeps the child and the child the mother
and the brother his sister and the brother his sister's sister.
Bodies become mottled, blood becomes rivers.
"Bass and the plague hath smitten, bass and the earthquake hath risen?;
No plague has struck, no earthquake has risen.
Hush-Passover was taken from Alexandra.
To Fri went the terrible armada and rested.
Take out the Arvanites, take out the crooked ones,
to press the Cross, to press the Holy
to take over churches and all the monasteries.
They slaughter old men and old women and all the boys
the girls and the babies in the flotilla they barter,
slaves to sell them to Barbary's parts.
And one of the slaves said in a sad little voice:
-A thousand things you can do Hussein, a thousand things you can sell us
We will not fear the sword of the Turk,
or you will cut us all down, or we will see freedom.
The Psara on 20-21 June 1824 will become a place of martyrdom for 30,000 Greeks, locals and refugees from the great massacre in Chios, when the Pylea will decide to annihilate Psara because of the successful presence of its torchbearers in the eastern Aegean. The successes of Demetrios Papanikolis in Lesvos and Konstantinos Kanaris in Samos, Chios and Tenedos, and together with Georgios Vratsanos in the Straits made the Sultan the greatest opponent of the Psarians.
The Destruction of Psara
What have you strangers come to see on the desert island?;
Ridges bare, ridges dry, destruction everywhere!
Rubble, old houses, debris and desolation,
there was nothing left in the famous Fisherman.
And yet, once upon a time, it was an envied island
And the harbor was full of ships.
Everybody was honored to go on a pilgrimage
and to the charity of the fisherman there to syrianize.
Belaitis's foolishness was burned to the ground,
and the plugs from the cannons are thrown into the air.
Fire in Kokkinopounda, fire in Daskalio
fire in Paleokastro, fire in Ftelio.
All turned to ashes, like today one day
for the sweet and carefree, sometimes mother.
Only one daughter remained, modest and sad,
is the Glory of the Fishermen, the powdered one.
The mother of freedom, the birth of the sea,
jewel of valor and twenty-one.
The companion of valour, the sister of Mars
the one whose flag the Kurds raised.
She is the one who defied the Turkish cannon,
with one hand on the torch and the other on the steering wheel.
It's the one that burned the Turkish frigates
as if they were fireworks, as if they were candles.
She is the one who sent into battle in the first place,
like lightning, like thunder, the Fisherian blasts.
She is the one who was comfort and hope,
to the slaughtered brothers in our Motherland.
With all her good things, alone and bitter,
in our desert island she alone remains.
And for her crown she wears, dipped in blood,
a few grasses left and they're withered.
She only studies, she only writes,
the lads of the Fishermen, on the blackened ridge.
Look at the way he walks, the way his head bows,
What pain in her breasts poisonous to hide?;
Psara will join Greece only in 1912 - the disaster is a black page for Hellenism and for the Greek Revolution of 1821.
By Georgia Tsatsani
Author of the article:
Georgia Tsatsani is a philologist and comparative literature scholar.
