Podcasts

Music: “…and the Slow Everlasting Groan of Overburdened Stone”

In 1962, Mikis Theodorakis found himself in Cuba as part of a mission of the then EDA (United Democratic Left), visiting the island three years after the Cuban Revolution. During their trip, a feast was organized on the top floor of the “Havana Libre Hotel”, formerly known as the Hilton.

Music: “…My Dialogue With that Which I Perceive to be Sacred”

When Charles Baudelaire’s famous poem “Perfume Exotique” was translated into Turkish by Orhan Veli Kanık, Kanık made a particularly crafty choice. As a poet himself, instead of repeating the word “exotic,” he tenderly rendered it as “Alıp Götüren Koku” — “The Scent That Carries You Away.”

And don’t we do get carried away when “that music” plays? It is very common to hear from people in both Turkey and Greece that they are transported the moment they hear each other’s music.

Memory: “…the Gaps Left Within Us by the Secrets of Others”

Magnificent memories and amazing fears!

In 2017, Kerem Soyyılmaz and his family decided to renovate their grandparents’ house in their village of Karacaköy, located in Çatalca, Istanbul.

That summer, a gravestone was discovered beneath the foundation of the house: “Here lies the servant of God, Chrysoula Rodaki.” They were only able to understand the date — March 1887 — as the inscription was in Greek. Kerem then embarked on a personal journey to uncover the story of the gravestone, hoping to find its rightful owners. What he witnessed along the way eventually became a documentary that intertwines questions of past and identity, but, more importantly, brings forth a story of closure, reconciliation, and friendship. He uncovered many of the “known secrets” of his hometown, along with ghost and treasure stories woven around the gravestone and the village itself.

Memory: “…the Struggle of Memory Against Forgetting”

30th of January, 1923. Signatures were made regarding the Exchange of Populations between Turkey and Greece.

Both parties started their agreement with ARTICLE Number 1:

Beginning on 1 May 1923, a compulsory exchange (obligatoire) shall be undertaken between Turkish nationals of the Greek Orthodox religion settled in Turkish territory and Greek nationals of the Muslim religion settled in Greek territory. None of these persons shall be permitted to return to Turkey without the authorisation of the Turkish Government or to Greece without the authorisation of the Greek Government.

“Where to Begin: Why Skala / Iskele Today?”

Where to begin… Maybe, why we believed to look at the Population Exchange that took place between Turkey and Greece almost 100 years ago is still meaningful to understand migration today.

Migrants are becoming more and more a part of our daily lives. In the rush of our urban lives, the presence of the migrants as “the other” is becoming more present yet invisible at the same time. In Izmir, once the flourishing Greek neighborhood of Basmane which witnessed massive depopulation between ‘22 and ‘23, today hosts thousands of migrants from all over the world. In Athens, housing projects such as Prosfigika, which was designed to host the exchanged Greeks of Asia Minor a hundred years ago, are hosting migrants today yet again. It is very evident that these are not mere coincidences, however, one begs the question: What relationship do they possess with each other? What can we learn from the memory of the Population Exchange and project that experience to work on a better future today? Through which practices do migrants reproduce the cities that we live in today and how did they do it in the past? Can life itself become a form of resistance through cultural reproduction tools for migrants such as music, food, and coexistence, wherein their name almost became synonymous with hatred and exclusion today?