The landmark date of October 28, 1940, the date of Italy’s declaration of war on Greece which marked our country’s involvement in World War II, has been recorded in many ways.
“For those who have caused harm with fire or knife, it will be lit here. Don’t despair of the cross, only let the menexes pray away from it”. Odysseus Elytis
The intense and special color of this day has been rendered through stories, testimonies, historical reports, photographic documents. Its uniqueness and importance could not but be recorded by the Greek writers of that period, such as Giorgos Seferis, Stratis Myrivilis, Angelos Terzakis, Kostis Palamas, and others.
Angelos Terzakis, Dawning October 28th…
“A new, unsuspected wind was beginning to blow over Athens. It was 6 o’clock when air defense sirens woke the state. The sky was crystal clear, the snow was white, it smelled of dew. In the streets, still deserted, some shutters, some balcony doors rattled. People woke up startled, they asked the first passers-by. A hum was rising little by little from around, from far away, the first group steps splashed on the asphalt. Eyes rising to heaven, they searched. But in all this movement that began and thickened in small groups, in groups that started for the centers, you could not distinguish agitation or anxiety. A mood of euphoria, cheerfulness, light, strange, rousing the souls, morning breeze that blows the sail. In the eyes of the people who faced each other, a happy surprise appeared, as if this whole world, which was yesterday immersed in everyday life and bio-wrestling, suddenly learned how it has hidden youth inside it. Angelos Terzakis, Greek epic 1940-41, Athens 1964, pp. 39-40.
Stratis Myrivilis: Unity of ten million Greeks
“The Time of History” an article by Stratis Myrivilis was published on November 15, 1940 in the magazine Nea Estia, issue 334. The great writer describes and evaluates: “…This unanimity of the ten million Greeks, with which they faced the terrible event of the war, it is perhaps the most important phenomenon in the history of our entire nation. Greece united, united, stood in front of the open book of Fate and dictated the new chapter of its history (…) This burial is not the first time it has been done in the history of the tribe. It won’t be the sternum either. Because Greece, inside its privileged cell, is an eternally new and fully alive organism. It is the very concept of youth, embodied in a breed nimble, imaginative, full of stubbornness and charming madness. On the other side of the border is a people of 45 million. We defeat him because we are a male and free race, and he is a race of 45 million slaves. It is an unequal struggle, and the peoples of the world, enemies and friends and indifferent, watch it in amazement. What will be his end? This ending is of little interest. Olakeri, our justification stands at the beginning…”
Giorgos Seferis: “Monday the 28th… we have a war”
George Seferis
October 28, 1940 is also found in the literary work of Giorgos Seferis. The great and internationally distinguished Greek writer was at that time serving in the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In “Days III April 16, 1934-December 14, 1940” (Ed, IKAROS) he states: “Monday 28. I fell asleep at two in the morning, reading Makrygianni. At half past three a voice on the phone woke me up: “we are at war”. Nothing else. The world had changed. The dawn, which a little later I saw breaking behind Hymettos, was another dawn: unknown. She is still waiting where I left her. I don’t know how long he will wait, but I know he will bring the high noon.”
“This keeps me light in the whirlwind from the noise of the world presbyterial head this reason I will tell you, I have no other: Get drunk with the immortal wine of the Twenty.” Kostis Palamas November 1, 1940
Aggelos Sikelianos: “October 28, 1940”
18 days after the declaration of war, on November 15, 1940, Angelos Sikelianos published the poem “October 28, 1940” in Nea Estia:
“…No one will escape his generation!
her weight will break by the moment
who coming out of his oblivion
in the light where there are no longer any hesitations
We were saying: One more Marathon! We were saying: One more Salamis!
We were saying: Another twenty one! And you finally came, Mother-Day, where you embraced and raised the whole of the past to their highest redemptive purpose, to their supreme moral Historical Rhythm!
O vindication of all Greek struggles! O supreme moral turn in the chaos of the whole World!
And together, oh gigantic full historical payment, from which,..Victorious, the Greeks, we will start tomorrow, pioneers of the reconstruction of the whole earth!…”
The protest of intellectuals
Just fourteen days after October 28, 1940, on November 10, the 13th day of the Italian-Greek war, great figures of Greek letters and arts, writers, academics, historians, visual artists, 17 personalities of the time who call themselves intellectuals, people of spirit and art, publish in the newspaper “Nea Hellas” a joint protest:
The common protest of men of letters and art
“It is two weeks now that an ultimatum unique in the diplomatic annals of Athens for the content, time and manner presented by Italy called on Greece to surrender its territories, to deny its freedom and to destroy its honor . We Greeks gave to this itama claim of fascist violence, the answer imposed by three thousand years of traditions, engraved deep in our souls, but also written in the last corner of the holy land, with the blood of the greatest heroes of human history.
“And at this moment near the stream of Thyamis and on the snowy slopes of Pindus and the Macedonian mountains we fight, most often with the lance, determined to win or die to one. In this unequally cruel but stubborn struggle, which makes the furious raider break out against women, old men and children, burn, kill, mutilate, dismember the populations in our unfortified and unarmed cities and peaceful villages us, we have the feeling that we are not defending our cause alone: That we are fighting for the salvation of all those High values that make up the spiritual and moral civilization, the precious heritage bequeathed to humanity by the glorified ancestors and that today we see threatened by the wave of brutality and violence.
“Exactly this feeling inspires the courage in us Greek intellectuals, people of spirit and art, to turn to our brothers of the whole world and ask not for their material but for their moral help. We ask for the contribution of souls, the revolution of consciousness, the preaching, the direct influence, wherever possible, the watchful watching and the energy for a new spiritual Marathon that will free the oppressed Nations from the horror of the blackest slavery that they have known as now the world.
Kostis Palamas, Spyros Melas, Angelos Drosinis, Sotiris Skipis, Dimitrios Mitropoulos, K. Dimitriadis, Nikolaos Veis, K. Parthenis, Ioannis Gryparis, Yiannis Vlachogiannis, Stratis Myrivilis, Kostas Ouranis, Miltiadis Malakassi, Grigorios Xenopoulos, Al Alexander Philadelfeus, Aristos Kampanis.”
The saga of Albania
Greek soldiers, dancing in the mountains of the Greek-Albanian front, 1940
Important is the work of contemporary Greek writers who refer to the first day of the start of the Italo-Greek war, but of course it is not limited to that. Many texts and verses were written to describe the Albanian saga. For example, among others, we mention Odysseas Elytis, Nikiforos Vrettakos and Timos Moraitini.
Odysseus Elytis, the reserve lieutenant
Odysseus Elytis fought as a reserve lieutenant in Albania, he wrote the emblematic collection “Heroic Hymn and Lament for the Lost Lieutenant of Albania” (Published by IKAROS)
“Now he lies on the shriveled fur
with a stopped wind in the quiet hair
with a sprig of oblivion in his left ear
he looks like a buck who suddenly lost his birds
it sounds like a song that was muffled in the dark
it looks like an angel’s watch that has stopped
the matochinoras just said “hello guys”.
and the question was marbled”.
And in the same poetry collection he writes:
“…He was a brave kid
after dull gold buttons and his pistol
with the air of a man in a walk
and with his helmet, shiny mark
(they came so easily through the mind
who knew no harm to him)
with soldiers of zerba-right
-Fires in the lawless fire!-
with the blood over the eyebrows
the mountains of Albania thundered
then they melted the snow to wash away
his body, silent wreck of dawn
and his mouth, little bird squealing
and his hands, open squares of the wilderness
The mountains of Albania thundered
they didn’t cry
why should they cry
he was a brave child!’
Nikiforos Vrettakos: “Mother and son”
Nikiforos Vrettakos writes in his poem about the 1940 epic “Mother and Son”:
“In history, the son fought standing upright
and the mother held the mountains, her son standing upright
bronze, snow and cloud.
And Pindos roared as if Dionysus had a feast.
The canyons sang and the fir trees bounced and the stones danced.
And everyone shouted: Here you are, Greek children
Souls crossed light sabers on the horizon
rivers receded
graves were moved…”.
Timos Moraitinis writes in the poem “Hellenides”:
“She stands bent over all night
and stays up late working for the Motherland
and while bent over knitting
the Greek woman has a high forehead.
And needles become swords
coming out of their golden case
to fight with the young warrior.
And they knit until the deep night
and the thread is wasteful and endless, as well as Victory”.
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