L’expulsion des populations grecques d’Asie Mineure en 1914-1915, vue par Ilias Vénézis dans Terre Éolienne

Abstract

With the novel « Aeolian Earth », Venezis focuses on the internal suffering of a man crushed by destiny. The Noël was published in 1943, it’s the last of the author’s trilogy and it constitutes an immense narration, where he recalls the years of his childhood in a atmosphere somewhere between nostalgia and fantasy, where men and nature are myths and inseparably seen as a unit. The story ends at the time of the first persecutions carried out by the Turks against the Christian population in 1914-1915. His style mixes lyricism, realism and musicality in a free form and composition, while the lack of organized plot allows the transformation of reality into the imaginary. “Aeolian Earth” darkens abruptly: a country is left behind; grandfather’s world is cats out of paradise, while there is biblical suffering and death.

Keywords

• anti-greek persecution
• greek novel
• Venezis Ilias (1904-1973)
• Asia Minor
• Ayvalik
• Mytilene