|
My Note
After the Turkish (Ottoman)
conquest, Turks from Turkey came to live in Cyprus. Some of them were given the
right to go to Cyprus and some were sent to Cyprus as exiles as a punishment for
disobeying the law. According to our old villagers, the Turkish population in
the village was in minority among the Linobambaki and the Christian population.
Soon after the British took over Cyprus, the village priest induced quite a
number of Turks to become Christians. It is also probable that many of the
Linobambaki, then, return to Christian faith. The priest was successful and
effective in his Christianization policy. However, the village priest's
activities caused enragement amongst the Moslem Turkish villagers. One morning
the priest was found murdered (about 1924) At that time what percentage of
people of Louroujina was Moslem Turks and what percentage of them were
Linobambaki or Christians, still requires researching into.
After the priest
was murdered the Greek inhabitants gradually became the minority and the Moslem
Turks the majority. Not counting those Moslem Turks who remained faithful to
their religion and to their mother tongue during the Christianisation policy of
the village priest, the people of Louroujina irrespective of their religious and
ethnic origin spoke in Greek. This was probably due to: (a) People who were
Linobambaki, and (b) partly due to Turks being converted to Christianity and
compelled to speak in Greek. Louroujina grew and become one of the largest
Turkish villages with its people speaking in Greek. In about 1940s a campaign in
favour of 'speaking in Turkish' was started by the village intelligencia. With
the founding of the village youth club, Lurucina Türk Gençler Ocağı in 1942,
this campaign gained momentum. The village club organized social activities and
staged theatrical plays with the aim of educating the villagers. The main theme
of the plays put on stage for those days was Turkish Nationalism. It is
interesting to note though, that during the intermissions, jokes were told both
in Turkish and in Greek. Often a mixure of both languages were used to make
people like, appreciate and laugh for these jokes.
It was not
until 1950s that a more effective campaign was started, calling on the
Turkish villagers to speak their mother tongue. This campaign was
sparked off by rising nationalism among the Turkish Cypriots and was
taken further on Celal Hordan's visit to the village in 1957 (I am not
so sure about this date, but it might have been in 1958). C.Hordan was
sent to Cyprus by the Turkish Government, then headed by Adnan Menders,
to help organize and rally Turkish Cypriots behind Taksim (Partition of
the island between Turkey and Greece). The young responded favourably
and positively but the old generation found this very difficult and were
unable to learn how to speak Turkish. For every Greek word that anyone
used, especially during C. Hordan's visit to the village, had to pay a
two shilling piece as a punishment. I distinctly remember that there
were some villagers, who, purposely used Greek words while speaking in
Turkish just to redicule, protest or make fun of this nonsensical
punishment.
In later
years people speaking in Greek gradually became smaller in number. There
are still good many who are able to speak both Turkish and Greek. Even
today, people living in Louroujina prefer to speak Greek or speak half
in Greek and half in Turkish. This may not be true for the young
generation who may not even understand a word of Greek.
People of
Louroujina who left the village to live in other parts generally speak
Turkish, but sometimes speak in Greek. They say, speaking in
Greek, gives them some kind of pleasure and satisfaction, because they
remember their old days. "Telling old stories and jokes about our
village is not possible without telling it in Greek or telling half of
it in Greek and half of it in Turkish."
People of
Louroujina, until recently, were looked down at or even insulted
by other Turkish Cypriots just because of their past. This may be true
even for today. We should not deny our past; there is nothing to be
ashamed of and nothing to be insulted for. That is our history, the
history of the people of Louroujina. Like everybody else on this island
we are proud of our village, we are proud of our villagers, we are proud
of our past and present, and like other people we have many villagers
who are very successful in their professions or in what their doing.
S. Arifler
January 2000
|