The Civilization of the Pontos

One of the most important books published in Hellas last year was Omer Asan's "The Civilization of the Pontos" (Kyriakidis Publishers , Thessaloniki). Now Hellenes have the opportunity to read this book first published as "Pontos Kultura" in 1996 in Istanbul, by Beige. A second edition is in press. Omer Asan, an economist, comes from Of, in Trebizond, north-eastern Turkey, an area with a strong Islamic tradition and a substantial Hellenic-speaking population. In addition to the Of version of the Pontian dialect, Asan speaks Modern Hellenic fluently. The writer was involved in the Left and was prosecuted for it during the 1980s. His father, a member of the Turkish Communist Party was imprisoned after the military coups of 1971 and 1981.Omer Asan belongs to the post-dictatorship generation. He came to Hellas last year for the launching of the Greek edition of his book, and this interview was conducted during his visit."Are there Hellenic-speakers in Turkey today who speak the Pontian dialect?"There are still people in Turkey today who speak and understand Pontian which is the oldest surviving Hellenic dialect. The members of this community come from Trebizond and are scattered throughout Turkey or have emigrated to other countries Pontian spoken in 60 villages in the Trebizond region, most of them in the Of area. At a conservative estimate. I would say this dialect is spoken by around 300000 people."You refer constantly to the identity problem. Why is this so important to you?"Nowadays the identity problem comes up more often, and this is because traditional explanations, like official identity cards don't give adequate answers. Some say the search for identity is a fashion that comes and goes. In their view, everyone is an individual a human being and nothing else.Regardless of what anyone thinks. I consider the important thing is to protect our language which we inherited from our forebears, and which is disappearing because we don't care about its disappearance and also to protect our culture and the identity it created for us.Throughout the history of mankind many ethnic groups living in the same geographical area have been absorbed by the dominant culture. Personality I am against others today sharing the fate of ethnic cultural groups which during the course of history were sometimes incorporated into the dominant culture and sometimes assimilated by force."You often refer to the question, "Who am I" to define the motives for specific research Did your personal search play a decisive part?"I began to search for my identity because of the fact that the language my ancestors spoke was not Turkish. Because in the village in town, at school, they taught us that we were Turks. In the neighborhood, at school, at work we spoke Turkish . But at home, in the village, my grandfather, my grandmother, everyone in the family spoke to each other in the language we called "Romaika". So what were we, "Romioi" or Turks? Now we speak Turkish.In my village the old people speak Romaika, but they are the last to use the language. The coming generations will not be able to bear it and learn it. Let's say that we have agreed, as far as the present is concerned: We speak Turkish, therefore we are Turkish. But who were we until now, what happened to make us become Turks? By asking "Who am I?" I plunged into the unknown. I had to find the answer to this question at any cost. And that is how this adventure began."When did this adventure begin, and what was your research based on?"At the end of the 1980's I began researching our identity and culture. But in Turkey I did n't manage to find written sources, or anything related to the language we spoke. I began in amateur fashion, to collect Pontian words I asked all the old people I met about our identity and language.I spoke to Turkish experts and researchers and discovered to my surprise that no work had been done in this field.At that time, aiming to find out at least a little information. I wrote letters and sent them to addresses in Hellas that I had learned of purely by chance. In 1993, just when I was about to give up hope. I was invited to a Pontian festival in Kallithea Attica.What I saw and the sounds I heard there literally changed my life. I was astonished that hundreds of kilometers from the land where I was born. I heard songs in the language of my ancestors accompanied by the lyra, that I danced with unknown people in another country and that I could talk and make myself understood in Pontian which I thought was a language that was no use at all.So I decided to focus my research on Erenkioi, my village in Of, and to study its living culture as an extract trace of Pontian culture. The result was this book that was published first in Turkey and then in Hellas. It is in six parts, including the theoretical context, historical and ethnographic details, popular literature, folklore, nomenclature, a glossary and bibliography.