As a filmmaker of 47 years with a few Academy Award nominations for feature documentaries, I really appreciate this production.
It is a marvelous historical narrative with truly amazing still and motion picture content that tells the splendor and horror of a cosmopolitan society that met the insanity of Turkish nationalism.
The historic content is devastating. It depicts the true evil of ethnic cleansing.
I suggest you take the time to “enjoy” the artistry of the production, and consume the details of the Kemalist evil that slaughtered so many Armenians and Greeks and destroyed a harmonious city of great culture, trade and conviviality prior to the madness.
Relevant to today’s Syrian catastrophe, we see great cities destroyed and hundreds of thousands killed. The Syrian people have been saved only by the will and actions of the Russians. Others fought alongside the Syrians, but everything was in the balance when Putin sent Russian troops and machines to rescue the nation and the people.
Sadly, a hundred years ago, no major nation acted to save the Armenians, the Greeks or Smyrna.
The film production relates why that moral failure occurred.
Thanks, Larchmonter – your comments confirm my feelings. My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed this production. The music is excellent and the narrators are first class. Truly a must see. I was amazed at how little I knew about this event – and I am no slouch when it comes to history. Nationalism be damned a thousand times over wherever it may raise its ugly head. truly a great tragedy – I would implore anyone to watch this.
It was indeed a nice documentary. A bit of history I did not know. The name of the city is familiar to me, as it has been taken by small towns scattered across North America.
I cannot but wonder if a similar fate awaits some existing cosmopolitan cities, as history unfolds. We are certainly at a turning point now.
Saker I am glad to see you relent a little in your dismissal of Greece – thank you for posting this.
The truth is that for almost 10 thousand years there was a Greek world that was created, not as empires are today by land conquest, but by sea trade and the creation of colonies. Consider that Odessa (an ancient Greek colony) in Ukraine is so old, it was where Jason and his Argonauts went to rescue the Golden Fleece! Byzantium, an important Greek city from classical times, as gateway to the greek colonies of the Black Sea – Mariapol, Yalta, Sebastopol, Trebizond etc, by 200 AD had become the heart of the greek world, its capitol. To this day when Greeks say ‘the City’ they mean Constantinople. Not Athens.
The Byzantine Empire, i.e. and with it the continuity of the free Greek world, came to an end on Tuesday 29 May 1453, after almost a thousand years of existence. The next 400 years of Ottoman rule ended in the Great Power backed and funded Greek revolution – aimed at weakening the Ottomans – which resulted in a small truncated ‘Greece’ centred around the small dusty village of Athens, pop. 5000. We have not been free of the Great Powers right up to this day. Northern European and 5 Eyes history books barely mention Byzantium and never point out that it was Greek…
Sorry, I had to skip a lot.
The collaborationist Greeks (with a few exceptions) that have run our country since the French murdered Capodistrias, has made sure to rob it blind and stunt its growth. Now we are under not only Thanatopolis DC and its bureaucratic EU arm, and their ambassadors, the carpetbagging Troika, but we have been forced into a SOFA agreement with Israel (who now have bases here) and our armed forces and navy stood down and placed under US, Israeli and German NATO command. But this is not in the news.
Don’t judge Greeks or Greece by Clinton protogees/traitors like Tsipras. We are a captive and infiltrated nation, with 360 thousand migrants rejected by Germany being returned here ‘to their country of entry’ by Merkel with her sudden resurrection of the Dublin Accords.
The situation confronting Greece today sheds light on Western imperialism in its stage of ever accelerating putrefaction and decomposition. The West’s Elites are happy to wreak havoc just about everywhere. This breeds all sorts of backstabbing and rivalries, even within the EU itself. That is what gives astute leaders such as Putin and, yes, Erdogan their opportunities with regard to the Troika’s midgets such as Merkel, Hollande, and Tsipras.
Tsipras promised “EU without austerity” because that was exactly what the majority population in Greece (as well as in certain other EU countries) was demanding. Slowly but surely, the EU citizenry is coming to terms with the fact that Western imperialism won’t pander to their First World delusions anymore.
As a filmmaker of 47 years with a few Academy Award nominations for feature documentaries, I really appreciate this production.
It is a marvelous historical narrative with truly amazing still and motion picture content that tells the splendor and horror of a cosmopolitan society that met the insanity of Turkish nationalism.
The historic content is devastating. It depicts the true evil of ethnic cleansing.
I suggest you take the time to “enjoy” the artistry of the production, and consume the details of the Kemalist evil that slaughtered so many Armenians and Greeks and destroyed a harmonious city of great culture, trade and conviviality prior to the madness.
Relevant to today’s Syrian catastrophe, we see great cities destroyed and hundreds of thousands killed. The Syrian people have been saved only by the will and actions of the Russians. Others fought alongside the Syrians, but everything was in the balance when Putin sent Russian troops and machines to rescue the nation and the people.
Sadly, a hundred years ago, no major nation acted to save the Armenians, the Greeks or Smyrna.
The film production relates why that moral failure occurred.
Thanks, Larchmonter – your comments confirm my feelings. My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed this production. The music is excellent and the narrators are first class. Truly a must see. I was amazed at how little I knew about this event – and I am no slouch when it comes to history. Nationalism be damned a thousand times over wherever it may raise its ugly head. truly a great tragedy – I would implore anyone to watch this.
Thanks, Larchmonter.
It was indeed a nice documentary. A bit of history I did not know. The name of the city is familiar to me, as it has been taken by small towns scattered across North America.
I cannot but wonder if a similar fate awaits some existing cosmopolitan cities, as history unfolds. We are certainly at a turning point now.
Saker I am glad to see you relent a little in your dismissal of Greece – thank you for posting this.
The truth is that for almost 10 thousand years there was a Greek world that was created, not as empires are today by land conquest, but by sea trade and the creation of colonies. Consider that Odessa (an ancient Greek colony) in Ukraine is so old, it was where Jason and his Argonauts went to rescue the Golden Fleece! Byzantium, an important Greek city from classical times, as gateway to the greek colonies of the Black Sea – Mariapol, Yalta, Sebastopol, Trebizond etc, by 200 AD had become the heart of the greek world, its capitol. To this day when Greeks say ‘the City’ they mean Constantinople. Not Athens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic_Greeks#/media/File:Greek_colonies_of_the_Euxine_Sea.svg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic_Greeks
The Byzantine Empire, i.e. and with it the continuity of the free Greek world, came to an end on Tuesday 29 May 1453, after almost a thousand years of existence. The next 400 years of Ottoman rule ended in the Great Power backed and funded Greek revolution – aimed at weakening the Ottomans – which resulted in a small truncated ‘Greece’ centred around the small dusty village of Athens, pop. 5000. We have not been free of the Great Powers right up to this day. Northern European and 5 Eyes history books barely mention Byzantium and never point out that it was Greek…
Sorry, I had to skip a lot.
The collaborationist Greeks (with a few exceptions) that have run our country since the French murdered Capodistrias, has made sure to rob it blind and stunt its growth. Now we are under not only Thanatopolis DC and its bureaucratic EU arm, and their ambassadors, the carpetbagging Troika, but we have been forced into a SOFA agreement with Israel (who now have bases here) and our armed forces and navy stood down and placed under US, Israeli and German NATO command. But this is not in the news.
Don’t judge Greeks or Greece by Clinton protogees/traitors like Tsipras. We are a captive and infiltrated nation, with 360 thousand migrants rejected by Germany being returned here ‘to their country of entry’ by Merkel with her sudden resurrection of the Dublin Accords.
Tsigantes,
The situation confronting Greece today sheds light on Western imperialism in its stage of ever accelerating putrefaction and decomposition. The West’s Elites are happy to wreak havoc just about everywhere. This breeds all sorts of backstabbing and rivalries, even within the EU itself. That is what gives astute leaders such as Putin and, yes, Erdogan their opportunities with regard to the Troika’s midgets such as Merkel, Hollande, and Tsipras.
Tsipras promised “EU without austerity” because that was exactly what the majority population in Greece (as well as in certain other EU countries) was demanding. Slowly but surely, the EU citizenry is coming to terms with the fact that Western imperialism won’t pander to their First World delusions anymore.