Every year on July 20, Cyprus recalls the beginning of the Turkish military invasion of 1974, as a result of which the island turned out to be split into two parts. In 2024, Vestnik Cyprus published 29 poems about the divided Cyprus as part of a project dedicated to the 29th anniversary of the newspaper.
The poems from Greek into Russian were translated by philologist Lidia Ardanova, doing a huge job. The spelling and style of the translator are preserved.
Fragments of reality, split in two
Poems about the divided Cyprus 1974-2024
“On July 15, 1974, the Greek forces in Cyprus made a military coup in order to overthrow the legal president of the Republic of Cyprus Archbishop Makarios III and the accession of Cyprus to Greece. Türkiye considered this action as a threat to the safety of Turco-kipriots and on July 20 the military invasion began.
At the Department of Greek Philology, where I began to engage in Cyprus literature, the opinions were heard that it was time for Cypriots to develop this injury, that there is no need to write about it again and again. Now, having lived for almost five years in Nicosia - four of them in the old city, with a view of the fence and prickly wire - I understand why this wound is not delayed.
This is a daily reality that breaks into the ruins under your nose, penetrating into the ears five times a day with prayers either taken into hostage of good neighbors, or enemies. Reality, habitually beating in a sick place by someone else's flag at the entrance to the capital. These are bars and coffee houses at the dividing barrels. This is the familiarity of conversations and news that endlessly remind - because they cannot but remind - that the problem is not solved.
The separation of the island is far from the only topic of modern Cyprus authors, but whatever it is about, it is invariably noticeable.
The poems collected by me were chosen almost by accident of many, very many cries of anger and horror, crying, thoughts, regrets, words of longing, hopes, despair, visions of lost paradise and an unclear future, eminent and little-known Greek and Turko-Kipriots.
My plan was to collect fragments in such a way as to show how the Cypriot invasion trauma was transformed in the experience of different generations. To do this, I indicated the years of life or birth of the authors, but those about whom there are no exact information, placed near authors close in time. ”
Mikhalis Pierris (1952-2021)
The murdered sonnet
I say goodbye to Cyprus again. There is no solution, as it has not been for centuries, the west to the west for a bad comfort, my east in the clutches of Saracensky sailors:
four hundredth. Located by the intersection of robberies. And in five hundredth ships of the brighter Ottoman, the Ottomanov’s hostility for three hundred years in the storm of alien seas.
On the plane to Paris in the seventy -fourth. Jara, suffocation, politeness, agony. As the death of separation. And my love
With a ripped face. We continue, as from monstrous and torn strokes without rhyme, mutilated and killed.
Kostas Montis (1914-2004)
Moments of the invasion
It is hard to believe that their sea Kerigny brought us, it is hard to believe that their beloved sea of Kerinya brought us.
...
Grind the spinui, shake them, pentadactilos, grind the spinui, shake them.
The third letter of the mother (fragment)
Mom, if my letter seems difficult to you, is because it stands a pentadactylos full of Turks over it, if it seems unbearable to you, this is because the pentadactylos stuffed with the Turks on it is on its knees.
Pentadactylos, this is a big problem, mother. If I honestly admit, Morf is not so noticeable, and Kerinya is not so visible from here, and Famagusta, and he is in front of us. And he, however, is in front of us, and looks at us, looks somehow ... and sits on our chest, like the embodiment of a nightmare, like a sleepy paralysis, he can not hide in front of us, and he can not hide from the eyes, like it, and he can disappear from the eyes. Morfa, cannot hide from the eye, like Kerignai like Famagusta. And he says: “So what?” And he asks us: “Well, so what?”
Yu ... p
We waited for her in a smoke -lumping cedar valley, waited at the guard point of the top of Tripilos, waited around the throat in Kerigny's water, kept with the last forces, just to wait.
Listened her story. Listal, like the Gospel, her story: here, look, and here, and here. And we were waiting for her. And they said: “No, it cannot be that she will not come to the rescue,” and said: “No, it is impossible not to come to the rescue,” because she can be heard everywhere with her Spartans, and “in the shadow” and “Molon Lava” and “ It is audible everywhere! And in fact, one night a message came that Greece arrived. What was it overnight, mother, what kind of echo, what kind of rumble to the island is rumble! We hugged crying and jumped, and felt trembling under the skin, and the chest was so that it was ready to crack, and the heart was beating, about the jump to the outside, they forgot their children, and forgot their children, and forgot their children, and forgot their children. The brothers forgot, and the fathers, and already cried from the news about the Greece who came to the rescue, opening his mouths, interfering with laughter in them. And the teachers said: “Have we seen?” And we all said in unison ”" saw? "
Until the next day they collapsed their heads on the bottom, until the next day Tripilos fell under the ground, until the next day he was backed away by a grimace of Troodos, as they seek, staring, to sit down, until the other day the eyes of Epias, until the other day the eyes of the salt and the chicken and the gallows of Greece did not come out because Greece did not come to the rescue because Greece did not come to the aid. that the message was false, the Greek division in pathos, the lie of heaven and the lie of the sea, and the lies of the nightingale and the lies of the heart, and the lies of both our stories, lie, all the lie. They say, Greece supposedly has other things, and could not, they say, she was sorry for this, sincerely sorry, and our teachers were embarrassed, and she was shameful, and she was shameful, and she was shameful, and she was shameful. Our teachers are now afraid, and our textbooks are now afraid when they approach the chapters about farm pians and salamin ...
I do not poetize, mom, I write down exactly.
Irini Andreu
And betrayal crowned an olive branch
You who will boast at the heroes to the heroes
with laurel wreaths, patriotic speeches
And the victim they brought shamelessly disgrace ... You, stuck in the abominations,
Those who have encircled the explosives of the rampant youths
With a motto homeland, faith, freedom,
You sent them like milk lambs in a wolf hole, and they walked, as if not knowing that death was waiting for them around the corner?
What homeland, what faith, what freedom are you so proud of?
You, who betrayed all the ideals ... Pompeisively by immortality, calling the death, you who did not raise a heavy cross for your mother ...
And those who did not encircle explosives,
But he taught endless youths to fanaticism,
He taught hatred, called the struggle for freedom, you are the same who came again and brought us misfortune.
And betrayal crowned the olive branch.
Andrulla Nikifor
July 15 today! A terrible, crazy day! Memories are bitter!
This day returns us on July 15, 1974. The day of the military coup against Makarios, which became the beginning and end of the tragic torment, through which Cyprus passed and is still passing.
This day is bitter, full of the magnificent of the saddler is bloody and thrown into despair!
The day of the darkness, the day of the blackness was rejoicing all the laws, followed by the invasion of the opening of a deep wound ...
Crime against Makarios.
Black blackness crushed the existing one who has survived this day will not forget him.
For the sake of the benefits of others, they sowed enmity, and the brother’s brother kills without pity.
Pain and grief, death, bells are torn, the mamnada crying does not subside with their guys.
The kercoport is wide open,
Uninvited Turks
They invade the island, supposedly they are guarantors, supposedly will establish order.
Yes, they were waiting for years to invade Cyprus again, and they were given a reason, exactly how they expected.
As the vultures were waiting for how hungry vultures were waiting for only a reason to enrage.
Crying, sobs, torment of terrible Cyprus is torn, a ship without a helmsman beats about a cliff ...
And the thought is already running ahead, runs into an unclear future: who guarantees it to us ???
Today we feel the most in the depths of the soul, one faith and hope for God, there is nowhere to wait for salvation.
Many years have passed, today it is forty -six, and we all wait and wait.
Mehmet Yasin (b. 1958)
Poems about not our days
IV.
How I would like to know who the Cypriot was, who read this book. Statched on page 48. Maybe it was mobilized at that very moment, I don’t know, be that as it may, the book was on Greek, it was called "A man is not born a soldier."
We could share the memories, eat ice cream together, I could bandage you a wound on the Ruki on a rainy day to lend a waterproof jacket from you. And how I would like you to find out how amazing to the most amazing here, now, read the book that you left in the middle.
IN.
Blood, smell of blood everywhere, blood.
I’m not a killer, make peace with me, flowers in vases, covered on beds, rocking chairs, albums with photos, I am not a killer.
Blood flows everywhere, the omnipotence.
Why are you not alive to see with your own eyes, I'm not a killer.
The tale of our cat
As a child, I always thought: I wonder, and the cat of a greek neighbor is also Greek? Once I asked about this mother, and my mother said that all the cats are Turkish, and the Dogs are Greeks, and that the cats from dogs always get.
Many years have passed, and what did I see once? Our cat is a dosage of a kitten.
Fairy tale that awaits the answer
Blood spilled over the sea, my general, I can’t look at the waves anymore. And you, interestingly, can?
Pisces interrogate me, and the Kirniye girls do not draw a blue sea anymore.
I can’t sleep, general, I'm afraid of dreams. And you, interestingly, can?
Lefkios Safiriu (1948-2022)
07/15/1974
The smell from the dead stood
at a distance of miles, was ruthless
The last summer-the shadows of the trees, the roofs of the houses were gone. The passionate summer for the people. The Military, the back door of AI-Danny, they say, there were no coffins to put them. And the kid was stuck up the blood of clothes-he was digging in mercilessly sunshine, in memory, to the future itself.
You knew others
Cyprus sun.
Aunt Marina at dawn, and her doves are on her shoulders.
Pantelis Mikhanikos (1926-1979)
Onesil, the king of Salamin
Next to me was Oesil, who went from the pages of history, a legend in blood and flesh.
The hero and the king held in his hand that he had left: a box of bone -intensive skull with a buzzing swarm of bees.
For ten years he sent his bees to regret to sting us to wake us up to convey to us a message.
Oovil sent ten thousand bees, but on our thick skin they all rested, and we did not understand anything.
And when the clatter of Barbarovaroma of Salamin, onesil was furious.
He could not stand it. He grabbed his tiles split my head.
And I fell dead. Bessed, miserable, cursed by onesil.
Adrian Pericleus Onufriu
Half life
Death gave birth to me
In the month of July.
I was hidden among the slipped wheat, fallen gunpowder. I gathered blood with a sponge, I still collect. I was impoverished with low -drying eyes and still guarantee. Now it’s hugged by bones. The moon is, my pentadactylos, half of the homeland, my alien. Polish’s heart, my brothers. I held out my hand for help, I still pull, my stranger. Then my children's voice was barely audible. Now, I shout that there is strength. As a dog. At what time is life half?
Dina Payashi-Katsuri (1941-2021)
Message Pentaktilos
Hello.
The space is one on one,
One-on-one time is reset, there is some kind of dimension, our presentation, we no longer have hands. We have no more hands. It is alarmous to his sounds, and the pigeons were drawn, so they told us with invisible ink.
Kiriyak Haralambidis (b. 1940)
At the wedding of the daughter
She had three hundred hectares of Zemlin of the occupied territory from the east.
She married, fortunately, for a good guy.
During the ceremony, he did not notice her father. He secretly went into the member of the temple, stood behind the column, proud of his daughter. Then he wiped the sleeve and poor tear.
They got married, wreaths for joy! They disassemble sweets, Lukum, drive around the cars, go.
The loving father leaves a green line, passes, bending down, and lies back into the ground.
Skratitis Antoniadis
July 20, 2013
We will shake our sad poems as usual, hang on the trunk of the July Day. We, the beasts of unbearable pain.
How this helpless expectation actually suits us.
On this day, everything is allowed: brilliant speeches at the monuments, with theatrical faces in the ranks, napled masks of memory-hope is no-impending along the stage, and several flowers, with honor shut on graves.
Tyrania pulling us on the donody of time.
Yorgos Christodulidis (born 1968)
Box
His bones were stored in one of the boxes
Anthropological laboratory
And they waited for identification. A man who wanted to do a lot, but now, it didn’t work out, was not lucky. The fence of years in the missing years was recognized as dead. There are four years in storage.
On storage in a box similar to the one in which the child once hid the lollipop on the stick to leave it for later.
Andreas Kapandreu (b. 1972)
Flag
Let's confess:
A crescent flag depicted on a pentadactylos is wounded. He is causing and tasteless. However, he serves something who will look to the north, about the occupation. This is his invaluable contribution.
Christ Argir (b. 1972)
Pentadactylos at dusk
There are such moments when your peaks, pentadactylos, are twilight with a sharp blade, and you, sad, cut your throat in the pinkish light.
Marula Yasemida Katzi
Famagusta
Now, under the lunar’s lunar, hopes and hopes. There is a covers of the winter hibernation, hugging your image nobly nobility. The adversaries from the opened will end in your desert, like crazy. Eola is still open. There was a desire only to open it. Who will now close it?
Eve to Georgiu
Famagustus reigning
You are sadly looking at us today. I read your thoughts. There is a rally galloping frantically. You can’t stand loneliness, forty -six years in silence. We still have a step in front of you, not a step back! Only you are listening to your breath, everything is dragged over on the neck. The years are tightened, the time of patience was compressed, the last spark of hope is dried up, and we still do not throw off the trees, the trees, the trees are not thrown away, the trees are not thrown away, the trees are not thrown away. The birds of the birds are dried up, but the proud, but in the depths of the bell tower is proud, photos of the black-Belyan’s remains of the ruins. We see you already clear your fog. It’s less and less, it is not known how many of us will have time. The lodged death is your expectation. We stretch it to the hook to touch you, we are strangled, and then this shameful redhead. The wire, rusted, drunk with sacrificial blood.
Antis Kanakis (b. 1946)
Nostalgia
Girls of Varosha, Silence of Considerable Preventive Zeazhotzdzda. The one is a single -handed man of water in a dream. Zolotyatmapelsinhneshovs of your garden. Like, like a kitten, you will play with a dog’s bench. You will be ragdish to whisper with jasmine. They will ship the buzz of the port. At dawn, going down the distant ways, you will again wake up with a cold misunderstanding with the hope that he will again straighten the winged with barbed wirewash on your chest.
Rulla Joannido-Stavra (b. 1951)
My island
(fragment)
The lunar lights will be shook over the trees, looking tired and already without tearful missing, developing his thoughts in one, telling his memories of one, pouring its dim balms of one of your ends to the other, my island to reassure your wounds. They will also come out of the orange morfudo of the sea of Famagustea. Carpasias monasteries with orphaned bells. They are navigated and leave, then mix. They get a pentadactylos dance for Ruki, singing a song of poisonous blue stone, into which they turned copper. They call the song freedom.
Zeki Ali (b. 1951)
Ultramarine
You, like a lotus on mirror water, your children's eyes froze in nostalgia.
For a long time, he peered into your face, washed by my gaze, breathing his own existence. If I dared to touch this light lake, it would turn into a raging ocean.
We turned the pages ... We looked at the disappearance and decomposition of the gallery of souls flooded into concrete. We said for hours, plunged into silence.
It so happened that today we were together and separately, like an ultramarine city of a conflict with ourselves.
Then he opened, splashed and woke up by the star pollen of the house, schools, looking into the void.
Lily Mikhailida
Winter in Troodos
The mountains extend their hands and call me. In the Troodos, snow falls. Ostrov in the ring of rain and fog, surrounded by memories. Monitoring drops knock on the glasses. I open the front door and find myself in the complete power of the winter. With difficulty, the light of the sun breaks through thick clouds, hugs the forest, then lit, then melancholy, like bodies in a lovely action: in a trepidable work: worship.
Snow in the Troodosenade is uncovered, divided by the island. But fog and rain recognize the dividing lines.
Andreas Timofeu (b. 1990)
The other side
There are poets on the other side. There are also a working, who lost houses that saw how the injustice of them grows between the temples, who grew up in other people's homes with memories of another land. There are and we, the other side for them.
Khalil Karapasaoglu (b. 1985)
Dream Eater, typical series about murders
I. On one island, Imam and Father were copied. Both became pregnant. Each gave birth to half the monster. The gods became furious. They cut the island in two. Half of the monsters met in the dead zone and turned into a dream old man. The gods cursed and blamed a freak grown by an imam and a priest in a dead zone. But the monster grew and grew. Surrex from hunger and came out of the dead zone!
II. In the park of stillborn children, he hung the tension of the sky
dressed up a cemetery and a racing table covered to solve
He left the rampant who did not know how to dream of a ugly manual about the murder carefully, not left, not left, let me choose what politician I will have a breath through a needle torn night, I will dare from my dreams a stars of dreams of dreams, and Nevona remains from my lips. I can't scream
Dimitra Dimitriu
Happy Holiday, Greece. And Yas headed back, I go upside down again, making my way with caution of the houses that I knew, stretching along the streets, where it was walking with thick greenery, and so going down the street, I look at the time spilled over us with an unlucking overseer, as if outside my body, outside the word, it goes out of the epoch. Snowing through Sonya again, leaving a little cherry blood to the corners. Now he gets to you.
Hussein Bakhcha (b. 1989)
Passport
Mom's sadness is a cosmopolitan harp, because she was broken by a finger of the Levantine refregnies connected her grammar of hatred, and the Garbage of History of Historians of the school bags of our children, and into their fairy tales without games,
And in the voices of the vultures that glorify the corpses, wrapped our houses without a wall of the damned bouquet of flags, in our houses, hunched over from the dust of memories told on our name,
With the fury of the struggle under the nails, I confess that my mother’s sadness remained on the street half of the world, in a half full warehouse with weapons, on her unsteady military shipyard in the caravan of those who did not gain the world-
My mother, who grew up with injuries, with broken fingers, is waiting for the purge of the defeat at the borders of the Galaxy, our unrecognized passport, the lost watch September will end with our unrecognized passport.
A tree of the era
a knife that reached the bone, the scattered ash of my geography
Eh, I would have a sparrow, I would sing to others-like the suffering refugee-lavender, the lost hopes of our dead people were fatigue over this tree and cursed him, Mariazhiyat with two balconies below, carry memories in the hem of a skirt, fold in a stack the red hands of our earth, ready-made suitcase relatives collect calm
A sign of a torn card, this is what Mariawurdalaki whistles and build men of the streets of the old city on our dry lips that taught children who are taught children who have been fanned for the streets
Salamis Aisegyul Sendug (b. 1986)
Poseidon II
We do not know how many poets are imprisoned in sorrow, like to prison. We don’t know how many times dreams moved across the boundaries of ghost cities.
Certificate of the author. Lidia Ardanova - philologist, translator. In 2018, she received a master's degree in the new Greek language and literature of St. Petersburg State University. Since 2019 he has been living in Nicosia. Currently, the University of Cyprus is engaged in the dissertation about Cyprus poetry of the Renaissance. The material about this was published here.
Photo: Lidia Ardanova
