Tales from the Walled City: Aesthetics of Political Prison Culture in Post-War Greece

Abstract

The grandmothers, as they are called—elderly women imprisoned for refusing to testify against their children regarding their resistance involvement—sit on the stone steps leading to the upper floors of the prison and learn from other prisoners how to read, write, and count. They are among the estimated 70 percent of illiterate Greek women at mid-century, and the plan is to reach full literacy within the prison. “I'm learning so I can write about the history of my village during the Albanian war, the resistance, the German occupation, and the civil war. How and why our children were forced to take up arms again and head for the mountains . . . I know this history well because I helped both in Albania and in the resistance,” says Maria Zoga. She has lost two sons, one killed by the Nazis and the other by “Greek fascists.” “My son Stamatis wanted me to learn to read and write. And I will learn, I will learn. I've just started to read,” says Violeta Tsamoutalidou. Stamatis, a communist and member of the resistance, was tortured at the police station and killed during an alleged escape attempt in 1948. “Teach me to read and to count,” says Grannie Regina. “Now that I've lost my husband and I'm by myself, who will count the grains?” The grandmothers scattered about the prison “learning letters” and taking life on their own terms is a prominent theme in the accounts of political prisoners.See Papadouka (1981:36–39). The Averoff Women's Singing Group, formed during the 1940s, sang and continued to perform the song, “The Grandmothers Learn Letters” into the 1980s. Its lyrics depict this peculiar pedagogy: “The grannies are bent over, with their eyeglasses/They are learning their ABC's and yet their hair is white as snow./The grandmothers hold their pencils and paper and write slowly/Their first letters will be sent to their grandchildren, who will receive them with joy./And if in their old age, many problems weigh on their hearts/Closed up just like the young inside the prison, they are learning to read and write./Spreading their gentle caresses among us, they remember the old days/Our every storm, they weathered first, and they put glasses on us.”