Preservation of American Hellenic History
Preservation of American Hellenic History
by Jason C. Mavrovitis
Eleni Zissis was born between 1880 and 1886 to a family whose knowledge of history was limited.(45) They knew little or nothing of the world beyond their experience of Sozopolis, the Black Sea and its shores. Western Europe was a topic for romantic stories and America but a dream. They had a deeply ingrained awareness of themselves that included ethnic pride and attachment to the land and sea that surrounded their small city and its way of life. They lived their Greek Orthodox faith with reverence for the Patriarchate and in awe of Constantinople. They were wary of the Turks and Bulgars that surrounded them. They expected a future in the land they had always known. In the end the culmination of centuries of ebb and flow of populations and power would like thunderous storm waves overwhelm and cast them from the shores of the Black Sea.
Many young men, especially those first-born of Greek families on the Black Sea, attended the schools of Constantinople. Those from families that were more prosperous might even matriculate at one of the universities of Western Europe. There, gradually and in increasing numbers they were exposed to and brought home to their Balkan communities the philosophies and political conceptions of the Enlightenment, the ideals of classical Greece and Rome, and knowledge of their own history. The American Revolution, the French Revolution and the goals stated in early Napoleonic doctrine gave them heart to raise their hopes and to envision a new, free society.
The common people gained what little knowledge they had from their church and the work of their daily lives. Western European thought influenced them little until the nineteenth century. By the time of its last decades sufficient contact had been made to nurture dreams of a new era, even in the humblest of peasants.
Greek families prized sons. A Greek woman did not perceive herself as fulfilled until she had provided a male offspring to whom would fall the economic responsibilities of the family: care of his parents in old age and of sisters until they married or, if unmarried, for all of their lives. Daughters were economic burdens until they married, and once married lived their lives in the limited sphere of the home. The home was their domain and within its confines they made decisions that affected the family and its well being, raised its children and led its religious life.
Eleni's mother, Vasiliki Hristodul Zisu(46) gave birth to four daughters: Eleni and her three sisters, Smaragda, Sultana and Sofia. There was no son to care for his parents in old age, or his sisters until they married, or if they did not marry, for all their lives. Eleni's personality developed without the limitations imposed by the presence of a brother, who would have been the focus of the family's attention.
While her mother, Vasiliki, was literate in Greek and Bulgarian, and may have been a teacher, Eleni's formal schooling was non-existent; she never learned to read or to write.
All four young women, and their mother, Vasiliki, were destined to leave Sozopolis. Eleni and Sofia were to remain close and they would care for their mother in her later years. Of the two, Eleni had the dominant personality.
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