Preservation of American Hellenic History
Preservation of American Hellenic History
by Jason C. Mavrovitis
Before 1878, in anticipation of the Turko-Russian, war Russian agents had been at work recruiting irregular militia as far south as Sozopolis. Constantinos Capidaglis was a man of action. He became commandant of the secret militia in Sozopolis and hoped to participate in an attack on Constantinople and the emancipation of Greek and Bulgarian Orthodox peoples. While his hope was unfulfilled, Constantinos' military experience and demeanor became the basis for his nickname, Generalis [photo / 61].
Constantinos' anti-Turk fervor never waned. At the outbreak of the Turko-Greek war in April of 1897, he volunteered to serve in the Greek army. German trained Turkish troops crushed the Greek people's ill-timed attempt to win freedom in Crete, Thessaly and Macedonia.
Crete was however brought closer to enosis (union with Greece) largely because British, French, Russian, and other allied forces intervened to end the bloodshed. These are the same forces whose admirals are so poignantly remembered by Madame Hortense, the aged courtesan in Nikos Kazantzakis' book Zorba the Greek.(62) Because of her relationship with warships and admirals, Zorba called her "Bouboulina."(63) The Admirals' fleets occupied the Cretan city of Chania and bombarded the insurgent Greeks on Akrotiri to contain the insurrection.
Constantinos did not talk about his experiences in the Turko-Greek War. The Greek army collapsed at the first assault of the Turks and fled across Thrace. It was an ignoble end to an enthusiastic beginning forced by excited and irrational mobs of zealous and unrealistic patriots in Athens.(64) Constantinos returned to Sozopolis.
By 1905 Constantinos and Sofia had added three children to their family: Hristos, Vasiliki and Theafano. Perhaps in anticipation of the bad times ahead, and to find work to sustain his family, Constantinos immigrated from Sozopolis to a refugee camp in the area of Thessaloniki and then to Athens, Greece. His Greek nationality and past service in the Greek army made him welcome. Constantinos considered himself more Greek (more of a Hellene) than the mainlander Greeks; he called them savage Christians (agriochristiani). He established himself and his family in a home in Kalithea, Athens, where he worked at his trade as a tailor. His home was to become first Eleni and Evangelia's, and subsequently the entire family's stepping-stone to America.
Sofia's sisters, Sultana and Smaragda, both married Greek men of Sozopolis: Ioannis Thoma and Demetrios Parousis, respectively. Sultana's children, Thomas and Ioanna, immigrated to the United States. The third, Eleni, lived in Chicago and likely brought her mother to Chicago to live with her after her father died. When last seen Smaragda Parousis and her family lived in Athens. They may have changed their names and fled to Bulgaria or Romania in the late 1940's at the end of the Greek Civil War. They were on the losing communist side.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the fourth sister, Eleni (photo), lived in Burgas (Pyrgos), Bulgaria, with her cousin, Sofia Georgi Stateva. Eleni worked as a seamstress in this growing port city to the north of Sozopolis. There, in a time of growing unrest, she met and married her husband, Stefan.(65)
Eleni gave birth to her daughter on 26 October 1904, the Eastern Orthodox Feast Day of St. Demetrios.(66) The baby was named Demetra in honor of the Saint on whose feast day she began her life.
Little Demetra did not keep her original name. She contracted smallpox in her second year, and in their prayers her parents promised the Theotokos (the Mother of God ~ the Virgin Mary) that if she lived they would baptize their daughter Evangelia, which translated from Greek means "good news."(67) She survived, and was named Evangelia (photo). Years later, in 1916, at the edge of New York City's "Hell's Kitchen,"(68) she became known as Lily.
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