Early 20th century education in Agios

Education in the first half of the twentieth century is characteristically described by Mrs. Maroudio, in a text by Maria Hatziandreou (under the title "Mrs. Maroudio" in Apoplous magazine, issue 35-36, Feb. 2006): The school had up to the eighth grade. When we say school, don't imagine anything big. Only two rooms existed in the (wine) cooperative. In one room the lower grade students were taught and in the other the higher grade. We went morning and afternoon and half a day on Saturday. The bell rang, we heard it and ran. We had to buy our notebooks and books. In the upper classes we had a big book that had (material for) all the courses in it: Greek language, history, physics and religion.

Mrs. Maroudio did not have a high opinion of one of her teachers, Manolis Chatzikonstantis: Chatzikonstantis would give us a writing exercise and say: "I'm going out to drink some ouzo." He was drunk all the time and sleeping on the chair. Manolis Chatzikonstantis was born in 1864. He married Angelina Stamatiou (1864-1930), daughter of Anagnostis (= church reader) Stamatiou, with whom he lived in Valeontades. Other known teachers of this period are Dimitrios N. Papageorgiou and Dimitrios A. Antoniadou, because they are mentioned as witnesses in deeds of the registry book of 1911.

In schools with one or two seats, i.e. with many classes, but few teachers, certain classes were necessarily understaffed during part of the hours the students were in school. A solution given to this problem was to have students from the upper grades teach the lower grades.

It should be taken into account that around 1910, Samos was still in the status of a semi-autonomous principality ("hegemony"), which still belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Greek communities had to finance education themselves, i.e. hire and pay teachers, often on competitive market terms. Teachers who had served in Samos schools could seek their fortune in other islands and in schools in Asia Minor and vice versa. Remuneration could be regular, i.e. a basic salary, and extraordinary, e.g. money collected in the church on particular events and celebrations. Consequently a teacher depended on the favors of the local community.

Some names of teachers in Agios Konstantinos towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the twentieth emerge from official documents of the principality and further from documents of the Greek administration and are as follows:

• 1898 Miltiadis Papa Dimitriou
• 1899 Dimitrios Papa Georgiou
• 1902 Manuel Papa Daniel
• 1907 Dimitrios Papa Georgiou
• 1911 Manolis Hatzikonstantis, Dimitrios Papa Georgiou
• 1912 Dimitrios Papa Georgiou, Pelopidas Vasiliadis
• 1914 Christodoulos Maragos and Dimitrios Papageorgiou

Note that the prefix "Papa" in a surname denotes a priest, which means that their fathers or grandfathers were likely priests, while the teachers themselves were often (Greek orthodox) priests. In earlier documents the word "papa" remains separated from the rest of the surname, i.e. Papa Georgiou (son of priest Georgios), while in later documents the surname is a single unified word, i.e. Papageorgiou. Also, "chatzi", as in Chatzikonstantis, denotes a person that had taken a trip to the Holy Land.

D. N. Papageorgiou in Nenedes primary school before 1900

The teacher Dimitris N. Papageorgiou (1870-1959) was son of Nikolaos Papageorgiou and Vasiliki (1837-1907). He was appointed in 1890 (at the age of twenty) initially to the school of Nenedes (today's Ambelos), in 1891 to Manolates, then again to Nenedes and later (1898) to Agios Konstantinos. Between 1901 and 1905 he served as a teacher in the Greek community of Vagarasi (Asia Minor), appointed by the Diocese of Anea (a city opposite Samos). In 1906 he returned to Agios. In the first photo he is shown at the Nenedes school (courtesy of his grandson D. Z. Papageorgiou), probably in the 1890s. Later, in 1920, he is mentioned as a priest and in 1925 he is already vicar of the church of St. John, i.e. the main church of Agios (now heavily damaged by recent earthquakes). He was a man of great learning even by today's standards and possessed an impressive collection of books. At the same time he continued to work as a farmer. He died in 1959.

He was famous for strictness. Mrs. Maroudio says about him: In the upper grades our teacher was Papa-Dimitris. He was very strict, but also a good teacher. All the children who passed through his hands, all learned letters. As a punishment, he would have us kneel on sand and gravel. I got slapped by him once and it felt like my cheek came off.

The second photo shows the teacher Dimitris Papageorgiou with his students in Agios Konstantinos before 1920, i.e. before he became priest (courtesy of D. Z. Papageorgiou).

D. Papageorgiou in the school of Agios before 1920

The third photo shows the school of Agios around 1926, with teachers Kostis Chatzikonstantis (see below) and the (most elegant) Kalliopi Kalafata. Kostis Chatzikonstantis was born in 1892 and was the son of Pafsanias Chatzikonstantis and Grammati Dioletou. He was a dedicated and capable teacher. During the Italian and German occupation (in WW2) teachers continued teaching without ever revealing that they were not receiving a salary.

The school of Agios around 1926-27.

An extraordinary subject was added to the curriculum of the schools of Samos for some years before 1910, namely the teaching of Esperanto as a foreign language. The new course did not last more than 2-3 years, because the Esperantists were considered subversives by the principality administration.

After elementary school followed high school or the "scholarcheio". The "scholarcheio" was a three-year pre-secondary school that operated from the middle of the 19th century to the beginning of the twentieth and usually corresponded to grades 5 to 7, i.e. it came after a four-grade elementary school. Attending scholarcheio or high school was a difficult task, because students had to travel to the city, usually Vathi. In other words, a student was met with financial requirements equivalent to attending a remote university today. However, the student was still very young and indeed in a less tolerant society than today's. These facts made high school attendance practically impossible for girls. Boys' attendance in high school was also rare.

That is why it was not surprising that Evangelos Trovas from Valeontados (born in 1890, son of captain Hippocrates Trovas and Grammatiki Marathokambitou) was particularly proud of begin able to finish not only high school, but also get a university degree in philosophy. It is said that when he arrived at his grandmother's house, now a graduate, she called him by his name and he replied: From now on, you will not call me Vangelis, but professor. Later he became a professor and principal at the Pythagorean high school in Vathi (Samos). Today there is a street named after him in Vathi.

The priestmonk Nilos

Among other documents in the archives of the metropolis of Samos there is a testament of a certain priest Theodore, dated March 3, 1792. Theodore leaves almost all his possessions to the Vronta monastery, including a vineyard, a house with an orchard in Valeontades, a gun, a pitcher and a few ottoman silver coins (gurus), on the condition that the monastery would undertake all his debts. He also leaves a mule, two or more oxen, and a copper pot to the poor children of a woman called Moskyani. There are signatures of witnesses on the testament, which has been written by the priestmonk Nilos (Nile, as the river in Egypt), who signs as the "priestmonk that chants in [the chapel of] Saint Constantine". Whether Theodore was illiterate or Nile was just the local testament specialist is open to speculation. In addition, Nile was a monk of the Vronta monastery. The aforementioned chapel is at the entrance of the village of Ano (upper) Agios (Saint) Konstantinos, in a vineyard.

It seems that Nilos performed the Greek orthodox service for nearby communities, but he used the chapel as an occasional residence too, and he also offered complementary services, e.g. to write testaments, making sure that the monastery would get a share of the inherited property, or at least a donation for the soul of the deceased person.

In another testament, also written by priestmonk Nilos in 1799, Giorgis (George) Saris, who is very ill and likely to die soon, leaves a house to his wife Vassiliki, and ten silver coins to the monastery.

In yet another testament, also written by priestmonk Nilos in 1799, (a second person named) Vassiliki, who was ready to give birth, leaves all her possessions, i.e. a mill (of unspecified kind), a piece of land, a vineyard, a copper pot, and one hundred silver coins to the monastery, despite the fact that her husband was alive and would be responsible for raising the upcoming child (and perhaps other children).

However, according to Joseph Georgirenes, archbishop of Samos, who published (in English language) a book titled "A description of the present state of Samos, Nicaria, Patmos, and Mount Athos" in 1677 in London, there were some severe restrictions on inherited land in the Ottoman state: "... If any Man dye without Issue Male, the Aga has power to seise his Lands, and to sell them to whom he pleases. Neither Male nor Female can inherit the Lands of their Mother, but they fall to the Aga, who has power to sell or dispose of them as he thinks fit." Therefore a person, whose property would be subject to confiscation by ottoman authorities might prefer to donate his or her property to a monastery. Whether a land donation could be accompanied by a secret agreement, which would allow the family to continue to cultivate the same piece of land, is a matter for further investigation.

In the meantime it appears that Nilos had found time to visit the holy lands, and came back as Hatzi-nilos (the prefix Hatzi- implies that a christian person has visited the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem). In 1803 he has made a donation for works in the chapel of St Nicholas in Alatzades (a location between Agios Konstantinos and Ambelos). His name appears on a curved stone above the entrance of the chapel.

1821 is the year of the Greek revolution against the Ottoman state. The island of Samos has also joined the revolution in the same year, but many land owners opposed the revolution. Nilos has climbed the monastery hierarchy and has already become abbot, for the first time in 1811.  As he is returning from the city of Vathi to the monastery, in the area of Kedros he gets killed by a monk and an accompanying person, on the pretext that Nilos was against the revolution. However, in 1834, while Samos failed to join the newly born Greek state and was a semi-autonomous state under Turkish suzerainty, Nilos's nephews filed an official complaint saying that Nilos had been killed by other monks, who wanted to inherit his possessions.

Central northern Samos between 1500 and 1700

In 1700 most Europeans would still think of Samos as the island of the ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, and, maybe, Polycrates, a powerful tyrant. Some would even be aware of the fact that Samos eventually served as a luxurious Roman resort, where Mark Antony and Cleopatra spent their happiest years. Ancient Samos was reflected in books and maps until the 18th century, but the modern state of affairs on the island was largely unknown. This situation was effectively overturned by a detailed account that was published in 1677 in London by the Greek Orthodox bishop of Samos Joseph Georgirenes. After some time the new data found their way into various travel and geography related texts, often without quoting the original source.

In the almost twenty centuries that interposed between the glorious Roman times and Georgirenes’s update, a lot of water has run under the bridge. The Eastern Roman Empire, better known as Byzantine Empire, lost its capital city (Constantinople) to the Ottomans in 1453. Samos was already before that in the hands of the Genoese, who were not able to hold back the expansion of the Turks in the Aegean Sea, and some islanders chose to leave their homes in view of the arrival of the new conquerors. Thus Samos was almost deserted in 1470. The island was covered by thick forests that camouflaged a few survivors and pirates.

A few years after 1470 Venice sent to the Eastern Mediterranean a fleet manned by mercenaries to push back the Ottomans. The men spent a few days of rest before action on Samos, which they found “deserted … full only of all sorts of animals, an abundance of woodland honey … and springs of sweet and living water that rise in all parts” (see “Surprised by Time” by Diana Gilliland Wright). A soldier was attacked by a bear.

Although Samos occasionally served as a hunting ground for the aristocracy, for almost a century the Ottomans could not decide what to do with the conquered, albeit deserted, island, and they left it more or less unprotected (with the exception of an attempt to build a castle near today’s Pythagorio around 1480). Until 1520 they were busy in various fronts, including St John’s knights, who kept defending their stronghold on the island of Rhodes, and the Venetians, who also kept a number of seaside forts, including Nauplia until 1540 and Candia until 1669. A second attempt to raise a castle in 1558 in Samos also failed. Nevertheless, by 1570 they had improved their overall position in the archipelago and they felt that Samos was underexploited, therefore they decided to re-populate it by giving incentives to possible volunteers. A new population would at least contribute taxes.

The resettlement of different groups was not achieved in a single day. The area was infested with pirates, and the war between Venetians and Ottomans was still in progress. In 1610 the traveler Henry de Beauveau (in his book titled “Relation Journaliere du Voyage du Levant”) and George Sandys (in “A Relation of a Journey Begun an Dom”) have both found only a scant population on the island.

After one century of repopulation (around 1670) bishop Georgirenes was able to describe eighteen villages. However, on the central northern side of the island there was only a single village, namely Vourliotes, whose initial inhabitants had migrated from Vourla, a nearby village in Asia Minor. In 1702 the French botanist Tournefort walked from Karlovassi to Vourliotes οn a rainy winter day and did not notice any other settlements. He also remained for a few days at the Vronta monastery.

Clearly, this area had not changed much in the few centuries before 1700, and it remained mostly uninhabited. It was a forest, which included lots of chestnut trees, and some streamlets, as observed by Piri Reis around 1520.

Schenk’s map: A strange 17th century map of the island of Samos

Around 2004 I decided to dig for the origins of Agios Konstantinos, a coastal village on the island of Samos. An obvious information source would be old maps. After a few months my quest failed to produce any tangible results, since all maps that I had encountered would hardly show any settlements. There was Buondelmonti’s map, drawn around 1420, which featured a few mountains and a ruined city. It was clear that Buondelmonti had hardly set foot on the island. Then there was admiral Piri Reis’s map, which was definitely more detailed, but it only focused on locations that might be of interest to the Ottoman navy.

Eventually I acquired a book titled “ports and settlements in the archipelago of piracy”, authored by Nikos Bellavilas. In the book there was a map of Samos drawn by the German cartographer Petr Schenk, who lived in Amsterdam. The map was full of hills, mountains, trees, villages, even rivers, monasteries and castles, along with labels indicating their names. I considered myself lucky. However, there was a trivial problem to be solved yet: the resolution of the map was just below the required level that would allow me to read the labels. I grabbed a magnifying glass, but all my attempts to make out the inscriptions were to no avail. Apparently I should find a better copy.

I looked for images on the Internet, I even wrote an email to the author, asking for his help. However, the resolution of the few available pictures was uniformly disappointing. I was obliged to leave the quest for a more pertinent time.

Then I traveled to Samos for the summer, having almost forgotten the map issue. Eventually I visited the national archive offices in the city of Samos. It was my first ever visit. I pushed my way through a heavy wooden door, which was closed albeit unlocked, into a dark corridor. I was about to knock on the director’s door to my left, when I noticed a large frame on the wall. My surprise was truly immense when I realised that the image in the frame was Schenk’s map. Back in 2004, when phone cameras were of low quality, I had to use a real camera. Being sort of tourist I carried one, but I hesitated for a moment. Somebody could appear and reprimand me for taking pictures. However the temptation was very strong as my object of desire was hanging just over my head at arm’s length. Bottomline, I did not intend to publish or commercially use the picture; my only intention was to read the labels. In a hurry I took two or three pictures, only to make sure that one of them would be clear enough for my purposes. Then I knocked on the director’s door.

In the afternoon, at the ease of my home, I inspected the booty on the display of my computer. Indeed, I could clearly read everything. However, my immediate two findings were that (a) the village I was looking for was clearly not there, and (b) all other villages were placed on the map as if somebody had thrown them on the island from the sky at random. For example, today’s main towns, Vathi and Karlovassi, were both on the eastern coast, close to Turkey and close to each other. In the real world they are located far from each other on the northern coast. The contour of the island was also quite deformed, but this was the least of my concerns since deformation was a common trait in all medieval and renaissance maps. In fact most old cartographers were unscrupulous plagiarists and mistakes would easily propagate.

At the same time their western European clients were worshipers of the ancient Greek spirit. Subsequently makers of maps of the Levant decorated the terrain with ancient Greek geographical features mainly taken from Strabo. As far as Samos is concerned, these features would be ruins of the ancient capital city (now known as Pythagorion), river Imvrassos, cape Mykale, and one or two mountain names.

Schenk’s map of Samos was created some time before 1700 and was most probably the first map in its time to use real world village names. Therefore the map raised expectations of real detail and accuracy. However, the map looks like a joke, since everything is in the wrong place, including of course the coastline. A really accurate map appeared twenty years later and was a byproduct of the oriental journey of the French botanist Tournefort.

An explanation of Schenk’s map can be found in events that happened twenty years earlier, i.e. around 1680, in London. Joseph Georgirenes was the Greek Orthodox bishop of Samos of the time, but he became increasingly frustrated by the situation on the island, which had been conquered by the Ottoman empire, and migrated to Europe together with a few families from Samos and Milos (his own birthplace). Georgirenes tried to set up an Orthodox community in London and his attempt to build a church was partially funded by the English royal family. In order to raise money for his project Georgirenes wrote “a description of the present state of Samos, Nicaria, Patmos, and Mount Athos”, which he dedicated to prince James Stuart, duke of York (and future king). This story has been written in sufficient detail by Sir Steven Runciman in his book titled “the Great Church in captivity”.

To make a long story short, Schenk based his map on Georgirenes’s description. However, the information that was included in the text was less than sufficient and Schenk attempted to fill the gaps by making a series of arbitrary, albeit unfortunate, assumptions. He ended up with a real mess, which he printed as the new map of Samos.

Therefore Agios Konstantinos does not appear on this map as a consequence of the fact that it does not appear in Georgirenes’s description. It does still not appear on Tournefort’s vastly more accurate map that was printed a few decades later. The central northern coast of Samos was a chestnut tree forest at that time.