Από: κ. Αλέξανδρο Μπιλλίνη - Alexander Billinis
/ 8 Ιουνίου 2020
Greece
is a small country with a vast history going back several millennia. A country
of Peninsulas and Islands, the sea naturally played a key role in Greece's
development and from prehistoric times Greeks have been among the world's
finest seafarers.
Hydra
is a tiny Greek island. When viewing the map of Greece, itself a small country,
you get a perspective of just how small this island truly is, barely visible
unless you scroll in here to see it better, so please do!
Photos
by Spilios Spiliotis, Hydra is a rocky, mountainous massif.
Hydra
is mostly a rocky massif rising out of the waters of the Saronic Gulf, which
has seen civilizations and seafarers from Minoan times to the present. Hydra
itself however, though it always had a small population (as attested by the
archaeological record), the island never had a substantial population until the
1600s.
«. . . the dragon-shaped rock of Hydra-naked, precipitous, and
austere-looms from the sea." Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, "Ghika's
Landscapes and the Island of Hydra»
Also
by Spilios Spiliotis. Detail of the rockiness of the "Rock of
Liberty."
Things
started to change in the later 1600s. The Greeks had been under foreign rule,
either Ottoman Turkish or Venetian, in some cases for several hundred years,
after the weakening of the Greeks' beloved Byzantine Empire in 1204 and the
empire's final collapse in 1453-1460. The neighboring Peloponnesian Peninsula
(also known to everyone at the time as "The Morea") was seesawing
back and forth between Turks and Venetians, with much destruction and
disruption in the process.
Faced
with warfare on the mainland and piracy in major islands and ports, more people
crossed over to the largely barren island, ensconcing themselves away from the
harbor on high ground in an area known, to this day, as Kiafa
("fortress" in the Arvanitika dialect).
Extent
of Hydra town until the early Eighteenth Century, photo and rendering by
Spilios Spiliotis, Hydra resident, historian, and writer. See more of his work
(primarily in Greek), at hydraspoliteia.blogspot.com/2016/05/blog-post_63.html
«Geological
tumult and the symmetry of architecture are locked in perpetual strife. Even
where houses are thickest, insurrections of rock pierce the crust of
habitations." Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor»
The
Kiafa settlement was physically secure but, as in every era, there were
economic considerations. The barren soil could hardly feed the growing
population, and they had no crafts or resources to improve their lot, so they
turned, like Greeks from time immemorial, to the sea.
The
Hydriot Brig Ares, built in Venice in 1807
Their
first ship was built in 1657, built from local timber and it is said that the
lines and halyards were made of plaited vines! But the Hydriots were quick
studies, readily absorbing nautical skills from other Greek islanders, and from
the Venetians, who were for centuries master mariners.
The
Hydriots navigated more than just the seas, they also navigated the politics of
the era. They knew how to find advantage as the Russians, Ottomans, Venetians,
British, French, and Austrians clashed. As Orthodox Christians, they could fly
the Russian flag after 1774, and they worked with fellow Greek merchants in
Black Sea ports such as Odessa in carrying the bounty of the Russian steppes to
the rest of Europe and the Mediterranean. The Turks were awkward sailors, and
in exchange for giving the Hydriots full autonomy, drafted a levy of sailors
into their navy, giving these wily islanders a martial, and well as merchant,
prowess. Their ships carried cannon to ward off the same Barbary Pirates
against whom the newly independent United States fought its first foreign war.
Greeks fought with the US Marines in that conflict.
Engraving
of Hydra, Revolutionary Era.
The
world of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a tough place, full of
wars, famines, plagues, and intrigues, yet throughout the Hydriots survived and
thrived. This, in spite of their tiny island having no natural wealth, and
their suffering war and a plague in 1793 that carried off a substantial portion
of the island's population. The Hydriots knew the meaning of agency--financial,
personal, and political. They found it through their guts and gumption. By 1820
the island was by far the largest merchant naval power in the Eastern
Mediterranean, its 20,000 inhabitants among the wealthiest anywhere. From being
refugees on a barren island a couple generations earlier, they were at the
pinnacle of power, their ships reaching North and South America. As an island
they had their agency.
Διαβάστε εδώ όλο το άρθρο: storymaps.arcgis.com/stories
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