The 28η October 1940 evokes memories in those who lived through the events, and naturally evokes a national pulse and pride as well as a feeling of deep gratitude in all of us for the great fighters and heroes of our country, to whom we owe our freedom.
The anniversary of the 28th October moved me especially since my childhood, when my mother used to tell stories that she lived, always in a spirit of sad memory with a different mood towards the German and different towards the Italian conqueror. So, from what I heard as a child about the two peoples who fought us, I kept the indescribable painlessness and ferocity of the Germans and the human sweetness, even in war, of the Italians as well as their strong reaction to the decisions of the rulers of their country at the time . I heard that the Greeks when during the war seriously wounded Italians, they carried them on their backs and carried them to the hospitals. Such experiences among both Greek and Italian soldiers have been recorded in memoirs, later published in both countries respectively. Many Italians hailed the heroism of 1821 as a model for their own liberating struggles. I will cite Giuseppe Mazzini as an example, who in his fiery speeches to young people did not cease to present as a model the struggle of the Greeks for their independence, saying: "Look at the greatness of Greece that has been resurrected. Can't you also be big like them?'
But also our national poet Dionysios Solomos in the Hymn to Freedom unites the pain of the two peoples of Greece and Italy for the bloodthirsty Austrian Eagle, which suffocated their liberation movement and fed on the entrails of the Italian, while towards the Greek with unspeakable hatred " , the madman was trying to hurt him, if he could".
It is a fact that history reserved for both peoples a stormy relationship that marked them. Today, the two peoples, friends and partners do not want to remember the stormy period of their common history and the facts prove it. The two countries belong to the same European family and cooperate in the field of education, culture and economy.
The first official speech on the anniversary of the 28th October was delivered by the late professor of Byzantine History and my teacher Dionysios Zakythinos. A characteristic excerpt from this speech gives, after more than half a century, a resounding message to modern Greece: "Today, Greece moves uneasily within the framework of international society. Thus the race, tbeing which older generations undertook to approach the great civilizations of the West, succeeds in a creative way. However, exposed to the axis of international political trends, this small country is and will continue to suffer the impact of global conflicts. The problem is not exclusively Greek, but a problem of the entire free world that faces the issue of the moral crisis of the Republic. But what Spenser said about civilization is true of Democracy, that is, it is the progress from indefinite and incoherent homogeneity to determined and coherent inhomogeneity".
The professor of Modern History at the University of Teramo, Umberto Gentiloni Silveri, believes that on 28η October and the events on that day must be placed in the context of the foreign policy of the fascist regime, and we must ask how this memory was or was not transmitted in the following years and decades. Researchers have already begun to study this issue, placing the case of Greece in a wider context. The 28thη October is also the historic day of the end of the "March to Rome", the march that Mussolini's fascists made in 1922, and the 28η October 40 was the eighteenth birthday of the fascist revolution. There is therefore a conflict of memories and historical events regarding this date that generally refers to the marks that fascism left on Italian history. It is a date from which the fascist regime cannot be separated. From a party celebration it turns into a national celebration, fascism is Italianized, many scholars wrote. For everyone it is therefore a central date, a symbol of a new beginning, and indeed time counts from zero for the next twenty years.
The celebration of such an anniversary acquires a deep and essential meaning when the aim is not only to honor the pioneers of heroic acts but also to sensitize the younger generations to the concepts of duty and sacrifice for the ideals of freedom and justice. Since the Homeric years, the "slavery day" (the day of slavery) was considered the most tragic loss for man, because freedom is the deepest essence, which distinguishes man from other beings, and only the truly free can claim the title of man. Greece repeatedly competed for this title with success. And happy are those nations that adorn their history with acts of heroism, that are not forgotten, with acts that write history itself.
The relationship between the two countries from ancient times to modern times could be characterized as idiosyncratic and charming or idiosyncraticly charming. In ancient times what happened to the Roman conqueror and conquered Greece is what Horace tells us "Graecia capta ferum victorem vicit et artes intulit agresti Latio" ("conquered Greece conquered the wild victor and brought the Arts to rural Latium"). In recent times, and if we consider that fascism in Italy was the moment that damaged the relationship between the two peoples, then the seven-year anti-dictatorship struggle in Greece, which gave the "greatest lesson" about the power of the people against fascism, was a of the serious reasons that brought the two peoples together.
So the roots of friendship are deep and the message of the two countries in the EU, where both currently belong, is resounding: never again fascism. The anniversary of the 28th October must first of all honor the values that the Greeks showed during the Greco-Italian war with their excessive heroism and unique self-sacrifice. However, this anniversary should also, according to today's conditions, function as an overcoming of the bitter common page of the history of the two peoples, which does not divide us but unites us in the common struggle for freedom, democracy and universal values. These values were taught by the Greeks, and the Romans embraced them and transmitted them throughout the West.
So NO to war and autocracy, YES to peace and democracy. In an era plagued by two wars with the victims of thousands of innocent citizens who perish for the material interests of the great powers, let this be the message that Greece sends to the whole world, today, October 28, 2024, the day of commemoration of the 40th epic. NO to war YES to the peace of peoples.
