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At the crossroads of the Eastern and Western worlds, Salonica--now Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city--was an oasis in a desert of conflicting powers and interests. A Turkish territory until 1912, the city was an economic center of the Ottoman Empire and a cultural center of Sephardic Judaism. In his memoir, Leon Sciaky writes about growing up in the vibrant community that flourished in Salonica at the turn of the century. He introduces us to the Turkish sheiks and dervishes, Sephardic rabbis, Hungarian revolutionists, Bulgarian farmers, Greek priests, Kurdish grocers, Albanian woodcutters, and French headmasters who populated this little Balkan world.
Sciaky enchants us in the opening chapters with descriptions of Salonica's sights, sounds, and flavors. His earliest recollection is of the living room of his home in the colorful city, one side of which was proudly furnished with articles imported from England and France, while the other side, where the family instinctively gathered, was a luxurious mass of oriental couches, footstools, and hangings. The room was a symbol of the polyglot city in which they lived. The Sciakys themselves were Sephardic Jews who immigrated to Turkey at the time of the Spanish Inquisition. He recalls that his 95-year-old great-grandmother "did not want to live to see the day when Spanish, the language of our ancestors, would be forgotten." As a child, he would often beg her to sing "romanzas" for him, the beautiful but sad songs of the Sephardim.
Sciaky peppers his memoir with unusual stories. He tells of the false messiah of Smyrna, Sabbatai Zevi, who sharply divided the Jewish community of Salonica in the 17th century. He tells us of the abandoned well where his father discovered the remains of an ancient, underground Christian church, and of the magic of the first movie screening in Salonica, which he attended with his grandfather.
Although his early years were idyllic--the Sciakys were respected merchants and the center of a social world with many friends--Leon and his family could not escape the violence of Salonica's constant tensions and struggles. "Every now and then the specter of the age-old struggle in Macedonia would appear before us with frightening vividness," he writes. Conflicts eventually caused the Sciakys to move to America, where the author lived with his wife and son until his death in 1958.
This Paul Dry Books rediscovered classic includes many photos courtesy of Leon Sciaky's son Peter, who has also written a short biographical sketch of his father's life in America. Farewell to Salonica gives today's readers fascinating insight into a nearly-forgotten world. Set at the confluence of peoples of different languages, religions, cultures, and national allegiances, Salonica was like a vividly set stage in a drama where these very diverse peoples lived, in peace and strife, vying for power and prosperity. |
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Features
- Author: Leon Sciaky, Peter Sciaky
- Format: Paperback
- Published: May 2003
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