jhbadger 20 hours ago

While I haven't been there, I know of it from Alan Furst's novels (which I recommend) -- he writes novels set before and during WWII and likes to often set them in places like Thessaloniki/Salonika in Greece and Trieste in Italy -- places which were on the border between two (or more) cultures and which lost a lot of their multicultural status due to the war.

  • TMWNN 14 hours ago

    >places like Thessaloniki/Salonika in Greece and Trieste in Italy -- places which were on the border between two (or more) cultures and which lost a lot of their multicultural status due to the war

    "European borders aren't drawn along ethnic lines, the ethnic lines are drawn along the borders." —/u/sora_mui, two days ago <https://np.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1j86d8i/the_balkani...>

mikhailfranco 17 hours ago

It is contemporarily relevant to look at the euphemistic 'exchange of populations' during and after the Greco-Turkish War. Today it would be called 'ethnic cleansing'. In Anatolia itself, it took the form of genocide. The Turks had recently executed the Armenian and Assyrian (Sayfo) genocides.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_(1919%E2%80%...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_exchange_between_Gr...

Most vividly, it was covered by journalist Ernest Hemingway for the Toronto Star:

   A Silent, Ghastly Procession Wends Its Way from Thrace (20 Oct 1922)
   Refugee Procession is Scene of Horror (14 Nov 1922)
But he also put his experiences into fiction, especially "On The Quai At Smyrna", describing the tragic murderous evacuation of Greeks from (what is now) Izmir, Turkey.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Quai_at_Smyrna

Some telling quotes here:

https://www.neomagazine.com/2022/04/on-the-quay-at-smyrna-er...

You can find these works in many collections of his journalism and short stories (e.g. "Byline"). I am very glad his early work is now coming out of copyright (and the journalism in Canada too? - if someone has links to his original articles, please post them).

Here is an out-of-copyright paragraph of "In Our Time", which recollects the refugee columns passing through Thrace, to and from Salonika, in 1922:

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61085/pg61085-images.ht...

There are similar scenes in our world today. Not being played out today, but really happening.

imsurajkadam a day ago

Why dont they use the simple english to understand?

  • noduerme a day ago

    English is a very beautiful language. There are many ways to say something similar, but each have slightly different meanings. In this case, the writer decided to use "flowery" language, which is usually to create a detailed picture, smell, and feeling for the reader. The point is not only to convey facts but to convey a sense of place. That is the reason for the complicated language.

    For example, it says: "A woman in her forties sits on a bench, fixing the shrine with her gaze."

    This means that the woman sits on a bench looking at the shrine. But "fixing" it "with her gaze" means that she is staring at it with deep meaning and (possibly) reverence.

    • assimpleaspossi a day ago

      To me that says her gaze is fixing the shrine.

      • dambi0 a day ago

        What meaning do you infer from what it says?

        • bmacho 21 hours ago

          What it means. The most annoying about that quote is that it is a correct sentence, with one single trivial meaning. Easy right? Your favorite type of sentence. Well guess what, in the text it stands for a totally different thing (without any particular reason or benefit).

          I much prefer GP's broken sentence. It is syntactically broken, but it has all the words, much better than if it was syntactically correct with an entirely different meaning than the intended one.

        • Galatians4_16 a day ago

          Depends on the correct spelling of gaze.

        • marky1991 a day ago

          I legitimately would have to guess what they meant. The obvious reading to me is that she is magically repairing it by looking at it, though I would know that's not what they meant, which leaves brute force guessing.

          You can say that someone is 'fixed on' something, which means to look doggedly, but 'fixing something' is totally different, who says that?

          Subjective of course, but I just think it's a bad sentence.

          • noduerme 21 hours ago

            Fixing one's gaze on something is a standard English expression, it's just the active form of to be fixed on, which is passive. It means, literally, that one's line of sight is 'fixed upon' something. One's mind can also be fixed upon something. The verb is to fix or to affix. 'Fixed to' simply means 'attached to', but 'fixed on' usually implies something lighter attached to a weightier, possibly vertical surface, or something attached by glue or paste. You can also say that a postage stamp is fixed on an envelope.

            It's a great sentence if you understand the different things it is communicating compactly and efficiently.

            • marky1991 21 hours ago

              "fix one's gaze on" is not the construction used in the article.

          • 0xEF a day ago

            > who says that?

            People who watch US TV shows about the American South. Having lived there for awhile and still travel there for work today, I can say with some certainty that the folksy dialect that media gives to people of that region is either largely embellished or made-up. If we stay on the word "fix," I mostly hear it in context of someone making a meal ("Fixing breakfast," etc). The Appalachian regions are must more creative and cant-like with the language historically, but even that is being lost as the generations are exposed to more modern settings, I think. In my experience, the idioms used usually come down to the individual, which has more to do with how their sense of identity was cultivated, a concept that runs quite deep in the American South, but that is a much longer and more complex thread for another day, I reckon.

            • marky1991 21 hours ago

              "("Fixing breakfast," etc)." Yes, this makes sense, you can fix ('make', off the top of my head, only used in this sense for cooking really) breakfast, but surely the author doesn't mean the woman was materializing/cooking a shrine as a dish with her eyes either.

              • genghisjahn 19 hours ago

                In Texas we’d say things like “I’m fixing to go over yonder.” Meaning “I’m about to go over there.”

              • mock-possum 16 hours ago

                No, it’s “fix” in the sense of “fix in place” - to pin something to one spot. “I can’t move the table, it’s fixed in place.”

                Her gaze is fixed upon - her gaze is fixing. Within her field of view, her deliberate staring at the shrine has fixed it in place. Her eyes are fixed in place, focused on the shrine.

                ‘In place’ is implied by the context.

          • Someone a day ago

            https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fix:

            to direct one's attention or efforts : FOCUS

            also : DECIDE, SETTLE —usually used with on

            had fixed on the first Saturday in June

            All eyes fixed on her as she entered the room.

            • marky1991 21 hours ago

              Yes, exactly: 'Fixed ON', the eyes are "fixed", it's completely different grammar.

              • Someone 17 hours ago

                The example uses on, but the entry says usually used with on. That leaves open images that do not use on.

          • SideburnsOfDoom 21 hours ago

            > Subjective of course, but I just think it's a bad sentence.

            IDK, you could just look up the idiom that you are unfamiliar with? So that next time you come across it, you are better informed.

            https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/fix+his+with+a+gaze

            https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/fix-a-g...

            • bmacho 21 hours ago

              Collins is a counterpoint, right? Well it is, as it doesn't know this phrase.

              Thefreedictionary I don't now what that is. I'd be much more convinced if it cited examples from actual usage from books, articles, subtitles. Looks more machine generated to me than human work.

              • SideburnsOfDoom 21 hours ago

                If you want cites google "fix him with your gaze" or "fix it with your gaze" - including the quotes.

                • bmacho 20 hours ago

                  It has ~3 results. 1 talks about making something immovable with your gaze with a spell in a fantasy setting. The other 2 are in blogspam articles of German companies, one of them is also available in several other languages, presumably machine translated.

                  • SideburnsOfDoom 17 hours ago

                    There are hits for other permutations such as ""fix them with your gaze", "fix me with your gaze", "fix her with your gaze" etc.

                    If you're claiming that this is "wrong" then I think that's disproven. I don't even know what the point of that exercise would be. Just finally accept it as an opportunity to learn a new turn of phrase. You don't have to even use it, just accept that others do. IDK what the gatekeeping is about.

                    If you still feel the need, then IDK, write a strongly worded letter about it to the editor of The Critic? It says "Britain's Most Civilised Magazine" on the home page. Have at it, present your credentials, see if you get anywhere.

                    Or if you don't want to engage with the piece on its own terms, then maybe it's not for you. Not everything is written for everyone, and it's useless to complain about that.

            • marky1991 21 hours ago

              The Collins example is not the same thing; you're fixing your gaze, not fixing the object itself. Again, the grammar just isn't the same.

              • SideburnsOfDoom 21 hours ago

                I have seen this construction before; I'm sorry if you have not. But that does not make it "broken".

                • marky1991 21 hours ago

                  "I have seen this construction before" is not a very high bar for communicating well.

                  • SideburnsOfDoom 18 hours ago

                    "I have not seen this construction before, therefor it must be wrong"

                    Is a way to raise barriers to your own learning.

                    • marky1991 17 hours ago

                      What do you expect me to "learn" in this context? I'm a native English speaker, there's nothing to learn here as far as I can see. No one has reported it to be a common phrase in any known dialect and the strongest defense for it is an entry in a community provided dictionary and some people misreading it as other phrases.

                      I have never said anything was "wrong", I said it was poor communication. Wrong is not a useful concept in language. But the whole point of language is to communicate with others and this sentence is clearly confusing to many people.

                      • SideburnsOfDoom 14 hours ago

                        > What do you expect me to "learn" in this context?

                        I have now downgraded my expectations, learning is indeed optional.

                        > But the whole point of language is to communicate with others and this sentence is clearly confusing to many people.

                        Or - hear me out - maybe you're not in the target audience of this piece in "The Critic: Britain's Most Civilised Magazine". Not everything is written for everyone, and it's useless to complain about that. But you should at least be able to identify that it is a particular literate British tone, and know if that's your thing or not. If it is, then dig into the idioms. If it isn't then don't read it.

                        • marky1991 13 hours ago

                          "I have now downgraded my expectations, learning is indeed optional."

                          So I ask you a question and you then don't answer it but instead just reply with sarcasm?

                          I don't think this is a polite way to have a conversation, so I'm out.

                      • marssaxman 14 hours ago

                        I wonder whether you have ever encountered poetry before.

      • SideburnsOfDoom 17 hours ago

        Exactly, and "fixing" in this sense means "nailing to the spot", or "fastening upon, halt, stop moving, be immobile like a fixed point or fixed price".

        It's a poetic expression.

    • bmacho a day ago

      > For example, it says: "A woman in her forties sits on a bench, fixing the shrine with her gaze."

      This particular example I don't think is poetic rather it is broken.

  • DeathArrow a day ago

    It is not an informative article, it's a piece designed to convey emotions and sentiments so readers are more willing to embrace author's view.

    • nottorp a day ago

      There seems to be an agenda there.

      If you check wikipedia at least, the muslim-christian population exchange between Greece and Turkey wasn't quite like the article describes it.

      The facts may be somewhere in the middle, but certainly not in this article.

      • KineticLensman 20 hours ago

        FWIW The Critic is associated with the British conservative movement so there is definitely a leaning to the political right

        (This is a comment on the magazine that published TFA, not TFA itself)

      • nindalf 19 hours ago

        Could you describe how the muslim-christian population exchange actually happened?

        What is the agenda of this piece?

        • nottorp 16 hours ago

          I've pointed you to wikipedia. I'm no historian (trustable or not) so you'll have to document yourself and draw your own conclusions.

          Also there is a top level post with a bunch of references now.

          • nindalf 13 hours ago

            I'm still mystified about the agenda of the piece? I'm not implying that it has one or doesn't have one, I'm keen to know what agenda you saw in it.

      • Texasian 20 hours ago

        You say that as if it’s a bad thing.

        Not all writing needs to be as dry as a technical bulletin.

        • nottorp 20 hours ago

          That’s how you do a proper propaganda piece, you write an emotional article that is mostly correct and insert subtle nudges to your actual topic :)

  • xyzsparetimexyz a day ago

    That's a broken sentence.

    • dambi0 a day ago

      Broken seems a bit harsh. It might not be idiomatic, it might fall foul of some grammatical standard. But you know what it means.

      • xyzsparetimexyz 19 hours ago

        No, I do not! It is absolutely derived of context.

        • nindalf 19 hours ago

          Kinda like how I understood what you meant here ("absolutely devoid of context") in spite of your error ("derived of context"). Sometimes we need to make an effort to understand.

          I wouldn't make you feel bad by saying "that's a broken sentence! I can't understand it!"