ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 focusses on the less official, often disruptive, colonial and postcolonial Cypriotist identification that rewrites the colonial, ethnic-nationalist and/or partition production of Cyprus. The chapter starts by discussing Colonial-Cypriotists via Nobel laureate George Seferis’ Hellenism against Lawrence Durrell’s imperial propaganda, followed by Communist-Cypriotists via left-wing political parties and the Soviet Union in dialogue with the exile Tefkos Anthias. This paves the way for the main focus – the post-1964/74 Partition Cypriotist discussed through bi-communal literary, artistic and social moves shaped by key authors – such as Geogre Moleskis and Fikret Demirag meeting Ivi Meleagrou, Ellie Peonidou, Mehmet Yasin and Nese Yasin amongst others – who respond to postcolonial failures, especially the first 1963–1964 partition and/or second 1974-partition. These authors are more receptive to postcolonial partitioned inventions of spatial history and difference, Lefebvre’s concrete-abstraction, and Tuan’s place and space, all enhanced through Nazim Hikmet’s romantic-communism and Svetlana Boym’s conception of nostalgia. This construction is framed around the authors’ actual and idealistic quest for conflict-resolution and peace, whereby they habitually wander and border-cross towards a pre-partitioned homeland. This production is determined by Cypriot-centric birth cycle restoring routes, roots and the mother, and a journey cycle restoring local wanderings of three gifts – spatial palimpsestic archaeology, material romantic natural rhythm and social domestic childhood rhythm – that capture the concrete-abstraction of the Mediterranean waters and rhythms of Cyprus. This production is ethnically and culturally inclusive, operating via multiple places, times and energies within the islands’ geo-cultural borders.
