A History Lesson
Kalimera! Today was our first visit to the University of Nicosia! It was nice to finally see the campus of the university that we have been talking so much about. The campus was very modern and beautiful, and the coffee there was so refreshing! Our first lecture of the day was about the history of Cyprus and was given by Dr. Emilios Asolomou. He talked about the location of Cyprus, the politics, and mainly the chronological history of the island. We started at 7400 BC in the Neolithic age and ended with the Turkish invasion of 1974. He was a very information but yet entertaining lecturer to listen to. You could tell he knew what he was talking about. Getting to listen to Cypriots who got to live through parts of the history that we are learning about is a surreal opportunity. There were two parts of the Cyprus history that stood out most to me: the British takeover and rule of Cyprus between 1878 and 1960, and the Medieval period in 500-800 AD.
The British Colonial rule ~ The time of the Birish rule in Cyprus was the last period in history before Cyprus received its independence. At the time of Independence, the population consisted of around 82% Greek Cypriots, and 18 % Turkish Cypriots. Before the Brutish rule began, Cyprus was under the rule of the Ottoman Turks. When the Ottoman empire was falling, many Mediterranean islands wanted a union with other countries. Cypriots wanted to form a union with Greece, however The British did not want that to happened. To show opposition of the decision, Cypriots wanted to fight against the British rule. After some time, Cyprus demanded a union to the British. Led by Archbishop Makarios, the Greek Cypriot demand for a union caught the attention of Greece, which alerted the Turks and Turkish Cypriots. The British, Greek, and Turkish forces came up with a condition that they basically forced Cyprus into signing, which outlined the basic rules of the Cypriot independence from Britian.
The Medieval Period ~ During this time, the main type of buildings were Abbeys with a French architecture style. Most notably is the Bella-Bair Abbey. Also built during this time was St. George’s Chruch used by the Catholics, the Kolossi Castle, and the Famagusta Castle. A fun fact I learned today, Shakespear’s “Othello” was written based upon the towers of the Famagusta castle! I have never heard this fact before today and I was shocked.
I enjoyed getting to learn more and more about the long history of this small island, and getting to hear it from a professor was an amazing opportunity!
It’s all Greek to me
After our history lesson, we had an introduction to the Greek language class. This was so cool! Since Greek is the oldest language that is still spoken today, I have always wanted to learn some basic words and phrases in the language. I learned the Cypriot Greek, which is just a dialect of the Greek language, is the closest dialect to the ancient Greek language. We learned how to say basic words and phrases like yes, no, hello, good morning, how to say your name, how to ask how others are doing, and most importantly, how to order coffee! To do so all you say is ” Thelo enan kafe?” at the end of the class, we learned how to count up to 24 in Greek as well. I noticed that the numbers followed a similar pattern to the numbers in Spanish. Today was a great day getting to see the university, learn more about the island, and learn some of the native language. Andio!
