Today’s parade in Kalymnos was cancelled because of adverse weather conditions. An archival photograph, however, takes us back 59 years to another 28 October, when pupils from the Girls’ Secondary School marched with the Greek flag past the former Italian administrative headquarters.
The year was 1967. Preserved in the “Neoklasiko” Kalymnos archive, the black-and-white photograph shows rows of schoolgirls in matching outfits marching through the town. Above them flies the Greek flag, outside a building associated with the island’s years under Italian rule.
Carrying that flag past that particular building on 28 October held a powerful significance. Greece’s national anniversary commemorates its refusal to submit to Mussolini’s ultimatum in 1940. In Kalymnos, an island that had itself experienced Italian rule, the setting gave the occasion an added historical resonance.
Exactly twenty years had passed since 28 October 1947, the date from which Greek law established the incorporation of the Dodecanese into the Greek state. The formal union ceremony followed on 7 March 1948.
The photograph’s caption also preserves the girls’ names. Listed in the first row, from the left, are Asteroula Kardouli, Eirini Galanou, the flag bearer, and Kalliopi Psarou. In the second row, the caption names Anna Zairi, Xanthippi Koulianou and Nomiki Tavlariou.
These names and faces give local history its human dimension. Today, the girls in that parade bring a moment back into focus: Kalymnos in 1967, with the Greek flag passing before the former Italian headquarters.
Photograph: “Neoklasiko” Kalymnos archive.
