The icon that survived to tell the tale [English Voiceover]

During the massacres following the Greco-Turkish War of 1922, which resulted in the eradication of the Greek population in Anatolia, Stella Michalaki’s grandmother manages to save an icon of the Virgin Mary that continues to evoke memories of persecution.

Interviewee: Stella Michalaki
Field Reporter: Aggeliki Lyginou
Producer: Maya Filippopoulou
Sound Designer: Giorgos Ramantanis
Sound Editor: Spyros Lymperopoulos
Video Director: Giorgos Gkounezos
Voiceover: Skyrah Archer

Istorima is the bigest project of recording and preserving oral histories of Greece. Over 1,000 young researchers find narrators, listen, collect and save stories of people from all over Greece : Stories of their place, stories of love, stories that changed us or defined us, stories modern or old. Stories that are not recorded in the history books and that could be lost in time. Istorima is the co-creation of the journalist Sofia Papaioannou and the historian Katherine Fleming and is implemented with a founding donation from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) as part of his Youth Reboot and Empowerment initiative (learn more at  www.snf.org). The more than 20,000 stories are being published in their entirety in stages at www.archive.istorima.org. Excerpts of the stories are published in the form of podcasts, videos or written stories at www.istorima.org