“Mr. Ambassador, please accept the photographs of my father Miltiadis Manakias from my personal collection. My father felt like a Greek, and for this reason I offer photographs for the publication of the corresponding album dedicated to him.

The white paper on the generous offer of great photographic footage by pioneering filmmakers Giannis and Miltos Manakias is addressed to “Ambassador of Greece to Skopje, Mr. Alexandros Mallias.” It bears the signature “Leonidas Manakis of Miltiadis”, place and date “Skopje, October 15, 1998”.

“I first met with Leonidas Manakis, the chief of police in Kumanovo, at the beginning of 1997, with two of my close people. We talked for eight hours. It was an unforgettable night for everyone. He opened his heart – at that time it was not easy – and we heard everything that the Greek-speaking Vlachs wanted to say after more than fifty years of silence. Then Leonidas Manakis confidentially gave me a box with dozens of anecdotal photographs from the personal archive of Father Miltiadis (Miltow) on the condition that they would not be made public until his death.”

Honorary Ambassador Alexandros Mallias, who describes “K”, today, after 26 years of receiving the precious material, has withheld his consent. A few years after the death of Leonidas Manakis, he donated an anecdotal collection of photographs to the Museum of the Struggle for Macedonia in Thessaloniki (MMA). “It never occurred to me to use the album as a private person. The collection belongs to the Greeks, because I received it not as Alexander Mallias, but as a representative of Greece during a difficult period. I have been fortunate to work with MMA leaders for decades on the diplomatic battlefield in the Balkans. I am aware of his work and I am absolutely sure that the archive will become the property of Greece and the Balkan region. In this way, I also fulfill a small part of the exhortation of Konstantinos Karamanlis, who, in opening MMA on October 17, 1982, expressed the desire that “his efforts continue, enrich, expand and become a school for new generations who often seek utopian or even harmful emotions or ideas. “. So along with the photos, I donated to MMA and my personal file.” It includes documents and newspapers from North Macedonia, Albania, Serbia and Kosovo over the past thirty years with texts about economic and political events in the Balkans, the relations of these countries with Greece, our country’s policy mainly in the Balkans and beyond.

Mr. Mallias was the first Greek diplomatic representative in Skopje immediately after the interim agreement signed in September 1995. One of the first actions of the embassy was the registration of Greek and Vlach speakers in the region. “Then I met Leonidas Manakis. While receiving and delivering the box to Greece, I felt the vision of Theodore Angelopoulos in the work “The View of Odysseus”, where in the foggy harbor it is said that the invisible film material in the box should not be forgotten.

The box was opened to show the public the human geography of the Balkan region through unknown photographic documents in the exhibition “Yannis and Miltos Manakia. Faces Behind the Lens”, which is part of and fully corresponds to the theme “Geoculture” of the 8th Biennale of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, organized by MOMus this year.

The anecdotal collection left to us by the Manakia brothers, pioneers of Balkan cinema and forerunners of Greek cinema, has more than a hundred photographs. Passing through the countryside and large urban centers of the Balkans in the great Ottoman Empire, they record the daily life of working people, moments of carelessness and entertainment, architectural landmarks, historical and social events that marked the changes of the first era. half of the 20th century.

The case of Miltiadis Manakias was referred in 1998 by the son of Leonidas to the then Greek Ambassador to Skopje, Alexandros Mallias.

“Among the difficult conditions of this period in the Balkans, the Vlachs managed to become one of the most powerful ethnic groups in the region. The daily life of farmers and merchants was a constant struggle. Despite the constant movements, customs and customs, the cohesion and cohesion of the community were links in the organization of a special life code that united them and distinguished them from other ethnic groups of the Ottoman Empire,” explains Stavrula. K” Mavrogeni, professor at the University of Macedonia, director of the Macedonian Center for the Study of History and Documentation (KEMIT), which curates the exhibition together with Fani Tsatsaia, art historian, director of the Museum of Macedonian Struggle and Contemporary History (IMMA) Foundation.

The brothers Manakia, Giannakis and Miltos, although born into a pastoral family in Abdellah Grevena on 18 May 1878 and 9 September 1882 respectively, were “cosmopolitans and artists with a vision”. Giannis, diligent and artistic by nature, studied at a Romanian school. This vision takes him to London where he and his brother Milto buy a BIOSKOP 300 camera and start filming.

“They will not start from England or Romania, but from their special homeland, Avdella,” notes Ms. Mavrogeni. There, in the mountainous corner of Grevena, they make their first film, The Weavers (1905), to pursue a brilliant career in photography and film. From their images flow economic and social life, clothing, education, as well as “the role of women, the core of the family in a society dominated by men, through which morality, education, the language of the Vlachs, which can create a” ghetto “, nevertheless, they retain cultural heritage,” adds Ms. Mavrogeni.

In this context, and in a particularly turbulent time, the Manakia brothers are moving. After the first photography workshop in Ioannina (early 20th century), they settled in Monastiri (today’s Bitola), a Greek city where, after the end of the First World War, they opened a photography studio and a cinema.

Having a Greek conscience, when nation-states were created, they thought to return to Greece. Yannakis succeeded. He returned to Thessaloniki in 1939, where he died in 1964. Miltos was “trapped” in the former Yugoslavia, but maintained a strong relationship with his family in Abdellah. Tito rewarded him for his work. He died in a monastery at the age of 82, never having fulfilled his dream of returning. Their ethnographic evidence in thousands of photographs and films, most of which are located in the Monastery, is a valuable heritage for modern History and the peoples of the Balkans.

Exhibition “Yannis and Miltos Manakia. Faces Behind the Lens” opens at the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle on February 15. Duration until December 31, 2023