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Book “Blood of Asia Minor”

Theodora Valavanidis
Blood of Asia Minor is a third book written by Diogenis D. Valavanidis, published in 2007. It is written in the form of historic novel because it uses the language of novel to tell the story of two, historically connected destinies. In the first part (Truth and Permanence), the author talks about history of the Valavanidis family whose origins in the Asia Minor can be traced back to the beginnings of the nineteenth century, its experiences of the  catastrophes that happened in that region (1922), until the end of the twentieth century. Second part of the book (History of the Asia Minor) talks about historic fate of the Greek population on the territory of the Asia Minor and Ecumenical Patriarchate that exists on that territory for over fifteen centuries - first as centre of the New Rome (Byzantine) and then as a “lighthouse” of the Eastern Christian Church. In its essence, the book “Blood of the Asia Minor” explains creation of the Greek Diaspora and explains to reader the reason for its size. Namely, reader understands that the most important reason for the creation of such enormous Diaspora is the biggest genocide in human history (against Greek population in the Asia Minor) and, as such, it is mostly written for its descendants in order to strengthen tradition and identity of the Greek nation. Main message of this book is that this goal can be achieved by nourishing Greek language, religion and cultural heritage. As reviewer, writer Milovan Vitezovic said “the book presents very moving and very argumentative testimony of the persecution of Greeks from their old homeland on the territory of the Asia Minor that happed in recent history - at the beginning of the twentieth century, immediately after the end of the, six century long, Ottoman empire. This, extremely brutal persecution, with the exception of the Modern Greek history, is not registered properly in international and European history which, to their shame, ignored it. This is one of the important reasons why this book should be recognized. However, the main reason for its recognition is catharsis and offered chance to atone for historic conscience that tends to treat events superficiality and leave them to oblivion. These pages will make us understand that the modern mankind is deprived of history and tends to have a short memory of, even those events that happened in recent history." 

First and second chapter of this book describe numerous events that are unknown to general history because they were kept for a long time in the hearts of the people and in their emotional documents discovered in recent times. 

Every book written by Diogenis D. Valavanidis carries beautiful, emotional dedication: 

“To my biggest love, my daughter Theodora”.