A day of honor in memory of the EOKA hero Kyriakos Matsis, who was killed in his betrayed hideout in the community of Dikomos, on November 19, 1958, refusing to obey the orders of the British colonial regime to surrender.
A historical analysis by Andreas Karyos:
Searching the British archives, I found the official instructions of the British Governor of Cyprus, Sir Hugh Foot, for the burial of the hero not in his place of origin (Palaichori) but in the Central Prison. The text of the British document reads as follows:
“Hugh Foor,
Governor
Whereas Kyriakos Matsis of Palechori has been killed as a result of operation by Her Majesty's Forces for the purpose of suppressing disturbances and of maintaining public order:
And whereas I am satisfied that it would be in the interest of internal security and of the maintenance of public order to direct the time and place at which the body of the said Kyriakos Matsis shall be buried:
Now, therefore, in exercise of the powers vested in me by paragraph (a) of regulation 37A of the Emergency Powers (Public Safety and Order) Regulations, 1955 to (No. 6) 1958, I, the Governor, do hereby direct that the body of said Kyriakos Matsis shall be buried, according to the religious rites of the community to which the said Kyriakos Matsis belonged, at 12.30 pm on the 20th November, 1958, within the precints of the Central Prison, Nicosia.
Dated this 20th day of November, 1958 ”.
I find the above document particularly interesting in terms of the information it provides:
In addition to details of the burial conditions (time and place of burial, religious rite followed) of a prominent historical figure, We also find evidence for the reasoning behind the British decision not to bury in Palaichori, but in the Central Prison (essentially in Prisoner Memories).
The aim of the British, according to the archival material, was to avoid the disturbance of public order and the internal security regime, which would lead to the transformation of the hero's funeral into an anti-colonial demonstration. (as had happened in other cases of executives of the revolutionary organization in the past).
However, apart from the interpretation of the operational logic that accompanied that British repression measure, This decision helps us to understand how popular EOKA and its members were in a very large part of the Greek Cypriot society of the period.
Therefore, in order to avoid demonstrations and riots that would be caused by the mass turnout of Kyriakos Matsis compatriots to honor him, the British colonial authorities decided to bury him (as they had done in similar cases of important EOKA executives in the past) in the small , an isolated and well-guarded small cemetery of the Central Prison, which in the collective memory was established under the name "Prisoner Memories".
However, I went a long way with the historical analysis: Today is a day of honoring a personality whose primary place in its value system was held by freedom, self-determination, the possibility of national self-determination, the collective good, the voluntary contribution to the suffering fellow human being. May the memory of the hero Kyriakos Matsis be eternal.
The photo of the blast of the den, now in color.
