Note: the series was inspired by @athensandspartaadventures by Hapo (@allbeendonebefore ) and has no intention to insult you, rather to entertain you. Without further ado, enjoy!
Big inspiration from @allbeendonebefore. The design for Ionia/Miletus was based from her work.
Ok, let's get down to business 🎶to defeat the Huns.🎶 Two months ago, a greek movie called "Smyrni mou agapimeni" (english translation: "Smyrna, my beloved") circulated in theatres and it had to do with (as you probably have guessed) the great catastrophe of Smyrna back in 1922.
As someone who lives in a town that was founded by immigrants from Asia Minor and since a century has passed from that event, I was intrigued and I immediately started a draft, but due to exams, I didn't finished it until much later.
Inspired by this, I took Hapo's character, Ionia/Miletus and had her star in the poster of the movie. And yes, I know that Ionia is the personification of Miletus, but technically speaking, Miletus is located in Asia Minor, so it makes sense.
We will start first with a historical note to help foreigns understand. I should advise you that I'm no historian, so it's gonna be oversimplified and it would be much more preferable to search the Internet. Here are some links: link 1, link 2. And as always, you can help me add more stuff or correct me for the things I was wrong.
It all started way back in the 19th century, after Greece was freed from the Ottoman Empire. Back then, a plan named "Great Idea" was formed, where we would try to retrieve the terrains that were originally inhabited by Ancient Greeks (namely, South Balkan and Ionia).
This "Great Idea" was finally realised in 1919, with the help of Eleftherios Venizelos and of Entente. At first, the Greek army came victorious and we penetrated even further to the Turkish land.
So, what went wrong? Well, in 1920 Venizelos loses the elections and King Constantine comes to power. This disgruntled many army officers in Asia Minor who were in favour of Venizelos, as well as with the Entente, who never really liked Constantine (since Constantine didn't hide his admiration for Germany's militaristic discipline). All this, combined with the rise of Mustafa Kemal turned the tides in favor of the Turkish army and the Greek army started to back off.
The saddest moment has to be the catastrophe of Smyrna. Smyrna for Greeks was an important city, as the Greek spirit/element was prominent there (more than half of its inhabitants were Greeks). The Smyrnians, as well as other Greeks from Asia Minor, came to mainland Greece as immigrants, desperately looking for a new home and support…
Now, on an critical note: while I don't hate this piece, I don't think that it's one of my best works either. I would prefer a font that it's exactly like the one of the poster, but I couldn't find it on ibis paint. In case you're wondering, this is the poster:
Also, in case you're wondering, NO, we don't want to retrieve Asia Minor anymore. We're passed that.
Next time on the unofficial sequel of AaSA: I finally figured out what to do with Modern Sparta :)
