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The “Wildcat under Glass” novel

This animal you see in the picture, which you can also see in the Natural History Museum of Mytilini (www.nhma.gr), is the skin of a blood-thirsty feline, closely related to the tiger, known by the name “Kapllani” (Kaplan = The Turkish word for Tiger), found in Asia Minor.

Some 130 years ago these animals were forced, either by flood of the river Maeander (or Büyük Menderes in Turkish) or by fire, to swim across the Straits of Samos from the opposite Asia Minor coast to the island of Samos. They settled on the hills around Macratzaious and ended up hunting and feeding by the domesticated animals of the surrounding areas.

The farmers and the shepherds persecuted “Kaplani” and forced it to flee and hide in a cave (called “Kaplanotrypa” ever-since). The pursuers didn’t dare to get inside the cave and so they built a wall-door using large stones. They left the animal closed in the cave for approximately three months hoping to die of hunger and thirst. But the animal managed to maintain itself in a good shape by eating old but well preserved left-overs and by drinking zips of water gathered in a cave pit. After some time, curious to see if the animal had died but not brave enough to open the entrance, they opened a skylight on top of the cave, hanged a rope tied to a pine tree and a man called Gerasimos Gliarmis descended unarmed, but dressed in kapeneki uniform. Within the closed cave man and beast embraced themselves and fought to the death. The man, with his bare hands, grabbed Kapllani by the neck and tried to strangle it, while the animal tried to rip kapeneki uniform, nail the chest of the man and bite and crush his arm. Gliarmis called for help but no one dared to approach the skylight.

Soon the brother of Gerasimos, Nicholas Gliarmis, reached the place. Nicholas, due to his tall stature, his massive body, and his one eye had the nickname “Cyclops”. But he had supernatural power. When he learns about the situation he grabs the rope and descends into the cave. The beast leaves his weary opponent and rushes towards the new enemy. But he grasps, with his left hand, the beast from the throat, while with his right hand he tries to pull his knife from his girdle. But before reaching his knife Kapllani had already died of suffocation. But Gerasimos Gliarmis had meanwhile been wounded in the chest by the claws of the beast, and died of infection, sometime later”. VLACHOGEORGOS KONSTANTINOS.

In the Museum, in the middle of the main hall, stands stuffed in a show-case, the (“Wildcat under Glass”). The animal was killed and embalmed with the available means of the time. Then it wandered for all this time and ended up in the Museum due to the donation made by the Municipality of Samos. This exhibit was preserved with the best possible way and today is displayed due to its historical value and because it proved an inspiration for the writer Mr. Alki Zei (lived her childhood in Samos), who wrote the well-knows novel for children “Wildcat under Glass”.

Alki Zei was born in Athens in 1925. He studied at the School of Philosophy of Athens University, in the Drama School of the Athens Conservatory and in the Film Institute of Moscow. Her novel “Wildcat under Glass” was published in 1963. Zei, “walking” through historical events of the last fifty years in Greece, which enriches them with personal experiences, which combined with her point of view, determine the immediacy and effectiveness of her writing. Zei was well and correctly identified with the notion of a “gifted child” and managed to give her works a universal and an inter-human dimension. This is confirmed by the many translations of her work in foreign languages. The “Wildcat under Glass” has been awarded the American prize “Mildred L. Batchelder”, for the best foreign children’s book translated in English (1968), while overall the book has been translated in 30 languages.

One evening then, and while we had gathered a great “Balkan” company, the conversation came accidentally in my surname: where it comes from and who owns the Kapllani surname? Almost all claimed it as their own linguistic property. Then I told the group that one of the things that impressed me when I first came to Greece was the fact that once they heard my last name many people asked me: “Do you have Greek roots because Kaplanis surname is very famous in Greece?” I answered with a simple “who knows?” since I was never been preoccupied with the origin of my surname. But then, spurred by curiosity, I decided to make a quick “scientific” research. And so I discovered that “Kapllani” is of Semitic origin. In Hebrew means the “tribal chief” and in Arabic means the “tiger”, as the famous writer Alki Zei once assured me. We met once at an event and when she heard the word “Kapllani” told me: “Do you know that I have written a book with your surname, “Wildcat under Glass”?” I said that I have read the book and is one of my favorites.

Thanks to my research I discovered that “Kapllani” is an all-Balkan word. In Albania you find as “Kapllani” (with two “l”), as “Kaplanis” in Greece, in Turkey as “Kaplan” or “Kaplanoglou” in Serbia and Montenegro as “Kaplanovits”, and in Bulgaria and the FYROM as “Kaplanof” or “Kaplanofski”. So it is a surname that refers to the “unbearable sameness” of the Balkan people. Because this similarity is their blessing and their curse at the same time. Freud speaks of the “narcissism of small differences”: “the small differences between people that look alike are the base of the distance and hostility between them”. Maybe, who knows? A time will come when this phrase will be a prelude in the first page of the history textbooks in all Balkan countries. As for the journalists is not their job to write or rewrite history. History is there with its own disasters and its own reconciliations. What they can do however is to avoid turning history into hysteria.

 P.S. The “Kapllani” of Alki Zei has two eyes: One black and one blue. When it looks the world with its black eye, destruction comes. When it looks it with the blue one it brings reconciliation and prosperity. This is a metaphor that could perfectly match the look with which the Balkans faced each other: It is about time to open the blue eye, if they don’t want, for a lifetime, to leave by the “an eye for an eye” motto.

“TA NEA” newspaper, May 3, 2005”

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