Charkeia (locally Chartzia) is a Greek community in the occupied district of Keryneia. It lies 21 kilometres east of Keryneia, 260 metres above sea level, on the northern slopes of the Pentadaktylos. Its land rose to the ridge and included the settlement of Chalefka and, inside the forest of Anatoliki Platanitissa, the Armenomonastiro.¹ It was known for its apples.² In the 1960 census it had 600 inhabitants, of whom 594 were Greeks.

Name

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, which quotes Simos Menardos, the name is another form of the Greek Chalkis.³ The same name, Charkeia, is borne by place names in other parts of Cyprus, such as at Aradippou, Koilani and Kalopanagiotis, and by a hill on the land of neighbouring Agios Amvrosios.⁴ In the 15th-century list of fiefs the village is written “Charchia”, on the British map of Kitchener “Khartja” and in the 1931 census “Kharchja”.

Founding and first records

The first written reference to Charkeia is in the list of fiefs granted by King James II in the 1460s, preserved by the 16th-century Cypriot chronicler Florio Bustron.⁵

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, in the late 19th century Greeks from other villages and from Asia Minor settled in Charkeia, and the inhabitants of the parish of Fotis, in the northern part of the village, were considered descendants of Greeks from Smyrna.⁶ The neighbourhood of Fotis is also mentioned by the EOKA Liberation Struggle Foundation, in the biography of a fighter who lived there. Near the village the official gazetteer of place names of Cyprus (the Gazetteer) records the site of Melanisyko, where, according to the same encyclopaedia, the upper parish of the village had been, of which only a few ruins remained.⁷

Frankish rule

In the 1460s King James II gave Charkeia, together with another village, “Ghieglia”, as a fief to Filippo Mistachiel.⁸ According to the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie, he was a Cypriot knight; as early as 1448 King John II had sent him as ambassador to the emir of Karaman, in Asia Minor. He at first followed John’s daughter, Queen Charlotte, to Rhodes, but later returned to Cyprus and served James. As James’s ambassador in Venice, in 1468 he concluded in the king’s name his marriage to Caterina Cornaro, and he died shortly afterwards.⁹

Turkish rule

In the property survey made by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who held property, Charkeia is recorded as a mixed village with 18 property-holding households. The owners had grain fields, a few vineyards, mulberries, one cotton field and threshing floors, rights to running water and an old fountain. Of the 116 trees, 89 were olives and the rest mostly carobs. They also had beehives, a few oxen and cows, and there was a ruined olive press in the village.¹⁰

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox church of the village is dedicated to the Archangel Michael and dates from the 19th century. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, it replaced an older church and had a floor of round pebbles.¹¹ The old cemetery lay beside the church, to its southwest; the new one, of 1956, lies in a small wood about 300 metres northeast of the old centre of the village.¹² From the church comes an icon of Christ enthroned with a pair of donors, of 1521, now kept in the Byzantine Museum of the Archbishop Makarios III Foundation in Lefkosia.¹³

On the village’s land, high in the forest of Anatoliki Platanitissa, stands the Armenian monastery of Agios Makarios (Sourp Magar), known as the Armenomonastiro, which is an Ancient Monument. The British architect G. Jeffery, curator of the ancient monuments of Cyprus in the early 20th century, considered it most probably a 15th-century building. Its old church had fallen into ruin, and in 1814 a new one was built to its north. Above the monastery is a cave which, according to tradition, was the dwelling of Saint Makarios.¹⁴ According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, a large livestock fair was held at the Armenomonastiro every year, on the first Sunday of May.¹⁵

At Melanisyko the chapel of Agios Mamas survives in ruins.

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew cereals, olives, carobs and above all apple trees on the irrigated fields, which were their main source of income. The apple growers of Charkeia, Agios Amvrosios and Kalograia had founded a joint company to market their produce. Animal husbandry, with sheep and goats, was also developed.¹⁶ In 1942 the Cooperative Credit Society of Chartzia was founded and in 1957 the Cooperative Society of Olive Growers of Chartsia, and according to the same encyclopaedia a modern olive press operated in the village from 1960, beside two traditional olive mills.¹⁷ According to the Union of Communities of Keryneia District, the inhabitants also made charcoal, many families raised silkworms, and the village had the sports club “Dikefalos”.¹⁸

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 220 inhabitants in 1881, 232 in 1891, 243 in 1901, 297 in 1911 and 318 in 1921.¹⁹ In 1931 Charkeia had 314 inhabitants, all of them Christians, and in 1946 556, of whom 541 were Orthodox and 2 Muslims (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 600 inhabitants, 594 Greeks, 4 Armenians and 2 Turks, and in 1973 559 Greeks. In the school year 1973–74 the Greek elementary school had 58 pupils and 2 teachers.

National struggles

In the 1950 Enosis plebiscite 288 inhabitants of Charkeia signed. The Register of EOKA Fighters lists 138 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle.

In the neighbourhood of Fotis lived the EOKA fighter Anastasis Giakoumis, from Kalograia, who had married in Charkeia.²⁰

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Charkeia was captured by the Turkish army and its Greek population was subjected to ethnic cleansing. Since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the return of the inhabitants.

Five inhabitants of Charkeia, two soldiers and three civilians, were recorded as missing. Two went missing inside the village and three elsewhere: at Kyra in the Morfou area, in the area of Tziaos and in the Pente Mili area of the Keryneia–Karavas road. The remains of one have been located and identified, while four are still missing. One more inhabitant, a civilian, was killed elsewhere, at Vitsada. On the land of Charkeia two dead of 1974 are recorded, both civilians, in the village and its area.

The church of the Archangel Michael was desecrated, looted and seriously damaged; its roof has collapsed and the bell has been removed. The occupation authorities illegally converted the Armenomonastiro into a cafeteria; today both its churches are in ruins and all their furnishings are missing.²¹