Melanarga is a small Greek community in the occupied district of Ammochostos, on the Karpasia peninsula. It lies 50 kilometres north-east of Ammochostos, at an elevation of 200 metres, in hilly country a little south of Aigialousa.¹ The village church is dedicated to Saint Polychronios. In the 1960 census it had 175 inhabitants, all of them Greeks.

Name

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the first element of the name is the ancient word melas, “black”; the Encyclopaedia cites the Cypriot linguist Simos Menardos, according to whom places with dark-coloured soil were called Melanos and Melanoi in Cyprus.² In the British censuses the village is also written “Melanagra”, and in the lists of the Enosis plebiscite of 1950 “Melanarka”.

Founding and first records

Melanarga does not appear in the medieval lists of villages preserved by the 16th-century Cypriot chronicler Florio Bustron and by the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie. The earliest written record of it found is the land survey carried out by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33.³

Turkish rule

The survey of 1832/33 recorded only those who held property, not all the inhabitants. Melanarga is recorded as a mixed village, with 30 property-holding households. Most of their fields were cotton fields and uncultivated land, and their trees were mainly wild olives, with a few mulberries. The village had a watermill and two animal-driven mills, and the inhabitants owned some 250 sheep and a few cows, oxen and horses.⁴

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox church of the village is dedicated to Saint Polychronios. According to Cyprus Religious Heritage it was built in 1868, at the eastern edge of the old settlement, and the village cemetery lay around it.⁵

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew cereals, olives and carobs, and their livestock farming was limited. Much of the land was left uncultivated, with pines, mastic bushes and wild olives, and a state forest stretched to the west of the village.⁶

Education

In the school year 1973–74 the Greek primary school of the village had 22 pupils and one teacher.

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, Melanarga had 134 inhabitants in 1881, 128 in 1891, 148 in 1901, 161 in 1911 and 180 in 1921.⁷ In 1931 it had 205 inhabitants, 164 Christians and 41 Muslims, and in 1946 249, of whom 195 were Orthodox and 54 Muslims (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 175 inhabitants, all Greeks, and in 1973 158 Greeks.

National struggles

In the Enosis plebiscite of 1950, 110 inhabitants signed, practically all the adult Greek inhabitants. The Register of EOKA Fighters lists 49 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Melanarga was occupied by the Turkish army. Most of the inhabitants stayed in their homes, as in other villages of the Karpasia, and found themselves in confinement, enclaved.⁸ According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, in October 1975 108 enclaved persons were still living in the village. They were then expelled to the free areas a few at a time, and by December 1976 only four remained, who in the end were expelled as well.⁹ In this way the Greek population of the village was ethnically cleansed. Since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the inhabitants from returning.

One death is recorded in the village: an elderly civilian of Melanarga who died while living enclaved.

The occupation authorities illegally converted the church of Agios Polychronios into a mosque. According to Cyprus Religious Heritage, when a new mosque was built in the village in the 2000s, the church was abandoned. In 2022 it was in poor condition, with a damaged roof and without its crosses, and no trace was left of the cemetery around it.¹⁰