Description
“Lakatamia has been for ages an insignificant rural community of the fertile land of the Pedieos river. It was turned into a feudal estate during the Frankish domination and when the Turks came most of its rich lands passed to the hands of Turkish agas and the monasteries. Both the place and its peoples, poor small-holders or land-serfs, remained on the margin of history throughout that period. Lakatamia became a town with the wave of refugees in the wake of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and the gradual settlement of people from the depopulated mountain areas of Pitsilia. With the refugees from all over the occupied areas of Cyprus constituting more than 65% of its total population, Lakatamia is virtually a refugee host town. The population explosion changed dramatically both the landscape and the life of its indigenous population. Though Lakatamia had already entered a slow process of transition from a rural to an urban community, the convulsions of 1974 dramatically precipitated this process. The need for writing down the history and the process of development of Lakatamia was more urgently felt when, after becoming a municipality in 1986, it started entering into relations with other municipalities in Greece and other countries of the European Union within the framework of fraternisation acts or European projects. The Municipal Council made the decision for the publication and the Deputy Mayor, Chrysostomos Pericleous, undertook the reserch and the writing of the book. The end result is a valuable work, which will hopefully stimulate research further research and study in this field. The bilingual publication was considered necessary in order to be accessible to non-Greek readers as well.” – Christakis Violaris, Mayor, PREFACE
