Πάμε στο τεκέ μου

This one is special, coming as it does, on the eve of one of Greece’s most significant celebrations, Ohi Day.

On October 28, 1940, the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini (known as Il Duce) demanded that Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas allow Italian troops to occupy Greece. Famously, Metaxas’s response was the single word όχι — no. (In reality, Metaxas answer, in French, was along the lines of “Well, then, it is war.”

Italy’s invasion was stopped by the Greeks, leading to Germany stepping in to begin its deadly occupation of Greece.

Hear the News, Duce, a defiant piece about how Mussolini needed to lie to claim he was beating the Greeks, was written by Panayiotis Tountas and recorded by Stellakis Perpiniadis in 1941.