Νερουλάς Βιτσάδα [A water carrier in Vitsada]

Apostolos Ververis collection at the Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia The Greek professional photographer Apostolos Ververis arrived in Cyprus in the summer of 1954 on an assigned expedition to create a collection of photographs that proved Cyprus’s cultural associations with Greece. The advocates of his journey, namely the Greek government and the Cyprus archbishopric, were meant to use these images to raise awareness over the island’s Hellenic cultural heritage to support the Greek Cypriot demand for self-determination. Scenes of daily life, including representations of Greek Cypriot customs and traditions, received Ververis’s prime attention. Even though he captured real-life scenes taking place out in the countryside and village settings all around the island, he also produced staged compositions aiming for a Hellenocentric documentation of Cypriot heritage. Young men and women dressed in traditional Greek Cypriot costumes were photographed in scenes of traditional dancing, a wedding celebration in Famagusta, and daily activities presenting Greek Cypriots living a traditional way of life. The ‘Amalia’ dress is the protagonist in many of Ververis’s staged compositions as it is linked with the name of Amalia, Queen of Greece, and was established in urban centres in Cyprus by the mid-19th century as a variation of the Greek national costume. Sources: Roditou, Christina. “Images of Cyprus in the 1950s: Perspectives and Narratives.” In The Many Face(t)s of Cyprus : 14th Meeting of Postgraduate Cypriot Archaeology, edited by Dorina Glörfeld, Kim Kittig, Bärbel Morstadt, and Constance von Rüden, 163–81. Bonn: Verlag Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, 2019. ———. “Representations of Heritage and Identity in 1950s Cyprus: Digital Approaches to Apostolos Ververis’s Photographic Archive.” Unpublished PhD thesis, The Cyprus Institute, 2020.