Copyright (2006)

Author: Peter Prineas
When Published: 2006
Publisher: Plateia Press
Available: Plateia Press,
32 Calder Road, Darlington, NSW,
or email here
phone (02) 9319 1513
and also from Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe NSW, 2037 and selected bookshops.

Katsehamos and the Great Idea is also available in the New England and Northwest region of NSW, from the Roxy Theatre, Maitland Street, Bingara.
Phone: 02 67240003
or email here

Description: Paperback, 240pp, Bibliography, Index.


From, O Kosmos, Thursday 30th March, 2006. p.25.

Country town picture theatre reveals a different history

When Peter Prineas learned in 2004 that his grandfather, Peter Feros, nicknamed ‘Katsehamos’, had built a picture theatre in the small town of Bingara in the 1930s, he wanted to know more about it. The result is ‘Katsehamos and the Great Idea - a true story of Greeks and Australians in the early twentieth century’, a book that digs deep into the shared history of Greeks and Australians, and the sometimes turbulent relations that existed between them in the period during and after the First World War. Along the way the story offers a different perspective on Gallipoli and other aspects of Australian history.

Prineas follows Peter Feros’s journey to America as a sixteen year-old boy in 1907, his return to Greece with much patriotic fanfare in 1912 in the company of thousands of other American Greeks to fight in the Balkan Wars, and his journey to Australia in 1921. The book recounts how Peter Feros, with his brothers Phillip and Manolis, between them fought four wars for the ‘Great Idea,’ Greece’s bid to reclaim Constantinople and her former Byzantine glory. The dream was shattered on the plains of Anatolia in 1922.

In Australia, Peter Feros prospered and in the 1930s he became caught up in another ‘Great Idea’. This time it was in the small town of Bingara in north-western NSW where the commercial ambitions of one of his business partners, George Psaltis ‘Katsavias’, entangled him in the building of the ‘Roxy’, an art deco picture theatre impressive enough to grace a city. The book’s account of Bingara’s ‘cinema wars’ is a fascinating addition to Australian picture theatre history. Although success in the cinema business eluded him, Peter Feros endured and went on to build a new life. In the end, ‘Katsehamos’ is about the journey of a man and his family towards accepting, and being accepted by, Australia.

Peter Prineas has worked as a lawyer, environmental consultant and writer. He has written or contributed to books on Australian landscape and environment but ‘Katsehamos’ is his first book of historical writing. He lives in Sydney.

‘Katsehamos and the Great Idea’ was launched at the Roxy Theatre in Bingara by Associate-Professor Janis Wilton of the University of New England, at 6.30 pm on Saturday April 1. The book launch was followed by the unveiling of a plaque and photographs commemorating the three Greeks from Kythera, – Peter Feros, George Psaltis and Emanuel Aroney – who opened the Roxy in 1936. The Roxy Theatre has been restored and reopened by Gwydir Shire Council and is now a regional centre for cinema and the performing arts. A large crowd of Kytherian Greek descendants is expected in Bingara on Saturday for the book launch and dedication which form part of the Roxy Theatre’s 70th anniversary celebrations.

General release of the ‘Katsehamos’ book will commence with the Sydney launch by Bob Carr at 7.00 pm on Wednesday April 12, at 'Alexander's on the Park', ground floor American Express building, 175 Liverpool Street (opposite Hyde Park).

The book will be available from the publisher,
Plateia Press,
32 Calder Road, Darlington, NSW,
or email here
phone (02) 9319 1513
and also from Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe NSW, 2037 and selected bookshops.

Katsehamos and the Great Idea is also available in the New England and Northwest region of NSW, from the Roxy Theatre, Maitland Street, Bingara.
Phone: 02 67240003
or email here

For further information
Phone: Sydney, (02) 9319 1513
Mobile: 0429 322 857