Greece: Books and Writers 9607894294, 9789607894298

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This publication has been sponsored by the Hellenic Cultural Heritage S.A., the organising body of the Cultural Olympiad.

PUBLICATION COMMITTEE

VANGELIS HADJIVASSILIOU STEFANOS KAKLAMANIS ELISABETH KOTZIA STAVROS PETSOPOULOS ELISABETH TSIRIMOKOU YORYIS YATROMANOLAKIS

Sourcing of illustrations SANDRA VRETTA Translations JOHN DAVIS (sections I-III), ALEXANDRA KAPSALI (sections IV-V) JANE ASSIMAKOPOULOS (sections VI-VII) ANNE-MARIE STANTON-IFE (introductory texts, captions) Textual editing JOHN LEATHAM Secretariat LENIA THEOPHILI Design, selection of illustrations and supervision of production STAVROS PETSOPOULOS

ISBN 960 - 7894 - 29 - 4 © 2001, MINISTRY OF CULTURE - NATIONAL BOOK CENTRE OF GREECE 4 Athanasiou Diakou St, 117 42 Athens, Greece Tel.: (301) 92 00 300 - Fax: (301) 92 00 305 http://www.books.culture.gr e-mail:[email protected]

GREECE BOOKS AND

WRITERS

NATIONAL BOOK CENTRE OF GREECE MINISTRY OF CULTURE

GREECE - BOOKS AND WRITERS – SECTION I

Cardinal BESSARION (black and white engraving 17 X 13 cm. National Historical Museum, Athens)

The most celebrated of the Greek scholars who worked in Italy was Cardinal BESSARION (1403-1472). An enthusiastic supporter of the union of the Eastern and Western Churches, he worked tirelessly to bring about the political and cultural conditions that would allow this to take place. He made a major contribution to the flowering of humanist studies in Italy and played a key role in gathering and preserving the ancient Greek, Byzantine and Latin cultural heritage by systematically collecting and copying manuscripts of rare literary and artistic value, frequently at great personal expense and sacrifice and with the help of various Greek refugee scholars and copyists (Conati autem sumus, quantum in nobis fuit, non tam multos quam optimos libros colligere, et singulorum operum singula volumina, sicque cuncta fere sapientium graecorum opera, praesertim quae rara errant et inventu difficilia, coegimus). Bessarion chose to bequeath this collection of manuscripts (one of the largest of its day: in 1468 it contained 482 Greek and 264 Latin codices) to the Venetian Republic, which he described as ‘almost another Byzantium’ (quasi alterum Byzantium), on the condition that Venice should safeguard these unique cultural treasures and use them for the benefit of all (ad communem hominum tam graecorum quam latinum utilitatem). Bessarion did not see his wishes fulfilled during his lifetime, for it was not until several decades later, in the mid sixteenth century, that his collection was finally housed in a proper space – today’s Library of St Mark’s (Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana) – in Venice, where readers could have access to his unique books that came to play such an important role in the formation of modern European culture.

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FOREWORD

E

VEN THE MOST OBSCURE GREEK POET today considers himself to be a member of

the same literary and linguistic community as Homer. The history of Greek literature is coextensive with the history of the Greek language, and language is the main field in which the collective memory, the constitution and the self-image of a community are asserted. The National Book Centre has brought together the wealth, the immense variety and the unbroken continuity of Greek literature in this special volume to mark the 2001 Frankfurt Book Fair, where Greece is to be the Guest of Honour. Naturally, such a vast corpus is out of proportion for a country of such a relatively small population and a language which numbers fewer than 20 million users worldwide, and obviously difficult to present. The first thing that needs to be done is to restore the great but little-known periods in the history of Greek letters (such as the Mediaeval period) to their rightful position. Perceptions of Greek literature abroad have, to a great extent, reflected perceptions of ‘Greekness’. If ‘literariness’ is a problem common to all national literatures, it is particularly problematic in the case of Greece. The universality of humankind and of human speech (and by extension of literature) cannot of itself stamp national identity on a literature. No, such an identity can emerge only through history: history as collective experience, history as a subject of writing and history as a source of inspiration. History, language and literature all contribute in equal measure to the constitution of a unified cultural reserve. In view of this, the central problem of Greek literature can be seen to lie primarily in the relationship between the universality of what it attests and the authenticity of local and particular experience, and secondly in trying to locate a Greek identity between the cultural poles of East and West. Greek identity is perched precariously on many a peripheral front: European, Balkan and Mediterranean. However, this national identity and its relationship with the West cannot be adequately contained by concepts such as the East, or various appropriations of it such as Orientalism; neither is Balkanism sufficient, nor even the wider ethnographic view of the Mediterranean. The relationship of this ‘Greekness’ with the West is based on the pursuit of authenticity, for the label ‘Greek literature’ embraces as much the ancient texts as the birthplace of Western rationalism as the New Testament writings. This pedigree functions as the magnetic field on the horizons of which Greek literary production is located. This volume provides a comprehensive introduction to Greek literature and will enable the reader to appreciate all the books and writers it presents in their historical and contemporary contexts. Congratulations are due to all those who have contributed to this publication, and of course to the National Book Centre. 2 July 2001

Professor EVANGELOS VENIZELOS

Minister of Culture

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THE STORY OF MODERN GREEK LITERATURE

F

OR THE NON-GREEK-SPEAKING PUBLIC modern Greek literature is probably a some-

what obscure subject. Today it presents a diverse, dynamic countenance that shares many features with European literature in general while at the same time containing other aspects that have yet to be thoroughly explored. Its future appears to hold much promise and looks set to be prolific. Its past extends back many centuries, gradually merging with the Byzantine tradition and, earlier still, with antiquity. A few writers of the twentieth century – Cavafy, Seferis, Kazantzakis, Elytis and Ritsos – are familiar names to just a small audience outside Greece. And Greek literature sometimes gives the appearance of being marked by gaps, by omissions, by the impression that continuity has been irrevocably interrupted, that the present lacks a past. That said, it is generally agreed that the history of modern Greek literature begins in the eleventh century with texts written in a language that is more familiar to the ears of Greeks in the twenty-first century than is the language of the Byzantine literati, the compilers of the Gospels, or, of course, the classical authors of the fifth or fourth centuries BCE. And it is this language that continued to be spoken and fashioned through all subsequent centuries, at times going through years of leaner literary production, at other times producing masterpieces. The chronicle of Greek literature or, to put it another way, the history of Greece as seen from the perspective of its books and writers is the subject of this work, which seeks to combine scholarly analysis with narrative interest. Its principal aim is to guide the reader through the key moments in this literature and to acquaint him or her with the men and women who moulded the Greek language into literary form. It attempts to describe the special qualities of this literature, its moments of innovation and originality, as well as its place in the European literary tradition and in the major literary and intellectual currents that have shaped the modern world. If the reader acquires a feeling for the historical depth and perspective from which this literature has evolved, and an appreciation for the landmarks in this evolution, then the writers of this volume will not have failed in their purpose. Greece – Books and Writers is the fruit of collective labour. The contributors belong to the younger generation of literary scholars and critics. While each section bears the style and views of the particular contributor it is hoped that a common tone runs throughout, giving the work a uniform character and internal cohesion. Special care was devoted to providing extensive illustrative material alongside the text: Greek-speaking centres beyond the traditional boundaries of the modern-day Greek state, and the activities of printers and publishers in these regions and their contribution to the making of modern Greek literature are amply represented in the illustrations that supplement the text. It is hoped that the present work combines pleasure and instruction in such measure as to meet with the reader’s approval. It is hoped, too, that on putting it down the reader will be sufficiently curious as to want to travel further through the landscape of modern Greek literature. CHRISTOS G. LAZOS Director of the National Book Centre

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BOOKS AND WRITERS

T

HIS BOOK introduces the major works and authors in modern Greek literature from

the 11th century to the present. The progress of Greek letters through the centuries, like that of the modern nation itself, has been neither smooth nor even. The nation has found itself alternately scaling great creative heights and plumbing the depths of cultural stagnation, with its impulse for creativity almost extinguished. However, this impulse was never entirely smothered, not even during the endless years of enslavement, the dark ages following the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Modern Greek literature belongs to the wider family of modern European literature. However, there are many features of it which distinguish it from the rest of the group. It is a literature which once featured prominently on the European literary scene, but today is, regrettably, regarded as one of the so-called ‘minor literatures’, and the Greek language itself is a linguistic loner and therefore relatively inaccessible to foreign readers. But however ‘marginal’ it may have been at certain points in its development, it is a literature which has never isolated itself from the centre; indeed, it has been in constant dialogue with the literatures of other European nations. Moreover, the overwhelming Classical literary legacy and the inevitable ‘anxiety of influence’ have at times worked against Greek writers; the separation of history and emotion has proved difficult to sustain. On the other hand, the interaction between Ancient and Modern has often been extraordinarily fruitful, as the poetry of the 2Oth century amply demonstrates. Naturally, the attempt to trace the long, tortuous course of modern Greek letters and to represent its many facets and manifestations within the confines of a relatively short volume has been no mean task. Practical constraints have led to the inevitable omission of certain writers and works. The central organising principles of this volume have been first of all to trace the relationship between Greek and world literature (especially European) and secondly, to outline the importance of these writers for their times, highlighting the historical context of their literary output and showing how they renew the traditions they work within. The editors have therefore taken care to map out very clearly the main stages in the development of this literature, emphasising certain central aspects common to each: linguistic, thematic and ideological, but never losing sight of the unique features of each period. The title is self-explanatory: this is a book about books and writers, and thus prominent writers and their works provide the focus throughout. This volume does not aim to serve as a literary history in the conventional academic sense; rather, it seeks to recast the history of Greek letters in a fresher, more personal narrative, supported by a vast array of illustrations and photographic material. So while the various stages in the development of Greek literature are presented in a linear manner in parallel with modern history, Books and Writers regularly sidesteps the main historical narrative to make fascinating literary detours. This is the history of the literature of a modern nation involved in a constant process of enrichment and renewal. THE PUBLICATION COMMITTEE

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CONTENTS SECTION I THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN GREEK LITERATURE (11th -15th century) 17 THE BEGINNINGS OF GREEK VERNACULAR LITERATURE TINA LENDARI ROMANCES TINA LENDARI 22 TALES SET IN THE CLASSICAL WORLD ULRICH MOENNIG 27 ANIMAL FABLES ULRICH MOENNIG 31 INTRODUCTORY NOTE

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SECTION II CRETAN LITERATURE (Mid 14th -17th century) INTRODUCTORY NOTE 39 CRETAN LITERATURE (MID 14TH-17TH CENTURY) STEFANOS KAKLAMANIS THE FIRST CRETAN RENAISSANCE FALTERS STEFANOS KAKLAMANIS 43 A NEW AGE DAWNS STEFANOS KAKLAMANIS 45 THE GOLDEN AGE STEFANOS KAKLAMANIS 48 INTROVERSION AND DECLINE STEFANOS KAKLAMANIS 53

40

SECTION III THE ERA OF ENLIGHTENMENT ( Late 17th century - 1821 ) INTRODUCTORY NOTE

59

LIGHT AND SHADE ELISABETH TSIRIMOKOU 60 WITH A SMILE AND A TEAR ELISABETH TSIRIMOKOU RIGAS AND KORA´S ELISABETH TSIRIMOKOU 68

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SECTION IV THE BUILDING OF A NATION ( 1821-1880 ) 77 THE GREEK STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE - THE ROMANTIC ELEMENT VASSILIS PANAYOTOPOULOS GREEK FOLK SONGS ALEXIS POLITIS 82 EUROPEAN TRAVEL WRITINGS ON GREECE AND GREEK LITERATURE EKATERINI KOUMARIANOU 88 DIONYSIOS SOLOMOS KATERINA TIKTOPOULOU 94 ANDREAS KALVOS EURIPIDES GARANTOUDIS 99 MAKRIYANNIS RANIA POLYKANDRIOTI 102 K. PAPARRIGOPOULOS ANTONIS LIAKOS 106 FOLKLORE - A NEW FIELD OF STUDY NORA SKOUTERI 108 GREEK LITERATURE AFTER 1880 MICHALIS CHRYSSANTHOPOULOS 112 INTRODUCTORY NOTE

SECTION V STIMULUS AND CREATIVE RESPONSE ( 1880 -1930 ) INTRODUCTORY NOTE 119 GEORGIOS VIZYINOS MICHALIS CHRYSSANTHOPOULOS 121 EMMANUEL ROIDIS ATHENA GEORGANTA 124 ALEXANDROS PAPADIAMANTIS LAKIS PROGUIDIS 128 GRIGORIOS XENOPOULOS - KONSTANTINOS THEOTOKI R. BEATON - V. HADJIVASSILIOU

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133

78

CONTENTS KOSTIS PALAMAS EURIPIDES GARANTOUDIS 134 C.P. CAVAFY DIANA HAAS 140 K.G. KARYOTAKIS CHRISTINA DOUNIA 149 KOSTAS VARNALIS CHRISTINA DOUNIA 153 ANGELOS SIKELIANOS CHRISTINA DOUNIA 154 NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS RODERICK BEATON 158

SECTION VI THE THIRTIES : A TURNING POINT - NEW DIRECTIONS ( 1930-1974) INTRODUCTORY NOTE

167

GEORGE SEFERIS YORYIS YATROMANOLAKIS 170 SURREALISM YORYIS YATROMANOLAKIS 178 ODYSSEUS ELYTIS ARIS BERLIS 186 YANNIS RITSOS COSTAS PAPAGEORGIOU 191 TAKIS PAPATSONIS YORYIS YATROMANOLAKIS 195 NIKOS KAVVADIAS VANGELIS HADJIVASSILIOU 196 KOSMAS POLITIS MARIO VITTI & YORYIS YATROMANOLAKIS 198 FOTIS KONTOGLOU JOSEPH VIVILAKIS 203 THE SEARCH FOR NATIONAL IDENTITY ELISABETH KOTZIA 204 THE AVANT-GARDE NOVEL – THREE INSTANCES ELISABETH TSIRIMOKOU 206 M. KARAGATSIS VANGELIS HADJIVASSILIOU 210 THE PROSE OF WAR G. FARINOU-MALAMATARI 211 LITERARY REVIEWS OF THE THIRTIES AND FORTIES 216 THE PROSE OF COMMITMENT ELISABETH KOTZIA 218 DIMITRIS HATZIS VANGELIS HADJIVASSILIOU 220 221 POST-WORLD WAR II POETRY VANGELIS HADJIVASSILIOU LITERARY REVIEWS OF THE FIFTIES AND SIXTIES 224 FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY IN THE MODERN METROPOLIS: 1960-1975 YORGOS ARAGIS STRATIS TSIRKAS DIMITRIS RAFTOPOULOS 234 ASPECTS OF MODERN GREEK DRAMA ELENI VAROPOULOU 237 SNAPSHOTS OF THE PRESENT VANGELIS HADJIVASSILIOU 242

227

ANNEXE TRANSLATIONS – THE PUBLISHING MARKET AND GREEK SOCIETY NIKOS VATOPOULOS

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

249

PHOTOGRAPHS AND ILLUSTRATIONS - SOURCES CONTRIBUTORS

250

251

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES INDEX OF TITLES

246

252

256

Most of the captions of the illustrations have been compiled by the Publication Committee. The Introductory Notes to each section were written by Yoryis Yatromanolakis.

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CONSTANTINOPLE From Liber insularum archipelagi by Christoforo Buondelmonti, early 15th century (Bibliothèque Nationale, France: ms. Paris. lat. 4825, f. 37v.)

SECTION I

THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN GREEK LITERATURE (11th-15th century)

Details taken from the ms. volume S. Joannis Damasceni sacra parallela which depict a notary, a blacksmith and an itinerant pedlar. (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris: Gr. 923, fol. 201v and 335r)

THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN GREEK LITERATURE (11TH -15TH CENTURY)

T

HE MAIN FORMS AND THEMES of this first period included scholarly and popular

epic songs celebrating the new champions of Hellenism, the young warrior Armouris and Digenis Akritas, defender of the Byzantine Empire; long compositions; verse romance, which bore the stamp of influence from Western courtly tradition, but a genre nevertheless rooted in the Hellenistic and imperial Roman ages; ancient stories reviving mythical and historical figures such as Achilles and Theseus and Alexander the Great; and didactic, sardonic texts, concerned with philosophy and the allegory of daily life, with birds and animals taking the leading roles. But these will prove to be also the mainstay of modern Greek literature, modified, of course, by the various aesthetic and other values specific to each era. This period can be dated from the 11th century to the Fall of Constantinople; its literature developed throughout the Greek world, although the cultural and educational centre was undoubtedly Constantinople. This is where everything began, where everything was planned and where everything developed, and where the centuries-old Byzantine Empire came to an end - hence the map of Constantinople at the beginning of this section, to represent both the geographical and symbolic centre of this world. The entire corpus of this literature, both scholarly and popular, has survived into spoken modern Greek, through which there echoes the ancient word lexis (diction), bringing the linguistic residues of previous eras to the surface, and breathing new life into them. The entire corpus is written in verse, dominated by the iambic fifteen-syllable line, the modern Greek metre par excellence. Although we are familiar with several of the literary names of the writers of the period, there is no single major figure who dominates; personalities do not seem to play the part they do in subsequent times.

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THE BEGINNINGS OF GREEK VERNACULAR LITERATURE

A Byzantine scholar at his desk (Niketas Choniates) (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna: Ms. Vindobonensis hist. gr. 53, f. 1v)

From the third of the Ptochoprodromika poems. The poet of the third of the so-called Ptochoprodromika poems, evidently a penniless scholar, envies the life of his neighbours who are simple artisans and tradesmen, and he curses the day that his father told him to acquire an education.

When I was still a youngster, my father said to me, “Just look to see you prosper, boy, and learn your abc. You see that chap, my boy, who sometime used to walk – well, now he rides a fancy mule that’s fat as any pork… When he started school – just think! – he never saw a bath but now – well now, thrice a week he soaks his precious... body. His jacket was a nest of lice as big as nuts and beans but now – well now, gold sovereigns line his seams…” So I studied all my lessons and slaved away and read. The result? Now that yours truly with grammar filled his head? – Oh, for some scraps of food, some crumbs, look at my tears! I curse the days I went to school, I curse those wasted years! The devil take them all, dear God! and all who want their lore! The devil take them all, yes, let them go to hell! and cursèd be the day when I was led to school! To learn, they said! my abc, that I might profit well!… Now, if they’d made of me an artisan instead, say, a tailor of rich embroidery whose line is golden thread, and just suppose I’d learnt this much despised skill of sewing gold-embroidered clothes, fancy trims and frills, well, I’d now open my cupboard and find there tasty things, stacked with wine, cooked tunny, mackerel and sardines. Whereas in fact my cupboard’s shelves – this may sound incredible – are stuffed with paper-bags crammed with papers quite inedible. And what happens when I search the bread bin for a slice or crust? Well, I find more papers inside paper-bags and nothing else but dust. (Translation by John Davis for The Byzantine Festival in London, 1998)

The term ‘modern Greek literature’, so often used to describe vernacular Greek literary production of the Byzantine and postByzantine age, is something of a misnomer. For the cultivation of the vernacular does not mark the birth of a new literary tradition that appears to assert itself in the face of the ‘high’ and ‘middle’ learned stylistic levels that owed so much to perceived ‘classical’ models. Rather, it is seen to emerge and grow alongside the already existing tradition. The conventional practice of tracing the awakenings of a specifically modern Greek consciousness to these early examples of the literary use of the vernacular is far from unproblematic. The cultural context within which the first known works of vernacular literature were created was undoubtedly Byzantine. The earliest group of such works dates mainly to the twelfth century: satirical poems known as the Ptochoprodromika, the moralizing poem Spaneas, the autobiographical and didactic verses written in prison by Michael Glykas, a verse oration on Princess Agnes of France, and a few examples of heroic poetry such as the Song of Armouris and the epic Digenis Akrites (11th-12th century). It is extremely difficult, in these works, to trace, even in embryonic form, some kind of modern Greek consciousness that differs to any notable extent from the Byzantine identity and ideology. A complex issue, the first appearance of a distinctly modern Greek consciousness needs to be placed much later than this period. We need, therefore, to be aware of the fact that when using the term ‘modern’ Greek literature for the early vernacular works of the Byzantine period, we are using it for the sake of convenience in order to describe the linguistic form of our texts rather than their association with a particular national consciousness or literature. The overwhelming majority of literary works in the vernacular has survived anonymously. Furthermore, it has proved difficult to assign a precise date to many of them. The latter problem is exacerbated by the fact that the form in which the works have survived is often somewhat protean. Many have survived in a number of manuscripts, each of which preserves substantial variants or a different version. This phenomenon is met with also in the medieval West and is due largely to the methods by which texts were copied and disseminated in the age of the manuscript. During the process of copying out a text it may be subject to a greater or lesser degree of alteration due to ignorance or carelessness on the part of the scribe, or even to deliberate intervention on the part of the redactor. This can be explained in part by the fact that in the Middle Ages the notions of originality, personal style and intellectual property were quite different to ours. However, the differences between the various versions of a text might also be due to the mechanisms of traditional oral poetic composition, whether at the initial moment of composition or during the later dissemination of the work in question. Orality, that is, the technique of oral improvisation which is based on a traditional system of formulas that correspond to particular poetic conceptual and metrical units, constitutes a compositional device that, although not relying on the aid of writing, nevertheless influences the techniques of written composition. Some characteristic systems of formulas are assimilated by the written tradition and contribute to the creation of a traditional style that displays, to a greater or lesser extent, features more commonly associated with oral poetry. continued on p. 20

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THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN GREEK LITERATURE (11TH -15TH CENTURY)

Arabs besieging a city. From the Chronicle of Ioannes Skylitzes. (Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid: ms. Vitr. 26-2, f. 214)

They mounted at once and they came to the battlefield. They hissed like serpents, they roared like lions, They soared like eagles, and the two clashed. And then you could see a fight between fine brave youths. In the heat of the battle they struck continuously, and from the great clashing and the cut and thrust trees were uprooted and the sun was darkened. Blood flowed down over their horse-trappings and their sweat ran out over their breastplates. Constantine’s black horse was speedier, and its rider was a marvellous young man.

He charged at the emir and struck him a blow with his stick, and then the emir began to tremble and flee. A Saracen addressed the emir in his own tongue: ‘Seize the youngster, my lord, and grab a quick victory, so that he doesn’t take your head off with his sudden turn. He has made a fine attack on you and now he might finish you off. I don’t think, my lord, you are going to do him much harm, but don’t let him boast that he routed an army.’ When the emir heard this, he withdrew some way from the youth, he threw away his spear and showed him his finger, and with this gesture said these words: ‘May you live and rejoice, young man, for victory is yours’. (Translation by Elizabeth Jeffreys, Digenis Akrites, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 241-2)

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GREECE - BOOKS AND WRITERS – SECTION I

The Song of Armouris – Digenis Akrites

David kills a bear. From a late 10th / early 11th-century Psalter of St Basil (Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice: ms. Marc. gr. Z. 17 (= 421), f IVv).

David the Psalmist. A woman, symbolizing the spiritual flock, is seated next to him. From an 11th-century Psalter (Monastery of Vatopedi, Athos: ms. cod. 761, f11r).

David and the Lion. From an 11th-century Psalter (Monastery of Vatopedi, Athos: ms. cod. 761, f11v).

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The Byzantine-Arab conflicts that lasted from the seventh to the early eleventh century provide the context for Byzantine heroic poetry written in the vernacular Greek language. The most important and oldest of these works are the Song of Armouris and the epic romance Digenis Akrites. The first of these works, the Song of Armouris, 197 lines of which survive, relates the deeds of the young Arestis as he battles against the Saracens on his way to Syria where his father, Armouris, is being held hostage. Arestis crosses the Euphrates and succeeds in defeating the Arab armies singlehanded. Just one Arab survives the encounter, although he has lost a hand, and it is he who bears the news of the defeat to the Arab emir. Arestis threatens to slay the Arabs if they fail to release his father. The emir, alarmed by these developments, yields, releases Armouris and proposes that their respective children seal the deal in marriage. Although the plot is complex, the narrative is fast-moving and lively. And while the style is plain it has considerable descriptive power. The poem contains much of the formulaic texture of oral poetry. By comparison, Digenis Akrites is a far more extensive narrative text, although it is not in a pure epic-heroic style. It survives in many manuscripts and versions. The oldest two versions are the Escorial version (=E, 1867 lines) and the Grottaferrata version (=G, 3749 lines), from the names of the libraries in which the respective manuscripts are held. Besides being descriptive of his dual origins (digenis: of dual birth, that is, Arab and Byzantine, Muslim and Christian), the name of the central hero of the tale also reveals something of his social role. The akrites of the Byzantine empire of this period were a military class responsible for safeguarding the frontier regions of the imperial territory from external enemies and freebooting adventurers who operated on the fringes of the empire. The work is comprised of two parts. In the first, the ‘Lay of the Emir’, which bears more obviously the characteristics of epic poetry, an Arab emir invades Cappadocia and carries off the daughter of a Byzantine general. The emir agrees to convert to Christianity for the sake of the daughter and resettle in ‘Romania’ (i.e. within Byzantine, ‘Roman’, territory) together with his people. The issue of their union is a son, Digenis Akrites. The second part of the work relates the development of the young hero and his superhuman feats of bravery and strength: like his father, he carries off the daughter of another Byzantine general and then marries her; he kills a dragon; he takes on the so-called apelates, a group of bandits, and then defeats their three leaders in single combat. No one, not even the amazingly strong Amazon Maximo, with whom he commits the sin of adultery, can match him. Having defeated all his enemies Digenis builds a luxurious palace by the Euphrates, where he ends his days peacefully. While it should be noted that the form (or forms) in which Digenis Akrites has survived is not the product of oral composition, it has nevertheless retained a considerable number of features of its oral origins. The common core of the two versions preserved in the E and G manuscripts goes back to the twelfth century. The text of E appears to be closer to the original composition while G represents a version that is heavily

THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN GREEK LITERATURE (11TH -15TH CENTURY)

marked by learned reworking. Both texts give enchanting descriptions of the life of the martial societies of the border regions of the empire, while in the figure of Digenis are concentrated the legends that had accumulated around local heroes. The Escorial version is the superior of the two in respect of the power and immediacy of the battle scenes and austerity of style. The epic descriptions of the mounted knights and battles are marked by drama, a swift pace and lively visual detail. Judging by its style, the original composition of the Song of Armouris may well date to an earlier period than Digenis Akrites. The features of oral epic composition and a certain ‘archaic’ poetical economy found in Armouris are more marked. Likewise, there are important differences with regard to content: the encounters between Byzantines and Arabs appear to comprise the historical present of the poem; the narrative begins within the climate of military conflict and the shadow of Roman defeat at the hands of the Arabs (Armouris has already spent twelve years in captivity and his war horse has been grieving all this time in its stable) and it finishes with the emir’s proposal that Arestis become his son-in-law. Yet such an optimistic outcome (which on a symbolic level, through nuptial union, might represent the establishment of

peace between the two peoples) is not recounted, and the tension between the Byzantine and Arab sides remains enigmatically unresolved. This stands in marked contrast with Digenis Akrites: while, in Digenis, the Arab incursions into Byzantine territory are the context within which the first part of the tale unfolds, the events in the part of the narrative concerning the family history of the central hero seem to be located (perhaps deliberately) beyond a climate of conflict. The reconciliation of the two peoples through the marriage of the leading figures of the tale and the triumph of Christianity over Islam, achieved through the conversion and reception of the emir and his people into Byzantine society, is the key theme of the first part of Digenis Akrites. The rest of the story unfolds against a background of peaceful coexistence of the two peoples. The Byzantine Digenis continued to be read and enjoyed in later centuries, as the text survives in various versions dating to as late as the seventeenth century. The epic tale of Digenis Akrites gave rise also to a cycle of oral ‘akritic’ songs, some of which survived down to the twentieth century. In the later tradition Digenis is eventually defeated only by death, in the figure of Charos, after fierce single combat on ‘the marble threshing floors’.

Byzantine ceramic (12th-13th century) decoration showing a warrior holding a shield and sword and wearing a helmet, breastplate and short tunic, while his mantle billows in the wind (Benaki Museum, No. 13601).

The four poems known as the Ptochoprodromika (the ‘Poor Prodromos’ poems) are examples of the satirical genre in the 12th century. They have been attributed by some to Theodoros Prodromos, a scholar at the court of the Comnenian emperors. In the first poem, the narrator – a poor teacher and scholar – asks for financial assistance from the emperor in order to escape the complaints of his nagging wife and the humiliation to which she subjects him. In the second, the narrator asks for financial help from the emperor in order to find relief from his poverty. In the third poem, the narrator describes and compares the livelihood of the learned teacher with that of his illiterate neighbours who ply their humble trades. The narrator bewails his fate as he recalls how he naively believed the advice of his father, who assured him – misleadingly it appears – that learning leads to riches. In the fourth and last poem, the narrator – now a poor monk – satirizes the luxurious lifestyle of the wealthier monks in his monastery as well as his own tendency to envy their self-indulgence. In all four poems the subject of material poverty is associated and paralleled with the subject of linguistic poverty through the use of the vernacular language.

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Scenes with cupids carved in ivory from the Veroli Casket (10th century). (Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

ROMANCES

A mounted hunter. A mirror from Anatolia, first half of the 12th century. (TopkapÈ SarayÈ MuzesÈ, Istanbul: 2/1792)

Lovers in a garden. Plate from Corinth 12th-13th century. (Archaeological Museum of Ancient Corinth: 1934-0054)

The verse romances are among the finest achievements of medieval Greek literature, continuing as they do the long tradition of the love story whose roots go back to the Hellenistic and late antique periods. Sophisticated literary works of a learned character, these romances were the product of a literary elite that experimented by extending traditional narrative forms into the vernacular language while also exploring the potential of this language for the creation of a new lyrical idiom and a distinct poetic sensibility. Broadly speaking, these texts can be divided into two groups: one containing works that are original compositions in the Greek language, and the other containing works that are translations or adaptations of West European compositions. The majority of works belonging to the first group were written in the period extending from the second half of the thirteenth century to the sixteenth century. The translations and adaptations of West European romances into the vernacular Greek of the day date to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: the Theseid is a translation of Boccaccio’s Teseida, while Imberios and Margarona and Florios and Platziaflora were both based on the Italian versions of the Old French romances Pierre de Provence et la Belle Maguelonne and Floire et Blanchefleur. To this group of works can also be added The War of Troy, a translation of Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie. However, it should be noted that these ‘translated’ works are generally adapted to the poetical conventions that developed around the romance genre during the Palaiologan period, with the result that the translated text often became considerably distanced from its original. All of these works are anonymous. Besides the fifteen-syllable verse, a key feature of the common poetical language of the romances is its inventiveness and obvious delight (sometimes to excess) in creating new compound words. In spite of the conventionality of much of the poetical language, the style of the romances is frequently refined, lively and sensitive. The influence of rhetoric is clearly strong and is testimony to the fact that the writers of the romances were familiar with the ‘high’ literary tradition of the classical language. Examples of this tendency are to be found in various ekphrases, rhetorical descriptive exercises, of works continued on p. 24

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THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN GREEK LITERATURE (11TH -15TH CENTURY)

Battle with lances. (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris: cod. Parisinus gr. 2878, f. 112v)

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The worship of Venus (Aphrodite). From a manuscript of homilies of Gregory Nazianzus (the Theologian), 12th century. (Monastery of St Panteleimon, Mount Athos: cod. 6, f. 164r)

Mounted warrior From the zodiac for March, Typikon of the Monastery of Vatopedi, 14th century. (Monastery of Vatopedi, Mount Athos: cod. 1199, f. 150v)

Allegories of virtues were a popular subject in both Byzantine and European literature of the middle ages. Allegorical treatment of this type can be found, for instance, in the Romance of the Rose (12th century), as well as in Byzantine works such as Ysmine and Ysminias by Eustathios Makrembolites, and Livistros and Rodamne (13th/14th century), where descriptions of virtues personified are accompanied by personifications of the twelve months of the year. The allegorical representations of the months were popular in the medieval West and East. The illustration here shows a mounted warrior who represents the month of March. The warrior as portrayed in this manuscript illustration of the 14th century bears all the basic characteristics of the heroes of the romances of the Palaiologan years.

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of art, gardens, women, a bath or a wonderful palace, that follow the precepts of traditional rhetorical practice. The subject matter of the original romances rests upon a shared core of standard narrative material. A king or prince who ignores or despises love departs from his country either on a quest for heroic adventure or in search of a beautiful maiden (with whom, however, he is not yet acquainted). He meets the maiden in a wonderful castle. The young knight and maiden declare their love for one another (and in the majority of cases their love is consummated before marriage). The element of adventure is usually introduced or reaches its climax following the union of the couple. The couple’s happiness is abruptly interrupted. In some cases (for instance, in the Achilleid) the outcome proves fatal and the story has a tragic end. In other cases the heroes are separated, one of them (sometimes both) is considered dead, and after various adventures and wanderings they are brought back into one another’s arms thanks to an intermediary (a friend of one of the lovers, or a woman with magical powers). It is the translated and reworked romances that differ from this general pattern: the Theseid, The Old Knight (based on the romance of Guiron le Courtois, a French work centred on the Arthurian legend), The War of Troy and the Tale of Troy (Diegesis genamene en Troia: see the next Section). The Byzantine romance began its revival in the twelfth century with Ysmine and Ysminias by Eustathios Makrembolites, Rodanthe and Dosikles by Theodoros Prodromos, Drosilla and Charikles by Niketas Eugenianos and Aristandros and Kallithea by Konstantinos Manasses (the first in prose, the following two in iambic hexameters, and the last in fifteensyllable ‘political’ verse, and all in the learned idiom). The differences (and the similarities) in the case of the romances of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are clear. The plot has been reduced considerably; only Livistros and Rodamne maintains a sub-plot (a secondary romance that evolves alongside the romance of the protagonists). The element of adventure becomes less prominent as the description of the action is reduced. The number of characters taking part in the action also becomes smaller. The social origins of the protagonists changes: no longer simply well-to-do, they derive for the most part from royalty. Furthermore, fairy-tale elements (for instance, dragons, winged horses and magical objects) are incorporated into the story while the erotic aspect of the romance is given particular emphasis: for instance, the sensuality of the bathing scene in Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe, the passionately entwined Velthandros and Chrysantza whose cries of pleasure echo around the garden, and the obvious erotic symbolism of Achilles’ entry with his lance into the maiden’s garden in the Achilleid. The heroes are either of Byzantine or Roman lineage, though the ‘co-stars’ are sometimes of eastern origin. The action no longer evolves within a Mediterranean, classical setting; the scenery is contemporary, but with obvious utopian elements and a liking for the scenery of the folktale. The triad of original works – Livistros and Rodamne, Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe, Velthandros and Chrysantza – as well as the Achilleid clearly echo the treatment of love found in their ancient forerunners. The theme of the invincibility of

THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN GREEK LITERATURE (11TH -15TH CENTURY)

Eros, or Love, whose personification acquires the characteristics of the Byzantine emperor, is developed in numerous variations; he is described as armed with bow and arrow, as an infant cupid, as a child, as a youth or old man. The amorous adventures of Venus are recounted; love is identified with death; the sensation of desire is likened to a flame and to ice, and so on and so forth. A number of scholars have termed the Greek verse romances as ‘chivalric’. Although the authors of the romances may have been familiar with western works of this kind, the original Greek romances appear neither to imitate nor to have assimilated anything of the western chivalric ideal. The similarities of the central hero to the knight of the western courtly romance are limited to the external characteristics of the noble knight, in his capacity both as a warrior and as a hunter, and to his exceptional valour and beauty. The codification of the system of values of feudal society as expressed in the ideal of western chivalry is absent from the Byzantine and postByzantine works (the social and ideological base of the Greek romances is, after all, quite different). There is a total absence of the feudal and Christian dimension of the chivalric code of

conduct; furthermore, the ideal of love that is portrayed is substantially different to the standards of courtly love in the western tradition, while there is considerable difference with regard to the subject of adultery, which appears only very rarely and was quite foreign to the Byzantine notion of love. Apart from the story of Helen and Paris, which in any case was handed down from antiquity, as related in the Tale of Troy, the Byzantine Iliad, ‘the notion of love’ is encountered only in Livistros and Rodamne, where the sub-plot concerns an adulterous relationship. While the extra-marital relationship is not commented on in negative terms, nor is it praised in any way, and the incident is related only summarily. There are, of course, a number of common poetical motifs to be found in both medieval Greek and western romances, such as the subject of the amorous pursuit, the allegiance to Love (Eros), love from afar, divine figures and exemplars taken from mythology, or the allegorical treatment of virtues and other abstract qualities. The similarities between Greek and western production are due principally to the shared classical heritage, a poetic repertoire of great historical depth that is subject at the same time to reworking.

Cupid shoots his arrows at the other gods. (Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice: cod. Marc. gr. Z. 479 (=881), f. 33r)

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Palace set in a garden. Mosaic decoration in a late 7th / early 8th-century Umayyad mosque, Damascus, executed by Byzantine craftsmen. It is probable that the same group of artists produced the mosaics in the Christian church of the Mother of God, Bethlehem. (photograph: George Hadjimichalis)

Descriptions of gardens were a stock feature of romances ever since antiquity. Frequently the encounters of the protagonists and the love scenes take place within the setting of the garden. They are usually closed spaces with trees, plants and fountains, as in the plate above. The description of the garden is usually combined with a description of a marvellous palace.

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The average Byzantine had a very different idea of the classical world to us. In the chronicles, the key historical manuals of the Byzantine world, the standard notion of world history presented a single, uniform course of events that led from the Creation (Year One) to the Second Coming, expected, according to Byzantine chronological reckoning, in 7000 anno mundi (1492 CE). This historical course was marked by the succession of four world powers, the fourth being Roman. Just one historical figure from antiquity enjoyed an undisputed place in the world chronicles of Byzantium: Alexander the Great, the third of the four masters of the world. Achilles held second place, although it was not so much Achilles himself who was at the centre of interest as the subject of the Trojan War and the events that followed it, including, most prominently, the flight of Aeneas to the West and the foundation of Rome. Narrative literature of the late Byzantine and postByzantine periods numbers many works whose theme is Alexander the Great or the Trojan War. A similar range of interest in the narrative and literary treatment of subjects taken from antiquity is to be found in the French works of the twelfth century, with the so-called romans d’antiquité (Roman d’Eneas, Roman de Thèbes and Roman de Troie). The Byzantine poets, however, show greater independence as they adapt the themes of antiquity to their own notions of the world and its past. An outstanding example of the adaptation of the figure of Alexander the Great to the literary needs of the age is provided by the fourteenth-century Greek Alexander Romance, consisting of 6120 lines of ‘political’ verse. The audience follows the hero on his conquest of the ancient world and at the same time is taken on a tour to the corners of the earth, and even beyond. In the work, the geographical perception of the world stems from the Scriptures rather than from classical or empirical geographical knowledge. Alexander departs from Macedonia and makes his first stop in Rome. From there he proceeds to the western edge of the world, which is encircled by the great Stream of Ocean. Then he marches along the coast of North Africa until he reaches Egypt, where he establishes the city of Alexandria. He then continues east until he reaches Jerusalem, where he is welcomed by the prophet Jeremiah; he carries on to Babylon, where he visits the site of the Tower of Babel, and then heads for the uninhabited regions of the eastern end of the world. In this last part of his travels he passes through the land of eternal damnation for the sinners of this world, while he also has the good fortune to get a glimpse of the earthly paradise, although he is unable to enter here as no living man is allowed entry. Like another Messiah, this Alexander struggles to free the world from the bonds of idolatry. This version of the Greek Alexander Romance was popular reading material for no less than five centuries, undergoing linguistic adaptation and various narrative alterations in the course of time. As early as the fourteenth century it was translated into Slavonic and from Slavonic into other languages, including vernacular Greek. The audience for the text was broadened substantially with the expansion of the Ottoman Empire north and west, and it came to be identified, in general terms, with the limits of Orthodox Christianity. The Greek audience increasingly identified the Persian heathens of the

TALES SET IN THE CLASSICAL WORLD

The Trojan Horse: woodcut from the Iliad of Loukanis (1526). (Gennadius Library, Athens)

Philip lying asleep: woodcut from the Iliad of Loukanis (1526). (Gennadius Library, Athens)

In its day, the printed edition of the Iliad of Nikolaos Loukanis (1526) was the most lavishly illustrated edition of any vernacular Greek work. The woodcuts in Greek books printed in Venice are similar to those in popular Italian editions of the same period. Various woodcuts from Loukanis’ Iliad were used in editions of other works, such as the Alexander Romance.

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Saint Sisoes before the tomb of Alexander. (Byzantine Museum, Athens: T 2279-BM 4117)

The subject of death is found in all the versions of the Life of Alexander. In the late-Byzantine period, the ‘vanity of human existence’ was a favourite theme in art and literature, and the early death of Alexander was a classic case in point. In wall paintings and icons of the 16th and 17th centuries we sometimes see the figure of St Sisoes before Alexander’s open tomb. Because Alexander was such a widely known figure, he provided the most readily available example of the vanity of worldly affairs.

Theophilos Hadjimichail, Alexander the Great, early 20th century, wall-painting. (Museum of Greek Folk Art, Athens)

From the predecessor of the Byzantine emperors, the image of Alexander developed, in the age of the Enlightenment and beyond, into the symbol of the glorious Greek past. The Phyllada most probably helped make Alexander a popular and familiar figure among a large number of Greeks, regardless of the fantastical tales that came to be associated with him over the course of the centuries. This process of fiction-building, particularly within the context of 19th-century attitudes, helped form both the national consciousness of the modern Greek people, and the creation of a fictional Greek universe, in which Alexander was a brother of Digenis Akrites and Erotokritos.

Greek Alexander Romance with their Turkish overlords. A revised version of the Life was printed for the first time in Venice in 1750 under the title Phyllada tou Megalexandrou (Chap-book of Alexander the Great), while in the same year the first ‘researched’ biography of Alexander was published in the modern Greek language as part of the Palaia Istoria of Charles Rollin. Gradually the historical figure of Alexander the Great took the place of the legendary Alexander of the Byzantine tradition. The cover pages of editions of the Phyllada in the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth show Alexander wearing a crown of indeterminate ancient augustness and supposedly historical armour. From the late fifteenth century onwards, a further Life of Alexander, known as the Rimada tou Megalou Alexandrou, again portraying him more as a fictional than as an historical character, was published, though this account owed more to the ancient sources than the Phyllada. When Dimitrios Zenos, a Greek scholar living in Venice, made the first collection of Greek vernacular literature he preferred to use this thematically more venerable version for inclusion in his printed collection. The collection in question represented an effort to combine both the ‘delightful’ and the ‘edifying’ elements of Greek lore. Similar criteria lay behind the selection, for printing, of other such texts of a superficially classical content but written in the vernacular: the Theseid (a translation and reworking of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Teseida), the Battle of the Frogs and Mice (a parody of the Homeric epics), the Iliad of Nikolaos Loukanis, and a collection of Aesop’s Fables. The subject of the Trojan War is found not only in texts dating from late antiquity but also from the Byzantine period. Within this context, it is necessary to bear in mind that in both medieval West and East tales of the Trojan War were familiar, as a rule, from the Ephemeris belli Troiani by Dictys Cretensis and the De excidio Troiae historia by Dares of Phrygia, or at second hand, via such texts as the chronicles of Ioannes Malalas and Konstantinos Manasses, who again drew on these two texts. The motive behind the western Europeans’ desire to tackle the subject of the Trojan War was similar to that of the Byzantines: they considered themselves to be the successors of the Romans and, ultimately, the descendants of Aeneas. The vernacular literary production of the fourteenth century also includes three long verse accounts of the Trojan War, each presenting a different treatment of the subject. The most popular of these, judging by the seven manuscripts preserving the text, was the Polemos tes Troados (War of Troy), an anonymous work that in essence comprises a loose translation, or paraphrase, in 14,400 lines of fifteen-syllable ‘political’ verse, of the Roman de Troie by Benoît de St. Maure (mid twelfth century). The Greek version of the Roman de Troie was composed in accordance with the rules of the genre of the late Byzantine romance, though not without some divergences: it does not relate the love story of a central couple, but of many more characters, as the narrative recites the fortunes of successive generations and moves its focus of attention from one set of characters to another. The second of these works, the so-called Byzantine Iliad, or Diegesis genamene en Troia (Tale of Troy), by an anonymous author, also observes the conventions of the continued on p. 30

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Top: When Alexander arrived in Judea, spies came to spy on him. Bottom: Dressed in priestly robes the Hebrew priests of Jerusalem go out to meet Alexander. From the Greek Alexander Romance. (Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and post-Byzantine Studies, Venice: cod. 5, f. 92r)

One of the Byzantine versions of the Alexander Romance is preserved in a manuscript that is remarkable for its wealth of illustrations: cod. 5 of the Hellenic Institute in Venice (14th century). The person who commissioned the manuscript was most probably the Emperor of Trebizond, Alexios III Komnenos. This would explain the de luxe quality of the manuscript. In the miniature illustration on f. 92r of the manuscript we see Alexander being greeted by the Jewish priesthood of Jerusalem. In the printed version of the Phylla-

da, the scene is described as follows: ‘And Alexander again saw in his sleep the Prophet Jeremiah dressed in his priestly robes, who said to him: “Come, my child Alexander, and pay homage to Jerusalem, to Holy Zion, and worship the God of heaven and earth. And then you can go from here to Darius and defeat him with your troops”. And Alexander woke up and set out for Jerusalem. And when Jeremiah heard that Alexander had arrived, he ordered a meeting at which young and old were told to go and greet Alexander. And the Prophet put on his priestly garb, and a thousand priests holding gold and silver censers, and ten thousand people holding candles went out to meet him and pay homage to him’ (ed. G. Veloudis, Athens 1977, pp. 45-46). In the margins can be seen comments written in Arabic. The manuscript thus links the Byzantines, Jews and Arabs.

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romance. The central hero is Paris in the first part and Achilles in the second. The work is comprised of 1166 fifteen-syllable lines and is written on the lines of the tales of fate: in the beginning we are told of an oracle predicting that the as yet unborn Paris will be the cause of the destruction of Troy. However much those around him may try to prevent this evil from occurring, they will succeed only in hastening the realization of the oracle. The third work, a vernacular paraphrase of the

Iliad made by Konstantinos Hermoniakos at the court of the despotate of Epirus in about 1330, seems to follow the Homeric text fairly closely. However, in the twenty-four books of 8800 non-rhyming eight-syllable lines of Hermoniakos’ paraphrase, the narrative also relates the events that preceded the action described by Homer as well as the sequel to the sack of Ilium, all in an affected idiom comprised of both vernacular and learned linguistic features.

From the Greek Alexander Romance : Instead of accepting the gifts offered by the Jews, Alexander dedicates them to their God. (Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and post-Byzantine Studies, Venice: cod. 5, f. 92v, top)

Solomon, the wise king, built it. And he asked: “Of what god is this place?” And the prophet answered, “We believe and worship one God, who made the heaven and the earth”. On hearing this Alexander said: “Truly, you are servants of God the Highest and I too believe in Him and worship Him. And I grant to you the gifts and the taxes that I had intended to take from you. And may God be with me and help me in whatever I try to achieve.” And the Prophet Jeremiah went with the lords to offer gifts to Alexander and to pay homage to him. And Alexander did not want to take the gifts, and said: “May these be gifts to the Lord of Hosts”.

Two miniature illustrations on the verso of the same folio. This scene is described in the Phyllada with further details so as to assimilate Alexander to the Christian world order. By paying homage to the God of the Old Testament, Alexander is seen to embrace the God of the Christians: ‘Then Alexander entered and worshipped Holy Zion. And they showed him how

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Tales whose characters are animals have been popular since antiquity, through medieval times down to the present day. The most famous such stories are perhaps Aesop’s Fables, short tales in which human traits are projected on to the animal world. These tales focus on a didactic message, the so-called ‘moral’. In Byzantium, Aesop’s Fables were widely read. The Byzantines, following the advice of Pseudo-Hermogenes, used them as models for literary-rhetorical exercises, known as progymnasmata, for beginners in the art of rhetoric. In other texts we see the projection of human behaviour on animals serving a comic or satirical end. The ancient satire The Ass, attributed to Lucian, is one such example. The hero of the tale, Lucius, is transformed into a donkey and is thereby put in the position of being able to watch the doings of men from a quite unusual angle. The hero of the Synaxarion of the Estimable Donkey of the fourteenth century is also an ass. A Fox and a Wolf have decided to travel with a Donkey to the Holy Land. At some stage during their voyage across the sea they force the Donkey to confess his sin of having eaten a lettuce in the garden of his master, and they condemn him to death. The Donkey then lets them in on a secret: God has granted him a special talent, a special power in his hind legs. He tells them that it would be very regrettable if this special talent, granted him by God, were to perish with him. The Wolf is impatient to find out more about this special power and, going round the back of the Donkey, finds himself on the receiving end of a mighty kick. The Fox, alarmed at the unexpected power of the Donkey, tries to flee. Finally, both Fox and Wolf realize how unjustly they have underrated their companion and, on account of his great feat, award him the name of Nikos (Victor) and variants thereof. In the Synaxarion of the Estimable Donkey the Fox and the Wolf get their come-uppance because they made the mistake of believing the Donkey to be a dullard, a rustic simpleton. The sly fox is the hero of tales that became popular both in the Byzantine East and the Medieval West, and many of them share the same features, such as can be seen in the thirteenth-century Old French Roman de Renard. Human social stratification is to be found with the lion, king of the quadrupeds, and the eagle, king of the birds. Usually these texts relate the disputes and quarrels of animals that break out at an assembly of the beasts called by the king. Of course, the atmosphere and the action of the heroes reflect the culture and the society that produced and read these works. The plot of the Tale about Quadrupeds develops around an assembly, or parliament, of animals; that of the Poulologos (Bird Book), around the wedding of the son of the eagle, king of the birds, to which all the bird kingdom has been invited. At the wedding of the eagle’s son, the birds are seated around a long table and a debate commences between the pairs of birds, with each bird directing words of odium and scorn at the bird seated opposite it: ‘you foolish hen, you shameless slut, feeding off excrement and snot, getting laid by whatever cock comes your way, even by your sons, you whore and daughter of a whore’. Behind the humble story of the Poulologos there appears to be a veiled attack on the rising political

ANIMAL FABLES

Birds (National Library of Athens: cod. 701, f. 217r).

In the Byzantine tradition of animal illustration, the eagle, as king of the birds, was generally depicted wearing a crown on his head. In classical Greek literature the eagle is not only the king of the birds, but also the favourite bird of the king of the gods, Zeus. The Romans were the first to use the eagle as a symbol of power. The two-headed eagle was initially the emblem of the Byzantine family of the Palaiologoi, the last dynasty of the Empire. It eventually came to serve as the emblem of the Byzantine Empire itself. On the page prefacing the text of the Poulologos in Athens Library ms. 701 (17th century) is a picture of a two-headed eagle. An association is thus created between the king of the birds in the Poulologos with the symbol of the Byzantine Empire. The matter is confused further with the description of the picture of the basiliskos, or gold crest (basiliskos in Greek is a diminutive of basileus, ‘king’). The illustrations in the various manuscripts containing the Poulologos reflect more generally the Byzantine tradition of animal illustration.

continued on p. 34

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Groups of animals, Job’s flock. Miniature illustration from a Greek codex in Sinai, written in the late 11th century, preserving an illustrated version of the story of Job. (Monastery of St Catherine, Sinai: cod. 3, f. 8r)

In the Tale about Quadrupeds, the panther attacks the leopard using the following argument: ‘You’re no natural thing, but a half-cast, / you’re part like a lion, and part like me’. The view that certain types of animal were the result of cross-breeding went back to antiquity. In Oppian’s Cynegetica III, 482-3, for instance, Oppian observes: ‘Yea and another double breed have I beheld with mine eye, a mighty marvel, Camel united with Sparrow’. Damaskinos Stouditis in the 16th century links the existence of supposedly mixed breeds of animals with the unicorn, which, among other things, is capable of curing the deleterious effects of poison: ‘The unicorn has another property. Deep in the desert, where there are no rivers, only a tiny amount of water can be gathered in hollows in the ground. And even this water becomes bad from the heat of the sun. All the animals gather around to drink, but the water is bitter, and so they can’t. So they wait for the unicorn to come and drink. And when he bends to drink, and his horn touches the water, the water becomes fresh. He drinks of it and then the other animals follow. And it is while the other animals are gathered and waiting for the unicorn to arrive that the varied species mate with one another. And so we have the strange mixed breeds, like the panther (pardos) that mates with the camel to produce the giraffe (kamelopardos). Also, the wild wolves of India mate with the great dogs of India to produce wolfhounds (lykokynes), or jackals. Likewise, panthers mix with lions to become leopards (leontopardoi).’

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THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN GREEK LITERATURE (11TH -15TH CENTURY) Unicorn. (Bodleian Library, Oxford: MS. Barocci 145, f. 246v)

The myth of the unicorn probably originated in India. In the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament there are references to the unicorn, the first to be found in Greek: ‘Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee?’ (Job 39.9), ‘Save me from the lion’s mouth; for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns’ (Psalms 22.21), and ‘But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn’ (Psalms 92.10), and so on. The Church fathers understand the unicorn, on the basis of Psalms, as symbolizing Christ. In Byzantine and post-Byzantine literature we find the unicorn in Varlaam and Ioasaph, in the various versions of the Physiologos, in On Animals by Manuel Philes, and in the Collection of Damaskinos Stouditis. The unicorn was a popular subject for illustrators of Byzantine manuscripts containing the story of Job and Varlaam and Ioasaph. – This illustration is taken from MS. Barocci (12th/13th century), containing the Oracles of Leo the Wise and other texts.

Elephant (Bodleian Library, Oxford: MS. Auct. F.4.15, f. 27).

In the Tale about Quadrupeds reference is made to the ancient zoological tradition that viewed elephants as not having joints, thus explaining why they cannot get up if they fall down. (Aristotle, however, in his History of Animals had believed this view to be wrong.) When elephants want to sleep they prop themselves up against a tree so as not to fall. Hunters, so the theory goes, would saw through a tree’s trunk just enough to let it stand until an elephant leant against it. This method of hunting elephants was described by Diodorus (Library of History III, 27) and by Strabo (Geography XVI, 4.10). In both Byzantium and Western Europe this interpretation was sustained in the chapter on elephants in the Physiologos. – This illustration is taken from MS. Auct. F. 4.15, f. 27 (dated 1564), in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, containing the 14th-century work of Manuel Philes On animals (Peri zoon idiotetos).

Fox (Bodleian Library, Oxford: MS. Barocci 145, f. 249).

The sly fox and the bad wolf are the principal characters of many of Aesop’s Fables. In the Western European medieval beast fables, such as Renart and the tale of Reineke, the sly fox plays the lead role. The wickedness of the Renart does not have its counterpart, however, in Byzantine beast fables. For instance, in the Synaxarion of the Estimable Donkey the roles of the fox and the wolf are reversed: the seemingly gullible but clever donkey ends up defeating the refined abbess fox and her accomplice the wolf. – MS. Barocci 145, from which this illustration was taken, preserves the Oracles of Leo the Wise and other texts. The illustration is Venetian and dated 1656/1570.

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figure of Alexios Apokaukos (d. 1345), written perhaps by someone belonging to the pro-Cantacuzene camp. The fourteenth century was an age of protracted internecine strife and intermittent civil war for the Byzantine Empire. While the Poulologos gives us an aristocratic slant on the age, the Tale about Quadrupeds appears to reflect a more popular ideology: even the power of the emperor himself is open to debate, while the internal disputes weaken the smaller centres of Byzantine power (the Morea, Nicaea and Epirus) to such an extent that they were barely able to muster adequate defence against foreign incursions. It may be noted that both the Poulologos and the Tale about Quadrupeds are written in ‘political’ verse and the vernacular of late-Byzantine narrative literature. The animals in the Tale about Quadrupeds do not conduct their disputes in pairs but one after another. The text begins with separate gatherings of, on the one hand, plant-eating and domesticated animals (described as ‘clean’, kathara, and ‘useful’, euchresta), and, on the other, the carnivores (‘bloodthirsty’, haimobora, and ‘abominable’, bdelykta). The lion king, a carnivore, invites the plant-eating animals to a meeting so that each side can air its complaints to the other and, it is hoped, come to some kind of reconciliation with each other. The smaller carnivores speak first, then the plant-eating ani-

From I. Leschi, Djemila, Algiers 1953. His hind legs are not the only miraculous weapon that the Donkey possesses. To the Fox and Wolf the Donkey sounds like ‘horns and trumpets’, while ‘from his belly a long lance-like thing extended, fat and with a hood on its tip’. The Donkey defeats the Fox and Wolf, and he is thus named ‘Nikos’ (and derivatives thereof: the Greek word nike meaning victory). The humour here is more complex than at first appears. Its origins lie in antiquity where similar wordplay is associated with the victorious donkey. Since the Synaxarion of the Estimable Donkey is a work of the fourteenth century, we need to take into account the fact that the vernacular Greek of this time also had the word to nikon for ‘donkey’, with the stress on the last syllable (derived from onos, onikon, the ancient noun and related adjective for ‘ass’). Another name that the Fox and Wolf give the Donkey – ‘Niketas’ – could be a monastic derivation from the layman’s ‘Nikolaos’. The Fox in the Synaxarion is an abbess, and the central scene of the tale comprises a parody of the rite of confession. The text thus contains various satirical references to monastic life, which perhaps also explain the satirical use of the word ‘Synaxarion’ in the title of the tale. The illustration reproduces a Roman mosaic in Djemila, Algeria. The inscription (‘asinus nica’) suggests that the Greek wordplay was not translatable into Latin.

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mals, and lastly the ‘lords’ of the animal kingdom. The cat listens to the complaint of the mouse; then the mouse hears the complaint of the fox, and so it goes on. Only the bull has a good word to say about the cow (he seems to have a soft spot for her: ‘I am the sun, and she is the moon’), but she does not appear to be impressed by his flattery. Gradually the situation gets out of hand and violence breaks out. The lion king attacks the cow and slays her. The enraged bull lunges at the lion. This leads the flesh-eating animals and the plant-eating animals to form two opposing camps. The categorization of speakers and the tidy alternation of discourse betray the rhetorical bent of the anonymous poet of the Tale about Quadrupeds. Details of a zoological or mythological nature – it is assumed that the elephant does not have wrinkles, that the leopard originates from the union of the lion and the panther (Greek: pardos) – link the work with ancient and Byzantine zoological tradition, which was less concerned with the observation of nature and more interested in reproducing fantastical accounts of varied origin. According to its anonymous author, the Tale “was written to combine the beneficial with the delightful”. The delightfulness of the tale, coupled with its gruesome ending, renders it, of course, tragi-comical. A related text, the Porikologos, or Fruit Book, is more clearly a parody than a satire. The word porika indicates fruits of all kind: fruit, pulses, nuts and so on. The comic element perhaps works more effectively here than in the Poulologos or the Tale about Quadrupeds because supposedly rational behaviour is projected not onto animals but motionless, humble plants. Various plant species appear in the prose text as highranking, and they behave accordingly. The Grape accuses Pepper of plotting high treason against King Quince, but the lawyer for the defence succeeds in proving the accusation groundless. The Grape is condemned henceforth to be trodden by man and to be used for the production of must and wine. Another type of beast fable is the Physiologos. From the fourth century onwards, this text was current in Greek (in numerous versions) and in translations into Latin and, later, Romance languages. For instance, the account of the unicorn in both East and West is the same in all the various versions of the work. Besides real and fictional animals, the Physiologos describes other animate and inanimate natural objects such as plants and precious stones, each of which is given the character of a symbol. The Physiologos is arranged in chapters that are crammed with biblical quotes, particularly from the Psalms. The allegorical interpretation of animals, plants and stones was endemic to the medieval understanding of the natural world, and was clearly far removed from the scientific approach familiar to us from some of the ancients. Another work, which, in literary terms, may be classed in the same physiognostic tradition, is the On the characteristics of animals by Manuel Philes, written in the early fourteenth century and dedicated to the Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos. Christian nature symbolism serves as the raw material for a literary work. In the sixteenth century, this approach was continued in the Selection from books of the ancient philosophers by Damaskenos Stoudites, a work that belongs to the Byzantine zoological tradition, though with a clear focus on narration, on episodic structure and content of an unusual character.

THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN GREEK LITERATURE (11TH -15TH CENTURY)

Mistra and Sparta. (Gennadius Library, Athens: Scrapbook º 48B, quire 36, Topographia I, Peloponnese II)

In the wake of the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 southern Greece and the Peloponnese came under the control of the Franks, though not without the spirited resistance of the local Byzantine aristocracy. The events surrounding the Frankish conquest of the traditional Greek heartland comprise the subject of the Chronicle of the Morea, an anonymous verse history written in the mid fourteenth century in 9000 lines of ‘political’ verse. The historical events are seen from the point of view of the invaders under the leadership of William de Villehardouin (1246-1278), while the account breaks off in 1292. It is possible that the Chronicle is based on a French ‘Livre de la conqueste’ composed some time between 1320 and 1330. Other versions were written in Italian and Aragonese, which were dependent either directly or indirectly on the French and Greek texts.

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Detail from an imaginary map of Candia, Crete. From the book of Bernard von Breydenbach, Peregrinationes in Terram Sanctam [Speir] (per Petrum Drach, 1502). 3rd edition, the c. Fairfax Murray copy, as described by H.W. Davies. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

SECTION II

CRETAN LITERATURE (Mid 14th-17th century)

CRETAN LITERATURE (MID 14TH -17TH CENTURY)

A

LTHOUGH it was under Venetian hegemony from 1211, Crete was without doubt

the cultural centre of the Greek world throughout its rule. The Venetian presence in Crete was to endure for above 450 years, until 1669 when it was newly conquered by the Turks. This long period was marked alternately by phases of creativity and stagnation, war and peace, struggle and hardship, and the dream of independence. Nevertheless, during the 17th century the long literary course of the island reached its peak, and in the space of only a few years a vast number of important works were produced. Apart from the lyric romance The Shepherdess and the matchless modern Greek epic Erotokritos, all these works were theatrical. Georgios Chortatsis, a contemporary of Shakespeare and the head of a group of dramatists, restored the lost lustre of the Greek theatre with his tragic masterpiece Erophili, the exquisite comedy Katzourbos, and the ornate pastoral Panoria. This was also a time when religious drama held a dominant position with works such as The Sacrifice of Abraham. But the definitive work of this period, and a work which was to influence and inspire successive generations of writers was, Vitsentzos Kornaros’ Erotokritos, which marks the end of the Cretan school. These great works are all notable for western influences, as the cultural horizons of the island extended through Venice to the West. But these influences are barely perceptible beneath the originality and independence of the text. This is not due simply to the fact that Cretan Greek was then at its highest point of development, nor to the fifteen-syllable and other verse forms used with such consummate skill and power, but because the compositions and the beguiling dramatic genius of the Cretan masters were such that their works became paradigmatic texts, unique examples of the Greek renaissance. The compelling qualities of Kornaros, Chortatsis, Andreas Troilos and Marcos Antonios Foskolos set the standard for the future. It is no accident that the national poet, Dionysios Solomos, studied these works in detail, especially the Erotokritos, and partly through them shaped his linguistic and poetic ideals.

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Giorgio Sideri, Portolan and geographical map of Crete (La Isola de Candia), 1562. (Biblioteca del Civico Museo Correr, Venice)

CRETAN LITERATURE (MID 14TH-17TH CENTURY)

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For a period of more than 450 years, beginning in 1211 and ending in 1669, Crete was ruled by Venice. During this period a unique cultural phenomenon occurred, the product of the coexistence of two peoples each possessing rich cultural traditions. At first, however, their coexistence was not peaceful. As long as Constantinople remained the capital of the Orthodox Byzantine State, the Cretans derived from it their political, religious and intellectual inspiration. Not only did they receive material support from Byzantium whenever rebellion against Venetian rule broke out on the island, but the population also followed Byzantine doctrine when it came to doctrinal confrontation between the Western and Eastern Churches. Similarly, there was also a steady stream of scribes, scholars and artists that came to Crete from the waning Byzantine capital. After the suppression of the St Titus rebellion (1363-1364), which had sought to make Crete an independent republic and succeeded in bringing the two ethnic groups on the island – native Cretans and Venetian colonists – into conflict with the metropolis, Venice, a spirit of tolerance and mutual understanding between the two groups began to prevail, thus benefiting the material and cultural life of the island. The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 finally loosened the sentimental ties between the island and the ancient capital of the East Roman Empire, and fostered yet greater convergence and productive coexistence between Cretans and Venetians, eventually creating a shared Veneto-Cretan cultural consciousness.

CRETAN LITERATURE (MID 14TH -17TH CENTURY)

THE BEGINNINGS A major event marking the transition from the medieval to the modern world was the Black Death (1348-1350), the pandemic of plague that swept across the entire continent of Europe and whose moral, social and economic impact on the unfortunate population of the day was immense. In Florence, Boccaccio and his friends fled to the countryside in order to escape the horrors of the plague, the ‘blow of death’, and spend their time entertaining one another with stories that served to affirm their faith in the value of earthly life. In Crete, Stefanos Sachlikis (1330-1400), the first Cretan poet whose name we know, chose to describe in his verses the sweet experience of his reckless youth and the joie de vivre that pervaded his island in the wake of the plague in his Praise of Pothotsoutsounia and the Council of the Whores. Born into a wealthy family, he wasted his inheritance and youth in the brothels, inns and taverns of Candia (modern Iraklio) before ending up in prison: he was found guilty of immoral conduct towards his lover, the widow Koutagiotaina. Following his release from prison, he withdrew for a spell to his estates, then later returned to the city to work as a lawyer (Remarkable Story of the Humble Sachlikis). When he was asked to advise the son of a good friend on how to conduct his life, he was able to draw on his rich and instructive past (Advice to Frantziskis). A quite different personality was that of Leonardos Dellaportas (1330-1419). His life, again, was lived to the full – he not only travelled to the ends of the known world of his time but also spent time in the cells of Candia’s prison – but he drew on his experiences to enrich his literary talents. In his major work, Dialogue Between an Unfortunate Man and Truth, he exploits allegorical figures whose lineage extended far into the past in order to demonstrate the inconstancy and vanity of worldly things, the nature and sources of sin, and the salutary power of faith, while he also used many sources that had inspired the later Byzantine literary tradition. Two other poets, of the early fifteenth century, serve to remind us that the medieval world was changing: Ioannes Pikatoros (Mournful Rhyme on the Bitter and Insatiable Hades ) and Bergades (Apokopos), both from the town of Rethymnon. Pikatoros emphasized the corrupt and transient nature of our worldly existence. Bergades, on the other hand, stressed its uniqueness and called on his readers to enjoy life to the full. His weary hero dreams of going on a strange journey to the Underworld where he meets the dead whose nostalgia and curiosity about the world of the living emphasizes for us

something that we are inclined to forget: the importance of enjoying the light of the sun, the beauties of nature and the humble challenges of our daily existence. The works of the young noble Marinos Falieros (13971474) and his anonymous contemporary, the author of the Rhyme of a Girl and a Boy, are paeans to deceit in love and carnal desire. Falieros, in his Story and Dream (1418), a love vision in the form of a dialogue that takes place between the poet, his future wife Anthousa, Fortune, and Pothoula abandons the code of pure love so common to vernacular romances and proposes instead an amoral and earthly description of the emotion of love, thereby seeking to persuade his beloved to let him enter her room and kiss her. The love dialogue echoes the ‘Contrasti d’amore’, an Italian genre that was certainly familiar to Falieros and a key practitioner of which was the Venetian poet Leonardo Giustinian (c. 1385-1446). All the works of this period are in verse. Poets employed the fifteen-syllable verse line with or without rhyme, regardless of their subject matter. The language is the standard vernacular marked by a few features of the Cretan dialect. The authors were clearly well aware of the vernacular romances and the various religious, didactic, legendary and historical works of the day, while they were familiar also with the techniques of oral poetry. Besides the great Italian writers such as Dante and Boccaccio, the Cretan poets also knew minor Italian works, particularly those written in Venice and northern Italy. Their literary debt to Italy is evidenced in the light style and the earthy subject matter of the work they produce – to such an extent that it would not be inaccurate to describe it as ‘Italianate’. The poets belonged to the island’s well-to-do classes that were concentrated mostly in the towns. Many served the Serenissima as high-ranking state officials and undertook difficult diplomatic missions for the Venetian Republic. Seen beside their western medieval counterparts, the Cretan poets nevertheless display independence of spirit and confidence in their choice and handling of literary subjects. For instance, they do not avoid but rather seek to speak of themselves in their work (often prompted by imprisonment, following conviction for various misdemeanours) and they describe the positive and negative aspects of life, sometimes with little evidence of regret or remorse. We see them using the same bold and unbridled manner in their descriptions of their erotic escapades, scandalous feats and lively dealings with their fellow citizens in the town or village where they chanced to spend some of their colourful lives. At times they contemplate the realm of death with awe and respect, at others they cannot hide their love for life and their worldly ambitions.

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Cretans of the 16th century (frescoes from various churches in Crete). Reproduced from G. Geralon, Monumenti Veneti Nell’ Isola di Creta, Venice 1908.

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THE FIRST CRETAN RENAISSANCE FALTERS

The gay and careless spirit of the Cretan writers of the early Renaissance was extinguished by the news of the fall of the imperial capital, Constantinople, to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The now very real possibility that the Christian world was heading for collapse caused many to seek the reasons for this startling change in fortune, the manifest result of the sin and moral corruption that had led their world to this sorry state. The Turkish conquest of the ‘City’ was accompanied by other ominous events, such as natural disasters, famine and plague, which caused many to believe that the end of the world was nigh. The realistic, satirical and erotic themes of the previous age were succeeded by a clear preference for religious and moral subjects more familiar from the Byzantine tradition. The doctrinal differences that had earlier been such a divisive issue between the two populations of the island resurfaced, leading to mutual distrust and introversion. The urge to cast out perceived evils and the call to repent and return to the straight and narrow way of God dominate the writings – prose and verse – of the hieromonk Nathaniel-Neilos Bertos and the future Bishop Ioannis-Joseph Plousiadenos of Modon (14291500), and of others, and were clearly intended to fulfil the

Plan of Rhodes town, from Gioseppe Rosaccio’s Viaggio da Venezia a Constantinopoli per mare e per terra, & insieme quello di terra Santa, Venice 1598. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

Lyric poetry was very popular in the Greek islands under western rule, such as Rhodes, the base of the Knights of St John (1308-1522), and Cyprus, which came under Venetian rule after a long period under the Lusignan dynasty (1192-1489). A few texts have survived from Rhodes, such as the Erotopaignia, a collection of unpretentious, simple love songs written in the vernacular.

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purpose of sermons and moral instruction. Works such as the Verses to this Seventh Age by Bertos, the Lamentation of the Mother of God on the Passion of Christ by Plousiadenos, or the Lamentation of Death by an anonymous poet were particularly popular judging by the number of manuscript copies of them that have survived. Religious and didactic writing continued at its usual pace until approximately the end of the fifteenth century. At around that time, writers began to experiment again, albeit hesitantly, with western forms and genres, primarily so as to meet the needs of their Catholic readership, who, finding it increasingly difficult to understand the Latin of their church and doctrine, sought the assistance of translations. These two trends can be seen to coexist for a considerable while. Most of the generally short works by the Catholic priest Andreas Sklentzas (fl. 1470-1500), particularly his prayers and hymns, are translations, paraphrases and reworkings of Latin religious writings (for instance, the Prayer for the Holy Communion of St Thomas Aquinas, teacher of the Church is a translation of Adoro te devote latens veritas, a hymn attributed to Aquinas himself ). On the other hand, the Creation of the World by the notary Georgios Choumnos (fl. 1480-1500), whose narrative is inspired by the first two books of Genesis, renders in 2800 fifteen-syllable couplets the Byzantine Historia tou Palaiou (The Story of the Old Testament) and the text – or perhaps a lost vernacular paraphrase – of the Old Testament. While these reconfigurations were clearly linked to literary trends in Italy, they are too few and too minor in quality and influence to bear worthy comparison with the Cretan writings of the early fifteenth century. And while lyric love poetry was the dominant mode in the literature of the Renaissance (‘neoPetrarchism’), it had yet to find its practitioners in Crete. It is possible to detect certain traces of lyricism in various hymns

by Plousiadenos (Lamentation of the Virgin) or Sklentzas (To the All-Holy Virgin). However, such lyricism as these works do contain is quite unrelated to the Italian, Petrarchan type; instead it is concerned with the figure of the Virgin and stems from a long tradition whose roots lie elsewhere. Contemporary historical events became the subject of verse narratives and were employed for the purpose of moral edification. In the Catastrophe of Crete Manolis Sklavos gives a detailed description of the terrible earthquake of 29 May 1508, which flattened much of the capital, Candia, and he looks back nostalgically on the earlier years of prosperity, attributing the change in fortune to the sins of his fellow men. The reappearance of rhyme marked the beginning of a new phase in literary tastes and ultimately constituted the key innovative feature of literary verse production in Crete and elsewhere in this period. Many of the works of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, whether erotic, satirical, entertaining or didactic, were subjected to a systematic process of revision and reworking by talented and experienced littérateurs into rhyming verse and an idiom closer to that of the spoken standard of the day, littered with local Cretan dialect forms (the Tale of Apollonius by Gabriel Akontianos dates to 1500, while the Rimada of Belisarius, the Chap-book of the Donkey and various other, anonymous works can be dated to shortly afterwards). In contrast with the previous period, these writers belonged to the middle and lower social strata of Cretan society; they were for the most part monks or priests of either Catholic or Orthodox persuasion, frequently supported the union of the Eastern and Western Churches (Sklentzas and Plousiadenos), and were town dwellers (Choumnos, Sklavos, Akontianos, and others). They all shared the religious and didactic temperament of the age and believed in the edifying mission of their literary activities.

A Rhodian ‘concubina’ and a Greek merchant. From Vecellio Cesare, Habiti antichi et moderni di tutto il mondo, Venice 1598. (Fondazione Scientifica Querini Stampalia, Venice)

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A NEW AGE DAWNS

From about 1510 until 1570 literary production in Crete went through a prolonged hiatus. Unlike other Venetian-ruled dominions such as Cyprus and, to a lesser extent, Zante and Corfu, where literary production flourished, Crete produced no work of especial literary merit. These years mark a period of conservation and stock-taking in literary activity, indicative of a desire in Cretan society to reassess its aims and move on to a new phase of development. The manuscripts preserving the works show uniformity in terms of content; at the same time, from the printing houses of Venice, there emerges the first corpus of printed books in modern Greek. Several of these were Cretan, notably Bergadis’ Apokopos (first edition, 1509), the Rimades of Apollonios (1524), Imberios (1525) and Belissarios (1526), the Chap-book of the Donkey (1539), and various compilations such as The Father’s Counsel to his Son (1544) by Markos Defaranas, a less than accomplished blend of the synonymous work by Falieros and the Advice to Frantziskis by Sachlikis. Works of a moral, religious, exhortatory, romance, satirical or allegorical, with animal protagonists, content were printed during this period, reaching an increasingly wide au-

Portolan map of Cyprus, from Antonio Millo’s Atlas with six portolan charts and two topographical maps, c. 1580-1590. (Biblioteca del Civico Museo Correr, Venice)

translations or imitations of poems by Petrarch and the neo-Petrarchan poets of the early 16th century (Jacomo Sannazaro, Pietro Bembo, Niccolo Delfino, Leonardo Giustiniani, and others). These poems are written in eleven- or eight-syllable verse in a variety of sophisticated forms – sonnet, ballad, terzina, madrigals – and exhibit a confident style that gives elegant and graceful expression to the atmosphere of love and the sentiments of the protagonists.

The finest lyric poetry of this period was composed in Cyprus in the local dialect, which had gradually developed into a refined literary medium. The 156 poems that comprise the Cypriot Canzoniere – a manuscript anthology that echoed a like-named collection of Italian poems – are

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dience. The reading of literature, which had once been the refined entertainment of a privileged few, was now becoming a popular pastime as the readership base broadened. The person who commissioned the copying of a manuscript, and who more often than not was one and the same as the reader of it, gave way to the professional printer, whose editorial decisions aimed at generating profit but nevertheless influenced the literary and aesthetic preferences of an ever greater reading public, and even came to determine the literary canon of the period. During this period of transition, Cretan literature presented no significant change in style or content; however, older texts were copied and read more widely and the printed book made its presence felt to an increasing degree. At the same time, the rapid economic development of the island that resulted from Venice’s moves to defend itself against the Ottoman threat to its dominions in the East, together with an expanding and increasingly confident middle class, contributed to the flowering of a culture whose manifestations were clearly Renaissance in character. The towns of the island underwent an architectural transformation that reflected the more refined and discerning tastes of the local population. The relationship between the reading public and literature also

underwent transformation, and readers’ intellectual and aesthetic horizons broadened. In general, Cretans in this period show a growing tendency to identify themselves intellectually and artistically with Venice and Renaissance Italy. As the contact with contemporary trends in Italian literature increased, so the dialogue between the two cultures became steadily more creative. At the same time, the desire of Cretans to compose new works in the old style and on the old themes became gradually less marked, since the most representative examples of these works were widely available in printed form at affordable prices. These years were a period of remarkable synergy between the social and intellectual forces of Venetian-ruled Crete, and eventually led to the emergence of a new cultural identity. The first literary manifestations of this emerging identity may indeed appear hesitant and of uneven quality (for instance, In Praise of Women and the Synaxarion of Noble Ladies), but the second wave of works (such as The Cat and the Mice, the Chap-book of the Donkey and The Siege of Malta) was definitely surer and more promising. These were not ‘lost’ literary generations, as some scholars have hastened to define them. Rather, they worked keenly and conscientiously, preparing the ground for the following ‘golden’ age of maturity.

APOKOPOS (1509) Title page and beginning of the first printed edition of the poem. (Humanist Library, Sélestat) Apokopos by Bergadis was written in the early 15th century. It consists of 556 lines of rhyming ‘political’ verse and was the first modern Greek literary work to be published in printed form, in Venice in 1509 at the printing house of the celebrated copyist and editor of Greek books Zacharias Kalliergis with the assistance of his son Nikolaos. Apokopos became one of the most perennially popular works of the modern Greek literary tradition and went through numerous reprints right up to the 19th century. The poet narrates the tale of his descent into the Underworld and his extraordinary conversations with the dead. In contrast with other works of its kind, Apokopos does not describe the horrors of death, nor does it appear to serve didactic ends. Its importance lies in its particular conception of the transience of earthly life and its optimistic view of this life. It satirizes also the attitude of women and the clergy towards the property and the memory of the dead. GRECO IN VENICE (opposite page) Illustration reproduced from G. Franco, Habiti d’ Huomeni et Donne Venetiane, Venice 1610. (Fondazione Scientifica Querini Stampalia, Venice) This is an imaginary scene of the players of the commedia dell’arte in St Marks Square, Venice. Among the audience we can see a Greek (Greco), bottom left. The Cretan plays of the time, particularly during the period of the Carnival, must have looked something like this, performed in open spaces or the central squares of towns and cities, or in the courtyards of large public buildings and the mansions of the aristocracy. In Crete, theatrical works enjoyed the support of the Academies, which sponsored performances and promoted the cultivation of poetry, philosophy, oratory, and so on. A particularly popular Cretan tragedy was Erophili, and, according to the account of a contemporary, Nikolaos Komninos Papadopoulos, it regularly attracted large audiences. In 1611 the pastoral drama Il Pastor Fido by Guarini was performed. It is quite possible that professional troupes of players from the commedia dell’arte visited Crete.

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CRETAN LITERATURE (MID 14TH -17TH CENTURY)

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THE GOLDEN AGE

The oldest surviving edition of Erotokrito. Title-page of Antonio Bortoli’s edition of 1713. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

“A pamphlet poorly printed on newsprint, in which, setting aside the typographical errors, the publisher presumes to alter every word as he pleases, while the cover is the colour of sugar-almonds, either pink or pistachio, and that’s what Erotokritos looked like when it was circulating […] among the poorer classes in the islands, in the provinces of Greek lands and in the large metropolises of the Nation. It was sold mostly by pedlars. I remember when I was a boy in Smyrna every afternoon, always at the same hour, the voice in the street: ‘I ’ve all sorts of books! Erotokritos and Aretousa! The History of Geneviève! The History of Halima!’. At the time, I was attracted by those rather squalid publications. On the cover Erotokritos was a mettlesome fellow glancing askant with a grim light in his eyes, wearing a tasselled kerchief on his head, a cloak folded across his chest, behind him a spindly Byzantine colonnade, his buckler and lance suspended in the space between the columns. To me he was one with Digenis and Alexander the Great, one of triplet brothers. If anybody had asked me, I couldn’t have told the one apart from the other, just as I couldn’t have found anything to distinguish Aretousa from Alexander’s mermaid sister.” GEORGE SEFERIS (Translated by John Leatham)

The spread of literacy and education among the urban population of Crete, the organized network of the book trade (most books at this time were printed in Venice), the availability of the cultural goods of western Europe and the growth of private libraries, particularly those built up by the wealthy bourgeoisie and nobility who had studied in Italy (primarily Padua and Ferrara), were the key components of the cultural and intellectual life of Crete from the mid sixteenth century onwards. The foundation of a number of academies (the Academy of the Vivi in Rethymnon in 1561, of the Stravaganti in Candia in 1590, and of the Sterili in Chania in c. 1630) based on Italian models was the result of the Cretans’ first-hand experience of the cultural and intellectual life of Italian cities and their desire to recreate something of this life in their homeland. During the last century of Venetian rule in Crete the society of the island attained a confidence and maturity such as it had never seen before.

EROTOKRITOS Erotokritos is undoubtedly the masterpiece of this period, and perhaps the supreme achievement of modern Greek literature. It is a verse romance written around 1600 by Vitsentzos Kornaros (1553-1613). In over 10,000 lines of rhyming fifteen-syllable couplets, the poet relates the trials and tribulations suffered by two young lovers, Erotokritos and Aretousa (daughter of Herakles, the king of Athens). Caught in their love for one another, their faith and virtue are subjected to various ordeals until they are eventually united in wedlock. Serenades, gallant deeds, secrets and revelations, jousting, tears, finger-rings, vows of unending love, fatal duels and tournaments all serve to compose the tale of the love-sick hero and his beloved. It was a tale that enjoyed enormous popularity among its Greek readership and succeeded in making Erotokritos something of a folk hero, whose pedigree was as brother to Digenis Akritas and Alexander the Great. The plot of the poem was hardly original: Kornaros borrowed it from an Italian prose translation of a standard medieval French romance, Paris et Vienne, by Pierre de la Cypède. However, the Cretan poet, in true Renaissance fashion, turned the themes of love and war in the prototype entirely to his own purposes, showing himself to be a skilled storyteller and a sensitive interpreter of the human heart. He arranged the plot into five parts, much like a work for the theatre, and subtly balanced his narrative with dialogues so as to create a rhythm that sustains brilliantly the interest of the reader. With exemplary internal consistency and focus, he assembles the components of his imaginary world – located in the Greek East and centred on Athens, ‘the seat of majesty and the river of learning’ – in unique fashion, while his characters are alive with real feeling and a passionate thirst for life. His portrayals are remarkable for their rich and unaffected expressiveness, their visual power, the extended similes, and rich lyrical treatment of nature by which the subtlest facets of the human soul are explored. Kornaros does not hesitate to draw on the Greek poetic tradition, particularly the vernacular romances, of which Erotokritos comprises not only the natural development but also the supreme example. continued on p. 51

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Theophilos Hadjimichail, Erotokritos and Aretousa, c. 1930. (Private collection)

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Sketch by Yannis Tsarouchis for a stage design of Erophili, 1937. (Archive of the Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation, Maroussi, Athens)

EROPHILI The finest achievement of the Cretan theatre was Erophili by Georgios Chortatsis, a five-act tragedy written along the lines of Italian classicizing drama. The love of Erophili, daughter of the king of Memphis (Egypt) Philogonos, for the youth Panaretos, is discovered by her father and he furiously demands revenge. Philogonos kills the poor young lover and offers his heart and limbs to his daughter as a wedding gift. In her despair Erophili kills herself, and then the chorus of maidens kills the coldhearted king. The action is unrelenting and the dialogues are fast and vivid and serve to highlight the psychological strength of the tragic heroes who defend their actions with consistency and conceptual depth. In spite of its tragic conclusion, Erophili is a work of deep humanity and dignity, and stresses the right to follow the calling of the heart. This explains its enormous popularity. It went through numerous reprints, and many of its verses became popular sayings or entered the oral literary tradition, while the tale itself passed into folk legend.

Programme from a production of Erophili at the theatre of Karolos Koun, 1934. (Archive of the Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation, Maroussi, Athens)

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CRETAN LITERATURE (MID 14TH -17TH CENTURY)

CRETAN THEATRE Towards the end of the sixteenth century new genres unknown to the Byzantine vernacular literary tradition began to emerge in Crete. The most prominent among these genres, whose practitioners displayed the very finest literary and poetical expression, was the theatre. Through his prolific and diverse literary work, Georgios Chortatsis (c. 1550-1610) of Rethymnon played a leading role in bringing the theatrical form from Italy to Crete and radically recast the methods, aims and expectations of literary production on the island, thus opening the way for the birth of the modern Greek theatre. He was followed by many other writers, most of whom remain anonymous. To the traditional types of drama (tragedy and comedy), which at last re-emerged after centuries of silence, were added the ‘mixed’ genre of the pastoral and religious drama, which, it may be noted, was not related to the late medieval mystery plays. The pastoral is represented by the elegant and lightspirited Voskopoula (Shepherdess). The lyrical form pervades the theatrical works, whether in its true dimensions (in tragedy) or concealed by a tone of subtle irony in the soliloquies of the comedies. Lyricism also pervades the literary production of poets such as Andreas Kornaros and the members of the Academy of the Stravaganti written in the Italian language and composed in the verse forms of their Italian counterparts. Only a very few plays have survived from the dozens that were composed during this golden age of Cretan theatre, due to the abrupt termination of Venetian rule by the Turks: two tragedies, Erophili (post 1595) by Chortatsis and King Rodolinos (1645) by Joannes Andreas Troilos, while a third, Zenon, was written by a Cretan in Zante circa 1680; three comedies, Katzourbos (shortly after 1581) by Chortatsis, Stathis (early seventeenth century), whose author is unknown, and, later in the century, Fortounatos (1655) by Markos Antonios Foskolos; Panoria (post 1590) by Chortatsis is a pastoral play, as is the anonymous translation of Guarini’s Il pastor fido; the religious drama The Sacrifice of Abraham (early seventeenth century) attributed to Kornaros; eighteen intermezzi, diverting interludes that were commonly staged between the acts of the larger dramatic works; and, lastly, the satirical Lament of Poor Fallidis, performed perhaps as a musical intermezzo. Besides the works written in Greek, there are a number of Cretan works written in Italian, either by native Cretans or by hellenized Venetians, such as the tragedy Fedra (first published in 1578) by Francesco Bozza, and Amorosa Fede (first published in 1620), a pastoral play by Antonios Pantimos. The Cretan plays present a wide range of affinities with one another, whether on the level of the structure and organization of the dramatic material or on the level of verbal expression, rendering them a distinct literary group characterized by specific content, style and grades of development. The highpoint, then, of Cretan theatre can be viewed as extending from the works of Chortatsis to the appearance of Stathis (1580-1610), followed by a second phase (c. 1620-1655) showing a degree of influence from Italian theatrical production and tradition. One of the key features of European culture during the Renaissance was the free traffic and use of cultural property.

Playwrights such as Shakespeare did not hesitate to borrow their plots from other better or less known texts of the times. The Cretans were no exception to this. They systematically delved into the rich Italian literary heritage of the High Renaissance, Mannerism and Classicism in order to find subjects, motifs, conventions, techniques and poetic styles. The Italians of the early sixteenth century whose influence was considerable in this respect included Lodovico Ariosto (Orlando Furioso, 1532), Gian Giorgio Trissino (Sofonisba, 1524), and Antonio Cammelli (Filostrato e Panfila, 1508). Those whose influence was prolonged as well as profound were Giambattista Giraldi (Orbecche, 1547), Torquato Tasso (L’Aminta, 1573, Gerusalemme liberata, 1581, Il Re Torrismondo, 1587), Luigi Groto (Calisto, 1583, Lo Isach, 1586) and Battista Guarini (Il pastor fido, 1590), who brought about a revival of interest in narrative and dramatic poetry, and dominated the intellectual scene of the second half of the sixteenth century through their literary and critical work. The Cretans adapted the content of their models to the ideological, social and psychological conditions of their island and reproduced in their works the concerns and anxieties of the people of their troubled time. It is possible to detect states of emotion that arise from the protracted instability of political affairs in Europe, as well as in Crete from the incubus of the constant threat of the Turk. The ideological world of the pre-Baroque is clearly echoed in works such as Erophili, although it should be said that these echoes are limited and not fully developed, and seem also to have lost their original ideological force. The rhyming couplet became the cornerstone of the poetic production of the age, principally thanks to the originality and poetic virtuosity of Chortatsis and Kornaros. On the margins of their experimentation poets adopted other, complex verse forms from the Italian tradition (hendecasyllable, terzina, ottava, sonnet), for the most part achieving the same high standards. The poets of this period use the spoken Cretan dialect, freed of the medieval vernacular. The tendency to purge the language of foreign elements (both vernacular and Italian forms) was above all represented by Chortatsis, Kornaros and the anonymous poets of Voskopoula and The Sacrifice of Abraham, whose works highlight the expressive power of the dialect. As dictated by the pseudo-Aristotelian theory of decorum, the heroes of the works use a vocabulary analogous to their social and educational background. It was thanks to this convention that the Cretan comedies were written in a language that was an amalgam of Italicisms, Latinisms and the local dialect, thereby approximating to the actual language of the middle class of the Cretan towns. The time span separating Antonios Achelis, the poet of the historical verse narrative known as the Siege of Malta (1570), and Chortatsis and Kornaros is too short to allow for the formation, from scratch, of the Cretan dialect we see in the texts of the latter two. The only explanation, therefore, is that the poets at the end of the sixteenth century were consciously employing a particular linguistic preference – they were aiming at a pure style of language for their literature and, via that language, a separate identity for the Greek literary production of their homeland. The poets, as well as their patrons and political supporters,

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belonged to the aristocratic classes of Cretan society. Vitsentzos Kornaros and his brother Andreas, a historian and poet who wrote in Italian, were members of one of the most powerful families in the island; Georgios Chortatsis, too, was perhaps a member of one of the twelve great noble families – the socalled archontopoula – of the island, whose pedigree went back well into the legendary age of Byzantium. It is known

that the patrons of the performances of Panoria and Erophili in Chania were the Veneto-Cretan noble Markos Antonios Viaros and the lawyer Ioannis Mourmouris, both prominent figures in the city. The Cretan plays were written for an audience that was comprised of the well-to-do classes of the urban centres, the members of the Academies and all those who were imbued with the intellectual and cultural life of Italy.

Nikos Engonopoulos, Vitsentzos Kornaros and Georgios Chortatsis, charcoal and pencil drawing on paper, 1979. (Private collection)

‘Take tragedy or comedy, sacred drama or simple pastoral, this work or any indifferent intermezzo – and what skill, what wealth, what poetry we have here! And what a procession of varied characters: tenderhearted maidens, whether princesses, ladies or shepherdesses; wildly infatuated youth; cold-hearted kings; arrogant generals; foolish old men that suddenly and unexpectedly rediscover reason and feeling; swashbuckling sea captains; lost children; confiding friends and no end of women – tender young damsels and shameless madams, charming peasant girls, affectionate friends, cold ladies of the court, scheming social climbers, simple prostitutes, and servant girls; loyal and devoted companions, or greedy tricksters, peasant soldiers, Turks, foreigners, pirates, slaves, schoolmasters, physicians, apothecaries, henchmen, and – to boot – ghosts, Echo, Death, Fortune and heaven’s Angels. It is a boundless world where passions, desires, interests, misunderstandings both deliberate and unintended, chicanery, tears and laughter all rival one another. And what action, what a plot, what unexpected twists to the tale! And all this in such a polished style, in the most exquisite language, in perfectly crafted verses, often masterpieces in their own right.’ NIKOS ENGONOPOULOS

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Map of the city of Candia (modern Iraklio), Crete. Giorgio Corner, Il Regno di Candia. (Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice: MS. It. VI, n. 75 (= 8303) ff. 6v-7r)

INTROVERSION AND DECLINE

In the seventeenth century the cultivation of the literary styles and forms of the preceding period was continued, though momentum gradually waned as writers of the calibre of Chortatsis and Kornaros, competent to undertake the task of renewal, did not materialize. At the same time, Cretan literary composition in Italian gained greater currency. Its organic incorporation into the literary environment of Crete required further abilities and skills that the younger writers either did not possess or, possessing them, failed to exploit sufficiently. Although Cretan literature had experienced the pastoral genre and its formal demands with works such as Panoria and Voskopoula, the mediocre anonymous rendering in Greek of the Italian Il pastor fido, together with the Amorosa Fede by Pantimos, while including a number of local features, provide clear evidence of the new literary climate that emerged in Crete during the first decades of the century. Lastly, the rejection of Baroque as a means of artistic expression and as a source of inspiration led to a decline in the inflow of cultural models from Italy, which in turn led Cretan writers to look increasingly towards their own literary production for inspiration and to reproduce material that extended to a more limited geographical area, namely, the Aegean and Ionian Islands. The plays written in the seventeenth century reproduced the structural characteristics and the achievements of the recent past. This dependence is reflected in the literary career of Markos

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Antonios Foskolos: he copied Erophili and wrote a comedy, Fortounatos (1655), adopting the solutions earlier established by Chortatsis in Katzourbos in his handling of the form, language and comic roles. Troilos wrote a tragedy, King Rodolinos (1587), taking Erophili as his model, while drawing the plot from Tasso’s celebrated Il Re Torrismondo (1587). The dissemination of Chortatsis’ works in both manuscript and printed form, and their frequent performance, served to accelerate developments and consolidated this tendency in the literary life of Crete. A number of examples of the lyrical genre in Cretan dialect make their first appearance and display an inspiration and expressive quality that may well be due to their relatively short length. Prose, which went through a particularly productive period, was cultivated in a language that, in contrast to poetry, differed only very little from the standard speech of the time: sermons, saints’ lives, synaxaria, religious works that popularized sacred and patristic texts (for instance, Bed of Solomon by Ioannis Morezinos and Salvation of Sinners by Agapios Landos), reworkings and translations of historical works or romances of

western or eastern provenance (for example Varlaam and Ioasaph by Nikephoros Venetzas) and practical manuals (Geoponikon) comprise a substantial chapter in the literary history of Crete that has yet to receive the scholarly treatment it deserves. The refined cultural life of the island was abruptly interrupted by the Turkish invasion of 1645. The hostilities that followed, with the capture of Chania in 1645 and of Rethymnon in 1646, and then the titanic siege of Candia, which managed to withstand the invader until 1669, provided authors with the material to compose lengthy historical narratives. The most important of these works, both from the point of view of scale and quality, was The Cretan War by Marinos Tzanes Bounialis, first published in 1681. Despite his popular poetical technique, this poet, whom Seferis described as “one of the most likeable personalities in Crete during this time”, relates the disaster that befell the island and its people with genuine emotion and force. In the verse history, Dispute between Candia and Rethymnon, he laments in bitter and nostalgic tones the former greatness of an island that had now been cast into the abyss like another Atlantis.

The Flanginian School and the Church of St George of the Greek community in Venice. (Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and post-Byzantine Studies, Venice)

Flowers of Piety, Venetian edition of 1708. (National Library, Athens)

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Flowers of Piety ‘poured out for the glorious translation of Mary, the Mother of God’ (Venice 1708) is a pamphlet containing classical Greek and Latin epigrams, Sapphic odes and a number of sonnets written in Italian and modern Greek. In these poetical exercises written by the students of the Flanginian School in Venice it is possible to discern the various literary and cultural influences that had steadily made their mark on the emerging literary output of modern Greek. Flowers of Piety reflects eloquently the cultural climate that with the passing of time had gradually developed in the Greek community of Venice, the oldest and, politically and economically, strongest Greek community outside Greek lands during the difficult centuries of Turkish domination in the East. The building of the Flanginian School today houses the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and post-Byzantine Studies in Venice.

CRETAN LITERATURE (MID 14TH -17TH CENTURY)

Etymologikon Mega (Grand Etymological Dictionary), alphabetically arranged, Venice 1499. (National Library, Athens)

GREEK PRINTING HOUSES Although the earliest known printed book in Greek was the Summary of the Eight Parts of Speech by Constantine Laskaris, dated 1476 and produced in Milan, the unrivalled centre for Greek printing during the first three centuries of the printed book was undoubtedly Venice, the preeminent capital of printing in Europe. The most celebrated of these printing houses was that of Aldus Manutius; however, alongside this were scores of other Greek and Italian publishers and printers who not only produced books to satisfy the European demand, within the context of the

humanist interests of the age, for works of the classical Greek corpus, but also ecclesiastical and liturgical books that were destined for the needs of the Orthodox Church and for the basic education of the Greek-speaking population of the East. From 1509 onwards their ambitious publishing projects included modern Greek literary texts that gradually generated a broader reading public for such works. The people that contributed to this early flowering of the printed Greek book included Zacharias Kalliergis, Nikolaos Vlastos, Andreas Kounadis, Damianos di Sancta Maria, Nikolaos Sofianos, Manolis Glyzounis, Nikolaos Glykys, Nikolaos Saros and Antonios Bortoli.

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Wounded Greece supported by Rigas Pherraios Velestinlis and Adamantios Kora˚s. Adam, black and white lithograph. (National Historical Museum, Athens, Print Collection, no 11920)

SECTION III

THE ERA OF ENLIGHTENMENT ( Late 17th century - 1821 )

THE ERA OF ENLIGHTENMENT (LATE 17TH CENTURY- 1821)

A

FTER THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE in 1453 the only Greek regions which had

not fallen to the Turks were Crete, Cyprus, Rhodes and the Ionian Islands, which were already under Venetian control. In these islands, and especially in Crete, literary production continued uninterrupted to a very high standard. However, in Turkishcontrolled Greece, it is not possible to talk even of education, let alone literature, as for over a century after the Fall of Constantinople, the subjugated people were without any form of state organisation or leadership and cultural expression was at a minimum. Having said that, the scholars who headed for the West, many of them to Italy, gradually built up the earliest pockets of Hellenism and the Greek enlightenment, as well as providing much of the focus for the struggle for national independence. This period of approximately 150 years from the fall of Crete to the beginning of the Struggle for Independence (1821) produced some of the greatest texts of the Greek Enlightenment, texts produced by Greek humanists, lay and clerical, which were not only portents of the national revival but also sought for the education and training of the subjugated nation which would guide them through a process that was to achieve a national consciousness and full independence. It was indeed a golden age in Greek letters and history in that the Greeks, having benefited from various treaties between their fellow Orthodox Russians and the Turks, had managed to achieve a certain degree of economic and social power not only in the West but throughout the Ottoman Empire. This was especially true of the Greeks in the Danubian principalities and the educated and politically powerful class of Phanariots. There was no shortage of prominent individuals contributing to the Enlightenment. But the two who played the most decisive roles were the ‘bard’ and leader of the national uprising Rigas Velestinlis, and the scholar and spiritual leader Adamantios Kora˚s. The former published a number of books urging the education of the Greeks, and with his revolutionary songs and political manifestos called the people to rise up against the Ottoman oppressor. Rigas, protomartyr Greek poet, and liberal European, was arrested by the Austrian secret police and was turned over to the Turks who tortured and executed him, while the latter, Adamantios Kora˚s, researcher into ancient Greek writers, inspired philologist and the publisher of classical texts, from his base in Paris (where he lived and died) tried to influence conditions in the homeland, again, by laying particular emphasis on education and the development of the language of neo-Hellenism.

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LIGHT AND SHADE sapere aude

Pictorial satire by Christodoulos Pamplekis (1793). From the Acolouthia of the other-eyed and antichrist Christodoulos of Acarnania (reproduced in G. Ladas and A.D. Hatjidimos, Elliniki Vivliothiki ton eton 1791-1795, Athens 1971). The philosophical teaching of Pamplekis (1733-1793) and his liberal and anticlerical ideas served to provoke the wrath of the Orthodox Church. Although excommunicated as an atheist, his friends and supporters erected a monument to his memory in a public garden of Leipzig, clearly risking the censure of the Church. In a pamphlet that opposed him, Pamplekis is depicted as writing his texts at the dictation of the devil.

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Aufklärung, Enlightenment, Illuminismo, Lumières : all these terms use the loaded metaphor of light to stress the contrast with the preceding intellectual darkness, to emphasise the current of new ideas that was sweeping across Europe around the mid eighteenth century. This revolution, bringing ‘light’, implied unqualified faith in the power and the potential of Reason, in the sciences and their never-ending progress, in the call for freedom, justice, and individual happiness and dignity. The Enlightenment was optimistic; it promoted national, living languages as opposed to dead languages; it cultivated critical thought; it sought to secure access to free, unfettered knowledge; it preached religious tolerance and the rights of man, the advancement of the sciences and the arts, and the need for independent and democratic education available on an equal basis to all levels of society. If one wished to place loose chronological limits around the Greek Enlightenment, with all its special pleading and exceptional characteristics, one could do worse than take the broad period 1750-1830, with the years 1774-1821 marking the high point: in essence, the historical cycle of the Enlightenment for the Greeks ends with the outbreak of the War of Independence, some time after the end of the European Enlightenment, which also closed with a major political and social upheaval: the French Revolution of 1789. The special nature of the Greek Enlightenment lies in the fact that it grew and flourished under Ottoman rule. The agents of the European Enlightenment in the Turkish-ruled areas of the Greek world were inevitably from the cultured and educated classes of society, including figures from the clergy, the Phanariots of Constantinople, and the mercantile bourgeoisie. It was via these groups that the new learning and attitudes of ‘enlightened Europe’ found their way to the wider masses of the subjugated Greeks. The Greeks of the Enlightenment had more cause than most to want to approach the future through a revival of the past. While they may have lost out on the Renaissance owing to the adverse conjunction of historical circumstances in their part of the world, and while they may have entered the Age of Enlightenment somewhat ill prepared and late, the Greeks nevertheless had the advantage of a collective memory that interacted dynamically and tirelessly with the notion of Hellenism and apprehended the greatness of antiquity through living myths and legends. Both the popular and the learned traditions proudly kept alive the memory of the bonds with their ancient predecessors and cultivated a respect for this heritage that was so admired by the rest of Europe. The important thing now, however, was not so much to keep the past alive, but to bring the hopes of the past to fruition: the past acquired a dynamic that it had never had before, as witnessed, for instance, by the habit of archaising names or depicting prominent personalities, such as Rigas Velestinlis, dressed in ancient Greek fashion. The example of Sparta, which inspired supporters of the French Revolution, also haunted the revolutionary dreams of the subjugated Greek world. In the initial phase, the Church embraced and gave decisive support to the spread of the new ideas (giving rise to what came to be termed ‘religious humanism’), thus showing a progressive, bold spirit: the Patriarchate in Constantinople set up

THE ERA OF ENLIGHTENMENT (LATE 17TH CENTURY- 1821)

Evgenios Voulgaris. Engraving by C.W. Sediger based on a painting by T. Janenko, St Petersburg, 1805. Evgenios Voulgaris (1716-1806) was the first great figure of the Greek Enlightenment. When the Athonias Academy was founded on Athos in 1753, he was invited to organize and direct it. Subsequently he taught in the Patriarchal College in Constantinople, and later went to the Danubian principalities, eventually ending up in Leipzig where he published part of his work, including his Logic (1766), in which he makes reference both to the great European intellectuals of the day and to the ancients. In 1768 he published a translation of a work by Voltaire with an extensive commentary of his own (Essai historique et critique sur les dissensions des églises de Pologne), as well as an Essay on Religious Tolerance. Catherine of Russia, as part of her programme to create an intellectual centre in Russia, invited him to her court where his activity became more clearly nationalist and in line with the Russian political ideology: he wrote tracts calling for the liberation of the Greeks, he published anti-Turkish pamphlets, he translated subversive texts by Voltaire, and corresponded tirelessly. He continued writing pamphlets and books and translating up to the time of his retirement to a monastery in 1801. Voulgaris’ writings had a decisive impact on the course of the Greek Enlightenment.

schools and a printing house, promoted the education of young Greeks more generally and the use of the popular language, and even encouraged the translation of the Scriptures into the contemporary idiom. As a rule, the prestige of the clergy – the main providers of education – was very considerable. And even when the progressive trend lost momentum and the Church began to lose its enthusiasm and eventually became decidedly reactionary in its stance (imposing censorship and excommunicating various individuals), there were always a number of prominent ecclesiastical figures who stood out for their courageous and liberal outspokenness in the face of superstition and ignorance: figures such as Antonios Katiforos, Nikiforos Theotokis and, above all, Evgenios Voulgaris, a particularly forcible character who was prolific in his writings, fired by a spirit of curiosity, and the first to introduce the thought and style of Voltaire into Greek letters. One significant feature of the realignment of social forces in Ottoman-ruled Greek society from the mid seventeenth century onwards was the emergence of the Phanariots. Deriving their name from the Greek district of Constantinople where the Orthodox Patriarchate is located, these well-to-do, highly educated Greeks in time formed a select group within the Ottoman administration, eventually attaining positions of great power, particularly in the Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. Their knowledge of foreign languages, their desire to set up small, autonomous and enlightened courts along the lines of those of western Europe, their markedly Franco-centric education, their flexible political profile (their critics would accuse them openly of Machiavellian opportunism), and the modus vivendi that they established with the central Ottoman power all served to elevate them into a ‘ruling class’ in the eyes of the ordinary Greek Orthodox subjects of the Empire. The Phanariot mentality, long to be a dominant force in Greek life, was represented above all by the Mavrokordatos family (Alexandros, Nikolaos and Konstantinos). The growing participation of Greeks in trade and shipping throughout the Mediterranean quickly rendered them competitors of the French and British merchants, and substantial profits started flowing into Greek coffers. Within the Ottoman Empire, the Greeks had control of virtually all the trade in the Balkans. They became increasingly prosperous, with an economy that was founded on the provision of privileges that came into direct conflict with the archaic institutions of the Ottomans. From 1774 onwards, thanks to a range of special agreements with and privileges granted by the state to the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman Empire, Greek trade and shipping expanded at a rapid pace. Greek capital needed to break free from the constraints of the Ottoman state, and this led to the birth of a national consciousness among the Greek Orthodox middle class: gradually we see the emergence of the historical significance of the merchants and shipowners who came to play such an important role in the struggle for national liberation in Greece. The tradesmen, middlemen and sea captains became the key to the spread of the new ideas that were current in Europe and that exercised so much influence on the French Revolution. It was people of this ilk who provided

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the money to found and maintain schools and colleges, who sponsored the publication of books, periodicals and journals, who paid for translations and funded scholarships for the talented younger generation. It was they who were the driving force behind the Europeanization of the Greek East. It was the advocates of the ideas of Voltaire, the Encyclopédistes and proponents of new ideologies (Kora˚s being the most prominent of such figures) who provided historically the framework of the Greek Enlightenment. A key feature of this movement was the vision of a specifically national awareness and education, although there was no lack of broader objectives. The explosion in publishing activity, chiefly during the three decades leading up to the outbreak of the War of Independence, saw printed literature in both the popular and the learned idiom reaching the very limits of the Greek world. The number of translations of foreign works (principally French, though also some Italian) increased dramatically and is indica-

tive of the Greeks’ knowledge of foreign languages. In Constantinople, the Danubian principalities, Vienna, Venice, Trieste, Paris and wherever else the Greeks had established themselves, there are tangible examples of the new enlightened spirit. The Greek Enlightenment, as with every great social and intellectual movement, was marked also by contradictions, contention and disagreement. Alongside those that sought to bring light were also those that sought to extinguish it – groups of reactionaries who set up pockets of resistance to the new ideas. The trials and tribulations of Christodoulos Pamplekis, who was eventually excommunicated in 1793, the persecution of Josephus Moisiodax, and the silencing of Dimitrios Katartzis on account of his outspoken demoticist views tarnished the general progress of Greek affairs that reached their height, or nadir, with the terrible death of Rigas Pherraios Velestinlis and the condemnation by the official Church of the Greek bid for emancipation and independence.

B

A C.Th. Dimaras: La Grèce au temps des Lumières, Geneva 1969.

Philippos Iliou: Greek Bibliography of the 19th Century. Books and Pamphlets (1801-1818). Bibliographical Workshop, Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive, 1997.

A. In various studies and articles C.Th. Dimaras (1904-1992), literary historian, attempted to demonstrate the unity and the singularities of the Greek Enlightenment. His conclusions have been largely backed up by subsequent scholars, who have produced substantial evidence in support of the view that there was a coordinated intellectual Enlightenment within the Turkish-ruled Greek lands.

to emerge alongside the long-standing production of the Venetian printing houses: cities such as Amsterdam, Budapest, Bucharest, Moscow, Vienna, Paris and Yannina supplied the book market with textbooks, dictionaries, guides for writing letters, edifying works, practical dialogues and a mass of translations from Don Quixote and Molière’s comedies to philosophical tracts and scientific treatises. The world of the book was changing: authors, translators, proof-readers, editors, printers, illustrators, sponsors, book dealers and subscribers all tended to belong to the middle classes or to a small group of clerics associated with the Enlightenment. The readership more generally was also changing: women were becoming a part of the reading public, as well as people with a rural background and the vast ranks of the unlettered, many of whom now sought to learn their ABC. The book reflects a society undergoing transformation. In the first two decades of the 19th century the situation reached its climax, as the forces of innovation as well as resistance to this innovation acquired greater coherence.

B. The literary production of the years of the Greek Enlightenment points to clear intellectual trends: a turn towards the classics and the sciences, the formation of a new moral order, and, above all, emancipation from Church authority. The Phanariots, merchants and city-dwellers found entertainment and learning in books written for pleasure and for instruction, while literature, the theatre and music became an integral part of their lifestyle. In the cities where Greek and Balkan trade flourished and religious or political censorship was more relaxed, lively publishing enterprises started

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THE ERA OF ENLIGHTENMENT (LATE 17TH CENTURY- 1821)

Ermis o Logios (Hermes the Scholar), Vienna, Austria, 1818. (E.L.I.A. Archive)

Of the many journals to appear during the years prior to the Greek War of Independence, Ermis o Logios (Hermes the Scholar), which commenced publication in 1811, was the most important and the longest running. It came out regularly until 1821 when the Austrian authorities required the editors to publish the excommunication issued by the Orthodox Patriarch

Gregorios V against the architects of the call to arms. Hermes the Scholar was warmly in favour of the views of Kora˚s and reflected the style and tastes of other European periodicals. It reviewed developments in the arts and sciences and was an important channel for bringing contemporary intellectual movements to the attention of the Ottoman-ruled Greeks.

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Palace at Bucharest. Hand-coloured copperplate engraving. 0.32 X 0.46 m. From Luigi Mayer, Views in the Ottoman Dominions in Europe, in Asia and Some of the Mediterranean Islands, 1810. (National Historical Museum, Athens)

WITH A SMILE AND A TEAR SATIRICAL AND LYRICAL WRITINGS

64

The once widely held view that the eighteenth century – the century of philosophers and the apologists of Reason – was a plainly ‘unpoetic’ age, perhaps even not literary, has lately been subjected to extensive revision. Scholars are progressively demonstrating that Greek letters in this period present a somewhat unusual aspect; indeed, it is possible to talk of their Janus-like aspect, or, to quote a phrase from the Democritheraclitus, a lengthy allegorical poem published in 1817, of a two-faced creature, which on the one hand laughs and jokes about the ills of the world, like Democritus of old, but on the other weeps and laments these ills, like Heraclitus. With regard to the Phanariots, whose influence marked virtually the entire Greek Enlightenment, it is interesting to note that humorous writing, and particularly satire, was cultivated with enthusiasm. The Korakistika (1819), a lampoon written by Jakovakis Rizos Neroulos and directed against the Greek intellectual Kora˚s, is a good example of its kind. Until recently, the first satire in the modern Greek tradition was thought to be the Anonymous of 1789. Today, however, an earlier work, dated 1785, and bearing the title Alexandrovodas the Callous, can claim to be the first of this genre in Greek. Written by Georgakis Soutsos Dragoumanakis, the target of its invective is Alexander Mavrokordatos, the voivode, or ruler, of Moldavia, referred to in the work as the Firaris (‘Fugitive’). Firaris is depicted as the inheritor of an illustrious name and

THE ERA OF ENLIGHTENMENT (LATE 17TH CENTURY- 1821)

the living representative of the great dynasty of the Mavrokordati. Indeed, Alexander Mavrokordatos, a Freemason, received his political and intellectual education within the liberal atmosphere of St Petersburg during the reign of Catherine II of Russia, and was drawn to the European ethos and style of public and private life. In the early 1780s he had published various youthful verses in manuscript anthologies of the day, most of which, having been ousted from his principality, he subsequently included in his Bosporus on the Dniepr (1810), a collection of poems printed in Moscow that give a clear indication of the state of modern Greek lyricism shortly before the appearance of Christopoulos and Vilaras. It was not only the conflict between two prominent Phanariot families (the Soutsi and the Mavrokordati) that provoked the choler of Dragoumanakis. Disputes between the various Phanariot families, as well as shifting alliances of convenience, were a regular feature of Greek high society that parcelled out for itself the various titles and offices of the Danubian principalities. The portrait of the libertine presented in this satire owes its character primarily to the moralizing tone and conservative ideology that tend to colour the satire of the period. As with all satire and invective it is marked by exaggeration, though the discourse attains a high standard of realism – the lords and ladies of the day with their colourful titles (domna, hatmanis, spatharis, kamaris, and so on) and flowing speech bring to life the microcosm of the ruling elite, the intrigues and shifting political alliances, the leading players and the hangers-on, the motivating passions and antipathies. ‘Whoever knew not his Machiavelli, knew not how to survive’, or so Alexandrovodas claims, giving Soutsos the moralist an opportunity to make a generalized condemnation of the declining moral standards, the worsening corruption and licentiousness of the court. In the Anonymous of 1789, an artfully cryptic work, we see the first example of creative prose writing in the modern Greek language. A roman à clef, it is violently abusive and clearly directed against a specific (though unidentified) person, while a large part of the narrative undoubtedly unfolds in the northern Romanian city of Jassy. It is obvious that it was written in imitation of Le Diable boiteux of Alain-René Lesage; it contains various references to the writings of Voltaire and other enlightened authors and thinkers of the period. The clergy is the butt of much of its humour, as scandalous erotic scenes involving Church figures are described in a language rich and inventive. For reasons that become plain on reading the work, the author of the Anglofrancorussian (1805) has also remained anonymous. Following the bugle-call of the French Revolution and the execution of the Greek revolutionary Rigas Velestinlis, and with the general turmoil that prevailed among Greek intellectual circles of the day and the reaction – and persecution – that enlightened Greeks suffered at the hands of the official Church, a considerable number of the books and pamphlets that were published during this time were not merely progressive in their views, but frankly revolutionary. The Anglofrancorussian was a verse dialogue whose content was directed against the leaders of the day, the Phanariots, the merchants and prominent Church figures – in short, against

Princeps D.D. Ioannes Nicolaus Alexandri Mavrocordato se Scarlati celsiis Atq. Sapientiss totius Vallachiae. Wolfgang, black and white copperplate engraving, Berlin 1721. 0.24 X 0.19 m. National Historical Museum, Print Collection no. 6015.

Nikolaos Mavrokordatos (1680-1730). A distinguished scholar and polyglot, Mavrokordatos was the first Greek ruler of Moldavia and Wallachia during the great ‘period of tulips’ of the Ottoman Empire and marks the opening of the century of the Phanariots in the Danubian principalities. Besides the modern Greek of his day, he knew classical Greek, Latin, Turkish, French, Italian, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Romanian. His Parerga of Philotheos (1718) circulated only in manuscript form during the 18th century, and was eventually printed in Vienna in 1800 at a crucial moment for the world of Greek letters. This work is generally held to be the first modern Greek novel despite the fact that it is written in an archaising style: a linguistic preference that reflects an intense intellectual curiosity both about the contemporary West and the East. The narrative is in the first person and evolves in the gardens of Constantinople, where Philotheos and his friends discuss all manner of subjects with foreigners dressed in Persian robes, with a crypto-Christian, and with Ottomans. The text is full of western references, and revolves around a loose plot on which hang the various digressions and episodes. To appreciate this genre more fully it is useful to bear in mind theatrical reviews or a similar western work of the day, Montesquieu’s Lettres persanes.

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Kaisarios Dapontes. (Reproduced from M.I. Gedeon, Patriarchikai Ephemerides, Athens 1936, Gennadius Library, Athens)

Kaisarios Dapontes (1714-1784) was generally considered to be the great poet of the age. He set virtually everything to verse – his autobiography, his travels and the adventures, both private and public, of his contemporaries – in a spirit of voracious intellectual curiosity. Born in Skopelos, he went first to Constantinople and later to Moldavia. Eventually fortune and political scheming led him behind prison bars. Having lost his wife and tormented by despair, in 1753 he assumed the habit of a monk and died on Mount Athos. The wisdom, vivacity and unflagging wit of the verse of this man of the world turned monk have secured him a place in the history of Greek letters with works such as the Mirror of Women (Leipzig, 1766), History of Sosangi, Garden of Graces, and Spiritual Table. Another of his works, Concise Canon of Many Amazing Things to be Found in Many Cities, Islands, Nations and Animals (1778), was much admired later by Dimaras, Seferis and Savvidis, reason enough for this neglected writer to be reassessed by modern scholarship.

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local and external tyranny. Highly critical of the social status quo, the poem became a kind of manifesto for the new ideology of the Enlightenment in its most extreme version. Two works from the mid eighteenth century – the Stoicheiomachia (Venice, 1746) and the Bosporomachia (Leipzig, 1766), printed by Evgenios Voulgaris and attached to a verse translation of Voltaire’s Memnon – were the products of Phanariot circles. Both texts display a growing awareness of the natural landscape (in the first, the natural elements contend with each other; in the second, the two shores of the Bosporus are praised for their natural beauty) and foreshadow the age of lyricism that was to follow, while also legitimizing to an extent the mixed linguistic register of the Greek then spoken in Constantinople, with its mingling of a great number of Turkish words, a feature that was to appear in Phanariot poetry a few years later. In the fifty or so years prior to the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence, a large number of manuscript anthologies of verses and songs began to circulate, usually anonymously. These Phanariot anthologies (frequently by female writers) cultivated a poésie fugitive, a love poetry replete with melancholy and sorrow, producing a harmonious blend of western pre-Romanticism and the voluptuousness of the East, written in the ordinary Greek speech of the day that included a rich admixture of Turkish terms and words. These lovelorn lays gave expression to a new sensibility and were often translations or paraphrases of Italian or, primarily, French poems. They tend to dwell on the theme of unrequited, thwarted love, the fickleness of fortune that treats human beings as mere toys, the breaking up of friendships, the exchanging of youth for old age and decline, and of wealth for poverty, and finally of preparing the ordinary mortal for inevitable death. The amateur versifiers stuck doggedly and monotonously to standard patterns whose lilting cadences remained in the mind, but which worked variously by creating complex verse structures that heralded the sophisticated Anacreontics of the Lyrics (1811) of Athanasios Christopoulos (1772-1847). Ioannis Vilaras (1771-1823), a yet more sophisticated verse writer, belonged to the enlightened intellectual circles of Yannina. He composed delightful pastoral poetry and came much closer to the inner strength of the demotic song. He, too, praises Love, but his plain, graceful and elevating verse resembles the contemplative tone of the poetry of Solomos, while his ruthlessly caustic satirical work, O Stolidiaris, is more akin to Characters. Ridicule is the prime feature of the satire, as well as anger and a passionate desire to expose meanness, dishonesty and corruption.

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The visit of the British ambassador Ainslie to the palace of the ruler of Wallachia. L. Mayer, Views in Turkey, in Europe and Asia, comprising Romelia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, Syria and Palestine (Palace at Bucoresti, Plate II). London, 1801-1806. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

Princess Eleni Soutsou and the ruler of Wallachia Michael Soutsos. From Louis Dupré, Voyage à Athènes et à Constantinople ou Collection de Portraits, de vues et de costumes grecs et ottomans, Paris, 1825. (National Historical Museum, Athens)

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View of Thrace, the Dardanelles, the Bosporus and Black Sea, with inset map showing the topography of Olympia, 0.50 X 0.70 m. National Historical Museum, Athens, no. 6334. A page from the ‘Map of Greece, including the islands and showing part of the Greek communities in Europe and Asia Minor…, published by Rigas Velestinlis of Thessaly for the benefit of Greeks and Philhellenes, 1797. Engraved by Francois Miller in Vienna’.

RIGAS AND KORA´S

RIGAS VELESTINLIS The total lack of reliable biographical information regarding the formative years of Rigas has been compensated by local legend and tradition. He was born in Velestino, Thessaly (1757?), where he received his basic education. His quest for further education took him to Constantinople (1774?) where he was introduced into Phanariot circles. He became a clerk to the noble family of Ypsilantis (1785) and later went to Wallachia, perhaps having been admitted to Masonic circles. His contact with the Phanariot world, his time spent close to Katartzis, a leading Greek proponent of the Enlightenment, and his knowledge of foreign languages, which enabled him to follow European intellectual developments, all served to broaden his horizons. With the capture of Bucharest by the AustroRussian alliance he moved on to Vienna for a period of six months (1790), and it was there that he printed his first two books – The School for Delicate Lovers and A Handbook of Physics – and announced the future publication of a translation in Greek of Montesquieu’s Esprit des lois, although this latter project was never completed. He spent his next five years in Bucharest, again following closely developments in France after the Revolution and studying the new republic’s constitucontinued on p. 71

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Theofilos Hatjimichail, Kora˚s and Rigas Pherraios Help Greece to Rise, on card, 64 X 44 cm, 1911, a variant of the copperplate engraving on p. 56. (Alexandros Xydis Collection)

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Whoever thinks freely, thinks well: a phrase from Rigas Pherraios’ Physikes Apanthisma (A Handbook of Physics), 1790. (National Historical Museum, Athens)

J. Barthélemy’s French Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce (Travels of the Young Anacharsis in Greece, 1788) was extremely popular and went into several editions in all European languages. The author takes the reader on an imaginary tour around 4th-century B.C. Greece in a fictional narrative containing a vast range of detail about ancient Greece, drawn from classical writers. The work was a best-seller in Greece: Rigas Pherraios’ enthusiasm was such that he took over the translation started by Sakellarios and published Volume IV in 1797, in Vienna, with a view to setting before his fellow-countrymen the glory that was Greece. The French edition of The Young Anacharsis was illustrated with maps and diagrams which were of considerable help to Rigas in the compilation of his own map of Greece. The other volumes remained untranslated due to Rigas’ arrest and execution in 1798. Rigas Velestinlis. Black and white copperplate engraving, from J.P. von Hornthal, Geschichte der Widergeburt Griechenlands, Heidelberg, 1825. (National Historical Museum, Athens)

Left: School for Delicate Lovers, Vienna 1790. In his School for Delicate Lovers – a translation of six of Restif de la Bretonne’s Contemporaines – Rigas brought a fresh spirit to Greek letters on both the literary and the ideological levels. Through the new literary medium of the novella, the Greek reading public was introduced to the spirit of Romanticism and the radical ideas that were changing European society.

Right: Travels of the Young Anacharsis (see pp. 90, 91), chapters 32, 33 and 34 translated by Georgios Vendotis of Zante and chapters 35, 36, 37, 38 and 39 translated by Rigas Velestinlis of Thessaly. Vienna, 1797. (National Historical Museum, Library, Athens)

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tion. At the same time he translated Metastasio and Marmontel, and composed his Thourios (Battle Hymn) and other patriotic songs. A giant and generous personality, he fostered a vision of a pan-Balkan, multi-ethnic democratic republic. He eventually went back to Vienna (1796) where he completed his publishing projects. He published a large cartographical work as well as various translations which he had prepared some years before. In his capacity as a revolutionary thinker he put his name to two revolutionary pamphlets, which he printed in secret: the New Political Government, modelled on the French revolutionary constitution of 1793 and including also his Thourios, Rights of Man and the Citizen, and a call to revolution, together with a Military Handbook. It was these publications which led to his arrest by the Austrian authorities. He was taken into custody in Trieste along with seven other companions. After spending months in prison in Vienna he was handed over to the Turks in Belgrade where he was executed in the summer of 1798. An official encyclical of the Orthodox Patriarchate in Constantinople was issued at the same time condemning Rigas’ revolutionary plans. In his The School for Delicate Lovers, Book of morals containing the strange doings of the most beautiful women in Paris in the present century, a translation of six of Restif de la Bretonne’s Contemporaines, Rigas attempts to convey to his Greek readership the ethics of a new age and the lifestyle of

the city. His book brought the climate of pre-Romanticism and the ‘new sensibility’ to modern Greek prose writing, while at the same time it constituted a fiery declaration of the radical ideas that were shaking Europe. Marriage that broke the barriers of social class, demands for social equality, a new role for women – indeed, the entire programme of the Enlightenment – filled the sensuous tales of The School for Delicate Lovers, which, ‘giving pleasure and instruction’, can be seen to belong to the wider programme of social change and reform of the day. The ‘literature of enlightenment’ which Rigas undertook to bring to the knowledge of his fellow Greeks constantly sought to find a balance between the didactic, the new ideology, and the social, thematic and technical innovations of a new literariness. The popular, Constantinopolitan language of The School for Delicate Lovers, as well as the interposed verses, many of which are to be found in the manuscript anthologies of the Phanariots, served to familiarize the readership with the new literary genre of the novella or short story. The endeavour met with almost instant success: two years later (1792), The Results of Love were published, a collection of three Greek tales that clearly imitate The School for Delicate Lovers and even repeat ten verses from the earlier work while also including many new songs from the Ottoman East that creatively upset conventional narrative form and give a foretaste of rythmic prose, as in a musical production.

Vue de l’île de Syra, from Choiseul-Gouffier, Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce (1782-1822), p. 48. (Gennadius Library, Athens: GT 1289a)

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ADAMANTIOS KORA´S Adamantios Kora˚s spent most of his long life outside the bounds of the Ottoman state. Born in a large city of the Levant (Smyrna, 1748), he learnt foreign languages at an early age and grew up in an environment that fostered respect for learning and literature. For several years (1771-1777) he worked for his father’s business in the cosmopolitan and liberal-spirited northern European city of Amsterdam where he had ample opportunity to explore many of his intellectual concerns, thus beginning his personal process of Europeanization, and also to identify the gaps in his education. Abandoning his business career, he went to study medicine in Montpellier. Subsequently, in 1788, he settled in Paris (where he remained until his death in 1833) occupying himself with classical literature and the dissemination of Enlightenment principles and thinking among his Greek compatriots. The long letters that he wrote to his friends in Smyrna on the events surrounding the French Revolution, which he witnessed at first hand, reveal the very deep impression that these stirring historical moments had on him. The revolutionary achievement of the French stamped his character and thinking for the rest of his life, and contributed to the formation of his democratic ideas and militantly held convictions. From now on, he devoted himself to the cause of national liberation, of an independent Greece. Mémoire sur l’état actuel de la civilisation dans la Grèce , a paper read before a select audience in 1803, can be viewed as a kind of manifesto for modern Hellenism, which expressed the belief that given the educational, economic and political advances made by the Greeks over the previous fifty years they would soon regain their liberty and march alongside other European nations as a free people. In a series of political pamphlets (Fraternal Teaching, War Song, What the Greeks Must Do in the Present Circumstances, and others) he sought to foster a democratic will and the consciousness of the citizen among his fellow Greeks along the lines of the French ideas of liberty and equality:

Adamantios Kora˚s. Smolki, black and white lithograph, 0.35 X 0.25 m. National Historical Museum, Print Collection no. 4948/14.

French and Greeks together In true friendship bound Are not French and Greek But FrancoGreek, one nation sound! His translations and publishing activity were governed by a desire to give his countrymen access to the learning of the West and also to arouse their interest in the literature of their ancient forebears. In 1804, he gave material evidence of his interest in the ancient writers by publishing an edition of Heliodorus’ Aithiopika, the first in a series of ancient writers that was given the title Elliniki Vivliothiki (Greek Library). The books in this series, which included authors such as Aristotle, Plutarch, Isocrates, Xenophon and Plato, were prefaced with scholarly introductions and supplemented with detailed commentaries. Following the Franco-Turkish rapprochement, Kora˚s came to believe that his people required systematic long-term preparation, above all in the field of learning, in order through their own efforts to gain independence: knowledge of the ancients, he thought, would be a key weapon in

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Coray, A., Mémoire sur l’état actuel de la Civilisation dans la Grèce, 1803. Title page. (Benaki Museum, Athens)

this struggle. Kora˚s’ well-known views on the Greek language question were an integral part of his renewal-reform programme. The solution which he proposed sought to find a via media between the Scylla of ancient speech and the Charybdis of the vulgar, modern tongue. In other words, it sought, on the linguistic level, to be democratic too. The mother tongue needed to be cleansed of the linguistic corruptions and foreign elements that had entered it over the centuries. While the form of the language as preserved in the everyday speech of the people

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had to be respected, it nevertheless needed to undergo a degree of ‘correction’. However, ‘mellifluous Kora˚sm’, as the writer Palamas was later to describe this proposed amalgam of registers, served simply to aggravate the dispute over the language question: Neofitos Doukas and Panayotis Kodrikas reacted strongly to Kora˚s’ proposed linguistic unorthodoxies, while the Korakistika (1813), a comedy by the Phanariot Rizos Neroulos, satirizes the language of Kora˚s and his supporters. It was part of his prolific work as an editor, publisher and letter writer that Kora˚s created his enticing fictional character Papatrechas, an unlettered, philosophically-minded Chian priest who is gradually initiated into the world of learning and the Enlightenment, eventually becoming a fervent advocate of the benefits of education. Originally conceived in a series of fictional letters published as prefaces to successive books of the Iliad that appeared between 1811 and 1820, Papatrechas had a seminal influence on the fledgling Greek fictional writing of the early nineteenth century, exhibiting narrative skill and a discrete, confident style. Alongside the sensuous lovers of Rigas, Kora˚s is seen to have created a true figure of the Enlightenment – a simple, honest priest fired by the desire to learn and understand.

Panayotis Kodrikas. Portrait from P. Kodrikas, Ephemerides (1787-1797), Hestia Books, 1963. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

Greek sailors. Valerio, black and white lithograph, 0.19 X 0.26 m. (National Historical Museum, Athens, Print Collection no. 135)

Extract from the Mémoire of Kora˚s, 1803: ‘Formerly the Aegean islanders used only medium-sized craft in their commercial activities. Their voyages were usually for short distances, from island to island, and their longest journeys tended to be to the Black Sea or to Egypt. However, later, with the expansion in trade, as I have already mentioned, the greater wealth among many Greeks, and the declining prestige of the central [Ottoman] administration, various islanders decided to make larger ships along European lines. These new vessels caused a sensation among all apart from the authorities. Whether through ignorance or disdain or just necessity and convenience, it suited the Sublime Porte to have Greeks build up its fleet and man its ships, seeing as Turks did not seem fit for the job, and, surprisingly for such a suspicious government, it appeared to attach little significance to the creation of this merchant fleet. Furthermore, the situation to begin with seems to have suited the government somehow, in a way not uncommon in the annals of despotism … Whatever the case, today’s island fleet belongs exclusively to the Greeks, and from the captain to the ordinary sailor they are manned entirely by Greeks.’

Panayotis Kodrikas (1762-1827). His celebrated Diaries (Ephemerides) cover the crucial years 1787-1797. A learned Athenian, he climbed the Phanariot ladder, working in Constantinople, the Danubian principalities, and, from 1797 onwards, in Paris where he died a high-ranking state official. The genre of the Diary, popular throughout the major European cities in the second half of the 18th century, enjoyed something of a vogue among Phanariot circles. Kodrikas’ Diaries offer more than a chronicle of his daily activities, however, since they convey a vivid picture of his times and the atmosphere of the Phanariot world. Kodrikas also wrote a somewhat unbridled and vehement personal lampoon, Sword-bearing Mirror revealing what are a Liar, a Whoremonger, a Thief, 1789-90.

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Training horses in the Herodes Atticus Theatre during the period of Ottoman rule. Coloured copperplate, 0.375 X 0.51 m. National Historical Museum, Print Collection no. 11068.

SECTION IV

THE BUILDING OF A NATION ( 1821-1880 )

THE BUILDING OF A NATION (1821 - 1880)

T

HIS PERIOD, which begins with the Struggle for Independence in 1821 and ends

sixty years later when the fledgling Greek State was confronting new situations and challenges, is marked by many important literary works. Before the state had properly taken shape, the Phanariots and those who had studied at western universities had created a new economic and cultural class in Athens. Romanticism was the dominant movement, and katharevousa established itself as its language. On the other hand, popular song which had endured through the dark centuries of Ottoman domination, a fine example of popular verse started to attract the attention of scholars, both in Greece and abroad. Later, these songs were to achieve special status and were studied systematically, when popular culture began to be taken seriously with the birth of a new science, Folklore. The reading public was introduced to foreign travel literature which, despite its excesses, reinforced national conviction, connecting the glorious past with the uncertain present. It was then that the historian Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos published his monumental History of the Greek Nation in which he argues for the unbroken continuity and unity of Hellenism. The dominant figures of this period are Dionysios Solomos and Andreas Kalvos and the Roumeliot General Makriyannis, author of Memoirs. For Solomos the freedom of the nation was connected inseparably with questions of the vernacular and education, something he emphasised in his writing. With his early Hymn to Liberty written in demotic (the first verses are the National Anthem) and with later works from his poetic prime such as Lambros, The Cretan and The Free Besieged (inspired by the siege of Messolonghi) Solomos became the voice of national consciousness, the bard and father of modern Greek poetry. Kalvos penned a total of twenty Odes about the Greek revolution. The language he used is highly poetic, his versification classical, and the ideology expressed within these lines worthy of great poetry. His overriding aim was to achieve a combination of Romanticism and Neo-Classicism and to lend kydos to the revolution. Initially his work was unknown, but today the quality of his writing and his importance in the shaping of the modern nation is undisputed. Makriyannis, with his active role in the revolution, his writing of his Memoirs (a marvellous instance of popular narrative discourse and a model of modern Greek writing) and his decisive contribution to the creation of a liberal constitution, is seen to be a major figure in modern Greek culture.

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Eugène Delacroix. A Scene from the Greek Struggle for Independence – A Mounted Greek Freedom Fighter, 1856. (National Gallery, Athens)

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Romanticism made its appearance as a literary movement in Greece soon after the Greek War of Independence (1821-29). Its orientation towards the study of history (S. Zambelios, K. Paparrigopoulos) as well as folklore (N. Politis) dates to a few decades later. Scholars agree that the beginnings of the movement should be set in 1830 and it is generally accepted that the Soutsos brothers, Panayotis and Alexandros – young members of a large Phanariote family –, introduced European Romanticism into liberated Greece, influenced by their studies in France during the first years of the Greek insurrection. Greek ‘pre-Romanticism’, on which there are certain excellent studies, seems to have played the role of a powerless ancestor who simply foreshadowed the great Romantic movement at its peak. The relatively limited stand of ‘pre-Romanticism’ in Greek history and literature is both understandable and justifiable. To the extent that Romanticism, as a literary movement, did not only develop a new form of poetry but also expressed a

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new aesthetic concept and an all-encompassing cultural reversal, it was only natural that pre-Romanticism did not form an adequate base for the understanding of the subsequent triumph of the Romantic movement. Many elements which, within the context of Greek Romanticism, were considered as ‘preRomantic’, may also be seen as the Phanariote version of Ottoman poetry of the time, a poetry characterized by the Oriental sensitivity of the reigning circles of the Ottoman Empire, and which happened to coincide with the poetic and sentimental models of Western Romanticism. The exploration, therefore, and recognition of Romantic tendencies during the Struggle for Independence must be directed not only towards the meagre forms of poetic expression, as found in pre-Romantic publications, but also towards forms of cultural ferment, as they appeared prior to and during the Struggle itself. The ‘New Athenian School’, which embodies the core of the Romantic movement in Greece, attracted mainly young poets and thinkers who, with a markedly stronger European orientation than during the Enlightenment, joined the Romantic movement aware that they were joining a movement of revival, a movement which, one might say, was expected to carry on the spirit of the Struggle for Independence. Seen in this light, the ties of the Greek Struggle for Independence with European Romanticism may be examined on two levels, the purely political and the literary one. With regard to the political level, brief reference may be made to the following: upon the substratum of the outgoing Enlightenment, which penetrated the social structure of rulers and their subjects in the Ottoman Empire, there grew up a Romantic movement that had a subversive effect, especially during the last stages of the fruition of the Struggle, thus hastening the process of national self-awareness and revolutionary activity among Greeks. In other words, in place of the enlightened despotism which prevailed in the interior of the Ottoman Empire (contrasting with the reforms or ‘new order’ of Sultan Selim III, the Phanariots in Constantinople and the Danubian principalities, the Ioannina Enlightenment in the years and the court of Ali Pasha) or the more popular and more liberal forms of Enlightenment among the Greeks of the Diaspora, the new subversive movement of Romanticism emerged to restructure the cultural and social landscape of Greece for approximately the next one hundred years. On the political level then there arose a new movement of ‘revolutionary patriotism’ which, hard as it is to isolate it from the wider context of the Enlightenment, it is even harder to identify it with its fundamental principles and ideals as, for instance, the idea of human ‘happiness’. New ideals were appearing that were not truly compatible with the rationale of the Enlightenment, for example, spontaneity, sentimentality and mainly the sense of longing for death (‘heroic’ death) – obviously Romantic ideals pertaining to political actions such as the founding of the Philiki Etaireia or ‘Friendly Society’, a secret revolutionary organization, and the declaration of the national insurrection. A careful study of these ideals from a similar viewpoint could have provided a tool for understanding the daring venture of the Struggle for Independence. From the

Coloured lithograph by P. von Hess: Ypsilantis undertakes the leadership of the Greek struggle for liberation. (Benaki Museum, Athens).

Coloured lithograph by P. von Hess: Four hundred freedom fighters of the Sacred Band, in the vanguard of the struggle for liberation, fall at Dragatsani. (Benaki Museum, Athens)

The poets Alexandros and Panayotis Soutsos were the leading figures of the Romantic movement in Greece, which took hold after the War of Independence. They established their first contacts with French Romanticism in 1820 as students in Paris (1820, Méditations Poétiques by Lamartine). In 1823 they sought refuge in Transylvania (Brasov) where they produced the first versions of their later poetic works. A little earlier, a third brother, Dimitrios, had joined Alexandros Ypsilantis’ Sacred Band and was one of the first casualties of the War of Independence (Dragatsani, 7 June 1821). This popular lithograph depicting the battle of Dragatsani highlights the dress and battle tactics of each side. The traditional garb of Turks on the one side and the modernised apparel of the fighters of the Sacred Band, with their black uniforms and the discipline of a regular army, on the other suggest the cultural conflict between East and West, expressed by the Greek Struggle for Independence which opened in 1821.

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Dionysios Solomos (1798-1857)

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Alexander Mavrokordatos (1754-1819)

Spyridon Trikoupis (1832-96)

Scholars have pointed out the close relationship between Dionysios Solomos’ ‘Hymn to Liberty’ and the lyric drama Hellas by Shelley, as well as the ties of the latter with Alexandros Mavrokordatos (Pisa, 1819-1821). At an historic meeting in Zakynthos (end 1822), a friend of Mavrokordatos, Spyridon Trikoupis, urged Solomos to concentrate on writing in Greek. It is believed that at this meeting Trikoupis gave a copy of Shelley’s Hellas to Solomos. Trikoupis’ advice and mediation had a positive outcome since Solomos completed his ‘Hymn’ a few months later (May 1823).

Panayotis Soutsos (1806-68)

Konstantinos Pendedecas (17??-1833) Panayotis Soutsos, pioneering Romantic poet, became acquainted with French Romanticism as a student in Paris in 1820. Konstantinos Pentedekas, fought in the uprising of the Danubian principalities.

Alexander Ypsilantis (1792-1828)

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Alexandros Ypsilantis, head of the Philiki Etairia (The Friendly Society), came of a distinguished Phanariote family; an officer of the Czar, he was an outstanding leader of the independence movement. His democratic beliefs lead to his involvement in the earliest revolutionary movements in Russia and the Ottoman Balkans.

moderate Adamandios Koraïs to the political extremist Alexandros Ypsilantis or Alexandros Mavrokordatos, a nationally inspired romantic aura possessed many of the pioneers of the Struggle who, however, did not necessarily produce literary works which might have been included in Romantic bibliography. From a purely literary viewpoint, scattered but not at all inadequate data provide a more distinct picture of the beginnings of the Romantic movement. There is no need for us to repeat what literary research has termed the ‘prelude to Romanticism’. Nevertheless, on the fringes of the Struggle, there are some figures of Greek Romanticism who are worth mentioning, if only briefly – predominantly Solomos and Kalvos. These two poets can be considered as the cornerstones of ‘Greek Romanticism before the Soutsos brothers’: Kalvos as a result of his stay in England prior to the Struggle for Independence and his contact with the English Romantic movement, and Solomos because of his contact with the same movement through the mediation of Shelley and Alexandros Mavrokordatos and, of course, S. Trikoupis. One should also take into account the English presence in the Ionian Islands since 1814, an important factor in understanding Romanticism in Greece, as well as the wider European trend of Philhellenism in the years of the Greek Revolution, a powerful nurturer of Greek Romanticism. In this context, one should also review the career of the Soutsos brothers. Alexandros and Panayotis Soutsos had been studying in Paris since 1820 and their involvement in the Struggle for Independence soon took a militant form. During a short stay in Stephanopolis (Brasov) in Transylvania, they began to write ‘romantically’: Panayotis wrote The Traveller, first published in 1831, and Alexandros his Poesies. They came to Greece in 1825, where Panayotis published his first booklet of poems, War Songs, at the printers on the island of Hydra in 1827. That same year Alexandros published his first booklet of poetry, Satire, at the same establishment. These first steps in poetry of the young Soutsos brothers were milestones along a certain path. As we examine the contribution to Romanticism of the two poet-brothers, perhaps it would be pertinent to mention the third brother, Dimitrios, whose life complements the story of the rise of a multi-dimensional movement: a few years older than his brothers, he joined Alexandros Ypsilantis’ Sacred Band as an officer, and fell heroically in the battle of Dragatsani (7 June 1821). Was it a question of young, overlyinspired spirits? Were they ‘Golden Youth’? When we speak of the sacrifice of the young combatants of the Sacred Band, it is not an exaggeration to link their heroic death with the constellation of Romanticism; and it is not an exaggeration to refer to Dimitrios Soutsos as the first Romantic casualty of modern Greek history. The fact that all this was eventually forgotten is another matter. The scorn shown for ‘Atticism’ in later years became – and maybe still is – an obstacle to the evaluation of a movement which marked the entire social life of 19th-century Greece. When ‘Atticism’, one of the most idealistic and subversive products of the Romantic upheaval, lost its national function and mission, it became the vehicle for more conser-

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vative social forces, which resulted in the total collapse of the entire structure. In conclusion, one should note that in modern Greece Romanticism emerged as a movement with characteristic force, encompassing the elements of subversion, aesthetics

and social reform. Its social character is displayed and strengthened in the circumstances and the fervour of the Struggle for Independence, while in the following decades of the liberated social state it evolved into literary and especially poetic forms.

Théodore Géricault, Le Giaour. Black and white lithograph, 0.185 X 0.24 m. (National Historical Museum, Athens, Print Collection no. 105)

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GREEK FOLK SONGS

Folk songs have been the most highly appreciated form of oral tradition both in Greece and throughout the rest of Europe. They first became known during the years of the Greek Struggle for Independence: it was around 1824-1825 that one of the great French scholars, Claude Fauriel, published a two-volume collection of folk-songs with an extremely interesting introduction and poetic translations in prose. This publication made an impression on European scholarly circles and was immediately translated into German (twice in 1825), into English (also in 1825) and into Russian. Writers like Stendhal and Goethe were thrilled – the latter even translated a few of the texts for his own periodical ‘Kunst und Alterthum’ in 1827. There followed a score of anthologies, initially by Europeans, as for instance by Niccolo Tommaseo (in 1843, with an accompanying translation in Italian), and later by Greek anthologists. The Greek rural community was then essentially isolated and static, having a poor income and little education. Life and agricultural work proceeded at an extremely slow pace – indeed, almost at a standstill. These characteristics played a determining role in the composition of folk songs: themes, expressions and human types were the creations of a poor, inflexible and virtually immobile population. The frugality of expression of the folk-song and its elemental imaginative scope can be directly correlated with the circumscribed rural reality of the time. Poetic tools such as themes and images are also limited. When the singer wants to describe a handsome youth, he frequently uses typical stereotype imagery.

He was so tall, he was so slim, he had such arched eyebrows, Theophilos Hadjimichail, Katsantonis, wall-painting (1924-1930) in the ‘Theophilos Room’, Museum of Greek Folk Art, Athens.

or ‘laced eyebrows’, or something similar – in other words, variations of the same portrait, be it about the proud young son of a rich family or the humble son who has left his mother to seek his fortune abroad. Whenever the heroine must shine with beauty, as in the ballad of ‘The Maid of Honour who Became a Bride’, or in ‘The Two Brothers and the Bad Woman’, the stereotype recurs again:

She lets the sun shine upon her face the moon upon her breast the raven’s plume upon her brow like lace.

Marcellus, Marie-Louis J. A. Ch. du Tyrac, Chants populaires de la Grèce Moderne, Paris, 1860. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

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Fauriel, Claude Charles, Chants populaires de la Grèce moderne, recueillis et publiés avec une traduction française, des eclaircissements et des notes par C. Fauriel. Paris, chez DondeyDupré, 1824-1825. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

Nevertheless, this frugality of means and expressive modes led to a significant poetic tradition; Greek folk songs are distinguished by an intense dramatic character, which succeeds in satisfying even our modern aesthetic criteria. Their refinement over the ages has resulted in verse that is devoid of everything superfluous and yet at the same time is both poetic and charming. Although folk songs are closely associated with the rural world, they do not expressly portray the harsh realities of this world. In their context we find none of the actual daily problems experienced by farmers, such as hunger, fear, taxation, suppression, or even direct and raw violence. Instead we encounter a world of grandeur and wealth, peopled by rulers and princesses, well-to-do families with many children, tall and slender young girls. We see a world where garments are always made of gold, silk or velvet, where herds of cattle are

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Leblanc Th., Chanteurs Grecs, Coloured lithograph, 0.40 X 0.28 m. (National Historical Museum, Athens, Print Collection no. 10281)

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‘Pleurs sur les tombeaux ’, in Guys, Pierre Augustin, Voyage littéraire de la Grèce ou lettres sur les grecs anciens et modernes, Paris 1783. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

huge and rams wear bells of silver, where horses are black and fleet of hoof, and where the threshing-floor is always made of marble. A world of intangible desire, coveted and longed for, with no allusion whatsoever to the dire circumstances of daily life.

Mother with your nine sons and with your only daughter At night you bathed her and you tied her ribbons in the pale light Of the sweet moon Now that they’ve sent from Babylon To ask for her as a bride. Or

A pedlar’s coming down the slopes Leading twelve mules and fifteen she-mules, or

Leading twelve mules laden with silver, or else

The golden-hoofed hinny carries the young master.

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Even the tombstone is:

A stone of gold, a stone of silver, a stone gilded and golden. Of all the pangs of life only the two extreme ones are mentioned, being away from the homeland and death. Yet even then the affair is described in a most realistic way:

Charon’s unfair. He is a shrouded pirate. Or

Hark to what Charon’s mother spoke: Those who have children, let them hide them, And those who have siblings, harbor them, Let wives of worthy men conceal the men, For Charon’s grooming himself now to come out and steal. There is nothing metaphysical, only scenes of real death: pirates storming the villages and people running to hide. The picture has its roots in reality and, on top of that, Charon’s mother, like the mother of a common murderer, is sorry for her son’s victims and does her best at least to reduce their number. The world of folk songs is therefore neither the real world,

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‘Noce champêtre’, in Guys, Pierre Augustin, Voyage littéraire de la Grèce ou lettres sur les grecs anciens et modernes , Paris 1783. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

nor a transcendental one. It depicts a down-to-earth reality that is nevertheless elevated up to an ideal plane. The metaphysical notion of Christian religion is absent, as is any other metaphysical concept. Even death itself is but a loss, the loss of life and nothing more. It is this aspect of folk songs that grants them their poetic value. The oldest group of songs that may be dated by the social circumstances they reflect, must have appeared about 1000 AD. They are called akritika, that is, songs referring to the legendary class of warriors, the akrites, or frontiersmen. They describe the clashes between the powerful local rulers of Asia Minor with the central administration of the Byzantine Empire. Even though the emperors were the eventual winners of these battles, the songs extol the prowess of the local rulers because they were composed in their small courts. The next group of songs has a distinctly more urban character and must have been composed mainly in the islands, on Crete and in coastal towns, in the form that has reached us through oral tradition, between the late 15th and early 17th centuries. It is believed, though, that the themes of this group originate in a far

earlier time. This group includes short ballads about the basic dramas of daily life: the faithless wife of the husband absent in a distant land, the unlucky bride, the mother who kills her own child to conceal her adultery, erotic rivalry, the human sacrifice involved in building a bridge, even returning from the Underworld. The next significant group of songs is the cycle known as klephtika, about the deeds of the klephtes, or guerrilla revolutionaries, who opposed Ottoman rule. These songs were composed between the mid 18th century and about 1821. Songs referring to everyday events cannot be classified. Some themes are definitely very old, while others can be traced to more recent times. Poetically, the most important ones are the songs of lamentation. Next, come the Christmas and New Year carols, the wedding songs, love songs, lullabies, single couplets, and so on. Indeed there was no important event that was not sung about and no daily activity that was not accompanied by song, As William Martin Leake, one of the most reliable observers of the Greek region, wrote in 1814: “The Greeks make ballads and songs upon all subjects and occasions”.

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Greece, Epirus, Sitaria village. Feast of the Virgin Mary, August 15, 1993. (Photograph by Nikos Economopoulos / Magnum)

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EUROPEAN TRAVEL WRITINGS ON GREECE AND GREEK LITERATURE FIRST ENCOUNTERS. SIMILARITIES AND CONTRADICTIONS

Drawing of the Aphrodite of Milos from the book by Marcellus, Marie-Louis J.A. Ch. du Tyrac, Souvenirs de l’Orient, Paris 1839 (see p. 92). (Gennadius Library, Athens)

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The tendency of Europeans to undertake the long journey to the Levant, with the Greek world as a central point of reference, was already established at the beginning of the 16th century, if not earlier, and it produced an incomparable wealth of travel literature. Inevitably, travellers’ experiences were published at an everincreasing pace, generating, on the one hand, a growing enthusiasm for travel and, on the other, creating a constantly changing image of Greece and the Greek people, as recorded by each writer. The voyage to Greece represented, above all, a journey into history, a journey into the past. Travellers of different nationality, education and culture would undertake their tours according to individual needs and personal quests, but their fundamental approach to Greece was dominated by a sense of her historical past. Travel records, with history as a central pivot, evaluated the contribution of the ancient world to European thought and culture, knowledge and information. The travel narrative, or ‘voyage littéraire’, which evolved from early travellers’ accounts and which developed with the passage of time, particularly with the start of the Romantic Movement at the end of the 18th century, went on to dominate the literature of a great part of the 19th century. Indeed, the diversion of interest away from classical antiquity, which had largely nourished the craze for travel, to contemporary Hellas or, as Kora˚s said in 1803, to the “état actuel de la civilization dans la Grèce”, was accomplished by the Romantic Movement. Certainly, the passion for antiquity did not subside – the looting of ancient Greek artefacts and monuments continued at a spectacular rate at the beginning of the 19th century –, but it coexisted with elements that expressed contemporary reality. If we accept that “travellers create the bridges that unite civilisations”, then it is natural that we should look for points in common between foreign travellers’ texts and the literature of modern Greece. Here though we observe that Greek literary output is still sparse, that few such points are recorded and, where they are to be found, other literary priorities predominate. Greek literature, following the dazzling period of Cretan poetry during the 17th and 18th centuries, the strong presence of popular literature from the 16th century onwards, and the flowering of folk song passed down in oral tradition, later declined and was replaced by scholarly subjects. Encyclopaedic and didactic texts, devoted to the advancement of knowledge, started to dominate the Greek literary scene – hastening national awakening and confirming national awareness. The implementation of these objectives was aided by translations of works of general learning, though these too appeared only occasionally. They point, however, to some outside contacts, but not on such a scale that they amounted to anything regular. If we consider the translation of the book by the French abbot, Abbé J. J. Barthélemy Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce (1788), as a first intrusion of French literature into modern Greek literature, we should also accept it as a meeting point between early European travel writing and Greek literature. It is interesting to note here that a later translation, published in 1819, refers particularly to the responses of those early travellers as they undertook their journeys through Greece. “…They travelled ceaselessly through the wonderful Greek countryside, looking about with indescribable expressions of joy mixed with regret for a land that had once produced such a fine race of

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Dupré, L. Voyage à Athènes et à Constantinople ou Collection de portraits, de vues et de costumes grecs et ottomans. Paris, 1825. PL. XIX, « L’Acropolis vu de la maison du Consul de France M. Fauvel ». (Gennadius Library, Athens)

men, whose memory alone has survived throughout the ages.” This suggests that the journey of Anacharsis was translated primarily for encyclopaedic and didactic purposes, in order that the Greeks should learn about the splendid achievements of the ancient world. Here, I would also add for ‘national’ purposes, since the observations of European travel writers encouraged Greek readers to appreciate their historical heritage and thus affirm their ancient ‘national’ identity. At the end of the 18th century, it is evident that where the provision of knowledge and an emphasis on ‘national’ beliefs predominated in travel literature, such books succeeded in attracting a wide response and, above all, a Greek readership. At the same time, it should be noted that at the end of the 18th century the literary concerns of the two first translators, Rigas Velestinlis and Georgios Vendotis, were directed towards French and Italian writing. The Travels of Anacharsis was translated twice. First in an incomplete version in 1797 and later the full text in 1819. It indicates particularly well the approach to Hellenism at the time in that it contains a fictitious, though very plausible, picture of

the ancient world, based on the author’s extensive knowledge and familiarity with ancient texts. Elsewhere, national feeling was beguiled and strengthened by accounts emphasising the splendour of the ancient world, whose true descendants, it was not doubted, were the inhabitants of contemporary Greece. In 1811 Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem et de Jérusalem à Paris by Chateaubriand was published. The journey had been undertaken between 1806 and 1807 and yielded a text that established, if it did not launch, the ‘littérature de voyage’ and was “exceptional in the field of travel writing of the time”. From that time on it was not only curiosity or a thirst for knowledge that prompted travellers to compare the world of the Levant with that of Ancient Greece. The creative imagination of the writer allowed the reader to savour the pleasure of travelling to a land where myth was more authentic than life itself. Chateaubriand’s account of his travels is indeed a remarkable work that reflects the emotional turmoil, or ‘état d’âme’, experienced by the writer as he confronts a fantastic dream world that exists beyond visible reality. The influence of Chateaubriand’s work is detectable primarily in the writing continued on p. 93

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‘La Grèce et les Isles pour le voyage du Jeune Anacharsis par M. Barbié du Bocage’. From the book Recueil de cartes géographiques, plans, vues et médailles de l’Ancienne Grèce, rélatifs au voyage du Jeune Anacharsis, Paris 1788. (Ekaterini Koumarianou Collection, Athens)

Perhaps no other book on Greece published at the end of the 18th century had as warm a reception and appeal as Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce (Paris, 1788 - see p. 70). This extensive work, which became the medium through which Europe was introduced to and communicated with the entire Greek world, was the product of the reflections and readings of the French abbot, as well as of his travels in Italy, where he admired the monuments of Greek antiquity. It is indeed noteworthy that although Barthélemy never visited Greece, the narrative which he assigns to the hero of his book, the young Scythian Anacharsis, had an enormous impact on both the European and the Greek public. In the periodical Hermes the Scholar (1817, pp.148-149 and especially pp.406-411) a contributor, commenting on the recent translation of Anacharsis, identifies it as “a precious work”, “a precious collection of the most important vestiges of Greek Antiquity, a product of brilliant imagination, showing the character of a sensitive soul and more useful than almost all other books on the same subject…”. It is interesting to note that the commentator emphasises the literary quality of the book rather than its utilitarian value for the Greek people. The beauty of the text, as well as its strongly Philhellenic content, attracted translators, such as Rigas Pherraios

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Velestinlis and Georgios Vendotis, in 1797, and Chryssovergis Kouroplatis, in 1819, who completed the translation of the work whilst also enriching it with illustrations. Perhaps The Travels of the Young Anacharsis in its first translation reflects a preliminary though fleeting desire on the part of Greek intellectuals to venture into the world of literature, as in the case of Rigas and Vendotis. “From Patratziki we went to Lamia and as we kept walking in the wilderness, over a bumpy and hilly road, we arrived at Thaumakoi, from where we encountered the most beautiful view which may be found in Greece, since this city too is situated above a vast plain, the sight of which immediately evokes a vivid internal response. Across this fertile and marvellous plain several cities have been built, among them Farsala, one of the largest and most prosperous in Thessaly. We visited all of them, finding out as much as we could about their ancient traditions, their administration, the character and the mores of their inhabitants.” Both the language and style of the above excerpt undoubtedly point to the emerging, if not fully developed, literary endeavours of the two translators. One should also note the use of many footnotes elucidating contemporary reality as well as the use of more recent place-names (such as Patratziki) instead of the respective ancient ones.

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‘René de Chateaubriand, taken ill in the neighbourhood of Athens’. ( Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris : cod 67C 33038)

Abbé J. J. Barthélemy, Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce, 1788 (see p. 70). ( Ekaterini Koumarianou Collection, Athens)

“…because I believe that for a nation in the process of acquiring culture, apart from educational requirements, there is the need for creative imagination to stimulate the mind and nurture the heart, I have therefore decided – since no one else more qualified has undertaken the task – to introduce an outstanding author of our century, in order to establish selective criteria in the newly-born field of Modern Greek literature. Having thus set the target, I didn’t hesitate for long as to the selection of an author. I read some of the works of Chateaubriand as a young boy and felt an eager inclination towards this man, which became all the more rational with age and lost none of its intensity. For this author, or rather prose poet, who praises religion, fatherland and nature, kindles the finest of sentiments eternally present in man’s heart.” (E. Roidis in Chateaubriand, Travel Itinerary, translated by E. Roidis, 1860, Vol. 1, p.iv.) With his critical astuteness and his literary sensibility Roidis (see p. 124), in the above brief excerpt, conveys the full meaning of literary creation, viewed within the context of romantic mythmaking. By praising the literary significance and emotional value of the book, he points out – without being didactic – the need to recognise the validity of “creative imagination to stimulate the mind and nurture the heart”. It seems that, albeit belated, Roidis’ observations were necessary in highlighting Chateaubriand’s inventive, gushing and romantic spirit.

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Title page of Choiseul-Gouffier’s Voyage Pittoresque de la Grèce (1782-1822), vol. I. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

“If the desire, or even the hope, to see liberty being awarded to the Greeks some day is but chimerical, these sweet delusions must be forgiven to those who devoted their youth to studying the glory of Greece and admiring its virtues. And if the mere perusal of history inspires an ardent feeling for the Greek people, one can imagine, then, how greatly this feeling grows in the traveller, who wanders across this fortunate land, where so many heroes and famous writers were born… And if any one of my readers has travelled to the country of the Greeks, if, having lived among them, beneath this radiant sky, upon this favoured land, has felt enchanted by their spirit, their character and their delightful qualities, if he has enjoyed the traditional and touching hospitality with which they embraced me every day, if, finally, he has felt the load of the painful contrast between ancient glory and present humiliation, surely then he will cry with them, with me: O! Utinam”. Texts like this brief excerpt from Choiseul-Gouffier’s ‘Discours Préliminaire’ in his monumental work Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce (1782-1822) attracted the keen interest of Greek intellectuals, as reflected in the Greek literary periodical Hermes the Scholar (Vienna, 1811-1822). “Despite our silence we are acquainted with and we gratefully acknowledge these writers, nor are we so foolish as not to discern the genuine friends of the Greeks, such as a Choiseul-Gouffier…” (Hermes the Scholar, 1816, p.211). “ …the famous Choiseul-Gouffier, this hearty friend of Greece…” (Hermes the Scholar, 1817, p.319). It is evident that national priorities outweigh the brief reference to the literary value of the texts mentioned.

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Marcellus, Marie-Louis J. A. Ch. Du Tyrac, Souvenirs de l’Orient, Paris 1854. (Ekaterini Koumarianou Collection, Athens)

Marcellus came to Greece at a very young age, as an attaché at the French Embassy at Constantinople. Before starting out on his travels, he had already studied the Greek classics and had been impressed by the spirit of Greek antiquity as represented in the classical texts. In his own later writings he expressed his great enthusiasm for Greece in general – not only antiquity. In 1819, on one of his journeys to the Cycladic Islands, on the island of Milos, he had the unbelievable good fortune to come across one of the greatest masterpieces of Greek sculpture, the Venus (Aphrodite) de Milo (see p. 88). He negotiated its purchase for the French royal collections – regardless by what spurious means. Another Frenchman, Fauvel, great connoisseur of ancient art, and negotiator of Greek treasures himself for over forty years, could not conceal his envy when Marcellus invited him to his ship, in the harbour of Piraeus, and showed him his acquisition: “I came to Greece, young as yourself, Mr. Fauvel said to me, accompanied by men whose sole passion was antiquity. Men who grew old searching and searching. Yet not even Mr. De Choiseul, my patron, nor they, nor I, ever came across such fortune.” Marcellus published two significant books on Greece in the 19th century: Souvenirs de l’ Orient (second edition, 1854) and a collection of folk songs, Chants populaires de la Grèce moderne (1860), with a valuable introduction, which conveys the romantic writer’s love, not only for Classical Greece, but for the Greek people and their culture in general. However, these texts which are read with interest and also with pleasure today, did not have such an impact at the time they were published and were largely ignored even by Greek romantics. Marcellus in his later years reminisces about his experience of Greece: “…amazed by so many images that return to mind, by so many harmonious names, so many classical memories, I still forget myself… In Greece, folk songs do not only reflect the spirit, they constitute an important part of history.” Marcellus makes a deliberate effort to reverse the unfavourable climate towards Hellenism and the Greeks prevalent in the mid-19th century – a climate nurtured by those who had earlier been called Philhellenes.

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Portrait of Lord Byron (1788-1824), dressed in Greek costume and with the Acropolis of Athens in the backround. The death of the leading romantic poet in Missolonghi on 19 April 1824 revitalized the philhellenic movement in Europe. Oil painting, 0.97 X 0.74 m. (Benaki Museum, Athens)

In 1819 the Greek literary periodical Melissa (Paris 1819-1821) published a vehement attack on the English poet Lord Byron for his approach to contemporary Greece in his poem The Giaour. After first acknowledging the “accomplishments of the poet”, the editor quotes a short piece from the poem, translated into Greek, and accompanies his comments with some particularly harsh criticism. “In this poem he insults our poor nation just as Archilochos or Hipponax did. Inevitably, the soul of every sensitive Greek is justly disturbed every time geniuses like Lord Byron speak or write about the Greek people of today in this manner and it is unworthy of such a charitable and noble man.” His commentary continues in the same vein. The article not only attempts to refute “blame”, it also tries to convey to the reader the progress made by Greece at the time. Sustained by petty-minded didacticism, the writer dismisses the entire offering of Byron as “his liberal, youthful ideas” which, according to a contemporary student, “epitomise the history of the country, faithfully record the potential of its present and prophesy its future”. Byron has been accurately called “the poet of Modern Greece” and this characterisation has never been refuted. Simply, the sensitivity of certain Greeks was so excessive that ‘national’ priorities triumphed over the romantic mood of the poet and they failed to recognise the poetic word when faced by problems dictated by the gravity of historical circumstances.

Fair Greece! sad relic of departed Worth! Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great! Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, And long accustomed bondage uncreate? (Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage)

The Greek commentator (possibly Konstantinos Nikolopoulos) is unable to respond to the romantic poetic spirit of Byron, which is expressed through comparison of a brilliant past with the miserable present-day conditions in Greece. It is only in later decades that the ‘Byronic’ theme of comparison goes on to influence and characterise the Greek Romantics when a climate of pessimism about the future of the Greek people prevails.

of the French Romantics and is less evident in the work of contemporary Greek writers. In fact, more than fifty years had to pass before it was brought to the attention of the Greek reading public in a translation by Emmanuel Roïdis in 1860. Translations followed one another, as well as favourable reviews, notably by Sainte Beuve and Comte de Marcellus, but there was also some criticism and negative reaction. This was particularly reflected in the work of Dionysios Avramiotis, a doctor from the island of Zakynthos who had earlier hosted Chateaubriand at his home in Argos. He pointed out mistakes and inaccuracies and accused Chateaubriand of distorting the facts of his trip to the Peloponnese and Attica in favour of imaginative fabrication. Five years after the publication of Itinéraire, Avramiotis published his book in Italian with the title: Alcuni cenni critici sul viaggio in Grecia…del signor Chateaubrian (Padova 1816). Even though Sainte Beuve considered that he was mostly correct in his criticism, Dionysios Avramiotis typifies the role of the scholar when confronting the creative writer. It is still too soon for a Greek intellectual to accept an author who prefers the world of fantasy to reality. A few years earlier, in 1805, Konstantinos Stamatis, a Greek who held the post of French consul in Civita Vecchia, translated the novel Atalà by Chateaubriand. It proved to be a one-off translation with no follow-up. A friendship existed between the two men and this is confirmed by the fact that, two years earlier, in 1803, Chateaubriand had baptised the daughter of Stamatis, giving her the name Atala. Meanwhile, the poetry of Lord Byron met with a similar response from the Greek public. The Greek literary periodical Melissa, published in Paris, launched a bitter attack in which Lord Byron was recognised as “ one of the foremost contemporary poets in Europe”, but was violently criticised for the way in which his poem, The Giaour, “insults the poor Greek nation like a second Archilochos or Ipponax”. Here, national arguments were triumphantly summoned up to defend the Greek nation against unfair censure. At the time, the travel journal was viewed essentially for its contribution towards promoting the image of both ancient as well as modern Greece and, less importantly, for its influence on the world of Greek letters. Other priorities dominating the consciousness and thinking of Greek intellectuals now featured in articles published in the Greek literary periodicals of the day, the most important being Hermes the Scholar, which appeared in Vienna during the years 1811-1821. The monumental threevolume work of Choiseul-Gouffier Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce (1782-1822) is typical, but there are other instances of travel writing that contributed much to promoting a spirit of Greek national awareness which was rooted in antiquity. In the decades following the Greek War of Independence and the founding of the modern Greek state few examples of travel writing exist in the Greek language; they started to be published again only at the beginning of the 20th century. A study in Greek by Stelios Xefloudas, entitled Travel Impressions (Basic Library Edition No. 22, 1956), reveals that “Travel books of literary merit have started to appear only during the last thirty years”. Amongst the considerable number of authors mentioned are Zacharias Papantoniou, Kostas Ouranis, Photis Kontoglou and Nikos Kazantzakis, but no reference is made to the impact and influence of European travel writing on the Greek literature of the period.

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DIONYSIOS SOLOMOS THE TWO GREAT CHALLENGES: LIBERTY AND LANGUAGE

S. Prosalendis: Dionysios Solomos, engraving.

Dionysios Solomos. Title page from the first edition of Hymn to Liberty. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

Dionysios Solomos (Zante 1798 - Corfu 1857), whose appearance as a poet coincides with the years of the Greek War of Independence (1821-1826), is generally recognised as the leading spokesman for the great values which inspired the struggling nation. His famous phrase “As if I had any other care on my mind than liberty and language…” sums up his twofold patriotic concern, namely, the liberation of Greece from Turkish rule and the liberation of the living modern Greek language from barren scholasticism and archaic hyperbole. This dual quest for the political and spiritual freedom of the Greek people was served in many ways by his work, which gained him the title of national poet. Solomos is undoubtedly a special case in the history of modern Greek letters. He was of Greek origin but spent his entire life beyond the borders of the independent Greek state, as a French and English citizen in the multicultural and polyglot environment of the Ionian Islands, which belonged successively to Venice, France and England before they were ceded to Greece in 1864. As all Ionian Island noblemen, he was bilingual (Italian-Greek) since his childhood and went to study in Italy (1808-1818), where he became acquainted with Italian and in general European literature and was introduced to the ideas of the Enlightenment, Classicism and emerging Romanticism. He embarked on his career as a poet with poems in the Italian language, whilst his transformation into a Greek poet began at the age of twenty, upon his return to Zante (Zakynthos) in 1818. Solomos strove to retrieve his mother tongue (the Zakynthian idiom), to become familiar with Greek poetic tradition, and also to formulate a modern Greek poetic language which would replace the confused linguistic and literary forms of the day. His awareness of his role as founder of the reborn nation’s literature was strengthened by the outbreak of the War of Independence and also by his meeting with the historian Spyridon Trikoupis, who urged the young poet to write in Greek instead of Italian, stressing, almost prophetically, that “Greece awaits its Dante”. And so it turned out: Solomos’ role in Greece scarcely differs from that of Dante in Italy. Solomos’ intentions are made plain in two works of this period, works that complement each other in serving the interrelated causes of language and liberty. In 1823, at a crucial point in the Struggle for Independence, he composed his Hymn to Liberty comprising one hundred and fifty eight verses written in the demotic language. This work aspired to encourage the fighters of the war, to attain pan-European promotion of the sacred cause and at the same time to prove the capactiy of the embattled nation to develop a literary language. A year later, The Dialogue (1824) between the Poet, the Friend and the Wise Scholar was to be one of the first literary works to advocate the power of the popular language of Greece. It is a noteworthy example of a literary prose text in demotic Greek. The nation’s enemy (the Ottoman state) is identified with the spiritual enemy of the Greek people (the Wise Scholar), and the Poet (Solomos) emphasises the refinement of the demotic language, the need for it to be the written language and its importance both as a means of emotional expression and as an educational tool. Furthermore, he confutes purists and supporters of archaism in a manner that reveals his wide knowledge of European theory. Solomos views the relationship between poet and popular language with respect: “the form of words used by the people must not be changed by the continued on p. 98

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Dionysios Solomos. Oil painting 0.34 X 0.265 m. (National Historical Museum, Athens, Catalogue no. 3423)

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A manuscript page of The Woman of Zakynthos by Solomos. (National Library, Athens, f. 98)

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The Siege of Missolonghi. Coloured lithograph 0.58 X 0.78 m. National Historical Museum, Print Collection. From I. Gennadius and Fr. Boissonas, Histoire picturale de la guerre de l’indépendence Hellénique par le general Makriyannis notice historique …, Geneva, Paris, 1926.

LORD BYRON

AND

DIONYSIOS SOLOMOS

After five months in Cephallonia, the English philhellene and poet arrived in January 1824 at Mesolonghi, then still under siege. Solomos was living at the time in Zakynthos, close enough to the invested town to hear the cannon fire. However, the two poets were never to meet, and Byron was probably unaware of Solomos’ existence. Solomos’ ‘Ode on the Death of Lord Byron’ which he began to write as soon as he was informed of the poet’s death (19 April 1824) reflects not only how deeply moved he was, but also his clear intention to connect the cause of Greek freedom with the philhellenic poet.

George Gordon, 6th Lord Byron ( 1788-1824 ), Thomas Phillips, 1835, oil on canvas, 76,5 X 63,9 cm, 1813. ( National Portrait Gallery, London)

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writer”. At the same time, he advocates creative freedom – a demanding task, yet with a linguistically productive result: “in order for any word to gain refinement, all that is necessary is the artistic skill of the author. […] First surrender to the language of the people and then, if you are good enough, conquer it.” Ten years later he was to return to this subject with greater selfconfidence and awareness: “It pleases me when I see folk songs used as a starting point. I would prefer, though, that whoever uses the language of the klephtes [brigands, men who took to the mountains during Ottoman rule rather than submit] used it in its essence and not merely its form. It is good to root oneself in this living tradition, but one shouldn’t stop there, one should move on and upwards… The poetry of the klephtes is beautiful and fascinating, for in this poetry the klephtes portrayed their life, their ideas and sentiments in an artless way. Yet, coming from ourselves, it does not have the same fascination. The nation requires from us the treasures of our individual intellect, garbed in national attire.” Crucially aware of his role as national poet, Solomos turned judiciously to previous forms of national tradition (folk songs, Zakynthian poetry, Cretan poetry, medieval romances in verse) and endeavoured to be uplifted, in other words, to grasp the new dimensions of Hellenism and express them in a new way. He elaborated important critical concepts regarding his own craft, drawing upon European poetry and European thought (with special emphasis from 1830 onwards on the philosophy and literature of German Classicism and Romanticism) which encouraged him in his quest and contributed to the realisation of his artistic ambitions. By 1828, when Solomos moved permanently to Corfu, he had completed his years of study. He began experimenting with the fifteen-syllable meter of the folk song. He attempted to use various metres, themes and motifs, which reflect mainly his neoclassical education, but also his experience of pre-Romanticism. He composed lyrical and satirical poems inspired by the everyday life around him. His first considerable achievements, the lyrical poetic composition Lambros (1824 and after) and the satirical prose poem Woman of Zakynthos (1826 and after) brought him to the forefront of modern Greek and European literature. These two works also mark the transition from committed social and patriotic poetry to the poetry of the ‘sublime essences’: the Greek uprising continues to be a leading topic, yet the emphasis has shifted to the presentation of the eternal coexistence and conflict of Good and Evil. Recurring often in the poetry of Solomos, this theme is also dominant in his ambitious though unfinished Composition of 1833-1834, a poetic work in eight parts, where the conflict between Good and Evil is presented in four lyrical and four satirical poems. This work remained unfinished, yet its conception and some of its completed parts, such as the epic-lyric The Cretan, show that, despite their fragmentary form, the poet has now obtained a superior and novel sense of lyricism, a feeling demonstrated also by leading European poets. A characteristic example of the thematic and ideological evolution evident in Solomos’ works of his mature Corfu period are the successive revisions (1833 and after) of a previous attempt (1826) to compose a poem on one of the most important events of the Revolution, the siege and fall of Mesolonghi, the town where Lord

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University of Padua, where Solomos studied 1815-1818. (Kathimerini photo archive) During the 19th century, young people from both the centres and outlying parts of the Greek world left home to study at Italian universities. An extraordinary number of these students were from the Ionian islands. In the first half of the century there were 840 Greek students at the University of Pisa alone, and of these 460 were from the Ionian islands. A similar picture obtains in Pavia, Padua, Sienna and Naples. This is not simply another chapter in the well-known history of Greek student migration. The young Greeks heading for Italian universities in 1821 were entering the Italy of the Risorgimento, and the revolutionary atmosphere there was infectious, shaping much of the ideology of the Greek Enlightenment and a concern for the outcome of the struggle for independence. At the same time, the political and literary currents in Italy clearly had a great impact on these students, especially in view of the fact that Italian universities were then centres of a cultural awakening and hotbeds of revolutionary foment. The Greek students joined forces with their Italian counterparts in enlightened cultural movements of the day, in clandestine organisations and even on the battlefield. After their studies had come to an end, most of these students returned to Greece, bringing with them not only academic knowledge but a broader cultural foundation in addition to the ideas, the inspiration and the experience of revolutionary struggle which were to prove decisive for the future.

Byron died. The main theme of the poem continues to be the heroic exodus of the inhabitants under siege, yet that which is stressed in the latter versions is human spiritual suffering, strength and moral freedom, as eloquently expressed by the poem’s new title: The Free Besieged. What is important, is that national consciousness is interwoven with universality: “Do what you can, so that the small circle, within which the besieged town moves, reveals in its surroundings the greater interests of Greece in attaining the material status desired both by those who want to keep her as well as by those who want to seize her, and, in her moral standing, the greater interests of Humanity. Thus the matter is bound up with the universal system.” The transition from the particular event to its deeper meaning, the General, the Ecumenical, the inner freedom of man, is the goal of Solomos’ mature poetry. The Free Besieged, written in demotic Greek and in the traditional nonrhyming fifteen-syllable verse, is a characteristic example of the linguistic, stylistic and expressive perfection sought by the poet. In his solitary and arduous career, Solomos succeeded in formulating a modern Greek poetic language and in integrating in a novel way Greek tradition with a new set of circumstances. The poet himself, though, remained dissatisfied. In his quest for an unattainable romantic perfection, he left most of his works unfinished and, shortly before his death in 1857, resorted to writing poetry in Italian again. Nevertheless, he had achieved the uplift he had sought, being considered the first significant Greek poet of modern times, of European stature and importance, and the founder of modern Greek letters.

ANDREAS KALVOS

Manuscript of Andreas Kalvos (‘Ode to the Sacred Company’, from The Lyre, first edition 1824. (Saint Geneviève Library, Paris)

The poetic work of the Ionian Islander Andreas Kalvos (Zante 1792 - Louth, England 1856) consists of twenty Odes written in the Greek language. They are contained in two collections he published at a young age, The Lyre (Geneva 1824) (Odes 1-10 headed by a short invocation to the Muses in verse) and Lyric Poems (Paris 1826) (Odes 11-20). These twenty poems together bear the title of Odes. His other, less important, works were written in Italian in the previous decade (18111821) and comprise three tragedies (Theramenes, The Danaids, Hippias) and a few odes, marked by the literary influence of Ugo Foscolo and neo-Classicism. During the rest of his life Kalvos published no other poems. The Odes were inspired by the Greek War of Independence. Most of them are a description, exaltation or critique of the protagonists and events of the Greek national struggle during the years 1821-1826. The thematic arrangement inspired by this contemporary historical adventure is necessarily related, on the one hand, with Kalvos’ individual adventures and anxieties, and on the other with his ideology as a poet. In the Odes the struggle to shake off the Ottoman yoke symbolises, in a more general sense, the fight against an oppressive regime. The attainment of freedom for the Greek nation will mean the dominance of justice over injustice, the prevalence of social and political virtue over the blind forces of authority and the promotion of education over barbarity. Kalvos’ numerous allusions to ancient mythology and to the glorious Hellenic past, in association with references to contemporary Greece (natural beauty of the land, spiritual qualities of its people), show that he wrote these Odes in the name of the nation, which he attempts to hearten, to uplift and to praise. As the Odes are essentially heroic and admonitory poems, they are structured upon various thematic antitheses. The principal antithesis is freedom vs. tyranny and it is expressed by contrasting the situations that symbolise the two parts of the opposing pair: lightdarkness, beauty-barbarity, heroism-inertia, memory-oblivion. Kalvos’ ideology as a young adolescent took shape during his long stay in Italy, England and Switzerland (1802-1825). His solid literary education, fermented in the workshop of Italian neo-Classicism, blended in with the liberal ideas of the French Revolution, which had spread throughout Europe. Moreover, the Odes originated from but also contributed to the strong Philhellenic movement of that time. The belief that Kalvos wrote his Greek poems so as to address them to the European public, which had become sympathetic to the Greek struggle for independence, is a justifiable one. On the other hand though, that he chose to write the Odes in modern Greek, a language unknown to Europeans, shows that Kalvos, a selftaught savant of the Greek diaspora, wanted to serve not only his homeland, but also its Muses. Some scholars have designated Kalvos as the “poet of the Idea”, in the sense that his poetry was intellectual and objective; although it drew its inspiration from the historical circumstances of the time, it in fact focuses on eternal and metaphysical concepts. The core of this absolute idealism was considered to be his praise of Freedom and its identification with Virtue. It has also been maintained that the Odes lack a sensual perception of life, because Kalvos was a puritan or because

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the poet himself deliberately undermined his sensuality, since he dedicated his poetry to the sacred goal of serving the insurrection. Conversely, other scholars have projected an image of Kalvos as a poet inflamed by the ideas of the Enlightenment and the political ideals of the democratic movement of his times, whose poetry was essentially political with traces of youthful vigour and sensuality. Mainly because of his long stay in Italy and in other European countries and the classical education he received there, Kalvos’ linguistic awareness of Greek was formulated under the influence of the sophisticated idiom and not of the popular spoken language. Kalvos is the only significant 19th-century poet of the Ionian Island School who did not adopt the colloquial language, or demotiki. The Odes were written in the katharevousa or ‘purist’ version of modern Greek enhanced by archaisms, but also by popular word types. Kalvos’ language forms an entirely personal poetic idiom ensuing from the combination and ultimate synthesis of linguistic elements stemming from classical Greek, religious texts (the Old Testament and the Psalms), the language of intellectuals of the period and the popular spoken language adorned with idioms. His vocabulary, however, is based on classical Greek words. Various theories have been proposed as to the origin of Kalvos’ language. Quite probably he was influenced by Foscolo’s theory that the language of poetry should be erudite, fabricated, enriched with archaisms but also embellished with material drawn from the spoken language. The linguistic heterogeneity of Kalvos’ poetry is further illustrated by the several Italian forms and solecisms found in his work. Nevertheless, it is these traits of a unique linguistic idiom insubordinate to rules of grammar that are an organic part of the Odes and determine their aesthetic appeal. From the point of view of style, the main characteristic, which is manifest in the Odes, is the balanced combination of the two principal aesthetic trends of the time, neo-Classicism and Romanticism. The basic difference between the various

Kalvos, The Lyre. First edition 1824. Title page. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

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Kalvos, La Lyre patriotique de la Grèce, 1824. Cover. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

interpretations of the Odes focuses on whether their style relies mostly on the one or on the other aesthetic movement. Some scholars have interpreted the Odes as a blend of the external elements of Italian neo-Classicism with the expressive climate of European pre-Romanticism, suggesting that under the neo-Classical surface of Odes lies an emotional and spiritual inclination towards Romanticism, traces of which are apparent. Other scholars have classified the Odes as within the sphere of influence of European neo-Classicism. The following features of the Odes may be attributed to neoClassicism: the balanced structure of the poems (preamble, main part, epilogue), the extensive use of metonymy, Kalvos’ idealistic principles, the acceptance of classical requirements in Art, its placement on the top of the value scale and the belief that poetry is an educative form of art. One could add that the high tone, the epigrammatic style and the moralising content of the Odes are also traits of Classicism. Conversely, one could point out elements characteristic of pre-Romanticism, such as melancholy mood, dramatic intensity, visionary situations and the use of the first person in some instances. One of the main questions, which still remains open, regarding Kalvos’ style, is whether the expressive audacity evident in certain parts of Odes is the outcome of the poet’s conscious choice or whether it was the circumstantial result of his particular intellectual and literary education. According to textual indications one might say that the Odes aimed at achieving a ‘versatile harmony’ (the term used by the poet himself ), that is, a complex, protean and harmonious rhythmical and expressive effect. The ‘versatile harmony’ of the Odes was attained by disavowing the musicality of lyric poetry at large and arranging the rhythm according to the internal rhythm of Italian drama. Yet at the same time, the disparity (and in some cases contrast) between metrical forms on the one hand and language and content on the other may be the outcome of Kalvos’ invariable need to attune the Italian metrical and rhythmical features of the Odes to the Greek language they were written in.

Kalvos, Collected Poems, edited by F.M. Pontani, Ikaros, Athens 1988.

The Psalms of David translated by A. Kalvos, Keimena Publications, 1981.

THE BUILDING OF A NATION (1821 - 1880) These two sketches, which are imaginary portraits of KALVOS since there is no known depiction of the poet, were made by two significant modern Greek poets, GEORGE SEFERIS (right, drawn in 1941 - see p. 170) and ODYSSEUS ELYTIS (below, drawn in 1991 - see p. 186). Despite differences between them, both sketches present a remote and stern picture of Kalvos, an image that matches written portrayals of him as a solitary and unsociable individual. Both drawings give us the feeling that Kalvos was in self-imposed exile from his younger public. Perhaps the lasting charm of Kalvos’ admittedly outmoded subject matter lies precisely in the emotional intimacy that this self-imposed exile provokes. To Kalvos’ readers his exile appears to be unaffected by time. Kalvos renounced the Greek reality of his time as completely foreign to his ideal of Greekness. To confront the Greek reality of his time he found the active antidote: an undefiled and unfalsified vision of an ideal Hellenism, which he exalted and justified.

GEORGE SEFERIS

“No portrait of Andreas Kalvos Ioannidis is known to have survived. When, sometimes, his verse echoes persistently in my mind, I imagine a human shape struggling, with the resigned gestures of the blind, to pass through a high curtain which enfolds it. It never succeeds in revealing itself. Only his voice comes though, closer or more distant. Only the movements of a body suspected and guessed at under the billowing cloth, as though some Odysseus with drawn sword were driving away his soul from the trench of dark blood which would for ever sever him from our own world.” ( GEORGE SEFERIS, ’Preface for an edition of Kalvos’ Odes’ in Essays, vol 1 (1936-1947), Ikaros Publications, Athens 1974 – Translated by John Stathatos ).

ODYSSEUS ELYTIS

Signature of Andreas Kalvos.

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MAKRIYANNIS MEMOIRS OF THE GREEK STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

Memoir writing as a literary form has not been uncommon in Greek literature from ancient and Byzantine times up to the present. Its continued use over the ages and its consistency as a form of writing reflect its heavy dependence on the political, military or cultural circumstances it concerns. It springs from a personal need to recount and explain events and to preserve them from oblivion. It is a means of conveying personal truths and of communicating with the public in an attempt largely to justify individual actions carried out within the framework or even in the name of society as a whole. Memoirs interweave personal and collective history, interpreting history from several viewpoints. The narrative, moreover, often follows the course of the writer’s own life story in such a way that historical events form part of his personal experience. Although the intensely subjective character of a memoir detracts from its value as an historical source, it does not undermine its importance as a personal testimony. A time of personal or collective crisis favours the writing of memoirs. Events that occurred during and after Greece’s struggle for independence from the Ottomans belong outstandingly to one such period and drove literate and semi-literate leaders of the time, scholars, combatants and politicians to make their first acquaintance with authorship. Their own role in the uprising and the need to justify their participation created an obligation on their part to record their perception of historical events. Fighters of 1821 attempted either to write their own accounts or to dictate their recollections (Theodoros Kolokotronis). They preserved their memories by writing them down in a more or less personal manner, either in the first person or in the third (Emmanuel Xanthos, Palaion Patron Germanos), sometimes in brief epistolary form (Andreas Mamoukas) or in longer narratives often based on journals kept at the time, or sometimes even in the form of poetry (Daniel of Tripolis). The sheer number of these memoirs proves the necessity and the immediacy of personal records, barely influenced by prevailing aesthetic trends. The desire to document events is so strong that it overcomes all the difficulties inherent in the process of composing a literary work, a process quite foreign to the type of activity that distinguished the fighters of the revolution. Most of them wrote in the language they spoke, that is, demotiki or the colloquial language, enriching the written word with the vivacity and idioms of the spoken (Panaghis Skouzes, Makriyannis). There were, of course, more polished but equally direct accounts (Kassomoulis, Fotakos). All are genuine popular literature and addressed to all and sundry. The result was an entirely personal version of history in the quest for justification and communication. One particularly distinguished memoir writer was MAKRIYAN(1797-1864). Ioannis Triantaphyllodimitris, or Triantaphyllou, his real name, was born in the village of Avoriti in Doris. His turbulent life, driven by a fighter’s spirit and passion and endowed with the genuine sensibility of simple folk, has been rightly seen as a symbol of modern Hellenism. This symbolic role of Makriyannis was further enhanced by the legendary search for the primary source, namely, his Memoirs, their discovery and disappearance – an adventure NIS

Flag of the Constitutionalists of Perachora. The words ENOSIS - SYNTAGMA (Union - Constitution) are inscribed on the flag, while in the centre is stamped the figure of the goddess Athena. (National Historical Museum, Athens)

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S. Prosalendis, General Ioannis Makriyannis, oil painting, 0.81 X 0.465 m. (National Historical Museum, Athens, no. 8525)

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The Siege of Athens. Coloured lithograph, 0.58 X 0.78 m. From I. Gennadius and Fr. Boissonnas, Histoire picturale de la guerre de l’indépendence Hellénique par le général Makryiannis notice historique …, Geneva, Paris, 1926. (National Historical Museum, Athens, Print Collection)

Makriyannis believed that a reconstruction and justification of the Struggle for Independence could not be achieved with words alone but called for pictures as well. That is why he decided to assign the visual depiction of battles and events of the Revolution to a painter. He mentions in his Memoirs that he originally hired a foreign painter, a “Frank”, but was not satisfied with the result. He then commissioned Panayotis Zographos to undertake the work. Zographos came from Vordonia in Lakonia, and was a fighter and popular hagiographer. He came to stay with his two sons in Makriyannis’ house. Following Makriyannis’ explicit instructions and suggestions as to the theme of each painting, he composed between 1836 and 1839 twenty-five works illustrative of the Revolution. In addition to these twenty-five works in

egg tempera on wood, there were also four sets in watercolour on coarse wrapping-paper. The works of the original series are unsigned, whereas of the fifty-two copies on cardboard forty-seven bear the signature of Dimitrios, mentioned by Makriyannis as Panayotis’ son. More recent research has proven, however, that the painter of the Revolution was Dimitrios Zographos, Panayotis’ father and not his son, as perhaps mistakenly mentioned by Makriyannis. It is now known that Dimitrios was the fighter and hagiographer who took part in the siege of Tripolis in September 1821. At the time Dimitrios was working on his paintings of the Revolution, Panayotis was apprenticed to his father and from 1839 attended painting lessons at the School of Arts on a scholarship.

that brought the name of their sole reader Yannis Vlachoyannis dramatically before the public eye. His restoration of the original text in 1907 was inspired by the cultural movements current in the last two decades of the 19th century and by romantic historiography seeking historical evidence to confirm the national identity of modern Greece. Makriyannis’ Memoirs were initially published as an important historical document. It was for this reason that his rambling Visions and Marvels were ignored at the time, being considered not worth publishing. Makriyannis had been illiterate. His need to record the events he had lived through persuaded him to acquire just enough knowledge of reading and writing to enable him to set down his memoirs; he was untouched by scholarly tradition.

Makriyannis was a passionate fighter steeped in popular tradition and lore, endowed with sensitivity and a sense of justice. He loved singing, composed his own rhyming verse and looked upon the past with an artist’s eye. He began writing on 26 February 1829, completely carried away by the events he was recalling to mind. “Makriyannis is not objective. He neither recounts nor describes, he fights”, writes K.T. Dimaras. His writing, dominated by passion, has tone and rhythm, becoming dramatic, notably vivid and often epigrammatic, with condensed dialogues and frequent asides to the reader. His didactic intent requires the active participation of the reader, for he makes an insistent appeal for a collective approach to the subject. The general restructuring of post-revolution Greek society,

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steadily distancing itself from a rural economy, finds expression in the person of Makriyannis. Spyros Asdrahas observes that in Makriyannis’ ideology there co-exist “on the one hand that domestic orderliness which was the elemental need of modern Greek urbanity and on the other the spirit of heroism, perhaps in an ideal form of abstraction”. However, that Makriyannis’ Memoirs have been acknowledged and survived is not only because of their importance as an historical source of information or because of their ideology. It is also because of the language in which they were written. The immediacy and passion of his writing as well as his total absorption in popular tradition and popular mores distinguish his Memoirs from those of other patriots, making him one of the most authentic writers of modern Greek prose. This is proved by the wide appreciation of his work in later years. The poet Kostis Palamas described Makriyannis’ Memoirs in 1911 as a precious gem of the popular lenguage and as an example of uncontrived classical art. Yet the person who in fact lifted

the text from obscurity was George Seferis who, in 1943 during another period of crisis, discerned in General Makriyannis’ work the continuity of the Greek race. Thanks to his illiteracy, Makriyannis’ writing retains the values of Hellenism intact: his Memoirs are the ark of the vast popular tradition of the Greeks. In this spirit and in the feverish desire to define authentic Greekness, the generation of the thirties was to read the Memoirs as a true expression of cultural memory, while out of them they constructed new legends of Hellenism. Re-reading of the Memoirs in later years was consistent with the intellectual quests and trends of each period; they were more rational and free from the nationalistic exaltation of tradition, while the General’s personality was judged rather in the light of his Visions and Marvels, published in 1985. The initial readings, however, of Makriyannis’ Memoirs by the generation of the thirties remain decisive in any assessment of them and in their survival as an historical and literary document of significance in modern Greek letters.

I. Makriyannis, two pages from the manuscript of Visions and Marvels. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

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K. Paparrigopoulos. (National Hellenic Research Foundation Archive)

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If any one individual were to be considered responsible for the image the Greeks have about themselves and their history, that person would be Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos (1815-1891). He wrote his five-volume History of the Greek Nation between 1860 and1874 and, since then, his ideas have been promulgated in every conceivable way: incorporated into other texts, repeated by thousands of lecturers, memorised by generations of students and eventually absorbed by the nation, which gradually saw itself in the image conceived by Paparrigopoulos. The success of this work was so great that few remember the image-maker and even fewer are aware of the imagery involved in the formation of the concept of Greekness. Paparrigopoulos succeeded in convincing his public that things had always been so. The picture he presented was seen as a mirror of the collective self. History of the Greek Nation was re-issued several times with additions concerning more recent events by other authors. A century later, in 1971, when a new monumental history began to be published, incorporating all the research and studies carried out in the meantime, Paparrigopoulos’ History retained its title and its original historiographical pattern. Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos was born in the heart of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople, in the year of Napoleon’s final defeat. He spent his childhood in Odessa and was educated at the famous Lycée Richelieu, the cradle of the intelligentsia of Eastern Europe. He came to Greece as a young boy in 1830, the year Greece became an independent state. Four years later he joined the civil service; he published his first paper on history at the age of twenty-eight, published a newspaper at thirty-two, became a professor at the University at thirty-six, and published a preliminary concise version of the complete history of the Greek nation at thirty-eight. He started to publish his extensive History of the Greek Nation at the age of forty-five, finishing it fifteen years later. This period, between 1860-1874, covered not only the prime years of the historian, but also the middle years of the 19th century. From the completion of his History up to his death in 1891 when he was seventy-five, Paparrigopoulos enjoyed the prestige of a national historian, without, however, withdrawing into the confines of his library. During this period of irredentism, he practised what he had previously asserted in his writing. He was to be found everywhere: on irredentist committees, in operations providing arms abroad, even involved in the forging of ‘national’ maps for national reasons. In his life and work he represented the prototype of a thinker whose role has been considered to have been a national one that has had an enduring influence on his country. Furthermore, he could be thought of as a visionary, a Nation Builder, important to any assessment of the nature of nationalism. To what should one attribute the power of Paparrigopoulos’ work? First, to the historical pattern presented in his History and, second, to the style of his writing. The pattern is based on ‘continuity’. This is the key word in defining Greek identity and also its symbol. It signifies that the Greek nation has constituted a unified entity for the past 3000 years. It has undergone transformation, changed its setting and the character of its action, each time performing an important mission within the scope of world history, while its influential presence has been continuous since antiquity. This pattern is easily understood and convincing. It becomes even more so, if one reflects how insecure

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the issue of national identity was before Paparrigopoulos approached the subject so unambiguously. In the years of the Enlightenment, Adamandios Koraïs was hesitant in choosing the name of the new nation: Romans, Greeks, or Hellenes? He finally opted for ‘Greeks’, and when the insurrection of 1821 solved the problem of name, its symbol became the Phoenix rising from its ashes. This rebirth was referred to as ‘National Regeneration’, meaning the re-appearance of the nation after its extinction. Historians such as Zambelios or Sathas searched for clues linking their contemporaries to the ancient Greeks. Paparrigopoulos, however, presented a sound, unquestionable scheme proving the historical unity of the Greek people throughout thirty centuries. He invested the nation with the reality of its individual characteristics and status, underlining its physical presence. According to Paparrigopoulos, the Greek nation is a Titan who traverses the centuries participating in struggles and politics, victories and achievements, who falls into error or withdraws, sometimes defeated and succumbing, yet always rising up and starting all over again, changing form, moving around in space, from Europe to Asia and back to Europe again. This is the structure of epic mythology. Paparrigopoulos’ Titan personifies many, each with a separate life passing through youth, maturity, and old age. At the same time, in each death there is a new beginning. Thus Paparrigopoulos structures the genealogy of Hellenism: Ancient Hellenism begets Macedonian Hellenism, which begets Christian Hellenism, which in turn begets Medieval Hellenism, which begets Modern Hellenism before its own extinction. This structure has a theological basis and origin. Just as God is triadic according to the concept of the Holy Trinity, thus the Greek nation, in its passage through the centuries, derives its significance from the specific period in time. Paparrigopoulos’ style is characterised by the use of the first person plural. History requires a subject. He does not apply the third person to describe those who lived in the past, but uses the first person for ancestors and progeny alike: “We then…”. He refers to their accomplishments and setbacks as “our accomplishments”. He confronts their enemies with the use of the pronoun ‘we’, retrospectively assuming an active role in the course of events. His arguments vis-à-vis “foreign science which alienated our country’s history” are again phrased with “we”. This first person plural is omnipotent. It identifies modern Greeks with their past, their history and their nation and moulds their conscience. His readers are but a division of this great Army proceeding through time. This is the “we” of collective identity and national conscience. If historians have used the third person to recount a story impersonally for the sake of objectivity, with his approach Paparrigopoulos succeeded in highlighting the subject of history without sacrificing its objectivity. His history does not need to be impersonal in order to be objective. The author intervenes and is critical. He compares the role of the historian, that is, himself, to that of the father. He criticises his children at home, but supports them against foreigners. This dimension of familiarity, in its timeless scope, is a subtle yet fundamental element in formulating the concepts of national space and national identity: “we” and “they”. Paparrigopoulos’ historical work is one of the best and most typical examples of European Romanticism. After the storm of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic

Wars, Romantic historians rediscovered continuity as opposed to rupture, synthesis as opposed to confrontation, personification of the past and its rational analysis and individuality as opposed to universality, thus arriving at the concept of ‘nation’ as opposed to abstract intellectual development. Paparrigopoulos is a Romantic historian alongside Ranke, Droysen, Michelet, Guizot, Thierry, Macaulay and Grote. Yet if they felt the need to juxtapose continuity and unity beside a history where every subsequent phase seemed, according to Enlightenment hermeneutics, to negate the preceding one, Paparrigopoulos saw it as his duty to reinstate the concepts of continuity and unity in the history of the Greek nation so as to counter the theories maintaining the latter’s disappearance. It was not only Fallmerayer that he had in mind. It was primarily Gibbon, who had recounted a story of decline and fall, whom he wanted to challenge with an equally monumental work of ‘continuity’. The Romantic historians were masters at presenting their accounts as the true version of events. They wove the uniqueness of each event into a grand narrative. They not only sought causes, but also their significance. Explanation went hand in hand with interpretation, the scientific spirit of the nineteenth century with Romanticism. Paparrigopoulos was aware of the difference between historical research, namely, the weighing of evidence, and the “art of narrative” which “rises to those superior approaches seen in the finest work of Thucydides and Macaulay, that both instruct and give pleasure”. His writing is not addressed only to fellow historians. Rather, his target is the wider Greek public: “History is written for the many”. He makes ample use of metaphor. History resembles a “building”, a “monument”, a “three thousand year-old drama”. For Michelet, the historian was like Oedipus committed to the task of solving the riddle, in this case the riddle of the past. For Paparrigopoulos, however, the historian is a father figure whose role is to protect, defend and criticise. History has a paternal responsibility to its subject and its readership: the relationship between the two, between the nation and the diverse Hellenisms, is that of father and son. As a child of six, Paparrigopoulos watched his father being beheaded in Constantinople by the Ottomans in retribution for the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. It is little surprise that the father should return, now sanctified, as the father of national history.

Title page of the first edition of the History of the Greek Nation.

Cover of the study of K.T. Dimaras on Paparrigopoulos.

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Femmes de l’île de Siphanto. From Choiseul-Gouffier, Voyage Pittoresque de la Grèce, 1782-1822. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

FOLKLORE A NEW FIELD OF STUDY The publication of the first volume of Study of the Life of Modern Greeks – Modern Greek Mythology by Nikolaos G. Politis in 1871 constitutes “the birth certificate of folklore as a science”, according to K. T. Dimaras. Its young author had recently been awarded a prize for his essay ‘On the customs and lore of modern Greece in comparison with those of ancient Greece’. Thus was born Greek folklore as a field of study; to be more precise, the study of folklore was now being born in Greece, for in that same year The Folk Life of Modern Greeks and Greek Antiquity by Bernhard Schmidt appeared in Leipzig and signalled a transition from ‘archaeological folklore’. It reached adulthood, however, much later, since twelve years had to pass before it was ackowledged in 1883 and another twenty-five years before its official name ‘laographia’ was validated in 1908. Be that as it may, when Politis – already a respected professor and powerful influential dean – explained in 1909 in the opening lines of Laographia (Folklore), a journal published by the newly founded Greek Society for Folklore, that he had used “the term ‘laografia’ to denote the study of popular traditions, beliefs and habits, of popular oral literature and of any-

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thing in any way contributing to a more precise understanding of the people”, he had far-reaching aims. With the word ‘laographia’ [Gr. laos = people, -graphy = documented science] not only did he indicate, in the most symbolic way, the Greek origin of the concept of engagement with the people and their traditions, but also, by adopting a significantly Hellenic term, he avoided taking sides in the rivalries already marking the history of the English-bred term ‘Folk-Lore’ (W. Thoms: 1846, E. B. Tylor: 1865, 1871) and of the Germanic “Volkskunde” (L. Arnim: 1806, W. Riehl: 1858). At the same time Politis introduced the hereditary titles of this unfamiliar field of domestic study and defined its national perspective from a historical standpoint. At a single stroke folklore was weaned away from the world of literature, abandoning its early pursuits in the process and cutting its paternal ties with history. It had now finally become enrolled among the humanistic sciences. During the second half of the 19th century – a turningpoint in the history of Modern Greece – the pressing need arose for an objective consolidation of the identity of the Greek people. Insisting upon its special links with the antique world, however, now posed a risk, because they could no more be proven by the obvious fact that Greece was sited where European civilisation had been born, than by the remarkable rendering of life in modern Greece in the Greek songs published by French Philhellene, Claude Fauriel and in the nationalistic poetry of Dionysios Solomos. The traditional habit of examining curious cus-

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toms and superstitions and “every relic of the past” needed to be updated in the light of the newly formed nation-state. The belated yet generalised tendency to question a hereditary and also inherited relationship with antiquity, forced the heirs to measure up to the idols of their famous ancestors at the crucial crossroads of racial purity, national identity and historical continuity. Established sciences, such as history, archaeology, literature and linguistics, took refuge in ostentation in the attempt to handle the past as a living present, whereas others, such as folklore, emerged in national costume in order to portray the living present as rooted in the past in the quest of collecting “historical monuments which are still alive”. The time had come for the study of folklore. If the prerequisite was to form a symbolic bridging of various discontinuities – territorial, historical, national, linguistic, traditional or social –, the requirement for its establishment was to express, in political terms, the distance separating the ‘people’ from the ‘scholars’. Meanwhile, modern Greeks had, of course, learnt to measure their distance from their ancient past: they recalled ancient myths, they visited the ancients at their newly discovered monuments: people coming from abroad opened up the paths, locals followed them; they evoked the ancients in their patriotic struggles (as for example in the forward-looking terms of A. Koraïs and the backward-looking stance of G. Paliouritis) and forgot about them when circumstances dictated it. The prelude to folklore studies had started at the end of the 18th century in the “climate of romantic ethnology”, when the need to establish the roots of Modern Greece in Classical Greece in convincing terms was coupled with the desire to apply Western intellectual developments to Greek letters – a movement first begun by Vico and Herder and pioneered in Greece by T. Manoussis and K. Asopios. The belated but triumphant entry of 19th-century Romanticism into the ‘Levant’ was marked by the publication of one of the most characteristic versions of popular culture of the time: folk songs. Its less spectacular development was the nationalisation of Romantic principles through the projection of a continuous, though not necessarily coherent, popular culture and the creation of a related field of study. Fauriel and Politis made their imprint on these two epochs. They were both involved in publications and collections of ‘material’ and shared struggles and agonies over the language, identity and origin, as well as the rights and demands of a people who, in striving to prove the concept of a continuous national existence, systematically withheld a wealth of its ideas and its experiences. The canon of modern Greek social tradition was based on a composite vision of a cultural and linguistic unity. For example, a national anthem had to be composed and national borders and national boundaries had to be defined; the national language and its folk songs had to be documented; a national costume and a national identity had to be designed, whereas national architecture, national sites and national landscapes all had to be established. Equally, national iconography, national aims, national glories and national visions had to be collectively represented. Politis’ commanding figure gave scientific shape to folklore studies and placed them within the framework of scientific re-

Nikolaos G. Politis in the second decade of the 20th century. (Reproduced from Panayotis Moullas’ The Word of Absence, M.I.E.T., Athens, 1992)

Right: Nikolaos Politis. Left: Sokratis Kouyeas. In the reading room of the University. Standing on the left is the young poet Kostis Palamas, who was secretary of the University at the time (see p. 134). (Sokratis B. Kouyeas Archive)

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Shepherds with their flocks at Negri, central Greece, 1975. (Photograph by Takis Tloupas)

search – a modernist approach at the time. Thus folklore, having gained a solid basis, spread and acted as a stimulus to those circles most concerned with the formulation of the terms of national identity. The spread of this newly founded science proved immediately beneficial, although some side-effects of its ideological dependence on dated views fostered a simplified popularisation of folklore, an amateurism in the study of folklore and also the ‘folklorisation’ of national imagery. Henceforth professionals and amateurs of folklore would have to choose between earlier precepts, such as “recognition of purely national elements, awareness of national character and exposure of alien, parasitical and distorting factors”, and the scientific approach of recording oral traditions. The science of folklore vacillated between an encyclopaedic approach to “restoring the original unity of the Greek soul” and the sporadic recording of folk traditions and elements; the selfconscious portrayal of the latter did not promote the convergence of the concepts of “the land for the land” and “the people for the people”, nor the association of places and their history with the people who were living there. Politis, for what

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it was worth, had cautioned “He who loves tradition may not study it and he who studies it may not love it”. Nevertheless, where the inevitable coexistence of overall national uniformity and local idiosyncrasies transformed amateurs into professionals and professionals into amateurs, the robust thinking of the older generation and the concerns of the younger reveal some interesting diversions in search of historical elements in folklore and in detecting marginal fields of folklore. The poet Drosinis declared that Politis was “the first to open the many worlds of the Greek soul to young Greek poets, the first to turn their attention to the people of Greece and to encourage them to observe and study them and produce work of a purely Greek character”. It is exactly this world too that Politis revealed to the students of folklore. It was the image of the people, perhaps also their spirit, that was highlighted on the stage of Modern Greece – leaving their material existence in the shadows – together with some of the most vital aspects of their daily life, some recently acquired, some handed down from the distant past, so far and yet so near the places of their enactment.

A Greek boy dressed in the traditional freedom-fighter’s ‘foustanella’. Postcard from the beginning of the 20th century. (E.L.I.A. Archive)

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The ancient Panathena˚ko Stadium, restored for the first modern Olympics held in Athens in 1896. (Photograph: National Historical Museum, Athens)

GREEK LITERATURE AFTER 1880 The decade of the1880s was a critical period in modern Greek literature because it was then that its future development was shaped for approximately the next fifty years. To begin with, it is necessary to establish a framework in which to place texts that at first glance appear bewildering. For this reason we propose three approaches to the interpretation of the poetry and prose of the period. First, a dialogue, so to speak, with History of the Greek Nation by Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos and then, in the field of literature, with what historiographers have endeavoured to define as the formation of a nation-state. Second, an attempt to determine the illusory centre of the Greek nation at a time when there was considerable distinction between Greeks living within the Greek state, on the one hand, and those living under Ottoman rule or abroad, on the other, whilst not forgetting the numerical and economic superiority of the latter. Third, a reply to the Romanticism of the preceding decades and also proof of romantic survival. More specifically:

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1. Romantic historiography took the lead in the effort to formulate the concept of the continuity of the nation of the Greeks (History of the Greek Nation was begun in the decade of the 1860s and completed in 1874). Its pioneering nature is explained by the fact that the concept of time was advanced in formulating the concept of ‘nation’, while the concept of space, characterised by the geographical indistinctness of many centuries of life in the Eastern Mediterranean, posed serious problems in determining the boundaries of the state: from the historiographer’s point of view the time-span of the nation appeared to be continuous, though the frontiers of the nation were ever-changing. The aim of historiography was to construct an image of the Greek nation which would have its starting-point in the present, would project that image onto the past and would establish a direct connection with ancient Greece without the need of Europe’s mediation. Athens and Constantinople rivalled each other with a common standard in view: the major European cities of the 19th century. 2. The favourable circumstances of the next fifteen years both on the territorial issue (the union of the Ionian Islands with Greece and the annexation of Thessaly and part of Epirus) and in the economic field (investments of Greeks living abroad, in retrospect an

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occurrence of questionable benefit). In 1881 the Greeks living in Greece were more numerous than in 1864; similarly, the territory of Greece was more extensive. The Greeks now considered themselves a mature population and that they were playing a pivotal role in the development of Hellenism abroad, even though overseas Greeks continued to be more plentiful and had greater economic power. These circumstances seemed to favour the literary movement of the time. But it enjoyed only a brief flowering before national bankruptcy followed by defeat in the Greco-Turkish war of 1897 dealt severe blows both to the inspiration of Greek writers and to the material well-being of the people. DIMITRIOS VIKELAS initiated the dialogue between Greeks living in Greece and Greeks living abroad in 1879 with his novel Loukis Laras. The two different periods described in the text – the War of Independence begun in 1821 and the 1870s – are compared in two different settings, the Aegean Sea and London, in both of which the main character resides. The tension arising between the Greek of Greece who strives to survive and the Greek merchant of London is the subject of a crucial dichotomy in the 19th century. GEORGIOS VIZYINOS (see p. 121) structures his writing on a dialogue between Europe and Eastern Thrace, the greater area of Constantinople. For him, the centre of the Greek world is Constantinople, while Athens is the impediment to the formation of a modern Greek culture through dialogue with Europe.

The literary circle of Hestia. From left to right: (standing) Y. Psycharis, D. Kaklamanos, G. Kasdonis (editor), I. Vlachoyannis, K. Palamas (see p. 134), G. Drosinis, G. Xenopoulos (see p. 133); (seated) Th. Vellianitis, Perris (editor), N. Politis (see p. 109), St. Stefanou, Mikios Lambros, G. Souris, Emm. Roidis (see p. 124), Emm. Lykoudis. (Photograph: Hestia Publishing Archive)

Many of the writers pictured here with the Acropolis in the background, were members of a new generation of poets, the so-called ‘Generation of the 1880s’, with Kostis Palamas at their helm. This generation, after the collapse and confusion of the previous decade (as much on the political as the literary level), introduced a positive and optimistic air into their verse, reflecting social and political change. They denounced the grandiloquent romanticism of older poets in favour of the familiar and the simple, in the manner of the French Parnassians. This generation established the demotic language once and for all in poetry.

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Dimitrios Vikelas (1835-1908). (Nea Panathinea, 15-31 August 1908 - E.L.I.A. Archive)

Michail Mitsakis (1868?-1916). (Photograph: B. Bozzi & Figlio, c. 1900 - E.L.I.A. Archive)

Andreas Karkavitsas (1865-1922). (E.L.I.A. Archive)

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ALEXANDROS PAPADIAMANTIS (see p. 128) fashions a dialogue between the provinces – the island of Skiathos and Athens emphasizing lesser features that do, however, colour the overall picture: Skiathos, the “hybrid” province, Athens, the “hybrid” city, the one in direct relation to the other, the one “polluting” the purity of the other. Yet this adulteration is full of surprises and charm. MICHAIL MITSAKIS is Athenocentric. He systematically describes the capital, full of problems, mud, cart-drivers, mules and foreign artistes entertaining the uncultured public. The capital city will serve as a model for all the developing Greek towns, like Patra, the setting of his interesting short story ‘Suicide’. ANDREAS KARKAVITSAS places the action of his novels and short stories outside the cities (orbi); this outside is, however, an extension of the inside (urbi). The cruelty of the city, the persistent principles of profit, and deception and the prevalence of the strongest destroy the idyllic character of the countryside, introducing a naturalistic narrative manner. 3. Finally, it is interesting to relate these writings to the Romantic movement. Poetry and prose of the 1880s is, on the one hand, a reaction to the romanticism of the Athenian School and, on the other, the continuation of romantic historiography. At the same time, because of the power of realistic and/or naturalistic examples in European literature, they place themselves in opposition, either not learning from it or criticizing it. In the latter case, they either reconsider the Romantic example and adopt it, or else they flirt with emerging Modernism, without excluding a combination of both trends. It would, therefore, be an oversimplification to say that the literature of this period is a reply to Romanticism, as expressed both in historic novels as well as in the poetry of the Athenian School. Outstanding examples of serious dialogue with Modernism and simultaneously with the Romantic tradition, written in a style that imitates the realistic, are the short stories by Vizyinos and others by Mitsakis and Papadiamantis.

Ioannis Altamouras (1852?-1878), A Beached Ship, 1874.

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The ‘Neapolis’ district of central Athens, photographed from Lycabettus Hill, c. 1890. The building in the foreground is that of the French Institute of the time. (Photographic Archive of the Benaki Museum)

M. MITSAKIS: “We can observe the process of construction as a process of reconstruction in Under the Fig Tree. The narrator sees the name of a deceased woman etched on a tombstone in a churchyard and next to it, written in lead pencil, the names of eight women, a date and the phrase ‘all were best friends unto the grave’ ”. Two issues are of special interest here: the metaphorical sense of this phrase and the way in which the author unfolds the story of its inscription. He relates that the women were eight schoolgirls taking a stroll on a Saturday afternoon and he reproduces their laughter and chattering, their movements and thoughts, as if he were there himself. He bridges the distance with a series

The Netherlands 1924

Romania 1965

of adverbs – ‘of course’, ‘undoubtedly’, ‘obviously’, ‘perhaps’ – and with the use of the conditional – ‘they must have come’, ‘they must have pretended’, ‘they would have said’, ‘they would have walked’, ‘they would have gathered’ – and goes on to interpret the inscription and how it came to be written. Like an archaeologist he constructs a story about the past and its people from the relics that have remained. And although there is the illusion that the schoolgirls’ walk was the occasion that prompted the writing of the story, the text remains as the sole material reality, since the printed and published paper will resist the passage of time longer than the inscription in lead pencil.”

England 1881

France 1997

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Kydathenaion Street, Plaka (Athens), by Fred Boissonnas. The Acropolis can be seen in the background, 27 July 1919. (F. Boissonnas Archive, Geneva)

SECTION V

STIMULUS AND CREATIVE RESPONSE ( 1880-1930 )

STIMULUS AND CREATIVE RESPONSE (1880 - 1930)

I

T WAS IN THIS PERIOD that the personalities of writers began to play a pivotal role on

the literary scene, functioning as the nucleus of aesthetic movements bringing about significant artistic developments. These writers, children of their time, became the interpreters of national history and at the same time produced works which were to define certain periods and movements in national literature. The fifty-year period is one of the most fertile, brightest, and yet most tragic phases in neo-Hellenism. At the beginning of the period, the nation, having secured its Constitution and regained a certain number of annexed territories (such as the Ionian islands (1864) and Thessaly (1881)) envisaged a more enlightened bourgeoisie, improvements in state organisation and a more stable, democratic government. The first modern Olympic games, hosted in Athens in 1896, and the unfortunate Greco-Turkish war a year later were two very telling events, which showed how easily and how quickly the nation was able to fall from the heights of superficial glory to the depths of disaster. However, twelve years later the attempted progressive military coup at Goudi and the arrival of the Cretan politician Eleftherios Venizelos in Athens, the success of the Balkan Wars and of the World War that followed helped Greece regain almost all the territories which it had always considered to be rightfully hers. But the tragedy of the Asia Minor disaster of 1922 was not far off. This period opens with the so-called ‘1880s Generation’, led by the poet Palamas, who declared Romanticism an outmoded form and insisted on the search for more realistic modes of expression and on the demotic language as the language proper to literary expression, and closes with Nikos Kazantzakis, the outstanding writer of fiction with an international reputation. The intervening years produced a whole host of other great talents, including the consummate stylist Roidis, the well-known short story writer Georgios Vizyinos, renowned for his supple language and integrity of feeling, followed by Alexandros Papadiamantis, the jewel in the crown of Greek prose fiction. The three most remarkable poets of the period were Cavafy, one of the most prominent voices in world poetry, the tragic and sardonic Karyotakis, who marked a new phase in Greek poetry and, finally, the supremely lyrical visionary Angelos Sikelianos.

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Vizyinos in Germany, 1879. He was born in Vizyi in Eastern Thrace, near Constantinople, attended the Halki School of Theology (one of the Pringiponissia in the Bosporus), and studied philosophy and psychology in Germany.

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Map showing Constantinople, the Dardanelles, Thessalonica and Sofia. Vizyi, G. Vizyinos’s village, is part of Eastern Thrace, modern Turkey. The map dates from World War I. (The Dora Kalomoiri Collection – Panorama Cultural Society Archive, Athens)

GEORGIOS VIZYINOS Georgios Vizyinos (1849-1896), author of poems, short stories, children’s literature and essays of philosophical, psychological and ethnological subject matter, is thought of as the pioneer of modern Greek prose. According to Kostis Palamas, he is a “short story writer-poet”, who “has a penchant for novel writing” and his texts, “if published in a community better prepared to receive them, would constitute a great and unforgettable event”. In a span of merely fifteen months (1883-1884) Vizyinos wrote and published five short novels in the periodical Hestia, thus opening the way for a new literary form and at the same time demonstrating unique thematic, narrative and structural inventiveness. Permeating Vizyinos’ writing is the concept of difference and the process of defining it. Consequently, it is also the core of any analysis of the structure of difference in the Balkan Peninsula at the end of the 19th century, a period of conflicts, readjustment and great fluidity. His writing focuses on the theme of difference underlining its ‘fabricated’ character at all levels, such as the religious and cultural and national identity, gender, mental health, social integration and social isolation; within a literary context, it examines what is literature.

The short stories ‘Who was my Brother’s Murderer?’, ‘The only Voyage of his Life’, ‘The Consequences of an Old Story’ and ‘Moskov-Selim’ deal with the controversial subject of relations and the terms of coexistence among Greeks, Slavs and Turks in the Balkans, as well as the dialogue between the Greeks of Greece and the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire and the Diaspora, and also between Europe and modern and ancient Hellenism. The symbolic function of language and the self-referring function of literature are reflected mainly in the short stories ‘Between Piraeus and Naples’ and ‘The only Voyage of his Life’. These issues are also the subject matter of his poems. Apart from its autobiographical, psychological and detective story character, the short story ‘Who was my Brother’s Murderer?’ is essentially a metaphor regarding the possibility or impossibility of coexistence between Greek Orthodox Christians and Muslim Turks in the Ottoman Empire during the last quarter of the 19th century, following the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78. The story is composed around two families, one

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Landscape of Vizyi. (Panorama Cultural Society Archive, Athens)

Turkish and one Greek, and deals with the relations between them, conscious or subconscious. Ignorance or recognition, disregard or misjudgement of the other person causes complications both on the individual and on the collective level. The story is about the imagined, or rather quite unimaginable, cohabitation of a Turk and a Greek woman in Ottoman Thrace three years after the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78. The narrative is in the first person and the narrator Giorgis is the main character in the story. He is the middle son of a Greek woman’s family of three children and the only one who has lived in Europe. The other two children are Christakis – the brother murdered in Thrace before the time of the narrative – and Michailos, who lives with the widowed mother in Thrace. The composition of the Turkish family living in Constantinople is similar: the widowed mother has two children, the eldest one is referred to as Efendi (he is a Young Turk, an interrogator of the Zaptieh), the younger one is called Kiamil and he is a dervish. As the story reveals, Kiamil was the murderer of Christakis, whom – because of his resemblance – he had mistaken for the killer of his fiancée’s brother. At the end of the story he, an insane dervish, is living in the house of the Greek mother watering the flowers on her son’s grave, without her knowing the truth. The mingling of the innocent and the guilty, the sane and the insane, Greeks and Turks, modernists and conservatives, provides (on a metaphorical level) a very convincing picture of

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Ottoman Thrace. And it becomes even more convincing because all events are further complicated and darkened by the Russian invasion of 1877-78 and by the incursion of Slavs into Thrace, which will eventually lead to the Greater Bulgaria of 1881 and will underline the danger of Panslavism at the end of the 19th century. The three Greek siblings, each with his own point of view, express three different opinions about the coexistence of Greeks and Turks. That is one way of interpreting the short story if we project what happens within and between the two families on a collective level. Christakis emphatically refuses to live under the same roof with the Turk Kiamil. The outcome of this refusal is for him to die at the hand of Kiamil, who has never seen the face of the son of the woman who saved his life. On the other side, Michailos, the prankster, takes a different view of cohabitation. He lives without thinking too much about the reality around him and he survives. The most complicated feeling on the issue of cohabitation is the one shown by Giorgis. He initially refuses the invitation to stay at the Turkish house preferring a hotel, then later he accepts it, though only for one night and stays in the garden kiosk. That night of partial cohabitation was revealing, because it was when he learnt that his brother’s murderer was Kiamil, who disclosed the fact to him. The upshot of all these views on the coexistence of Greeks and Turks is defined by the mother’s attitude, who declares

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that she wants to find out who the murderer of her son was, while at the same time she does not want to know the identity of the person who is living with her. This is an example of what might be referred to as ‘foreclosure’ in psychoanalysis, since on the one hand she accepts the status quo of cohabitation and on the other denies the reality of this cohabitation. Thus the mother, without being aware of it, expresses what her three sons are consciously mulling over. Here one should note the absence of the father – both physical and for want of naming – which symbolises the lack of an authority to amalgamate the various contradictions. The short story ‘The only Voyage of his Life’ dwells on the significance of the space separating oral speech from written word, metaphor from literal sense, dream state from wakefulness and real from imaginary. This intervening space is in proportion to the controversial distinction between male and female (sex or gender) and is the area of the symbolic, the area of language. The adult first-person narrator of the story – who is the character of the ten-year old grandson many years later – describes a relationship of fascination and disappointment with individuals of the same name as the author, that is

the grandfather and the ten-year old grandson (all called ‘Yorgis’). In this relationship the grandson has believed his grandfather’s fanciful yarns about his voyages to be true stories, even though they were related by a grandfather who up to his tenth year of age had been under the impression that he was a girl. Did he actually believe his grandfather, or is he trying in retrospect to defend what he is, by making up a narrative about the past that presents a series of events as causes and effects? The text does not answer this kind of question. That is why the story does not allow the reader to know whether the grandson’s dreams, in which the grandfather appears as dead, are the realistic element of the story, or whether the meeting described subsequently between grandfather and grandson is a daydream or the product of delirium. In conclusion, one could say that in his short stories Vizyinos was the first to deal with important issues of modern Greek literature, such as the concepts of ‘structure’ and ‘difference’ and the effectiveness of the literary text. These issues will be dealt with in greater detail when considering the writings of Constantine Cavafy, which the poet had already begun to compose.

Front page of Vizyinos’ Ph.D. thesis in German, published 1881. Munich Library. Combined degree in philosophy, psychology and literature. Georgios Vizyinos, photograph in Poikile Stoa. Illustrated National Annual, Year Ten, 1894. (E.L.I.A. Archive)

Translation of Moscov-Selim by Vizyinos in Turkish.

France 1995

Moscov-Selim was published in 1895, the year when its author was committed to a psychiatric asylum. It is the story of a Turkish soldier, who after 20 years of service in the Sultan’s army, is taken captive by the Russians and transported to Russia. Upon his return from captivity he changes his views and becomes pro-Russian. Public opinion considers him as marginal – either insane or a traitor. It is interesting that the Greek narrator and character not only does not subscribe to public opinion, but he reconsiders the prevalent historical view on the fate of Turkish prisoners so as to justify the Russophilia of the main character. Things do not end here: the final phrase “and the Turk remained a Turk”, which accompanies the announcement of Selim’s death, juxtaposes the collective against the the individual.

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Syros – Miaouli Square. Postcard from the early 1900s. (E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

EMMANUEL ROIDIS AN EVER-MODERN AUTHOR Emmanuel Roidis (1836-1904), distinguished cosmopolitan writer and great stylist of katharevousa, the purist form of the Greek language, is Greece’s modernist author, whose work, although he died nearly one hundred years ago, has an undiminished quality of timelessness that persists to the present day. Equipped with an outstanding education and a unique sensitivity, he belongs to the most radical group of writers in modern Greek literature. His work delights us with its intelligence, sparkling style and critical acerbity, while its unconventional spirit is expressed with strength, grace and virtuosity. Precise phrasing, a powerful aesthetic and accuracy of synthesis give an enduring quality to his work which provides a constant source of reference and quotation of undisputed authority for writers of future generations. As unrivalled master of the Greek language, Roidis’ oeuvre is still lively and supremely enjoyable and acts as a considerable influence on contemporary literary awareness. He was born in 1836 in Syros, administrative capital of the Cycladic islands with the most important port in the Eastern Mediterranean and a flourishing urban centre. He was brought up and studied in many cities in Western Europe and visited several Greek communities abroad. After some years, Roidis finally settled in Athens, abandoning his trading activities as well as a successful family business. He became famous at the age of thirty, following the publication of his provoca-

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tive novel, Pope Joan, in 1866. This sensational book was translated immediately into many European languages and was, until the mid-20th century, the most widely translated Greek novel. Numerous Greek editions have been published up to the present day as well as many new editions of the translations. Lawrence Durrell and Alfred Jarry are two of the many distinguished translators of Pope Joan. Roidis had a wide-ranging Greek and European education. Major literary works of Greek and Roman antiquity as well as the works of leading European authors contributed to his intellectual make-up. Writers such as Dante, Shakespeare, Swift, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Honoré de Balzac and Heine were inspirational to the writing of Pope Joan, and Don Juan by Lord Byron had an undoubted influence on the novel. The writer drew upon Byron’s remarkable poem for satirical and narrative techniques as well as for a sharp critical faculty, surprising imagery, a subversive attitude and a contemptuous view of the world. The same impulse motivated both Pope Joan and Don Juan : repudiation of established values – political, social and intellectual. This, combined with a provocative cynicism, proved an effective weapon in the conflict with hypocrisy, human folly and corruption. An astonishingly original and fascinating work, Pope Joan is the female Greek version of Don Juan. Roidis’ ambitious and cynical heroine wanders around medieval Europe in the ninth century. After living in Byzantine Athens disguised as a Catholic monk, Joan eventually arrives in Rome where she is acclaimed Pope. The author’s main goals are to produce a satire on the Western and Eastern Churches, and to highlight the subversion of the West during the middle Byzantine period

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but, perhaps most important of all, he sets out to achieve a critical analysis of contemporary Greek reality. The famous scandal provides the core of the plot while Roidis’ fine language and brilliant expressive powers ensure literary enjoyment as well as extreme aesthetic pleasure. As soon as it was published the Greek Church banned the book and it is denounced even today. At the same time, it is one of the most widely known works of modern Greek literature. A deeply romantic writer and latter-day representative of neoHellenic enlightenment, Roidis exemplifies the homo universalis of the world of Greek letters. He not only followed developments in the field of natural sciences, but also studied theology, philosophy and aesthetics in Berlin; in addition he published articles on art, the theatre and music criticism. At the same time, he composed reflections and maxims, engaged in historical research and was systematically involved in writing articles on politics, social problems and the foreign policy of Greece. Roidis was the first to bring the works of Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe, Zola, Dostoyevsky and Charles Darwin before the Greek public. He also contributed to literary magazines and political newspapers, he founded and/or managed newspapers, was actively involved in the political life of the country, and was responsible for some outstanding writing in the history of Greek journalism. Above all, this versatile, multi-talented intellectual was a man of letters. As French writer, Jules Laforgue, was to observe later, “Les lettres l’avaient bien nourri”. Literature was, indeed, Roidis’ greatest love. All his writings, whether political, diplomatic, journalistic or even encyclopaedic publications, are founded on a deep knowledge of literature and, in their references to other literary works, they reveal him to be a lover and master of the art. In the last years of his life he became a short-story writer. Much-loved animals and the deluded voters of Greek politicians are the main protagonists in his stories, whereas a hopelessly enamoured husband is characterized in one of the best esoteric soliloquies in the Greek language.

Pope Joan, 16th century. Thomas Murner, Gäuchmatt, Basel, 1519. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

I am ashamed to admit it. Eight months have passed since I got married and I am still in love with my wife, but the main reason why I got married in the first place is that I dislike the state of being in love. No other illness is quite so tortuous. I can neither eat, nor sleep; I cannot work nor find amusement in anything. Apart from Christina I find everything boring, tasteless, dull, insipid and wearisome.

Apart from his endless anguish, the famous husband of modern Greek prose goes on to confess his unshakeable loyalty in a definitive last statement: The gates to this supreme voluptuousness cannot be opened by a shy virgin, a loving husband or an adoring mistress but only by a coquettish, capricious woman, who is of no use during daylight hours.1

Roidis, author of Pope Joan and Short Stories from Syros, was one of the great novelists of modern Greek literature. He was also a foremost translator and introduced many works of European literature into the Greek language. At the same time he was the first modern Greek literary critic – a scholar who contributed to the shaping of a new aesthetic awareness. The 1. Psychology of a Husband from Syros, 1894.

Emmanuel Roidis, Atelier ‘Le Progrès’. (E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

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Emmanuel Roidis. (National Hellenic Research Foundation)

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critic Roidis was familiar with all the major works of European aesthetics and literary criticism and, to a great extent, he owed his theoretical knowledge to those works. On the extensive list of European critics who inspired him are many celebrated writers, such as Samuel Johnson, Jean-Paul, A. W. Schlegel, Hegel, Sainte Beuve, and Hippolyte Taine. Ten years after the publication of Pope Joan, at a time when Greek literature was in a critical state of transition, Roidis found inspiration in the works of European aesthetes and in the method of Taine. He established new orientations, infusing European speculation into modern Greek criticism and imposing a sociological approach Ôn the study of art and literature. A dominant figure in the cultural life of Greece for forty years, Roidis established a School and had a profound effect on

younger writers. His creative influence was also decisive on major writers such as Constantine Cavafy. Earlier, his critics had been sharply divided into either dedicated followers or fanatical opponents. He was labelled “irreverent”, “venomous” and the “despiser of Modern Greece” – whilst at the same time he was praised for being a “pioneer”, “forerunner” and a “fighter”. Today, Roidis is numbered amongst the great classical and modern Greek authors. A keen wit, a delicate sense of irony, pervasive satire and above all an elegant and original style characterize the products of Roidis’ brilliant career as a writer. His refined literary taste and the combination of Greek learning with the achievements of European civilisation are acknowledged to be the main concerns and significance of his work.

Right: Translations by E. Roidis of short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Below: In France Emmanuel Roidis’ Pope Joan was translated by Alfred Jarry (in collaboration with Jean Saltas) in 1908. Actes Sud republished in 1992. In England Pope Joan was translated by Lawrence Durrell in 1954.

France 1908

France 1992

France 1993

France 1994

England 1954

Germany 1904

Poland 196?

Spain 1998

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ALEXANDROS PAPADIAMANTIS FROM PROVINCIAL TO INTERNATIONAL

Drawing of A. Papadiamantis by Fotis Kontoglou (see p. 203), 1947. (C. Diamantouros collection)

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The l9th century was an experimental period in Greek literature. After the heroic war of independence from Ottoman rule which opened in 1821, the intellectual elite of the newly established nation state experienced their first major disappointment. At last, living in a free and independent state, Greek writers began to recognize the enormous cultural gulf that separated them from the rest of Europe. As a result, they attempted to make up for their lack of cultural and artistic vigour by imitating the important European literary trends of the time. Some turned towards the utopia of Classicism while the majority adopted late Romanticism. Most of intellectuals cherished the hope of a second national uprising restoring Greece beyond the shores of Asia Minor. It was against this historical and cultural backround that Alexandros Papadiamantis first appeared and started writing. He was probably the only 19th-century Greek author who succeeded in breaking away both from nostalgia for a magnificent past that was lost for ever and from a paralysing provincialism, and who also succeeded “in simply looking around himself ”. Consequently, he opened up for his country – just as Gogol did for Russia – an extraordinary new chapter in the art of prose writing, in respect of both the short story and the novel. It would be unreasonable to maintain that before Papadiamantis Greek novelists did not exist. His innovative contribution, however, rests on the fact that he managed to reconcile his Greek thematic material with an autonomous and imaginary universe of his own. In other words, he liberated Greek prose from an aesthetic mould that had developed in Europe over many centuries and which corresponded with a daily life that was bourgeois, highly individual and completely foreign to Greek reality. Papadiamantis was born in 1851 in Skiathos, an island in the north-west Aegean, where he died in the year 1911. He completed his high school education after considerable delay owing to economic difficulties. His father was the village priest and was only just able to earn enough to support his large family. In 1873 Papadiamantis moved to Athens and followed courses in philology at Athens University. Soon the need to earn a living forced him to interrupt his studies and turn to translating. He translated from English and French mostly for the daily press and his work included authors such as Dumas, Dostoyevsky, Alphonse Daudet, Kipling, Maupassant, Sienkiewicz, Robert Louis Stevenson, Turgenev, Mark Twain and Zola. His life evolved far removed from the literary salons and petty ambitions of the artistic world of the time. A bachelor all his life, he liked to drink wine with local people and to sing in church choirs, demonstrating his steadfast faith in Christianity and his deep respect for Orthodox spiritual and secular heritage. Papadiamantis’ first novel, The Immigrant, was published in serialized form in a Constantinople newspaper in 1880. It tells of a beautiful love affair which is destroyed by local gossip and calumny – two destructive elements that Papadiamantis returns to again and again in his writing. Two historical novels follow: The Merchants of the Nations in 1883 and The Gypsy Girl in 1884. In the first novel, the Aegean islands under Venetian rule in the 13th century form the background to a

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tragic love affair. In the second, Papadiamantis tackles the philosopher Georgios Gemistos (otherwise known as Plethon) who advocated in the mid 15th century a return to idolatry. Subsequently, and until the end of his life, Papadiamantis wrote shorter prose pieces– from one to three hundred pages long. They were mostly short stories but they also included novels such as The Murderess and Rosy Shores. In this second phase, his central themes of religion, love, history and society were drawn from life on the island of Skiathos and from contemporary Athens. His characters, whether real or imaginary, are based on the small, still enclosed Greek society of the mid 19th century.

Throughout his life, Papadiamantis’ work was published exclusively in magazines and newspapers. However, his Complete Works were eventually published in l954. Even though they had appeared piecemeal, the works of Papadiamantis continued to be read by Greek people of every social class. As for the literary world, distinguished writers from Constantine Cavafy to George Seferis were deeply impressed by his originality and creativity. The writing of Papadiamantis has an essentially universal appeal. In works such as The Murderess (1903), in which the compassionate grandmother kills the little girls so that they may never know the sufferings of life, Rosy Shores (1908), in

Skiathos, c.1960. (Photo by D. Papadimos, E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

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A. Papadiamantis photographed by the writer Pavlos Nirvanas in Dexameni Square, Athens. (Panathinea Review, Oct. 1906 – E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

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A. Papadiamantis photographed by the writer K. Hadzopoulos. (Nea Zoë Review, April 1908 – E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

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which a private love affair is ridiculed and silenced by public opinion, or ‘The Dead Voyager’ (1910), in which the miraculous Virgin guides a drowned sailor back to his homeland to be buried, Papadiamantis succeeded in reintroducing local features into the mysteries which man confronts and into the wider cultural conflicts secreted in the depths of his soul. He succeeded in imprinting on successive layers of the customs and lore of a small island all the motley of accretions of Hellenism and, in a more general way, of our European legacy: the Christian chapel, ruins of ancient temples, pagan relations with nature, the monastery, the passion for learning, the West, the East, Dionysiac joy, scepticism, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Byron and Rabelaisian laughter. The work of Papadiamantis has not been sufficiently translated – possibly because its international appeal has not

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yet been demonstrated. Also possibly because its idiomatic language – a poetic mixture of Gospel, katharevousa (the purist form of the Greek language) and popular expression – alienates today’s publishers. Nearly a century after his death Papadiamantis nevertheless remains the most sought-after author in the world of Greek letters following the formation of the Greek nation-state. There has never been a time when readers were not divided over his standing as an author, but equally there has never been a Greek who did not read and love one of his works. Perhaps, now that Europeans are anxious about their national identity, the time has come to sail this Ark beyond the borders of Greece; this Ark in which are preserved with such abundant artistry, knowledge and love all the remains of our Greek civilization and culture, both those that display our differences as well as those that unite us.

Complete Works, Greece

Easter Tales, Greece 1918

Translation of Crime and Punishment by Alexandros Papadiamantis

Occasional review dedicated to Papadiamantis studies

France 1992

France 1996

France 1995

England 1983

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GRIGORIOS XENOPOULOS

KONSTANTINOS THEOTOKIS

It may be that the first novels of Grigorios Xenopoulos (18671951), represent a minority ‘opposition’ to the dominant folkloric realism of the time, and should be seen as the neglected forerunners of an urban tradition that only came fully into its own in the first decade of the twentieth century. On the other hand, the (justified) excitement at the rediscovery and reassessment of these neglected texts should not obscure the adherence of most of them to the dominant ‘folkloric’ model of the period, as that was defined above. The focus in them is frequently on a community rather than on an individual, and descriptive details of setting and social behaviour are no less prominent than in the rural ethography of the time. It would not be unreasonable to suggest, then, that the urban fiction of the last two decades of the nineteenth century gives a distinctive ‘twist’ to folkloric realism without fundamentally challenging its preoccupation with social groups and with individuals, either representative or ‘picturesque’, whose fates are presented as the inescapable consequences of their social and physical environment. The same could also be said, despite its subtitle ‘An Athenian Novel’, for The Wax Doll, the posthumously published work of Konstantinos Christomanos, who after many years in the service of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria returned to Athens and left behind this rather lushly written novel which appeared as late as 1911.

Born into the Corfu aristocracy in 1872, Konstantinos Theotokis studied in Graz and died at the age of 51 in 1923. His greatest influence was the Russian novel and he became a committed socialist. His prose writing was deeply social in orientation, and with narratives such as The Life and Death of the ‘Hangman’ (1920) he treats themes such as the obsession with private ownership and the love of profit and money. Theotokis was a skilled anatomist of the great class divisions and conflicts of his time. His prose is grounded in passion and romanticism, but his contact with socialism and its theoretical underpinnings resulted in an abiding interest in direct social experience, which he sought to present through human conflicts, often so intense that they lead to disaster. In these conflicts the human conscience, inextricably bound up with its environment, is centre stage. Although an outcast of his own class and its ideology, Theotokis never permitted his work to be ‘committed’ in the narrow sense, and for this reason continues to be read today, with undiminished interest.

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KOSTIS PALAMAS

Woodcut by Kostas Grammatopoulos. (N.H.R.F.)

(Collection of the Parnassos Literary Club)

Georgios Roilos’ painting The Poet Aristomenis Provelengios Reading one of his Works to a Group of Poets depicts (from left to right) G. Stratigis, G. Drosinis, I. Polemis, K. Palamas, G. Souris and A. Provelengios, all poets of the 1880s generation. The painting’s subject (the friendly gathering of fellow poets to listen to a recitation of poetry) reflects the sense of camaraderie typical of that generation. This attitude was the outcome of the poets’ fervent involvement in vital spiritual and social issues, the most important of which was to establish the demotic language as the language of literature. On the other hand, the way in which Roïlos arranged the group of poets suggests the hierarchical order among them. Palamas, positioned at the centre of the painting, affable yet pensive, attracts the viewer’s eye and emerges as the heart of the group. Indeed, most of the poets of Palamas’ age acclaimed him as their spiritual leader. Opposite page : Palamas in front of Kaufman, the international bookstore in the centre of Athens, c. 1925 (National Hellenic Research Foundation, donated by K.T. Dimaras )

The poet and critic Kostis Palamas (Patra 1859-Athens 1943) dominated the Greek literary scene for almost fifty years, from about 1880 until 1930. With his eighteen books of poetry published between 1886-1935 and the abundance of essays and articles that he wrote during the same period, he is considered the chief proponent of the fundamental changes brought about in Greek letters by the 1880s generation, the generation of which he was undeniably the greatest poet. Palamas promoted, perhaps more than anyone else, the use of the colloquial language in literature, establishing its eventual dominance, and contributed to the appreciation of Greek popular culture. He worked tirelessly in the cause of literature and, as a recluse within the four walls of his house next to Athens University – hardly ever travelling –, he lived every moment of his long life in the enjoyment of his compulsive writing. His Complete Works, published in sixteen compendious volumes between 1962-1969, include only his most important literary and critical texts, whereas the full edition of his Complete Works to be published shortly by the Palamas Foundation will extend to about fifty volumes. It is difficult for the contemporary reader to find his way through the work of Palamas because of its broad scope and its seeming lack of focus. On the one hand, Palamas’ work is infused by patriotism and love for his country – a prevalent attitude in the literature of the 1880s. Palamas believed that the idea of patriotism should be developed in harmony with the ideals of Art, emphasising that “I am a lover of my country, not a nationalist”. As regards his aesthetic standards, Palamas attempted not only to express all aspects of contemporary Greek reality, but also to achieve an imaginary synthesis of the various stages of Greek culture (classical, Byzantine and modern) in order to demonstrate its essential unity. Thus, the Byzantine era, hitherto disparaged in Greek poetry, was given special prominence. This essential unity of Greek culture is clearly apparent in Palamas’ style and subjects. He exploited the whole range of Greek literature in a masterly manner. Classical literature, religious texts, Byzantine historiography, late Byzantine popular texts, folk songs, works of the Cretan Renaissance, and the poetry of Valaoritis and Solomos were, on occasion, sources of inspiration and creative dialogue for Palamas. Consequently, his poetry displays the highest degree of versatility when compared with the work of any other modern Greek poet. On the other hand, this ‘Hellenocentric’ trait of Palamas’ work is fruitfully combined with various elements of contemporary European literature, philosophy and ideology in general. More than any other Greek of his time, Palamas followed developments in contemporary European art. Thus, his earlier works are influenced by the style of the French Parnassian School, although enrichment of form and experiments with innovative rhythms are to be found throughout his work. Subsequently his poetry was moulded by symbolism. Palamas’ work, however, in regard to its philosophical and ideological content, is characterized primarily by variety. Both his poetic and critical texts contain elements of Nietzscheism – the concept of Superman eradicating all statutory ‘idols’ of civilisation is uppermost in his synthetic poem The Twelve Lays of the Gypsy – continued on p. 137

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and of socialism (some of his works express the hope that proletarian power will provide the solution to social problems). They also reveal an attraction to applied sciences and modern technological achievements, as, for instance, the invention of the aeroplane, for which he wrote a poem. Though Palamas embraced a multitude of diverse and in some cases conflicting ideas, ultimately he endorsed none of them. This conciliatory or even contradictory ideological stance, displaying a combination of progressive and conservative ideas, may be interpreted as conforming with a principle which the poet himself suggested and which was subsequently elaborated by critics. The key to this principle is the notion of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. In other words, the various contradictions or disparities that may

Greece 1912

Denmark

Greece 1907

Switzerland 1942

Opposite page : Palamas in his old age in 1934 at his home, which he called his “cell”. (E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

imply an intellectual instability, finally lead the poet to the act of creation through the profounder inner harmony induced in him by his art. It is art, the art of poetry, that provides the synthesis arising from diverse assertions and contradictions. It is the absolute affirmation and the final purpose. What the critics described as an all-embracing ideology and an allembracing poetic scope in Palamas’ work incorporates the poet’s unifying concept of poetry. Palamas adopts the abstract and ideal concept of poetry that leads to ‘music’, that is, to the poet’s absolute subordination to the service of the Muses, and ultimately to the Idea, namely the culmination and consolidation of thought. In several of his poetical and critical works Palamas has described the poet as “the highest peak”, “philoso-

Greece 1910

France 1931

England 1974

Greece 1982

Am I alone? No, I am not alone, not I. Within my humble darksome cell heroes, men, gods, like lightclouds stir before me. They look like dreams, like rosy dawn’s black phantoms; and from a nook something similar to an angel watches me and keeps on watching me. Am I alone? No, I am not alone, not I. Poem No. 62 in the section titled ‘A Hundred Voices’ in The Inert Life, 1904 (Complete Works, v. 3, p.163)

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pher”, “citizen of the Universe”, “prophet”, “Messiah of song” and “theanthropos”. Critics have attempted to interpret Palamas’ all-embracing ideas and all-embracing poetry as a sign of many-faceted dualism or even imbalance both in his mental state (his moods ranged from querulous melancholia to boundless optimism and energy) and in his work. As far as his work alone is concerned, one may point to one more dual pattern, named by the poet himself as, on the one hand the “lyricism of the I” and on the other the “lyricism of the We”, given expression in his ‘grand vision’ poems. The ‘lyricism of the I’ pervades his minor tone lyric poems, the melancholic or ominous ones that have to do with the private world of the individual. Schematically, we could include in his lyrical poetry Palamas’ collections Iambs and Anapaests (1897), The Grave (1898), The Inert Life (1904), Heartaches of the Lagoon (1912) and Nights of Phemius (1935). The “lyricism of the We” is expressed in his longer major tone epic compositions, in which he is at pains to give his poetry a national or even universal perspective. His most significant works in this category are The Twelve Words of the Gypsy (1907), The King’s Flute (1910) and Altars (1915). Palamas wrote: “It is not possible for me to be a poet for myself alone. I am a poet of my time and my fellow coun-

trymen”. Present-day aesthetic criteria are clearly in favour of the “lyricism of the I”. Conversely, Palamas’ long and composite poems are laden with grandiloquence, rhetoric and intellectualism; it was Palamas’ principle that “poetry owes its superiority to the fact that among all the arts it is the most intellectual”. The poem ‘Palm Tree’ is held to be the epitome of Palamas’ art. It is a short composite poem of thirty-nine eightline stanzas written in 1900 and published in The Inert Life in 1904. In this poem symbolism, musicality and versification are evolved and combined as never before or since by Palamas, making it perhaps the most perfected and successful of all symbolist poems in the Greek language. Palamas’ extensive literary criticism is considered his most important contribution to Greek letters. He has been named “the premier philologist of Modern Greek letters” (Linos Politis) and founder of modern Greek criticism. Palamas established the scale of values for the ‘demoticist’ literary tradition by applying standards of literary criticism in his numerous essays to virtually all of his antecedent modern Greek poets and prose writers (his “ancestors”) and to the authors of his own time as well. The rules of modern Greek literature, as determined by Palamas, are in general terms still valid today, confirming Palamas’ intellectual awareness and critical perception.

Palamas around 1900. (National Hellenic Research Foundation)

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Satirical drawing by Ilias Koumetakis (1889-1979) on the Balkan Wars parodying the role of foreign powers and their economic interests in Asia Minor. (Angeliki Papadopoulou Archive - E.L.I.A.)

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C.P. CAVAFY

C.P. Cavafy. (E.L I.A. - Egyptian Archive)

Alexandria - East Port Wharf. Postcard from the beginning of the 20th century. (E.L.I.A. - Egyptian Archive)

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In Alexandria, Egypt, on the south-eastern periphery of the Greek diaspora where he lived most of his seventy years (18631933), Constantine P. Cavafy wrote the poetry that was to earn him international recognition as one of the most important poets of the twentieth century. Cavafy is reported to have called himself, late in life, a “poet of old age”, comparing himself with Anatole France who “wrote his colossal work after the age of forty-five”. Indeed, it was after he reached his fortieth year, following a poetic crisis which led to what he termed a ‘philosophical scrutiny’ of his earlier poetic production (1903-04), that Cavafy discovered his own poetic voice – that “unique tone of voice” as W.H. Auden has called it that “survives translation”. The process of discovery was a long one: it lasted some twenty years, at the latest from 1882, when he wrote his first extant poem, to around 1903. Along the way, drawing from his wide reading in European (especially English and French) literature, Cavafy experimented with the poetic idioms of Romanticism, the ‘Parnasse’ and Symbolism. Poems written during the 1880s (but also into the 1890s) bear the imprint of Romantic influences – Shelley, Keats, Lady Anne Barnard, Hugo, as well as representatives of Greek Romanticism –, and this at a time when in Greece Romanticism had been declared “dead” by the poet Kostis Palamas, chef de file of the literary ‘Generation of 1880’. The early 1890s saw Cavafy turn in two new directions. On the one hand he adopted the model of the ‘Parnassiens’ in his use of “Ancient Days” (one of his early thematic headings) as a source of poetic inspiration. The attraction of Symbolism was, however, significantly stronger. In the poem ‘Correspondence according to Baudelaire’, written in 1891, he declares his attachment to the French poet’s notions of “correspondences” and synaesthesia, while in ‘The Builders’, written the same year, he echoes Baudelaire’s rejection of the ideal of progress. His adherence to Symbolism and to other associated movements (Aestheticism, Esoterism, Decadence) during the 1890s is evident in a number of other poems as well as in his one short story, ‘In Broad Daylight’. Cavafy’s apprenticeship to various poetic schools during his formative years coincides with his early interest in history. There is abundant evidence of his wide reading in ancient, Byzantine, and European history, as would be expected of a writer who at the age of fifteen had begun compiling a historical dictionary, and who in later years would call himself an “historical poet”. Of particular significance in view of Cavafy’s development are his reading notes on Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Cavafy’s extensive ‘dialogue’ with Gibbon during the years c.1893-1899 makes clear his disagreement with the eighteenth-century historianphilosopher’s unfavourable view of Byzantium and of Christianity, whether on matters of history, spirituality, or aesthetics, as well as his espousal of the views of the Greek Romantic historian Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos, known for his role in the rehabilitation of Byzantium in the modern Greek consciousness during the second half of the nineteenth century. It was in this climate that Cavafy wrote a series of early ‘Byzantine’ poems with a ‘national’ character which he later expressly rejected. For it was shortly after his encounter with Gibbon

STIMULUS AND CREATIVE RESPONSE (1880 - 1930)

David Hockney, Portrait of Cavafy, from Fourteen Poems by C.P. Cavafy chosen and illustrated with 12 etchings by David Hockney, Editions Alecto, London 1966.

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Alexandria, Cook’s Corner. Early 20th-century postcard. (E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

that Cavafy underwent the poetic crisis of the years 18991903 which led to his passage to realism and to poetic maturity. Poems from these years in which Cavafy questions established myths as he ‘rewrites’ episodes from the modern and ancient traditions – Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Wagner’s Lohengrin, the prologue to Aeschylus’ Agamemnon – reflect his rapprochement with Gibbon’s ironic view of history and at the same time his abandonment of Romantic historiography and Symbolist mysticism and aesthetics. The one hundred and fifty-four poems that comprise Cavafy’s recognized work (some thirty additional examples were left unfinished at his death) fall into three categories, which the poet himself identified as follows: poems which, though not precisely ‘philosophical’, “provoke thought”; ‘historical’ poems; and ‘hedonistic’ (or ‘aesthetic’) poems. Many poems may be considered either historical or hedonistic, as Cavafy was also careful to point out. The poems of the first category (to which belong some of Cavafy’s best-known pieces, such as ‘The City’ and ‘Ithaca’), all published before 1916, often display a certain didacticism. The historical poems (often historical in appearance only), the first of which was published in 1906, are usually set in the Hellenistic age (including Late Antiquity), the period which Cavafy believed was “particularly fitting as a context for his characters”, although Byzantium does not disappear entirely from his poetry. Beginning in 1917 the poems of this category take on a political (in the broad sense) element which gains in importance as it interweaves with questions such as religion and ethics. As for

the third category, Cavafy’s first daringly hedonistic poem (‘Dangerous Thoughts’) was published only in 1911 (the year which Cavafy indicated as a dividing line in his poetic production). Later poems become increasingly explicit – although Cavafy did not begin publishing poems in which the eroticism is specified as homosexual until after 1918 – and acquire a social dimension as they depict characters living on the margins of society in sometimes harshly realistic settings. Cavafy was keenly aware that his poetry was ahead of its time, especially within the sphere of modern Greek letters. The poem ‘For the Shop’, published in 1913, speaks of this awareness: a craftsman of exquisite jewels, “beautiful according to his taste, to his desire, his vision”, will “leave them in the safe, examples of his bold, his skilful work”. The “safe” would in fact remain closed for several years, for although Cavafy’s work had been presented to the Athenian public in 1903 by the writer Grigorios Xenopoulos, it was either ignored or ridiculed by the literati of the metropolis until around 1918, when it began to gain wider acceptance – although the voices of detractors were still audible. The reasons for the negative criticism were diverse: Cavafy’s language, a subtle mixture of demotic and purist Greek not in keeping with the directives of the ‘demoticist’ movement; his style, considered prosaic; his lack of idealism; his bold eroticism. It is therefore not surprising that in an interview reportedly given three years before his death (1930) Cavafy described himself as “an ultramodern poet, a poet of future generations” whose poetry “will continued on p. 147

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C.P. Cavafy. ( E.L.I.A. - Cavafy Archive)

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a.

b.

c.

d.

C.P. Cavafy, Poems, Alexandria, 1915-1924. Booklet with sixty-nine poems printed on separate sheets, with corrections by Cavafy. a. Cover, b. Part of the poem ‘Demaratos’, c. Contents, d. Manuscript continuation of contents. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

Cavafy printed his poems on separate sheets of paper which he then bound together to form a collection. He was thus able to add new poems, or to remove or correct older ones, thereby adjusting the contents each time he ‘reissued’ the collection.

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Manuscript of the poem ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’. (E.L.I.A. - Cavafy Archive)

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Above: Alexandria, Rue Chérif Pascha. Below: Rue de la gare de Ramleh. Early 20th-century postcards. Cavafy lived in this neighbourhood. (E.L.I.A - Egyptian Archive)

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not simply be closed within libraries as part of the historical record of the development of modern Greek literature”. Cavafy’s prediction was fulfilled. Not only is his work read more in Greece now than it was during his lifetime, but it has travelled well beyond the confines of the modern Greek literary world. It was Cavafy’s friend E.M. Forster who in his essay ‘The Poetry of C.P. Cavafy’, published in 1919, first presented to the English public the “Greek gentleman in a straw hat, standing absolutely motionless at a slight angle to the

universe”. The first English translation of the Cavafy ‘canon’ (by John Mavrogordatos) was published in 1951; since then the poet’s work has been translated into most of the world’s languages. But beyond being the most widely translated poet of modern Greece, Cavafy is a poet with whom a host of other poets worldwide have been ‘conversing’ through their own work for over seventy years. His “unique tone of voice”, which he laboured so hard to discover and then to perfect, has thus become the foundation for a rich new poetic dialogue.

Alexandria 1935

Greece 1969

Greece 1968

The Czech Republic 1997

France 1978

England 1972

France 1993

Venezuela 1978

Spain 1991

Italy 1985

U.S.A. 1992

The Netherlands 1984

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The University of Athens seen from Kora˚ Street, Athens. Watercolour, 1927, by Ilias Koumetakis (1889-1979). (Angeliki Papadopoulou Archive - E.L.I.A.)

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K.G. KARYOTAKIS FROM NEO-SYMBOLISM TO MODERNISM

Sketch of the poet, published August 1923, N. Kastanakis.

In Greece, the decade of the l920s signalled a period of manifold crises: ideological, political and social. The experience of national discord and the Asia Minor catastrophe of 1922 seriously injured the concept of Greek ‘grand idealism’. The dictatorship of Pangalos (1925-1926) and a succession of governmental crises (1926-1928) created an atmosphere of widespread instability and insecurity. The refugee problem, unemployment and the wretchedness of state employees sparked a series of protest demonstrations and demands from the unions. Lofty poetry, written by writers such as Kostis Palamas and Angelos Sikelianos, was replaced by gentle lyricism – a poetry that sprang from the convergence of symbolism and aestheticism at the start of the l9th century, but which was later enriched with shades of deeper emotion during the first decade between the wars. Contending with a series of ideological, existential and social obstacles, young writers sought refuge in art, love, even the artificial world of narcotics and were inspired, either fleetingly or permanently, by a vision of social revolution. Their poetic experiments were grounded in the lyricism of the older Symbolists such as Kostas Hatzopoulos, Lambros Porfyras and Miltiadis Malakasis, the aestheticism of Napoleon Lapathiotis and the fanciful audacity of Romos Filyras, whereas their symbolic imagery was drawn from Baudelaire and the “accursed poets”. Young people in the 1920s tended to live unconventionally, identifying life with art and preferring the honesty of experienced emotion to the heroic rhetoric of so-called sublime poetry. Nevertheless, despite their sensitive lyrical assertions, they did not succeed in advancing, poetically, the complex dynamic of their period. Kostas Karyotakis, however, constitutes a unique and important exception. While setting out from a common starting point he was to surpass the others “quickly and successively”, to quote the poet and critic Tellos Agras. Karyotakis gave existential depth as well as a tragic dimension to the emotional nuances and melancholic tones of the neo-Symbolist and new-Romantic poetry of the time. With a rare clarity of spirit and penetrating vision, he captures and conveys with poetic daring the climate of dissolution and the impasses of his generation, as well as the traumas of his own inner spiritual world.

At that moment a dry bay leaf falls, the plea for you to live, and strips you bare.

Karyotakis with his sister, nephew and a friend, Sikia, summer 1927.

Meanwhile, Karyotakis cultivated a poetic language that escapes from his personal world and confronts the challenges of his surroundings. As a poet who combines veracity of experience with a superbly crafted poetic form and a precision of language which moves between lyric sentiment and realism of thought, Karyotakis brought a new sensitivity to Greek poetry. His suicide, in 1928, in a distant province where he had been exiled by a vindictive and autocratic regime, was considered a poetic deed, par excellence, and was the reason why he became a symbol for the younger generation of the time. Even so, this shattering chapter of his life-story does not altogether explain the revival of interest in his poetry among later generations of mostly young readers which continues up to the present day. Karyotakis, whilst analysing his personal quest in

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Karyotakis, early in 1920.

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a voice of shattering sincerity, exposes “the futile open sore in the sun”, like the “Don Quixotes” in his poem of the same name. He then assumes a more universal voice and succeeds in expressing the other man’s opinion. His lasting appeal is to be found in the unique gravity of his poetry, a poetry that at the same time transcends the biography of the poet and the frontiers of the period in which he lived. Precisely because the events of his life are accompanied by a high degree of artistic awareness and a personal stance that is both uncompromising and incorruptible they contribute to the creation of a myth that reflects ancient tragedy. The hero, crushed by adverse forces of fate, is in the end morally vindicated and achieves immortality. The son of a high-ranking civil servant, K. G. Karyotakis, was born in 1896 in Tripolis in the district of Arcadia. His early childhood and teenage years were spent in various places, following his family’s successive moves around the Greek provinces. He studied at the Athens Law School and in 1921 became a civil servant. That year, he published his first collection of poems, The Pain of Humans and Things. Although related in their approach and thematic material to the Greek neoSymbolist movement, these poems incorporate the germs of a different intensity and a daring verse technique that were to form the main elements of his later poetic style. Karyotakis’ basic point of reference is neither in a Greek-centred poetic tradition nor in the melancholic delicacy of the Gallicised Greek poet Jean Moréas, but in the strange poetic alchemy of Charles Baudelaire. ‘People who carry the evil hour within them’ is the sub-title of the first poem in the collection and refers directly to Baudelaire’s introduction to the translation of Histoires extraordinaires by Edgar Allan Poe, an author whom Karyotakis passionately admired. This phrase – though possibly incompatible with a young twenty-three years-old – was eventually to prove prophetic. In other words, the poet feels he belongs to a distinctive group of people – “those richly endowed with poetry and passion” (trop riches de poésie et de passion) for whom “fiendish Providence” (Providence diabolique) “prepared evil from their cradles” and threw into “hostile places” (milieux hostiles). In Nepenthe (The Opiate), published in 1921, the reference to Baudelaire is more direct and opportune, since the French writer’s poem ‘La voix’ acts as a prologue to the book, whilst the title of the poem, even though taken from The Odyssey, is borrowed from Baudelaire (see ‘Un mangeur d’opium’, ‘La Léthé’). Art is viewed as a narcotic plant, something “to soothe away pain”, in the words of Constantine Cavafy, a poet who had a subconscious but decisive influence on Karyotakis’ path to maturity. Translated works, mostly by French poets, are also included in this and in his subsequent collection of poetry. For example, he selects works by Heinrich Heine, Paul Verlaine, François Villon, Jean Moréas, Francis Carco and Tristan Corbière, poets who complement his style, while at the same time he lends them the freshness of his youthful originality so that they read like Greek poetry or even poems by Karyotakis himself. Elegies and Satires (1927) is the last and most complete collection of poems published by Karyotakis. A landmark

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Manuscript of Karyotakis’ poem ‘Optimism’.

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work in the history of Greek poetry of the 20th century, it is remarkable for its simplicity of expression, its condensed meaning, its existential anguish and the social pressure endured by the poet.

We are like broken guitars. When the wind passes over verses, discordant sounds, it awakens strings which hang like chains. In Elegies and Satires as well as in the short stories that the poet wrote the year before his suicide, his propensity for conflict and the sharpness of his social criticism emphasise the distance which separated him from the Symbolist movement and from his own starting-point. The misery of life as a government employee, the nightmare of syphilis, ship-wrecked emotions, his surprising and dynamic involvement in the union movement, are all elements of a personal history that are transmuted in a work of amazing potency, rooted in the underlying ideology of the period. Artistic and social dissension and the role of the poet in the modern world are the loom on which texts are woven that speak of denial, corruption, the abyss, the void and of despair and death in a tone that is now angrier and less melancholic. This rage, coloured both by elegiac lyricism as well as the realism of satire, lends a new chill to his poetry and to the poetry of his period. At the same time, it disturbs the metric harmony and purity of his verse and opens up the path to modernism. Today, there is general agreement on the importance of Karyotakis’ work, despite the fact that, for a long period, it was undervalued on ideological grounds. Greek idealists as well as spokesmen for the Leftist movement reproached him

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Karyotakis lying dead, Preveza.

On 21 July 1928, the poet Kostas Karyotakis after having failed to drown himself the night before, shot himself dead in an orchard in Preveza, aged 32. This photograph comes from police files, which explains the position of the dead poet’s body, arranged for purposes of identification. His arms are folded, his jacket has been straightened out, his straw hat placed next to his head. Karyotakis’ revered position in the history of modern Greek literature and his subsequent canonisation cannot, however, be put down to his suicide – rather his suicide was an expression of his existential anxiety.

for being both pessimistic and decadent and they tried to stifle the striking effect he had on the younger generation. Despite being labelled as a minor poet by critics and philologists until 1970, poets amongst the Communists and surrealists of the inter-war, post-war and later years nevertheless recognised his leading role in the shaping of modern Greek poetry.

Greece 1921

Greece 1927

Greece 1938

Greece 1966

Spain 1996

Finland 1996

The Netherlands

Greece 1989

KOSTAS VARNALIS

K. Varnalis. (E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

Kostas Varnalis, while developing as a poet within the traditions of the Parnassos Group and the neo-Classicists, successfully impersonated the role of poet-prophet in The Pilgrim (1919) and was the first to doubt, not so much the image of Greek poetry, as the role of national poet and his ideological potential. A poet with great talent and a classical education, Varnalis was introduced into the socialist movement in 1920, an event that was to influence decisively his life and work. In 1922 he published The Burning Light and in 1927 The Free Besieged – two poetic compositions which, with their effective satire and daring language, contributed to the subversive climate challenging traditional values and demanded social change; at the same time they secured him a unique place in the history of modern Greek literature.

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ANGELOS SIKELIANOS POET OF THE DELPHIC IDEA

Back cover of the programme of the Delphic Festival. (Gennadius Library, Athens)

Angelos Sikelianos at the Delphic Festival, Delphi 1930. (National Hellenic Research Foundation N.I.R., Modern Greek Portraiture).

Throughout his extensive literary oeuvre, Angelos Sikelianos (1884-1951) combines an authentic lyric gift with powerful poetic inspiration, a passion for Greece with a universal viewpoint and a mystical vision with pagan sensibility. Born on the island of Lefkada, he had the good fortune to spend his childhood and adolescent years surrounded by the unique natural beauty of his homeland and the cultural tradition of the Ionian Islands. After completing high school in Lefkada, Sikelianos went to Athens for university studies which he soon abandoned in order to devote himself uniquely to literature. With his natural good looks, strong personality and prolific poetic talent, he quickly stood out in the artistic circles of the capital. In 1907 he married Eva Palmer, a prosperous young American Philhellene who was passionately devoted to him and who provided the necessary stability for him to dedicate himself to writing poetry. In 1909 Sikelianos published Alafroiskiotos (‘Moonstruck’), a lyrical autobiographical work which vibrates with the poet’s desire to become one with the miracle of nature. One might say that the poet was perhaps influenced by The Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, but the impact of this work was only superficial. The young moonstruck man finds himself mirrored in nature as in the ancient myth of Narcissus but, despite the richness of the language, the work does not transcend the boundaries of demotic or popular Greek poetic idiom. The American poet is more earthy in his outlook and does not hesitate to use words which shock when discussing love-making or the lower social classes. Contrastingly, the ideology and poetry of Sikelianos is more closely associated with that of Gabriele D’Annunzio. Certain aspects of his poetry, as well as the way in which he presents his social image, correspond to his Italian counterpart who was very well known to the Greek intelligentsia. Between the years 1915 and 1917 Sikelianos published his Prologue to Life, a four-volume work entitled Consciousness of my Land, Consciousness of my Race, Consciousness of Woman and Consciousness of Faith. A much later volume, Consciousness of Personal Creativity was published in l947. In these works Sikelianos combines free verse with traditional form, worship of nature with worship of Greece, Ancient with Modern Greece, and Christianity with pantheism. Acting as both prophet and mystic the poet continued to live and work in this vein until the end of the ’30s. In 1917, the death of his sister Penelope, sister-in-law of the dancer Isadora Duncan, provided Sikelianos with the source of inspiration for a long poem entitled ‘Mother of God’. This work, written in fifteen-syllable couplets, is reminiscent of ‘The Cretan’ by Solomos, and is considered the most accomplished of all Sikelianos’ work since it combines musicality with an impressive flow of imagery. In ‘Mother of God’, the emotional lyricism is balanced by Christian faith in everlasting life with the Virgin, portrayed as the sorrowful mother of Orthodoxy coming to comfort the bereaved poet. For Sikelianos, death is not an end, it is a beginning. Two years later, in the poem ‘Easter of the Hellenes’ (1919) he makes the transition from the personal to the universal, while the concept of the Greek character takes on an almost mystical dimension, at the same time as it fuses elements of religion, history and mythology with a united and undivided cosmos. continued on p. 157

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Angelos Sikelianos in 1909.

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Angelos Sikelianos in 1951.

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The decade of the 1920s finds the poet in his prime but it is also a time when poetry is no longer his only field of expression. With the help and encouragement of his wife Eva, he devotes all his energies to the Delphic Idea, the creation of a new world-wide cultural amphictyony. The aim of the movement was the spiritual redemption of modern man by means of a mystical communion, composed of Dionysian and Apollonian elements and centred at ‘the navel of the earth’ – the ancient sanctuary at Delphi. In 1927, the ‘Delphic Word’, a poetic interpretation of the Sikelianos vision, was published and the first Delphic Festival was organised with a performance of Prometheus Bound and the staging of athletic games before a large audience, a great number of whom were foreigners personally invited by the Sikelianos couple. The Delphic Festival generated considerable publicity, but whereas interest in the project according to optimistic observers was primarily artistic, to the sceptics it was merely touristic. Nevertheless, Sikelianos persisted with his utopian vision of redemption, in which his role was that of interpreter of the mysteries of religion rather than organiser of artistic events. He also encountered great problems in handling the practical side of his inspired venture which led him into considerable economic difficulty. In 1927, Eva’s fortune was seriously depleted and a repeat of the Delphic Festival in 1930, with a performance of The Suppliants by Aeschylus, ended in financial ruin. The dream that Sikelianos believed was about to be realised began to shatter. However, he remained hopeful, even after facing financial catastrophe and the departure of Eva for America, but his poetry, particularly after 1935, shows a marked change in tone away from his earlier euphoria. The best poems of this period incline towards the lengthy lyrical rhymes of the past, whilst some shorter, finelycrafted poems combine, for the first time, elements of realism with familiar archaic motives and an Orphic reflection of mystic revelation. One of the best examples of this group of poems is ‘The Sacred Way’: here the poet encounters a she-bear belonging to a sad itinerant theatrical group on the well-worn path to Ancient Eleusis and he identifies her with Dimitra, Alcmene and the Virgin as the symbol of “the Great Goddess of Eternal Motherhood”. After 1940, following the experience of the Delphic Festivals and prompted by the wish to reach out to a wider public, Sikelianos turned to tragedy, which he pursued with a passion. Here again, his subject matter is taken from antiquity, Christian Byzantium and modern Greek tradition, as illustrated in the following titles: Sybilla, Daedalus in Crete, Christ in Rome, The Death of Digenis. In these works, the poet presents a visionary dimension to neo-classical tradition and although inferior, from a theatrical stand-point, they contain moments of intense emotion and lines of genuine lyricism with interesting aesthetic results. Sikelianos died in 1951 at the age of sixty-seven, leaving us with the myth of his prolific personality and an extensive literary oeuvre that contains great richness of expression. Prominent modernist Greek poets such as Seferis and Embiricos acknowledged his contribution to the history of modern Greek poetry and if today the Sikelianos’ literary legacy is not widely read, it nevertheless includes poems that delight not only philologists but also a more general public.

Greece 1946

Greece 1946

Greece 1981

Greece 1956

U.S.A. 1928

Italy 1987

Greece 1960

Greece 1946

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NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS

Nikos Kazantzakis with Angelos Sikelianos (see p. 154), 1921. (Eleni Kazantzaki Archive)

Nikos Kazantzakis is paradoxically the best-known Greek novelist outside Greece: paradoxically, because he himself rated his poetry and dramas far above his novels, to which he devoted himself seriously only during the last decade of his life. Paradoxically, too, because Kazantzakis has tended to be regarded more highly in international circles than at home. Born in Heraklion, Crete in 1883, during the final stages of the violent and protracted struggle of the island’s Christian population to break free of Ottoman rule and become part of Greece, Kazantzakis was a writer of truly vast ambitions. His early writing juxtaposes the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, the ‘vitalism’ of the French philosopher Henri Bergson, aesthetic idealism, and a strong sense of national culture, including a deep commitment to the spoken form of Greek, demotiki, as the natural language for literary expression, against the conservative trends of the time. To this already explosive mixture Kazantzakis, by the early 1920s, had added Buddhism, Communism, and Christian asceticism. It was during a visit to Mount Athos with the poet Angelos Sikelianos in 1914 that Kazantzakis first formulated a doctrine that he would enunciate again and again throughout his career: that the goal of human life is the ‘transubstantiation of matter into spirit’. Kazantzakis’ literary career began in 1906 with the publication of the novel Serpent and Lily and the writing of the first of many plays, Day is Breaking (performed 1907). The novel draws heavily on the aesthetic excesses of the fin de siècle in much of the rest of Europe and failed to establish a place in the Greek fiction of the time; the play is close to the manner of Ibsen. After 1909, when his next play was rejected for performance, most of Kazantzakis’ dramas were not written for the stage. Throughout the greater part of his life Kazantzakis supported himself by journalism, much of it describing his farflung travels, and by translating several of the world’s classics into modern Greek. After the defeat of prime minister Venizelos in the election of November 1920, Kazantzakis left Greece disillusioned. His short lyrical and philosophical ‘credo’ entitled Askitiki, translated into English as Saviours of God: Spiritual Exercises, was written in Vienna and Berlin in 1922-3. But the work which, then and later, Kazantzakis regarded as his magnum opus was the epic poem entitled in Greek, simply and boldly, Odyssey, and in its English translation as The Odyssey: a Modern Sequel. The writing of this enormous work, through successive drafts, took fourteen years, from 1924 until its publication in 1938. The Odyssey spans twenty-four books (like Homer’s) and, at 33,333 lines, of seventeen syllables each, must surely lay claim to being the longest poem ever composed. Its language is a recondite treasury of the attested oral speech of the Greek regions, so comprehensive as to require a glossary for the benefit of the poem’s urban readers. The story begins where Homer’s Odyssey leaves off, with Odysseus finding his native Ithaca too small to hold him. After a series of adventures in the more or less historical world of the Aegean Bronze Age, as it was known in the archaeology of the time, Odysseus travels southwards until he leaves the known world altogether. On the equator he founds an ideal city-state, continued on p. 161

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Nikos Kazantzakis and Panait Istrati in the ‘Tropical Garden’ at Borjum, 1928, mimicking the two ancient Egyptian statues of monkeys on either side of them. (Eleni Kazantzaki Archive)

Nikos and Eleni Kazantzaki with Albert Schweitzer at Grunnsbach, Austria, 11 August 1955. (Eleni Kazantzaki Archive)

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Nikos Kazantzakis in Aegina, Greece, 1931, compiling a Greek-English Dictionary. (Eleni Kazantzaki Archive)

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but after its destruction by earthquake the scene moves inwards, to the consciousness of the hero as he continues an increasingly dreamlike progress southwards, to die adrift on an iceberg headed, with some geographical licence, for the South Pole. Many have thought this a profoundly nihilistic work, though Kazantzakis himself denied it. His wanderings temporarily halted by the occupation of Greece during the Second World War, Kazantzakis in the winter of 1941-2, at the age of fifty-eight, began work on the novel that would mark his second début in Greek literature. This was Zorba the Greek. Zorba was the first of seven novels (if we count the autobiographical Report to Greco, on which he was still working at the time of his death) that Kazantzakis wrote in his final years, and on which his international reputation now principally rests. The action of Zorba is set in a Cretan village, more than twenty years before the time when it was written. The novel has been admired for the larger-than-life character of Zorba, whose peasant wisdom and vitality, honed by hard experience, wean his timid employer, who tells the story, away from his books and abstract introspection. Of Kazantzakis’ later novels, two are daring treatments of the life of Christ. Christ Recrucified updates the Gospel story, transplanting it to a remote Greek village under Turkish rule in the early twentieth century. The Last Temptation is a historical novel of the life of Jesus, in which Jesus is finally ‘tempted’, during his final moments on the Cross, by being allowed to dream the rest of the life that might have been his had he not been crucified, before returning to the present to embrace his martyrdom. Banned by the Catholic Church when it first appeared in French in 1954, this novel, and the 1989 Martin Scorsese film based upon it, have provoked accusations of blasphemy from Christians of many denominations. A gentler treatment of a Christian theme is found in God’s Pauper: St Francis of Assisi, while Freedom and Death and The Fratricides (the latter published posthumously) deal with violent conflict, respectively the rebellion in Crete against the Ottomans in 1889 and the Greek civil war of the late 1940s. All Kazantzakis’ novels, and his Odyssey, have been translated into the major European languages. Several have been successful in film adaptations with international directors and stars (Cacoyannis with Alan Bates and Antony Quinn; Jules Dassin; Scorsese). After 1946 Kazantzakis made his home in the south of France, at Cap d’Antibes. He died in Freiburg, Germany, in October 1957 and was buried, according to his wish, under a simple cross on the highest part of the sixteenthcentury Venetian fortifications of his native Heraklion.

Kazantzakis with Panait Istrati beneath the Acropolis, 1928, during Istrati’s visit to Athens where they were interrogated in court about speeches they had made in an Athenian theatre in support of the Soviet Union. (Eleni Kazantzaki Archive)

Kazantzakis at the temple of Aphaia, Aegina, 1927. (Eleni Kazantzaki Archive)

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From the film Zorba the Greek by Michael Cacoyannis, 1963-4. Anthony Quinn as Zorba dancing with Lila Kedrova’s Madame Hortense. (The Greek Film Archive - Cinema Museum of Greece)

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Greece 1945

Argentina 1995

Albania 1997

Georgia 1997

Finland 1988

The Netherlands 1997

Yugoslavia 1976

U.S.A. 1961

France 1961

France 1976

Poland 1960

Germany 1973

Sweden 1956

Spain 1997

Czechoslovakia 1980

Lithuania 1997

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The Hungarian dancer Nikolska at the Acropolis, Athens, 1929 – Photograph by Nelly. (Benaki Museum, Photographic Archive, Athens)

SECTION VI

THE THIRTIES : A TURNING POINT NEW DIRECTIONS ( 1930-1974)

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

T

HIS PERIOD OPENS with the so-called ‘1930s generation’ and closes with the

overthrow of a dictatorship in 1974. During these years, Greece lived through two dictatorships (Metaxas, 1936 and the Colonels, 1967), WWII, Occupation and Resistance and Civil War (1944-49). Moreover, a large portion of Cyprus was occupied by Turkish forces, and remains occupied to this day. However, only a few years after the restoration of democracy in 1974, Greece became the twelfth member of the European Community, and recently joined EMU. It is clear form all these developments that this was a highly turbulent and tragic period, coloured as it was by national and popular struggle, national disasters, political and social oppression, exile, and concentration camps, but on the other hand it was not short on heroism and hope. All these historical conditions and related human experiences were, naturally, reflected in the literature of the period. Two of the most dominant voices of the 1930s generation, Seferis and Andreas Embiricos, introduced two great artistic movements of the European avant-garde: AngloAmerican Modernism and Surrealism. It is therefore no accident that this generation was to produce two Nobel laureates in poetry: Seferis in 1963 and Elytis in 1979. Yannis Ritsos, the great versatile poet of the Left also belongs to this group, as does the bold poet-painter, Nikos Engonopoulos. The fiction produced at this time was also notable, both in its more traditional expression (Kosmas Politis, Yorgos Theotokas, A. Terzakis, P. Prevelakis) and when it displayed more obviously modern preoccupations (Pentzikis, Axioti, Scarimbas). Many of the writers of the next generation had participated in the military and political events of the time, which is why they look to these experiences for their subject matter, and to the traumatic socio-political consequences they had for the country in the 1940s and 1950s. They were not so much concerned with discovering new literary modes (a significant number of them employed the techniques and models of the previous generation) as with a felt obligation to witness and record everything they saw and suffered during this cruel period of war and social turmoil, starting with the Second World War and ending with the collapse of democracy.

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Several representatives of the so-called ‘30s generation’ photographed at the home of Yorgos Theotokas in the early 1960s. Seated, from left: Angelos Terzakis (see p. 205), K.T. Dimaras, Yorgos Katsimbalis (Henry Miller’s original ‘Colossus of Maroussi’), Kosmas Politis (see p. 198), Andreas Embiricos (see p. 178). Standing, from left: Diomedes Petsalis, Ilias Venezis (see p. 214), Odysseus Elytis (see p. 186), George Seferis (see p. 170), Andreas Karantonis, Stelios Xefloudas, Yorgos Theotokas (p. 205). (E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

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GEORGE SEFERIS

The twin-tailed mermaid drawn by Seferis, which he used as an emblem for his works.

George Seferis in Bhamdoun, Beirut, 1955. (National Bank Cultural Foundation, Athens / Anna Londou Photographic Archive)

George Seferis was born in Smyrna in 1900 and died in Athens in 1971. In 1931 he published, at his own expense, a collection of poetry with the ambiguous title Strophe (meaning both part of a poem and ‘turning-point’). The collection contained thirteen short poems, most of them in traditional metre and rhythm, and a more extensive poem, the cryptic Erotikos Logos, in 96 rhymed 15-syllable verses, which vividly brings to mind Erotokritos, the celebrated Cretan 17th-century poem. What became clear from the first appearance of this poet, who had already spent some years in Paris and in London studying law and English, was his desire to shed new light on the existing poetic landscape, overshadowed as it was both by the patriarchal figure of Palamas and by the ghost of Karyotakis. Many poems appear to follow the dictates of ‘pure’ poetry, such as those found in the work of the French poets Mallarmé and Valéry. There are, however, also what were called ‘impure’ poems, with ‘lower’, more common speech forms, written in everyday language with corresponding subject matter. Today, seventy years later, most of the poems in Strophe (‘TurningPoint’) retain their vigour. Some in fact are quite familiar to the public at large as they have been put to music, as have many of Seferis’ later poems. One such poem is ‘Denial’, which, thanks to the music of Mikis Theodorakis, has probably become the best known poem in all of Modern Greek poetry. The Cistern, Seferis’ next work, is a lyrical poem of 125 verses. It was published in 1932, while the poet was working in the diplomatic corps in London. It appears, however, that The Cistern no longer expressed Seferis’ artistic needs, as the poet was now searching for new poetic directions. He had, during Christmas of 1931, been introduced to the poetry of T.S. Eliot, whom he was to meet in person twenty years later. There followed a long period of anguished experimentation – it was during this period that he translated The Waste Land into Greek – until, in March of 1935, his Mythistorema appeared. Mythistorema (whose title – from the Greek words for ‘myth’ and for ‘history’ – is particularly significant) is a composite poem comprising 24 sections in free verse – a poem that contains the basic concepts and recurring themes of the poetry to follow: ‘common’, almost unpoetic speech (Seferis was later to declare that what interested him primarily was to speak “plainly” and “without affectation”); a familiar, narrative but also dramatic voice; a continued intermingling of history and mythology (the poem resounds throughout with echoes of the Asia Minor Disaster of 1922) as everyday figures (those called “friends” and “comrades”) parade through the poem in the company of mythical “personae” and symbolic figures. Everything takes place in “typical” Greek landscapes, sometimes recognisable, while the mythical subject matter (drawn chiefly from Homer and the tragic playwrights) appears fragmentarily, “peaks” of myths, as the poet himself would say, nevertheless capable of providing (in the manner of the “mythical method”) stability and clarity to the emotion possessing the poet. This is Seferis’ most definitive poem and the most truly representative text of Greek Modernism. It continues today to retain its effectiveness and to a certain extent its inherent cryptic nature. In the spring of 1940 two more collections came out: Book continued on p. 172

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THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

George Seferis in Piraeus with Philippos Hadzopoulos, Nikos Kavvadias’ nephew (see p. 196), 1970. (National Bank Cultural Foundation, Athens / Anna Londou Photographic Archive)

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George Seferis receiving the Nobel prize from the King of Sweden, Stockholm, 10 December 1963. (National Bank Cultural Foundation, Athens / Anna Londou Photographic Archive)

of Exercises and Logbook I, containing poems written between 1928 and 1940. The five years between 1935 and 1940 were a critical period, both in terms of Seferis’ own life story and in the history of Greece. He served as Consul to Albania in the city of Korytsa for a brief period, where he felt extremely isolated, while in 1936 General Metaxas imposed a dictatorship in Greece along the ideological lines of Mussolini’s fascism and of Nazism. As a diplomat Seferis felt himself trapped in the cogwheels of dictatorship, as seen in the confessional work Manuscript ’41, but nevertheless he did not resign his post. Certain poems, particularly in the second collection, reveal this dilemma and also the oppressively stifling circumstances he was living under. There is no lack, however, of poems filled with poetry and existential angst, such as ‘Nijinsky’, inspired by the vision of the great dancer, or the better-known ‘The King of Asine’, in which the poet, while strolling through the ruins of the Homeric king’s castle, contemplates, among other things, the eventual disappearance of a work’s creator, the “void” that will unavoidably cover his actual person. The German invasion and occupation of Greece, his flight, along with the Greek government, to South Africa and to Egypt, the horrors of war, the political intrigues and clashes between Greeks – precursors of the impending Civil War – were the experiences that served as the subject matter for Logbook II, which came out, in a first version, in Alexandria in 1944. But

now was also the time when he began to feel deeply the influence of the climate of cosmopolitanism and of greater Hellenism, as it was expressed in the poetry of the Alexandrian poet C.P. Cafavy, whom Seferis discovered during this period. The decade from 1947 to 1957 was a particularly successful one for Seferis. In 1947 he brought out his most mature work, The Thrush – taken from the name of a small boat that sunk in the waters off the island of Poros –, a three-part ‘musical’ composition, where personal and erotic memories are freely interwoven with the traumatic memories of WWII and the tragedy of the Civil War. In 1953 Seferis discovered Cyprus, a place “where the miracle still works”, and in 1955 he brought out Logbook III, containing poems inspired by the ancient and modern history of the island. Many of the poems, ‘Helen’, ‘Salamis of Cyprus’, ‘The Demon of Fornification’, ‘Engomi’, are considered classics. During this same decade he was placed in the highest diplomatic positions. He served first in Ankara in 1947, and had the opportunity to visit his birthplace, Smyrna, to which he had not returned since 1914. He later served in Beirut as acting ambassador to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq, and in 1957 he was appointed ambassador to London, where he was to finish his diplomatic career. In 1963 Seferis became the first Greek author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In his Three Secret Poems (1966) the poet, “the desolate mind [that] has seen the end”, sums up his continued on p. 176

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THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

Manuscript of the first poem in the collection Strophe (‘Turning-Point’). (Gennadius Library, Athens)

George Seferis’ Strophe (‘Turning-Point’) of 1931, a slim volume of verse, at first glance seems to announce itself from within the existing poetic tradition, both formally and thematically. However, the poet is in fact defining the limits of this tradition, and signalling a commitment to change in Greek poetry.

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174

‘Artistic Comment’ by Yannis Moralis in the sixth edition of Seferis’ Poems (Ikaros, 1965).

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George Seferis and Ezra Pound, Athens, 1965. (National Bank Cultural Foundation, Athens / Anna Londou Photographic Archive)

In 1965, the year of T.S. Eliot’s death, Seferis met Ezra Pound at his home in Athens, thus closing a circle which began in the 1930s when Seferis discovered works such as Eliot’s ‘Marina’ and, through him, Anglo-American Modernism. In the Introduction to his translation of The Waste Land (1936), Seferis enumerates the ‘five most important masters’ of Anglo-American Modernism: T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, and Ezra Pound. Although Seferis translated only a few of Pound’s poems – ‘The Lake Isle’ from Lustra and ‘Exile’s Letter’ from Cathay and three Cantos (I, XIII, XXX) – he was nevertheless profoundly influenced by Pound and his new ‘epic’ voice.

work and his life, accepting the fact that “everything that has passed has fittingly passed”. His views on poetry, the Greek language and literature and on popular cultural traditions, his critical studies of T.S. Eliot, Dante, Cavafy and others, are included in the three volumes of his Essays – texts of unusual sensitivity and perspicacity, considered by some critics to be equal in merit to his poetry. Of particular interest are his journals (Days), his letters, and his early novel Six Nights on the Acropolis. On the subject of his being awarded the Nobel Prize, Seferis said that through its choice the Swedish Academy “wished to express its solidarity with Greece’s ever-vital intellect” and to honour a “language spoken for centuries but having at present a limited number of speakers”. This viewpoint reflects Seferis’ deep-seated belief in the current dynamic interrela-

176

tionship between the ancient and modern Greek language and literature, between the diachronic power of Greek civilisation and its modern expression, and finally between tradition and innovation. It was, moreover, only through tradition that the demand for renewal of Greek poetry in the early 1930s was able to be realised, and Seferis’ modernism and innovations were in large part characterised by the revitalisation and imaginative use of the Greek tradition. Seferis, the poet from Asia Minor, estranged from his homeland at a very early age, perpetually feeling like a refugee, died during the Colonels’ Dictatorship, a government that only months before he had denounced internationally as tyrannical and dangerous. His funeral turned into one of the largest mass demonstrations against the military junta.

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

Greece 1972

Greece 2000

Albania 1996

England 1974

Seferis’ translation of The Waste Land

Greece 1978

Greece 1986

Greece 1980

U.S.A. 1995

Spain 1997

The Netherlands 1965

Czechoslovakia 1971

Germany 1985

Sweden 1963

France 1994

Athens 1984

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From left: Odysseus Elytis, Andreas Embiricos, Nikos Engonopoulos in 1964 during the launch of the records with the poets’ own readings of their works.

SURREALISM

Nikos Engonopoulos, The Secret Meeting of the Poets Raymond Roussel and Georg Trakl, at the Ruins of Ephesus, as yet Unconfirmed by Other Sources, 1968.

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In March 1935, eleven years after the publication of the first manifesto of surrealism by André Breton, two hundred copies of a collection of sixty-three prose poems entitled Blast Furnace were circulated in Athens. The collection was signed by one ANDREAS EMBIRICOS (1901-1975), the offspring of a well-known shipping family, with no work published before then. Born in Braila, Romania, to a Greek father and a Russian mother, Embiricos studied economics in Switzerland, literature and philosophy in London and psychoanalysis in Paris. In 1929 he entered the circle of French surrealists, was initiated into the technique of automatic writing and made the acquaintance of Breton in person. Two months before Blast-Furnace appeared, he gave a lecture on the subject of surrealism to “a grim middle-class audience who listened in obvious annoyance”, as an on-the-spot witness named Odysseus Elytis noted. Blast-Furnace holds a unique place in modern Greek poetry. No poet prior to Blast-Furnace – in spite of indications that surrealism was known in Greece before 1935 – and no poet since, has put together a book so heretical, so cryptic and so “difficult” – one which nevertheless sold out in no time, “not because it was of interest, but because it was considered so scandalous, written by someone deranged”, as the poet himself reminisces. Without punctuation, in a language mainly scholarly and precocious – something which the proponents of demotic Greek found particularly annoying – with interminable phrases, perfectly constructed but without any apparent logical coherence, yet with the typically Greek fifteen-syllable meter

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

Andreas Embiricos – Photograph by Aris Konstantinidis, 1964. (Agra Publications Archive)

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Andreas Embiricos, with hookah, and Odysseus Elytis (left), Mytilini, 1935.

1935 saw the publication of Andreas Embiricos’ Blast-Furnace, the first example of Greek Surrealism. Embiricos later started to practice psychoanalysis, the first Greek to do so. At the beginning of 1935 Embiricos and Elytis went to Mytilene in the footsteps of the folk artist Theophilos, who had recently died. They had been sent there by Tériade (Eleftheriadis), the great publisher and art collector, who together with Albert Skira published the Parisian periodical Minotaure (1933-39) and had already creamed off the best examples of the avant-garde of the period, including Picasso, Breton, Man Ray, Lacan, Eluard, Crevel, Masson, Bataille, Dali, Leiris, Brassai, Dérain, Tzara. Ancient Greek motifs were also used by Greek surrealists: see the painting by Nikos Engonopoulos opposite.

clearly discernible, Blast-Furnace seems to have met the requirements of free association and the resultant automatic writing. It would be difficult however plausibly to maintain that these poems had an ‘automatic’ or ‘chance’ origin or that no work was done on them, in spite of the fact that Embiricos himself stated that his poems do not always develop “within the limits of consciousness”. Every poem, he says, is a “poemevent”, dynamic and self-contained, and its elements remain “free of any compromised or standardised aesthetic, moral or logical construction”. The recipe was never to be repeated, in spite of the fact that the experiment succeeded in bringing to the forefront the most authentic Greek surrealist writing. Embiricos’ next collection, Inner Land (1945), as well as a short volume of prose, Writings or Personal Mythology (1960), contain texts bathed in surrealist light, but with coherence and logical consistency. It is now quite clear that what was mainly of interest to Embiricos was to keep alive the subversive and emancipating strain of the European surrealist movement and to promulgate the vision of a world free of every type of oppression, a world “without borders and without limits”. Political, social and particularly sexual liberation were Embiricos’ main concern, so much so that he emerged as the Greek poet and visionary par excellence of a world system of politics and co-existence. His city, Oktana, described in the collection bearing the same name, “will be the capital of the New World, in the heart of mankind’s future”, a universal city, filled with poetry, love, pleasure, justice and freedom. The eight-volume novel The Great Eastern (1990-1), is the most extensive and the most daring modern Greek text, where all of Embiricos’ fantasies, doctrines and visions are developed in an epic tone. The poet and painter NIKOS ENGONOPOULOS (1907-1985) and Embiricos are the grand old duo of modern Greek surrealism. However, although both seem to follow in the main the dictates of surrealist poetics (daring combinations of words and meanings, at first sight incompatible; free-associative accumulation of multiple images; erotically infused rhetoric and a rebirth of romanticism; the use of dreams, etc.), the final result is different. Engonopoulos appears to be more ‘ethnic’ in his choice of poetic material, subject matter and poetic vehicle (he writes only poetry), but in his poems there is a more frequent occurrence of the ‘miraculous’, the unexpected, and the element of surprise – elements dear to surrealists. He is clearly less optimistic than EmThe hand-painted chest, the work of the folk artist Theophilos, which contained the artist’s paints, a few favourite pictures and notebook, brought from Mytilene by Embiricos in 1935 (Embiricos family collection).

André Derain’s cover for vol. 3-4, 1935 of the French periodical Minotaure, published by Tériade (Eleftheriadis) and Albert Skira.

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THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

Nikos Engonopoulos, Theseus and the Minotaur, 1960-61, oil on canvas (private collection).

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Nikos Engonopoulos in Corfu, Easter 1957.

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biricos – researchers have found a strongly rooted Karyotakian influence – but he is not lacking in sarcasm and the occasional black humour of the surrealists. His predisposition towards the epic and its commensurate tone – something that also sets him apart – is not directed largely to proclaiming and extolling a vision of universal freedom and happiness. Rather it is concerned with particular liberation movements and political and social uprisings: the Greek revolution of 1821; the liberation movement of the Latin-American Simon Bolivar (the similarly-titled poem, Bolivar: A Greek Poem was written during the German Occupation and was characterised by a spirit of resistance); the Spanish and the Greek civil wars. It is of interest, consequently, that these two major Greek surrealists espoused to a great degree the aesthetic and poetic ideology of the European surrealist movement, but where they seem to have remained more steadfast is in the emancipating and subversive ideology of the movement. ODYSSEUS ELYTIS (1911-1996) appears at first to be a fellow traveller with the other two major Greek surrealists. But already with his first collection Orientations (1939) he shows that what he keeps in the end from surrealist poetics is the automatic writing, that “unique achievement”, as he puts it, “in the pursuit of lyric poetry”. It is not, however, without importance that, first, his two major ‘patriotic’ poems, the Heroic and Elegiac Song for the Lost Second Lieutenant of Albania (1945) and the betterknown Axion Esti (1959), owe much to the new dynamic lyricism, which has its source in surrealist proclamations, and, second, he is a staunch adherent of the poetic, aesthetic and social ideology of Embiricos (see his ‘Report’ on Andreas Embiricos, 1978) and of NIKOLAS CALAS who also wrote under the names of Kalamaris, Randos and (Robe)Spieros (1907-1988), an “insubordinate” poet and more or less incomprehensible figure who, as he writes, “has something of Jacques Vaché and something of Marcel Duchamp”. Calas’ four Notebooks contain poems whose form skirts the edges of surrealism, but as far as their ideas are concerned they are considered to be prime examples of revolutionary and anarchic writing. The second wave of Greek poets who may be considered to have followed in the footsteps of the first surrealists made their appearance during the decade of the forties and later, when the initial impetus of the movement had died down. Nikos Gatsos (1911-1990), Matsi Hadjilazarou, (1924-1990), Miltos Sachtouris (1919-), Hector Kaknavatos (1920-), Nanos Valaoritis (1921-), E.H. Gonatas (1924-), Manto Aravantinou (19261990), and Yorgos Likos (1920-2000) comprise a group of important poets who wrote and in some cases continue to write under the influence of the surrealist movement. They are an impressive but atypical group of post-surrealist poets – if such a characterisation has any meaning – who are not imbued by the same poetic ideals, save for the obsession, in most of them at least, with the dynamic lyric language set free by the imaginativeness of automatic writing. In any case what remains today from the surrealist movement is common property. Surrealism inspired freeness and bold language and destroyed once and for all the sway of academia over the arts and in life. These elements are still alive and they activate and sustain every poetic spirit. Surrealism, in this sense, does not live on today as unwholesome nostalgia, nor does it hover over us as a sacred ghost.

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

A group of exiles in New York circa 1944-45. Front row, from left: André Breton, Mme Césaire, Jacqueline Matisse, Elisa Breton, Mme Calas, Nikolas Calas (centre below Marcel Duchamp), Patricia Matta, Matta, Teeny Matisse, (the future Mme Duchamp), Aimé Césaire. Back row: The painter Enrico, Denis de Rougemont, Kay Sage (?), Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp.

NIKOLAS CALAS, also known as Nikos Kalamaris or Nikitas Rantos or N. Spieros (Lausanne 1907 – New York 1988), was, in the words of André Breton, “one of the most brilliant and daring spirits of the age”, alongside Georges Bataille, Benjamin Peret, Leonora Carrington, André Masson and Marcel Proust. He was an unusual figure of the Greek intellectual and poetic world. Writing for left-wing reviews in the 1930s, he made a name for himself as one of the first Greek Surrealists, with a clear preference for the political and social dimension of the phenomenon. In 1938 he left Greece, then led by the fascist dictator Ioannis Metaxas, for Paris where he entered French Surrealist circles, becoming a friend of Breton. It was here that he published his first theoretical work, Foyers d’Incendie, in which he called on artists and writers to smash the ‘grubby windowpane’ of contemporary art and make it invincible and revolutionary. When war broke out he moved to New York where he set up New Directions (1939), an early anthology of European Surrealist poets. In New York, where he was to remain for the rest of his life, Calas became closely associated with the avant-garde movement becoming a lively and polemical critic of modern art and a proponent of a broadly active art and dynamic critique. His interests – ranging from the pre-Socratic philosophers to Wittgenstein, and from the Portuguese renaissance and Hieronymus Bosch to Surrealism and the American avant-garde – mark him out as a unique Greek intellectual who produced a staggering variety of works. He wrote for the leading reviews of the day, including View, Village Voice, Artforum, Arts Magazine and Art International. Many of his articles are included in Art in the Age of the Risk (1968), Icons and Images of the Sixties (1971), Surrealism Pro and Con (1973) and Transfigurations (1982).

Nikolas Calas or Nikitas Randos or Nikos Kalamaris in the 1930s. (E.L.I.A. Archive)

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Photo by Stelios Skopelitis

Photo by Stelios Skopelitis

GREECE - BOOKS AND WRITERS – SECTION VI

MILTOS SACHTOURIS

Nikos Gatsos earned his reputation as a poet from a single collection, Amorgos (1943). The world presented in Amorgos is a combination of shocking and absurd imagery written in the popular, at times purely spoken language, with the Aegean landscape in the background. Gatsos went on to write several song lyrics and worked with Manos Hadjidakis on most of his recordings. Although he never published any more poetry, Gatsos without a doubt figures amongst the most prominent, pioneering Greek surrealists.

Miltos Sachtouris was born in 1919. He belonged to the group of post-war Greek Surrealists and established his reputation as a poet with collections such as The Forgotten (1945), The Walk (1960) and Vessel (1971). Sachtouris drives certain elements of his work from the store-house of Expressionism, and his lines convulse with images of mutilation, malformed animal and human portraits. His own experience of the horrors of WWII during the German Occupation and of the Civil War that followed it come alive in his poetry.

Photo by Kostas Ordolis

NIKOS GATSOS

HECTOR KAKNAVATOS

NANOS VALAORITIS

Hector Kaknavatos was born in 1920. From early works such as Diaspora (1961) and Scale of Hardness (1964) to the recent Akarei (2001) he has been working assiduously in the service of the founding principles of surrealism, through a language in which the ruptures in logical continuity and the train of thought encounter the play of acoustic harmony of words, suggesting a purely internal functioning of the lines. One characteristic of Kaknavatos’ poetry is the recurrent use of mathematical elements; Kaknavatos read mathematics at university and taught the subject for several years.

Born in Lausanne in 1921, Nanos Valaoritis has led a varied, cosmopolitan existence. He has published pioneering artistic journals in Greece and taught literature at American Universities. But above all, he is a poet and his verse collections include The Punishment of the Magi (1947) and Breeding Ground for Germs (1977). His poetry contains many narrative elements; his verse frequently restores older forms and sometimes makes use of surrealistic modes to achieve poetic self-transcendence.

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THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

Greece 1980

Greece 1980

Greece 1989-91

Greece 1980

Greece 1999

France 1991

France 1991

England 1966

Greece 1977

Greece 1962

Greece 1978

Greece 1988

Greece 1999

Greece 1977

Greece 1968

Venezuela

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ODYSSEUS ELYTIS

Frontispiece for the Heroic and Elegiac Song for the Lost Second Lieutenant of Albania by the artist Yannis Moralis. (Ikaros, 1967)

The 30s generation poets and writers were closely associated with the artists of the time, which resulted in beautiful editions of literary works by writers such as Elytis and Seferis richly illustrated by such great names as Yannis Moralis, Yannis Tsarouchis and Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas, brought out by Ikaros.

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Photograph by Andreas Embiricos, Paros, 1954. (Ioulita Iliopoulou Archive)

Frontispiece for the Axion Esti by the artist Yannis Tsarouchis. (Ikaros, 1966)

Odysseus Elytis, winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in Heraklion, Crete, in 1911 and died in Athens in 1996. A major poet in the Greek language, Elytis is also one of the most outstanding international figures of 20th-century poetry. In his work, modernist European poetics and Greek literary tradition are fused in a highly original lyrical voice. Elytis became acquainted with French surrealist poetry in the ’30s and was captivated by surrealism’s affirmation of feel-

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

ing and the subconscious self, its rejection of traditional forms and rigid modes of poetical expression. An advocate of free verse, he discarded established verse forms and conventions considering them to be “vessels for the containment of the most heterogenous material”. He believed that poetical content determines an inventible form and he was dismissive of rhyme which he described as “lulling” and “superficial delight”. But he did not adopt surrealism’s free associations and automatic writing as proclaimed by André Breton. His is a

mild and controlled surrealism, the syntax in his poems is not violated and, thanks to his talent, the juxtaposition of images is coherent and pleasurable. These qualities are manifest in his first collections of poetry (Orientations, 1939, and Sun the First, 1943) which are joyous and radiant, celebrating the Greek landscape as an ideal world of sensual enjoyment and moral purity. The blue seas and the azure skies, the explosive light, the Aegean islands with their white cottages and bare rocks, the olive trees and the crickets, ancient amphorae and

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Elytis receiving the Nobel prize from the King of Sweden in 1979. (Ioulita Iliopoulou Archive)

Odysseus Elytis with Louis Aragon, Paris 1980. (Ioulita Iliopoulou Archive)

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ruins, summer high noon and the etesian winds define the scene where life is liberated and triumphant, mystical and deeply meaningful. This free functioning of the human self against all restraints imposed by moral, social and aesthetic conventions, the creation of “a countryside of the open heart”, is the young poet Elytis’ debt to surrealism. But, as he put it, he did not serve surrealism, he asked surrealism to serve him. In 1940 Elytis was called up as a second lieutenant and served on the Albanian front, where the Greek army checked the Italian invasion. His experience of war marks a departure from the sunny atmosphere of his early youth and poetry, colouring his long poem Heroic and Elegiac Song for the Lost Second Lieutenant of Albania (1943). The figurative language still retains the wealth and boldness, the unexpected metaphors and startling images of his previous works, but the tone is sorrowful, albeit proud, and the context wider: the poet identifies himself with the lost lieutenant and the lamenting voice is the voice of his suffering nation. The attempt of Elytis to identify himself with his nation and speak for himself and also for his country reaches its peak with Axion Esti (1959), his central and most ambitious work. This is a poetical Bildungsroman, a three-part composition of intricate formal structure, aiming to present modern Greek consciousness through the development of a first-person narrator who is simultaneously the poet himself and the voice of his country. It is at once an interpretation of the world as it is and the valiant proclamation of a belief in what it might be. Its three parts are named characteristically ‘The Genesis’, ‘The Passions’ and ‘The Gloria’, and it culminates in a glorification of all ephemeral things, of what is Axion – that is, Worthy – in “this small, this Great World”. Elytis’ poetical theory as regards “the view of things” is fully realized in this work. As he said in his address to the Swedish Academy on receiving the Nobel Prize, “apart from the physical side of objects and the ability to percieve them in their every detail, there is also the metaphorical ability to grasp their essence and bring them to such clarity that their metaphysical significance will also be revealed”. In Axion Esti, a major poem by any standards, these ideas are materialized poetically. Elytis’ later work consists of ten collections of poems and a substantial number of essays. Outstanding among them are The Monogram (1972), an achievement in the European love poem tradition, and The Oxopetra Elegies (1991), which include some of the most difficult but profound poems written in our times. It is significant that in these mature works the tone is no longer jubilant. Melancholy, reflection and solemnity gradually prevail, although the poet’s faith in the power of imagination and the truth of poetry (a belief that brings him close to the Romantics) is still unshakeable. In all his poetry Elytis has consistently emphasized man’s primary innocence, dismissing guilt and fate, and professing the redeeming quality of light, the ‘Judicious Sun’. He criticized the vulgarity of contemporary society and culture; showed the possibility of a different relation with the things of this world; corrected our reading of nature and our concept of love; reformulated the fundamental, minimal essentials of life, insisting that History can be written anew, reaffirming

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

Yannis Tsarouchis’ frontispiece for Sun the First (Ikaros, 1963).

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Shelley’s famous dictum that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. In the art of poetry he restored the high romantic expression in a modern and most convincing way, gave fresh vigour to metaphor, image and alliteration, and created his own original forms of versification. Above all, he brought to Greek poetry a clarity and sharpness which it had not known since Solomos. An ardent apologist of the poet’s vocation, Elytis never ceased from exploring poetry’s role in these materialistic times and it is perhaps apt to conclude this appreciation by quoting a concise

statement he once made concerning the aims of his poetry : “I consider poetry a source of innocence full of revolutionary forces. It is my mission to direct these forces against a world my conscience cannot accept, precisely so as to bring that world through continual metamorphoses into greater harmony with my dreams. I am referring to a contemporary kind of magic which leads to the discovery of our true reality… In the hope of obtaining a freedom from all constraints and the justice which could be identified with absolute light, I am an idolater who, without wanting to do so, arrives at Christian sainthood.”

Greece 1959

Greece 1962

Greece 1987

Greece 1984

France 1996

Buenos Aires/Barcelona 1983

England 1999

U.S.A. 1974

Argentina 1986

France 1982

Sweden 1979 Mikis Theodorakis’ music on the Axion Esti

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Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990) was without doubt the most prolific modern Greek poet and among the most prolific poets of his time world-wide. His poetical works, impressive in their sheer bulk and number, comprise some two-hundred collections (unities or verse compositions). To this must be added eleven volumes of translations (he translated Alexander Block, Romanian poets, Attila Jozsef, Mayakovsky, Nazim Hikmet, Ehrenburg, Czech and Slovak poets, Tolstoy, Sergei Yesenin and others) and also a volume of essays and a series of prose poems under the general title Iconostasis of Anonymous Saints (1971-1986). Born into a well-to-do family of landowners that was soon to lose its property, Ritsos had a difficult childhood, marked by the death of his elder brother and his mother, as well as by his own three-year bout, from the age of 17 to 20, with tuberculosis. His first three collections, Tractors (1934), Pyramids (1935) and Epitaphios (1936), were published just after he joined the ranks of the artistic and journalistic circles of the Left. (It should be noted that in the early 1930s he worked as an actor and a dancer at various private theatres in Athens, while he later took up copy-editing.) The above collections gave voice, in a traditional way, to the death-infused spirit of the period between the two World Wars, and also to the progressive transition of the poet from the family network and from personal protest to social engagement – a direction he steadily followed, infatuated with Mayakovsky, Marx and the corrosive satire of Karyotakis. The crowning achievement of this early poetic period was Epitaphios, in which, by transforming the laments of the mother of a young worker killed in a demonstration into a message of optimism, Ritsos showed, for the first time, his propensity for giving vent to the voice of the people. The book caused a critical uproar within the dictatorship imposed on Greece in August of 1936, and every last copy was burned, along with copies of books by other authors, at the Temple of Zeus. The twenty-year period from 1936 to 1955 was a definitive one for Ritsos’ overall ideological and intellectual development. During this period momentous events took place, both in the historical arena and in his private life – events such as the Greco-Italian War in Albania, the German Occupation, the Liberation, the Civil War in Greece and the Cold War on an international level, as well as his own experience of exile and imprisonment. At the beginning of this period he became an adherent of the practice of free verse, with the composition of The Song of My Sister (1936-1937), in which he expressed his sorrow over the psychiatric illness of his sister (she was admitted to a state psychiatric clinic in 1936 and would be joined there two years later by his father), whereas the poems The Last One Hundred Years B.C. (1942), An Old Mazourka to the Beat of the Rain (1943) and The Eve of the Sun (1943) were the products of what he now felt to be the integral relationship connecting him to the historical and social events of his times. These poems are directly linked to the revival of hope that had swept over him as a result of his involvement in Resistance activities. Out of this same involvement in the events of the period and the related change in his psychological, intellectual and emotional state, as well as painful

YANNIS RITSOS

Yannis Ritsos with his publisher Nana Kallianesi at Kedros publishing in the 1960s. (Toula Voyatzi Archive)

Yannis Ritsos with Louis Aragon, Athens, 1977.

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Yannis Ritsos drawing on stones.

experiences in his personal life, came the compositions Romiosyni, an epic version of Greece’s historical course, and The Lady of the Vineyards (1945-1947) as well as The Smokecharred Cooking Pot (1949), an obviously autobiographical poem filled with memories from the Resistance. Between 1948 and 1952 Ritsos was constantly in exile, moving from place to place, persecuted for his political beliefs, together with thousands of like-minded activists, by the post-Civil War governments. Beginning in 1956, however, until the onset of the Colonels’ dictatorship in 1967, he entered into what was, according to the general consensus of opinion, the period of his highest achievement and greatest maturity. During these years some thirty-five poetic compositions and collections were written, in which he delved still further into contemporary issues of ideology and world view, and also into questions concerning how these same issues related to the personal responsibility of an individual towards society, himself and, above all, the memories that attend and define him. To this period belong Testimonies A, B and C (19571963, 1964-1965 and 1961-1967 respectively), in which he undertakes to examine through dramatisation the deeper relationships created and developed between man and the things that surround him; the dialectic compositions The Old Women and the Sea (1958), The Chorale of the Sponge-divers (1960),

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The Tree of Imprisonment and The Women (chorale, 1963), in which he attempts to record recent historical experiences from the point of view of common people; and, above all, the cycle of the Fourth Dimension – a cycle comprised of seventeen poems composed for the theatre that begins with Moonlight Sonata (1956) and ends with Phaedre (19741975). These poems are dominated by the painful feelings of solitary people in the face of the pervasive and intense ravaging of everything that surrounds them, including people, things and love itself, and also of their fear of loneliness and their tragic sense of defeat. Particularly productive for Yannis Ritsos were the years of dictatorship from 1967 to 1974. During this period he was subjected to renewed persecution and confinement – to repeated exile and also rigorous isolation on the island of Samos, which provoked mass protests among intellectuals in all fields of art throughout the world. Under such circumstances, he could not help but confront everything he became conscious of as merely a replay of an all too familiar and previously experienced story. This comes through in most of his poems, such as Stones, Repetitions and Railings (1968-1969), The Blind Man’s Writ (1972-1973), Eighteen Short Songs of the Bitter Homeland (1963-73), Hymns and Laments for Cyprus (1974), and other poems where he attempts to take up

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

Manuscript from the Epitaphios, one of Ritsos’ best-known works. (Aspasia Papathanasiou Archive)

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familiar issues yet again, in a more complex and of course deeply probing manner. Finally, Ritsos’ penchant for assuming the same subject and themes can be seen in his final creative thrust during the years between 1974 and 1986. During this period, in poetic works that are for the most part more elaborate, he became extremely confessional, as well as more lucid in developing the themes of his poetry, more immediate in expounding his poetics, and he shed more light on the hidden sides of his personal mythology. Yet he was never able to rid himself of the characterisation that would forever brand him – that of the poet committed to the service of man and of his times, the poet who succeeded in combining on the

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same plane, in the form of a vast mosaic, his social portraits and his personal, almost physical identity, while speaking with complete depth of feeling and compassion equally about grand collective passions and about his own personal anguish, undiminished to the end. Ritsos’ work was an ideal combination of two elements: the qualities of the engaged citizen committed to his public duty, and the expression of the naturally restless and ‘libertarian’ artist who knows how to expand his horizons on every occasion. And it is this two-fold character of his work that is perhaps his most important contribution to modern Greek literature.

Greece 1955

Greece 1940

Greece 1956

Greece 1957

Greece 1993

Greece 1966

Greece 1937

Chile 1993

Italy 1981

France 1967

Spain 1979

Finland 1998

Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas, Large Landscape of Hydra, 1938, oil on canvas, 114 x 162 cm. (Private collection, Benaki Museum - Ghika Gallery, Athens)

TAKIS PAPATSONIS While Takis Papatsonis (1895-1976) belongs, chronologically, to the Generation of the 1930s, his poetic style and character nevertheless remained somewhat outside the core trends of the decade. In contrast to the feeling of pessimism and decay that marked much of the writing of his friend George Seferis, Papatsonis (who had an Italian background and was a devout Roman Catholic) found strength and inspiration in his religious faith. His first poems, published in the middle of the second decade of the twentieth century, gave the first indications of his intensely personal and innovative style. He often refers to the Latin Mass, and the presence of Dante is frequently close to the surface of his poems. He was the first to translate T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land into Greek, a work whose allusions and obscurity influenced him greatly. His long poem Ursa Minor (1944) has often been associated with Seferis’ Thrush, since both works turn to mythology for their symbols and through them profess faith in the love that can arise from out of the ruins of destruction. (E.L.I.A. Archive)

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The poet Nikos Kavvadias, signalman, 1960s. (Kavvadias Family Archive)

NIKOS KAVVADIAS

Second edition of Marabou (1947/1933).

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Nikos Kavvadias (1910-1975) is a representative of a poetry of introverted exoticism, which projects the agony and spectres of a permanently restless and wakeful conscience onto alien and often mysterious seascapes. Kavvadias was born in a small town in Manchuria, but his family returned to Greece when he was still a small boy. A committed seaman and writer, he encountered some extremely difficult moments, facing them with the courage that is the preserve of those rare individuals who have absolute faith in what they do. He was in every sense a poet of the sea. The difficult life of the sailor, the daily grind of work, but also the freedom of the eye to travel over new horizons opened by the increasingly longer and bolder voyages he undertook mark Kavvadias’ entire poetic output. The poet constantly transforms external observations of the environment into a subdued, internal drama, often of a deeply existential nature. Indeed, critics described him as the ‘poet of internal exile’, and were not slow to identify in his verse and in his imagery the tendency to displace straight realistic description with scenes of reverse images which represent, in a particularly eloquent manner, the poet’s journey from the open seascape into the closed and dimly lit realm of the conscience. Kavvadias was greatly inspired both by Baudelaire and the poètes maudits and observed his marine environment from

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

precisely this viewpoint. His characters frequently descend into apathy, decay, decadence and self-destruction, and the space they inhabit has a suffocating effect on them. Kavvadias also enjoyed the cosmopolitan life (the constant journeying from port to port, country to country, ocean to ocean) which was equated with the pleasures of opportunistic love and the paralysing effects of hallucinatory substances. From these kinds of motifs emerged his overwhelming passion for travel, which he identified as the fate of the absolutely free yet totally defenceless artist. A poet who deliberately wrote little, Kavvadias directly addressed the metrical tradition, but always managed to take liberties with its strictures. He exploited tradition for his own purposes, adapting metres and rhyme schemes to his own linguistic and musical codes. His work consists of three collections of poems (Marabou, Poussi, Traverso), a novel (The Watch) and two novellas.

Frontispiece for Kavvadias’ Traverso by the artist Yannis Moralis. (Agra Publications, 1989)

Greece 1989

Greece 1989

Greece 1990

Greece 1987

France 1990

France 1988

The Netherlands 1993

Spain 1994

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KOSMAS POLITIS Kosmas Politis (1888-1974) is considered one of the most important prose writers of the generation of the ’30s, although in age he was older than the rest of the authors in the group. He was already forty-two when his first novel, The Lemon Grove, was published in 1930, during a period when Greek prose, as well as poetry, was desperately seeking new subject matter and new forms of expression. Only a year before, a young intellectual and novelist named Yorgos Theotokas – one of the main spokesmen of his generation – had published a small book called The Free Spirit in which he sought to advise his fellow countrymen about the new “common goals in intellectual endeavours” being attempted by the peoples of Europe, and he called upon them to join in this new “Renaissance” and to abandon their provinciality and their pessimism. Literature needed to express a new spirit, since what Greek “realist” authors had been doing until then was merely a “dry imitation of forms and an exposition of facts”. However, he wrote, a work of art is “an outpouring of inner life, the most individualistic of phenomena…the more deeply individualistic it is the closer it comes to Man”. The Lemon Grove, like Politis’ second novel Hecate, appears to follow the basic lines of this new pursuit, in which the individual, the central hero, has the dominant position. Politis is considered the spokesman for a new type of novel along the lines of “urban realism”, as the new movement has been called, where the action shifts to big cities, mainly Athens, or to large cities abroad. Politis’ first two novels contain protagonists with existential problems. They move within a middle-class environment, are financially well off and have active social lives. What is shown is an environment in which the middle class is on the rise, with all the privileges of modern life, its amenities and luxuries – an environment where the sexual liberation of women is also clearly in evidence. Left behind are scenes of poverty in city neighbourhoods, and descriptions of life on the farm. Nature, however, as for example the magical lemon grove in Poros, still plays an important role. It is one good that can still be enjoyed by these sensitive, cultivated heroes. There is also an intense

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Smyrna was one of the oldest and finest Greek cities of Asia Minor, and very likely the birthplace of Homer. Following the defeat and withdrawal of the Greek forces in 1922, it was razed to the ground. The destruction of the city and the subsequent eradication of every aspect of Hellenism after so many centuries was the climax to a long drawn out tragedy. Seferis, himself a native of Smyrna, explains how when he visited the city thirty-six years later in 1950 that the city ‘has lost its shadow’, and that what is preserved from the past are the ‘remains of an old and crumbling prosperity’. But Smyrna will always stay alive in the hearts and minds of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled to Greece, bringing with them the liberal and cosmopolitan spirit and the traditions of Asia Minor in trade, the economy, the arts, literature, music and cookery.

Smyrna: Large-format panorama of the seafront. Late 19th-century postcard. (Antonis Mailis Archive)

vein of irony here – one of the main features of Politis’ writing – and much sarcasm, as well as incessant discussion, mainly in Hecate, of philosophical and other matters. Politis was born in Athens but grew up and came of age in the cosmopolitan environment of the city of Smyrna, where he came into contact with Western European culture and literature. However, memories of the lost city, after its defeat and the Asia Minor Disaster of 1922, did not begin to surface in him until his third novel, Ero˚ca, which appeared in 1937 and was the novel that made his reputation. This novel, which critics considered to be superior to Grand Meaulnes, the novel it was modelled on, appears to take place in Patras, where Politis was transferred and worked between 1934 and 1942, but the story begins with childhood memories of Smyrna. Its heroes are children imitating adults, pretending to be firemen, wearing helmets like those worn in ancient times and trying to put out fires they themselves have started. This innocent childhood ‘heroism’ is very skilfully interwoven with a precocious introduction to death and with the first erotic awakenings of adolescence. Time is continually changing and the action seems to be shifted away from the feats of imaginative heroes to the valour of the heroes of The Iliad. So when Andreas, the protagonist, dies, his beloved friend Loizos organizes athletic games, partly as a way to re-activate the group and partly as a parody of the burial games for Patrocles in The Iliad. The novel is characterised by a harmonious interconnection of many different motifs, and by its ‘musical’ structure. It is written with humour and with nostalgia both for lost youth and its guileless ‘heroism’ and for Greece’s heroic past, which seems to have haunted these child heroes. After World War II profound changes can be observed in Politis. The author, who until then had been accused of indifference to public issues, became a member of the Communist Party, and did so during a period of intense political conflict and civil strife (1944-1945). Later he even became a founding member of the Greek Leftist Party (EDA). He ran for parliament but was not elected. This political shift in Politis can be seen in his next novel Gyri (the name of a neighbourhood in Patras) in 1945. This was followed by the publication of some short stories and also a historical drama about Constantine the Great in 1957; and in 1963, at an advanced age, he published

Refugees from Asia Minor boarding boats, 1922. (E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

The city set alight by the Turkish cavalry. The Greek inhabitants waiting for boats. (The Association of Smyrnans Photographic Archive)

Panic reigns as people board the boats. (E.L.I.A. –Manos Haritatos Archive)

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Kosmas Politis at home in Psychiko, Athens. (E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

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his last complete novel In the Hadjifrangou Quarter (a neighbourhood in Smyrna). The action takes place at the beginning of the 20th century in Smyrna well before the 1922 Disaster, at a time when native Greeks, Turks, Jews and other nationalities lived side by side in the city without animosity – a climate and an era that other authors have also tried to bring to life. Although In the Hadjifrangou Quarter represents a conscious return to the shores of Asia Minor, it cannot be said to be a typical ‘historical novel’. Nevertheless current history and, for the most part, the city itself seem to dominate the action within a spirit of cosmopolitanism and peace, but there are sinister forebodings concerning the future. The novel appears to be composed of small, unconnected stories, which are interposed and apparently unrelated to the main characters, yet it never loses its unity. The free use of dramatic time, the continuous

Greece 1963

Greece 1930

Greece 1959

Greece 1945

alternation between past and present (the main narrator is both a child in the Smyrna of old and a refugee in the present), the interweaving of the fictitious with the real, the skilful narrative disorder and also the intensity of emotional experience are the primary components of the novel, making it one of the most important modern post-WWII works. Politis’ unfinished novel The End was published posthumously. In one of his rare interviews Politis claimed that he felt himself to be an “amateur writer”, which is, as he said, not a good thing; and elsewhere he stated, clearly ironically, that he considered art a game. The truth is that this ‘non-professional’ novelist succeeded, through ‘play’, in acquiring an important place in modern Greek prose, and his novels (in particular the first and the last two) became the favourite reading and the reference point of many generations.

Greece 1934

Switzerland 1995

Greece 1937

France 1992

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Makeshift refugee housing, Anafiotika quarter, below the Acropolis, Athens. Photograph by Nelly. (Benaki Museum Photographic Archive)

The defeat of the Greek forces in Asia Minor in September 1922 was followed by a violent process of total eradication of Hellenism from one of its most ancient sites. The precise number of the dead and missing has yet to be established; a great many managed to flee to Greece. However, the majority of the Greek population of Asia Minor was exchanged for the Turkish residents of northern Greece and Crete. Even today, the Greek word prosfygia still denotes the endless influx of refugees (estimated to have exceeded 1,000,000) from Asia Minor in the early 1920s. The nation which had seen its dreams of the restoration of a lost homeland become reality at the end of WWI, once again found itself in the throes of chaos and despair. Yet thanks to the dynamism, hard work, and national pride of the refugees, Greece soon got back on its feet sufficiently to effect social, political and artistic change. The Asia Minor refugees, from Constantinople and Pontos, are today completely absorbed into Greek society. Both the older and younger generations keep the memory and the tradition of these lost but never forgotten homelands alive. Refugees from Asia Minor, 1922. (E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

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Fotis Kontoglou’s significance for the history of modern Greek literature is not in dispute, but he is difficult to place, resisting as he did any identification with literary groups, schools and movements. Moreover, he jealously guarded his dual identity as writer and artist, which further complicates the picture. However, his work, when evaluated as a whole, invites the conclusion that he was less a writer in the conventional sense of the term than a creator and interpreter of images. Kontoglou was born in 1896 in Ayvali, Asia Minor, where he was educated to a very high standard. In 1912 he enrolled in the School of Fine Art at Athens and worked closely with the painter Spyros Papaloukas. After losing his family during the Turkish destruction of Ayvali (1914-17) he set off to travel around Europe, where he took up a variety of jobs, including coal mining and turnery in a number of cities. Once in Paris he attended art classes and worked for the periodical Illustration, where he came into contact with the leading figures of the contemporary scene, including Rodin and Maeterlinck. The bizarre tales of treasure hunters and pirates which abounded in Paris fuelled his imagination. In 1919 he returned home, but the Asia Minor disaster of 1922 forced him to flee to Mytilini as a refugee. From there he moved to Athens where he made a name for himself with the publication of his first book Pedro Cazas (1920), “the story of a Spanish buccaneer who either lived for three hundred years or returned from Hell, told for the first time”. The book carried the author’s own exquisite illustrations, was lauded by the critics, but despite its positive reception in literary circles, Kontoglou never chose to mix in the usual way with the literati of the capital. In 1923 he made a trip to Mt Athos where the Byzantine and post-Byzantine artistic tradition and the simplicity of the humble monastic life on the Holy Mountain made a profound impression on him. The results of this encounter with nature and spirituality on Athos are discernible in Vasanta, a collection of assorted texts, including the short story How Ignatius Feared, Thief, Met his Death, letters, memoirs, poems and translations of Shakespeare, Bernardin de Saint Pierre, Robinson Crusoe and the Psalms of David. In this work, all the themes which were to preoccupy Kontoglou throughout his literary career are clearly discernible. The sea, ascetics, ‘primitive’ African natives, spirits and goblins, the entire spectrum of historical and mythical memory, reawakened in the forgotten, extraordinary narratives of famous, frequently marginal, characters, were all sources of inspiration for Kontoglou who, as a genuine artist, used the power of the imagination to reconstitute this heroic world, transforming it into an Eastern tale in simple and accessible language, after first “making everything a painting”. In Journeys (1928) and Astrolabe (1934) he describes some of his favourite places, and processes or collects stories from around the world, his sole criterion being that they should be beautiful and bring pleasure to the reader. The God Konanos (1943) adopts a more cryptic style, relying more on allegory and symbol. After WWII the cosmopolitan artist of the 1920s became increasingly introspective and hardened his stance against technology and against the tendency of Western culture to dominate. Henceforth Kontoglou was to evaluate everything against the criterion of the Christian faith and Orthodoxy. He

FOTIS KONTOGLOU

The writer and artist Fotis Kontoglou, Self Portrait, 19 X 13 cm, 1938. (Private collection)

became increasingly absorbed in the legends of the saints which he recast in a lively demotic language (The Secret Garden, 1944). At the same time Kontoglou mounted a crusade to preserve Greek tradition as expressed in folk art, music, popular song and Karagiozis shadow theatre, forms which were on the wane in the wake of the turn towards European culture. The main front on which he fought this crusade was in the realm of ecclesiastical art, and he arranged several exhibitions of icons and published books on the subject, for example the monumental volume Expression (1960). In this way, Kontoglou managed to rekindle interest in the largely forgotten splendours of Byzantine icon painting (which tended to be seen as a rather insignificant chapter in the history of Western art, as the painter George Hadjimichalis recently observed). Citizen of the world, and the citizen of no country. He provoked great arguments and divisions only to prove an immense unifying influence and a great apologist for Greek cultural identity.

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THE SEARCH FOR NATIONAL IDENTITY

Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas, Girl Seated in an Armchair, 1939, tempera on plaster, 37 x 30 cm. (Private Collection, Benaki Museum-Ghika Gallery, Athens)

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For sixty-five years, from the liberal military coup of 1909 until the fall of the 1967-74 colonels’ dictatorship, fledgling modern Greek democracy searched for an identity and endeavoured to develop with slow, unsteady and faltering steps. These long-lasting disturbances caused a large portion of Greek prose writing to lean towards a realistic depiction of national wars and political and social instability. Pitting their heroes against all sorts of adversity, Greek novel and short story writers between the years 1930-1960 attempted to provide answers to complex issues of national identity and at the same time to provoke discussion of awkward dilemmas on the subject of personal responsibility and the necessity or futility of personal commitment to causes. The most prominent characteristic of pre- and post-WWII Greek prose writing, as critics have pointed out, is a terrible passion for inquiry – a passion which sought to define the national, social and moral issues of their era. Many of the best novels written between the two World Wars, such as Leonis by Yorgos Theotokas, The Chronicle of a Town by Pantelis Prevelakis, Aeolian Earth by Ilias Venezis and The Violet City by Angelos Terzakis, strove to find the deeper meaning of being Greek. The authors expressed nostalgia for their place of birth, which had been irrevocably obliterated either because time, in the course of progress, had mercilessly destroyed the old, familiar, beloved face of the city and its inhabitants, or because the intermittent years of military conflict and population exchanges had transformed their place of origin into a place of fantasy and dreams outside the domain of reality. Wanting, in addition, to make sense of the conditions within which the new Hellenism was formed and shaped, those writing between the two world wars turned to the historical novel, such as Princess Ysabeau by Angelos Terzakis with its medieval heroine, The Cretan by Pantelis Prevelakis with its militant heroes, Captain Michalis by Nikos Kazantzakis, and The Lord of the Castle by M. Karagatsis, a novel about the War of Independence which opened in 1821. The investigation of the realities of modern life between the two world wars was in fact the aim of certain prose writers, giving rise to such works as Argo by Yorgos Theotokas, whereas a deep-rooted nostalgia for the adventures of adolescence and a natural cosmopolitanism produced the spellbinding novel Ero˚ca by Kosmas Politis. Many of these writers took on the role of national spiritual leaders and at the same time became apologists for the values of the beleagured Greek civil democracy.

(Hestia Publications Archive)

(E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

PANTELIS PREVELAKIS

Yorgos Theotokas was both the pathfinder and the theoretical backbone of the new school of Greek literature in the 1930s. He demanded dynamism and inventive ideas from his age and generation. In his novel Argo (1933) he undertakes the ambitious task of presenting both the individual and the collective features of the young students at Athens University. He was firmly of the belief that the novelist must arrest reality at the time of its birth, in other words at the moment when phenomena which define the future are created.

Through his prose works, Pantelis Prevelakis observes the Greek past in a highly original manner. In his Chronicle of a Town (1937) and in Death of De’ Medici (1939), the author, who frequently exploits the rich resources and expressive potential of the vernacular to lend authenticity to the words of his heroes, signals to his readers the importance of cohesion and security in a society which has yet to open itself up to major new influences And in this respect, Prevelakis is the mythmaker of collective memory.

Photo by Johanna Weber

(National Research Institute Photographic Archive)

YORGOS THEOTOKAS

ANGELOS TERZAKIS

DIDO SOTIRIOU

A highly reflective essayist and novelist. Most of Terzakis’ novels communicate his conviction that mankind has reached a dead end, both on an individual and a collective level. In The Bound (1932), The Decadence of the Tough (1933) and Without God (1951) the writer demonstrates the fragility of family, sexual and social relationships, as they follow their inevitable trajectory towards decay, degradation and decadence. What Terzakis is at pains to emphasise as he denounces his heroes is their personal rejection of conscience and their inability to find salvation in external reality.

Dido Sotiriou was born in Aidani in Asia Minor in 1909. From her first novel, The Dead Are Waiting (1959) to the work which established her reputation, Bloodied Earth (1962), she draws on the tragedy of 1922. Her central hero is a farmer who looks back with nostalgia to the days when Greeks and Turks lived side by side in peace before the Disaster of Asia Minor. In Bloodied Earth Sotiriou shows that the cause of the catastrophe was not some time-old metaphysical racial hatred, but was determined by political interests of the time.

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THE AVANT-GARDE NOVEL THREE INSTANCES

N.G. Pentzikis in 1982, holding a forget-me-not. Photograph by Yannis Vanidis.

N.G. PENTZIKIS AND KOCHLIAS Few modern Greek writers have met with the critical embarrassment that was reserved for N.G. Pentzikis (1908-1993). His eccentric style developed round a highly personal poetics based on description: listing, cataloguing, classifying, recording minute details. Architecture of a Dissipated Life (1963) and Archive (1974) center round the logic of discontinuity, a carefully charted wandering among closets, files and cabinets, an ordo neglectus, a systematic anarchy. A continuous yet fragmented text analyses and compounds apparently endless selfcommentary and variations. It delves deep into the specific, the apparently trivial and insignificant, exploring the last particle of time and space in its effort to represent all: it is a work in search of its own guiding principles. The Novel of Mrs Ersi (1966) is marked above all by a disjointed, paratactical mode of writing, where the principal theme is constantly marginalised. This novel presents us with a kaleidoscopic text that has done away altogether with a conventional time frame, weaving the threads of the future, the present and past in a single fabric. The overriding style of Mrs Ersi is that of a palimpsest, of the imbrication of narrative, where an old story (by G. Drosinis, 1922) is retold and recast. The tale by Drosinis provides the main characters and general plot, but Pentzikis’ reworking, remolding and transformation creates a startlingly phantasmagoric parody of the original the likes of which have not been seen elsewhere in Greek letters. Pentzikis plays games constantly with his own programme

Thessaloniki, view of the White Tower from the harbour, 1932, photograph by Perikles Papahadjidakis (Benaki Museum Photographic Archive).

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N.G. Pentzikis, Drawing from the Well of Indistinct Memory, 18 X 24 cm., 1974. (Private Collection)

and with the traps that he sets in his own tales. If the protagonists of the OuLiPo were able to read his works they would surely have made him a leading member of their movement. It seems unlikely, perhaps, that a restless, unorthodox personality like Pentzikis could have been the moving spirit behind the short-lived (two years) avant-garde review published in Thessaloniki under the title Kochlias. Sharing a number of features with the Athenian arts review Trito Mati (Third Eye) – largely on account of the close friendship of Stratis Doukas with Pentzikis – Kochlias attracted the collaboration of a small group of artists and young writers (Themelis, Pentzikis, Kitsopoulos, Karelli, Xefloudas, Svoronos, Tsizek and others). The review came out in a total of 22 issues and succeeded in blending the modern with the traditional (chiefly Byzantine), and, in its translation section, introduced a significant number of foreign writers to the Greek reading public that were only later translated in Athens-based journals. Writings by Joyce, Eluard, Neruda, Apollinaire, Lorca, Lautréamont, Kierkegaard, Dos Passos and others all appeared in the pages of Kochlias, and certainly played a part in the formation of the style of the Thessaloniki ‘school’ of writers. Besides foreign writers, Kochlias’ pages also hosted works by the younger generation of writers in Northern Greece. The periodical Kochlias, no. 18, Thessaloniki, June 1947, carrying Pentzikis’ translation of Mallarmé’s Igitur.

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Yannis Skarimbas photographed in Halkida in the early 1980s.

YANNIS SKARIMBAS (1893-1984) was something of an outcast poet and playwright. Living in Halkida (where he remained throughout his life), he emerged on the literary scene during the interwar period, alongside the generation of the 1930s, though he was always careful to maintain a distance from the prevailing literary modes of his day. His own highly personal and iconoclastic style, his liking for the dislocation of discourse, his tendency to turn the apparently ‘true’ inside out, and his faith in the power of wordplay were defining characteristics that set him slightly apart from the surrealist school to which so many critics sought to attach him. He seeks to surprise the reader through his strategy of caustic satire and subversive irony, which serve to keep his pen on the verge of scandal. In his first novel, The Divine Goat (1933), he employs an avant-garde style that formed the basis for his future experiments in his personal anti-novel genre: the deranged and enigmatic tales of Mariambas (1935), Figaro’s Solo (1939), and The Waterloo of Two Fools (1959). A solitary stylist, eccentric, sarcastic, and a menace to every convention and rule, Skarimbas has largely escaped the serious critical attention that he deserves.

Halkida, 11 June 1948. Photograph by Stefanos Malikopoulos. (Benaki Museum Photographic Archive)

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(Kedros Publications Archive)

MELPO AXIOTI (1905-1973) is surely one of the most important women writers in modern Greek letters. She belongs to that large group of writers and artists whose life and work became inextricably linked to the politics of the Left. She joined the Communist Party in 1936, and later worked tirelessly in the Greek resistance under Nazi occupation. In 1947 she left Greece for France in order to escape likely imprisonment on account of her political activities. She had already published Difficult Nights (1938), the highly unconventional novella Shall We Dance, Maria? 1940) and the equally avantgarde Twentieth Century (1946). Following her expulsion from France (1950), where she had been part of a large circle of distinguished intellectuals including Eluard and Aragon, she began a long trail of exile in the ‘People’s Republics’ of Eastern Europe. These were the years of loneliness and isolation, when she limited her writing activity to militant political tracts that conformed to the party line. After 17 years outside Greece she returned and, shortly before she died, published her masterpiece Kadmo (1972). Despite her periodic submission to the conventions of socialist realism, Melpo Axioti created an innovative, stream-of-consciousness style that marked her out from her fellow Greek writers. Traditional narrative is overturned and split open in her works, while a strange perception of time emerges, forged out of the games of the fantastic and the fits of memory.

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M. KARAGATSIS

Despite his relatively short life (1908-1960), M. Karagatsis was a highly prolific writer, with an impressive list of short stories and novels to his name. From his earliest publications to the present day, Karagatsis is a unique publishing phenomenon: no other fiction writer of his generation was and still is read as avidly. Karagatsis handles a vast array of narrative forms, ranging from the historical to the social, to fantasy literature and exotic adventure, but always preserving intact a compact mixture of realism and expressionism at the heart of his work. From the first titles which established his reputation as a writer - Colonel Lyapkin (1933), Chimaera (1936), and Jungermann (1938) (undoubtedly some of his greatest works too)–to the novels of his maturity, Karagatsis’ focus was on erotic passion, violence, impulsive reactions to the difficult and unexpected situations life presents, and the quest for the different or the absolute in a world which legislates with harsh measures, setting provocative limits on human freedom and personal expression. Karagatsis was above all a beguiling narrator and skilful storyteller. His many heroes often find themselves suffocated by the terms of unworkable social contracts. Their frequent victimisation and marginalisation at times assumes the form of something holy. Karagatsis always succeeds in constructing a captivating narrative in which the plot is always paramount. Two of his most important creations, the Russian Colonel Lyapkin and the French heroine Marina (married to a Greek captain) both lead very turbulent lives: the Colonel, hounded by guilty memories and broken by his weakness for alcohol; Marina, consumed by insatiable erotic passion) they are gradually led with mathematical precision to total ruin. For Karagatsis this kind of annihilation was the rule, the outcome of the negative strength of his characters in combination with the bleak environment that produced them.

The novelist M. Karagatsis. Photograph by Andreas Embiricos. (Marina Karagatsi Archive)

France 1991

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Switzerland 1962

Germany 1968

Albanian Front, 1940. By the banks of the River Devolis. Photograph by D.A. Harissiadis. (Benaki Museum Photographic Archive)

THE PROSE OF WAR

The wars that Greece took part in during the 20th century (the Balkan Wars, World War I and World War II) and the aftermath of these wars (the Asia Minor Disaster and the Civil War) were responsible for the emergence in Greece, as elsewhere, of what has been called ‘the war novel’, though one might question the exact connotation of this term: first, in regard to the word ‘war’, since in none of these novels are there direct descriptions of wartime conflict but rather of the conditions soldiers endured in wars fought with advanced technology and of the suffering of the combatants and of civilians after the war; and,

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second, in regard to the word ‘novel’ in as much as there is not a classic structure with a composite plot and a plausible ending. Because of limited space, reference will be made to certain works only by way of example. The novel Life in the Tomb, by Stratis Myrivilis, successively sub-titled ‘Manuscripts Found in the Backpack of Sergeant Antonis Kostoulas’, ‘Tales of War’, and now ‘The Book of War’, was first published in 1924 in the literary series ‘I Kambana’ on the island of Mytilini. It was re-issued in an updated edition in Athens in 1930, with additional revisions in subsequent editions from the 3rd edition in 1931 to the 7th in 1955. It contains the published diary entries and undelivered letters written by the now deceased sergeant, Antonis Kostoulas, from the trenches in Macedonia during World War I. The novel Number 31328, by Ilias Venezis, later sub-titled ‘The Book of Captivity’ or ‘The Book of Slavery’, first appeared in print in 1924, was published in 1931 and again, with minor but noteworthy revisions, in 1945 and 1952. It is a chronicle of the author’s own ‘captivity’ as a prisoner of war in a labour camp in Anatolia from 1922 until his release. A Prisoner’s Story, by Stratis Doukas, first came out in 1929, followed by a revised edition in 1932 and further revisions in later editions, mainly in the 1958 edition. It records, in the form of an oral account, the adventures of one Nikolas Kozakoglou who is arrested by the Turks during the Asia Minor Disaster, escapes with a friend, lives in hiding with him disguised as a Turk, and eventually manages to escape and regain his freedom in Greece. The Broad River by Yannis Beratis first came out in 1946, followed by an expanded edition in 1965. Its initial hand-written title was ‘A Journey through War’. It describes as an adventurous experience both the up-country trek of the author/narrator to the Albanian front, during the war between Greece and Italy, in order to broadcast propaganda to the Italians, and his unruly ‘descent’ following the German invasion of Greece. Finally, there is Descent of the Nine by Thanassis Valtinos, which was written in 1959 and first appeared in the periodical

Stratis Doukas (right), author of A Prisoner’s Story (1928) at N.G. Pentzikis’ Pharmacy (see pp. 198-99), a well-known meeting-place for writers in Thessaloniki in the 30s and 40s. (Agra Publications Archive)

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Epoches in 1963; it was published in book form in 1978. It relates the oral testimony of a young guerrilla, the sole survivor of a group of defeated communists travelling through the Peloponnese trying to avoid arrest and make their way to the sea and to freedom through inhospitable mountainous terrain. Almost every one of these texts refers to a different war, therefore to a different time, and in terms of place they cover just about everywhere, including greater Greece. They differ in their form and in their content between the first writing (close to the time of war) and their definitive publication, which means that almost all the authors extensively reworked their material either for artistic or for ideological reasons, the prime example being Myrivilis. It has recently been suggested, moreover, that both the change in the dedication of Doukas’ novel (1st edition: “Dedicated to the common suffering of the Greek and Turkish peoples”; 3rd edition: “Dedicated to the common suffering of all people”) and also the addition of verse from the Psalms instead of chapter headings in Venezis’ work, may be due to the fact that these authors were now looking at the Asia Minor Disaster within the context of the Jewish Holocaust. Although each of these novels refers to a different war, one can still discern certain similarities in them, the most characteristic being the use of the first person singular. Whether his voice is the same as the author’s (Venezis, Beratis), or belongs to a persona (Myrivilis), or to a common man, the narrator makes use of diaries, letters, confessions, oral testimonies or travel journals in order to illustrate a pre-eminently historical event, such as war. This he does not in the style of a working historian but through the use of the records and sources of historical writing. The use of the first person narrator signals a departure or a turning away from the historical recording of a public event, which, in any case, is not easy to describe. It also limits the individual’s attention to those facts and insignificant events he saw and heard with his own eyes and ears and, above all, experienced with his own body (hunger, thirst, violence). The historical event is approached through forms that are peculiar to personal experience, not to the experience of the heroic personage or the victor but to that of an all-inclusive, collective “I” attempting to survive or, in the best of circumstances, to preserve some human dignity. Of course, wars are not all the same. The thwarting of the enthusiastic hopes of young people, who believed that World War I was an opportunity for all sorts of revolutionary changes, is manifest in Myrivilis’ work, and is expressed by the author as a denunciation of war in unfailingly lofty tones with extravagant use of the demotic form of modern Greek combined with pronounced stylistic affectation. On the contrary, World War II, believed in Greece to have been a necessary moral response to fascism, is depicted as such by Beratis, a first-hand witness, through his use of a simple selection of counterpoised details drawn from everyday life on the front, which the author arranges with artistry and musicality. The remaining three authors write of the fate of the vanquished and the persecuted during the Asia Minor Disaster or the Civil War. In these works the horror of war is not described realistically through conventional literary devices (except perhaps by Venezis whose ‘over-literary’ figures of speech may, it has

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

Thrasos Kastanakis, Stratis Myrivilis, Angelos Terzakis, Ilias Venezis, Zappeion, in the early 1930s. (E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

been suggested, be read ironically) but rather through recourse to a quasi-oral style. Oral speech as testimony, incorporating as it does features of local dialects, adopts an extreme stylistic humility that does not re-enact but rather alludes to, in the most conversant manner, a people’s struggles for survival under conditions of human degradation. A first-person narrative guarantees the authenticity of oral testimony. We should not, however, overlook the fact that at the same time these works contain in indirect or allusive form intertextual features or more general cultural experiences that may have shaped their artistic technique and that assuredly permit us to read them on another plane. The Psalms used as chapter head-

ings by Venezis, the dialogues of Doukas’ heroes so reminiscent of Lives of the Saints, themes from Christ’s Passion on the Cross or the Book of Revelation by Saint John in Myrivilis’ work, or the Xenophon-inspired Descent in the title of the second half of Beratis’ novel, or in Valtinos’ Descent, together with references in the latter’s work to ballads of the klephts – 18th- and 19thcentury freedom-fighters – and Descent into Hades, demonstrate that even what appears to be unpolished spoken narrative is connected, either directly or through irony, to classical tales of heroism, war, and conflict. In this way the fragmentary nature of personal experience acquires a universal character.

Christos Kapralos, part of the frieze of the Battle of Pindos Monument, 1952-56. (Christos Kapralos Museum, Aegina, Greece)

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(E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

(E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

GREECE - BOOKS AND WRITERS – SECTION VI

ILIAS VENEZIS

Stratis Myrivilis (1892-1969), a novelist whose dominant theme was war. His most important work Life in the Tomb (1923-4) was based on his personal experiences in the trenches of WWI. Myrivilis expresses his distaste for every aspect of war and describes the horror of conditions both in the camps and in the trenches, both during fighting and in the few moments of respite. His deep-seated antimilitary philosophy shines through scenes of extreme violence, scenes designed to shock the reader into identification with the author’s message of universal peace.

Ilias Venezis (1904-1973), an author whose writing drew heavily on his ordeal as a prisoner. As a teenager during the Asia Minor Disaster, Venezis was sent to a Turkish labour battalion, and his panic and despair during this time come through in his very immediate writing. Number 31328 (1924) remains one of the most powerful accounts in Greek of the horror of imprisonment, enslavement and the abandonment of a young spirit to an forbidding and hostile world.

(E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

STRATIS MYRIVILIS

YANNIS BERATIS Yannis Beratis (d. 1968) established his reputation as a novelist with two titles which came out in the same year, The Broad River and Itinerary of ’43 (1946). The Broad River is an account of the GrecoItalian war from the perspective of a soldier, who, rather than becoming consumed by the high-flown ideas and high-sounding sermons about the fatherland, (or alternatively, against the warmongering spirit) chooses to record the heroism displayed daily by his fellow soldiers fighting, quite literally, body and soul in the trenches. Events on the Albanian front are narrated in detail, but in a manner that is far from sensational. Beratis’ descriptions are often elliptical and his characters sketched with only a minimum of detail, but enough to provide an outline and the perspective of an entire life.

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Switzerland 1984

France 1984

Italy 1959

France 1946

Romania 1988

England 1987

France 1945

France 1971

The Netherlands

Germany 1977

France 1946

Greece 1999

Germany 1986

Turkey

England 1999

France 1993

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LITERARY REVIEWS OF THE THIRTIES AND FORTIES NEA HESTIA Nea Hestia was launched in 1927 by Grigorios Xenopoulos, the journal’s first editor. In 1933 Petros Haris took over, and edited the publication for fifty-five consecutive years (1933-1987). From 15 April 1927 to 15 June 1998 Nea Hestia was published uninterruptedly every fortnight, even during the German Occupation. Nea Hestia is Greece’s oldest and most reputable literary periodical and plays a seminal role in the literary life of the country. Researching modern Greek literature would be unthinkable without reference to its many thousands of pages. In September 1998 Nea Hestia began to appear on a monthly basis, with Stavros Zoumboulakis as editor. It serves as a lively forum for the most creative minds in the country and engages in dialogue with some of the most important writers and works from abroad; it is a forum for the exploration of ideas, free of dogmatic bias.

TA NEA GRAMMATA Ta Nea Grammata was a monthly periodical, founded by the bibliographer Yorgos Katsimbalis, mentor to several of the writers of the so-called ‘30s generation’. It was edited by the young critic Andreas Karantonis. During its short life (1935-1940: second phase 1944) it had a profound impact on the contemporary literary scene, functioning as the main organ for this generation. Some of its most distinguished contributors include George Seferis (see p. 170), Odysseus Elytis (see p. 186), Nikos Engonopoulos (see p. 178), Andreas Embiricos (see p. 178), Y. Theotokas (see p. 205), Kosmas Politis (see p. 198), A. Terzakis (see p. 205), M. Karagatsis (see p. 210), K T. Dimaras, as well as older writers such as Kostis Palamas (see p. 134) and A. Sikelianos (see p. 154). Ta Nea Grammata made a concerted effort to introduce and promote Modernism in Greece, and both through poetry and prose and critical writing succeeded in changing the orientation of Greek letters: it brought about a revision of the canon by creating a new modern tradition which championed ‘Greekness’ in bold new terms.

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TO TRITO MATI To Trito Mati, a short-lived though highly influential arts review published between 1935 and 1937, focused on new trends in the arts, letters, architecture and aesthetics in Greece and abroad, and was marked by a highly cosmopolitan outlook. Contributors included Stratis Doukas (see p. 212), Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas (see p. 195, 204), D. Pikionis, Spyros Papaloukas, Sokratis Karantinos, T.K. Papatsonis (see p. 195), R. Filyras and N. Kazantzakis (see p. 158). Translations published in its pages included works by Apollinaire, Claudel, Romanos Melodos and Dante.

TETRADIO Tetradio, edited by Alexander Xydis, Andreas Kambas, Alexis Solomos and Antonis Vousvounis, was one of the most important avant-garde reviews of its time. Its first issues appeared after the Nazi occupation of Greece and the December Demonstrations in Athens, in three large-format issues in 1945 and three small-format issues in 1947. From the outset it was associated with innovative Greek poets and writers: Seferis (see p. 170), Embiricos (see p. 178), Engonopoulos (see p. 178), Elytis (see p. 186), Gatsos (see p. 184), Papatsonis (see p. 195), Calas (see p. 183) and the younger writers A. Kambas, N. Valaoritis (see p. 184), M. Sachtouris (see p. 184), and M. Hadjilazarou. Other contributors included artists such as Tsarouchis, Engonopoulos, Moralis, Mavroidis, Ghikas and Vakalo. Translations published in its pages included works by Eluard, Peret, Picasso, Lorca, Anais Nin, H. Michaux and Sartre.

(cover by Nikos Engonopoulos)

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THE PROSE OF COMMITMENT

Vasso Katraki, State III, engraving in stone, 1969.

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Post-WWII prose writers carried on with unabated passion the artistic inquiry into the modern Greek landscape. They were, however, markedly different from their pre-war predecessors. Having grown up during the German Occupation, the Resistance and the Civil War they clashed with the establishment and were intensely critical of every kind of authority. Hounded, imprisoned and exiled, leftist writers aligned themselves not only against the victors of the Civil War but against their own party leadership. But non-leftists were also faced with reprisals and intimidation by the post-Civil War state. Regardless of their ideological and political positions, post-war writers became part of a more general trend – one not purely Greek. Like their European and American counterparts, they lived through the disappointment of seeing their hopes for a safer and more just future dashed, with the result that there also grew up in the world of Greek arts a particularly emotion-fraught genre that we might call the ‘literature of outrage’. The Shorn by Nikos Kasdaglis, The Defenceless by Dimitris Hatzis, and The Courtyard by Andreas Franghias brought to the forefront cases of wrongdoing to marginalised groups in order to demonstrate the deep-seated injustices of a social system which, in their opinion, was ailing as a whole. In his novel Under Siege Alexandros Kotzias declaims, through the activities of a paramilitary butcher, the blood-thirsty instincts that led to the catastrophic conflicts of the Civil War, while in Stratis Tsirkas’s Drifting Cities and in Aris Alexandrou’s Mission Box, sharp criticism is levelled by the authors at the leftwing leadership for the unconscionable way they led their party to defeat and destruction. The Dam by Spiros Plaskovitis deals with the fatal sin of an arrogant technology-centred society that believed in its own boundless omnipotence. Authors such as Renos Apostolidis, Nikos Bakolas, Antonis Samarakis and Rodis Roufos have expressed themselves in a similar vein. When wounds are still open and bleeding, as they are in Greece’s recent history, the dead-end meanderings of the human soul seem a luxury and can perhaps be left on the sideline. This is why the basically social, historical and realistic tendencies in WWII and post-WWII Greek fiction seem like the most natural choice to expect. This did not, however, prevent the creation of a number, though small, of brilliant works of modernist prose, such as the dazzling Figaro’s Solo by Yannis Skarimbas, the profoundly experiential, autobiographical My House by Melpo Axioti and the ethnocentric Hours with Mrs. Ersi by N. G. Pendzikis. In its more mature period, moreover, post-WWII realism boldly tried out radical innovations aimed at grafting upon more traditional forms of narrative some of the techniques invented by modernist schools, such as the internal monologue and stream-of-consciousness writing, or an entirely depersonalised neutral narrative account, and also selfreferentiality and inter-textual references.

(E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive).

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

ARIS ALEXANDROU

NIKOS KASDAGLIS

Aris Alexandrou (1922-1978), poet, novelist, essayist and translator, in his one and only novel, To Kivotio (The Mission Box, 1975), broached aspects of the Greek civil war in singularly critical and penetrating fashion. It was a pioneering work in Greek literature, which did away with representational conventions and shattered the edifice of realist literary contrivance. To Kivotio is the anti-epic of the Greek Left: it takes a cool look at the noisy heroics, the loud moral confidence, and the illustrious leaders of the movement. The myth of infallible party orthodoxy and the prescripts of a specific doctrine of the Left are mercilessly scrutinised. The success of To Kivotio has tended to overshadow Alexandrou’s strangely lyrical poetic output and his work as a translator. He produced superb translations from the Russian literary tradition.

A political writer in the true sense of the term, Nikos Kasdaglis has been writing for the past forty-five years about the exercise of brute violence, whether he is describing bloody civil strife in the streets of Athens under the German Occupation, in The Grooves of the Millstone, or the militaristic brutality of Greece’s post-Civil War camps, in The Shorn and in Mythology, or the harsh aggressiveness of the April dictatorship. Without taking a position as to good or evil, right or wrong, the author confines himself to recording people’s passions at the height of intensity: the moment when his subjects feel on their bodies the weight of inexorable mechanisms bearing down upon them in order to implement their will and their goals through the use of senseless violence.

ANDREAS FRANGIAS

ALEXANDROS KOTZIAS

Andreas Frangias’ (b. 1921) four novels People and Houses (1955), Wrought Iron Gate (1962), Plague (1972) and The Crowd (vol. I, 1985; vol. II, 1986) explore aspects of collective memory and political history. The author constantly returns to the traumatic experience of the German Occupation and the Civil War to point to the deep scars they left on a society which was already in many respects deeply divided. His historical material gives him occasion to add flesh and blood to his own mythical figures, allowing them to unfold gradually and reveal themselves for what they are.

Alexandros Kotzias (1926-1992) is best-known for the novel Usurped Authority (1979) in which almost all the features of his writing come together: the polyphony of the heroes and the social classes depicted in his literary myth; the unfolding of plot in a variety of places and the use of multiple time levels. Kotzias sustains these features with equal passion and insistence throughout his oeuvre, from Under Siege (1953), The Dark Affair (1954), Lucifer (1959) and The Attempt (1964) to the Fantastic Adventure (1986) and the dramatic monologues of the tetralogy The Children of Cronus: The Jaguar (1987); The Machine (1990); The Boxer (1991) and The Alley (1993).

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DIMITRIS HATZIS

(Nikos Goulandris Archive)

The characters of Dimitris Hatzis (1913-1981) are the products of society. His work bears the mark of classical economy and his technique clearly derives inspiration from Brecht. He moves his heroes onto the stage at the crucial moment of duress when the old has reached its resting point and the new is on the threshold, and thus reproduces the essence of the drama for the reader. Whether in The Defenceless or The End of Our Small Town the failure of the short story form is predetermined. But the poetics of this prose writer (who produced most of his work while in exile in Eastern Europe) allows him to explore 20th century Greek society to great effect. For Hatzis, political commitment, in its broadest sense, remains the sine qua non of his literary conscience, whether this results in awakening the class consciousness of his protagonists, or in admiration for the monumental achievements of the armed struggle of the Communist Party in the Greek mountains during the Greek Civil War, or in exploring the loneliness of the migrants, or in discussing the role and function of artistic form. His concern however is always the same: to demonstrate the road through which the political horizon will be made discernible and comprehensible. This path is never straight and rarely unbroken. Around the hard core of commitment the shifts are frequent and formidable, and through them the writer constantly interrogates both his positions and his modes of expression.

GREEK WRITERS IN EASTERN EUROPE IN THE FIFTIES AND SIXTIES Dimitris Hatzis and Melpo Axioti were the chief representatives of a school of Greek literature developed by writers on the left who were forced into exile in the Eastern Bloc at the end of the Civil War. Self-declared Communists left for the Socialist republics, where they tried to keep the memory of their native land alive, the land where they would face certain execution were they to return.

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From left: Dimitris Hatzis, Melpo Axioti and Elli Alexiou at the Modern Greek Studies Conference, Berlin, 16-18 April 1957.

POST-WORLD WAR II POETRY POLITICAL TRAGEDY AND EXISTENTIAL ANGST

Those who began writing poetry in Greece in the first two decades after the end of World War II had to contend not only with the nightmare of the Nazi Occupation, which was an experience common to almost all countries in Europe, but also with an entirely different set of circumstances whose influence was felt on Greek society for over a quarter of a century: first came three years of civil conflict between 1946 and 1949 directly following the end of the war, with thousands of casualties on both sides, leading to the final defeat of the Communist Party. The immediate result of this was the persecution of its members and their imprisonment or exile, while executions following summary court trials became a part of the daily agenda of public life in Greece. The extensive aftermath of these acts left their mark on the country until the fall of the seven-year dictatorship in July of 1974. It was difficult for such empty horizons not to affect the vision of poets emerging on the scene, many of whom belonged body and soul to the Left. These same poets did not hesitate repeatedly to take the party leadership to task for the political and the physical annihilation to which it had condemned not only the party members but also the non-partisan population at large. And even those poets who did not belong to the Left and had no reason to expend their energies on internal factional bickering found it impossible to overlook the grave, farreaching wounds inflicted on post-WWII Greece. Starting out, of necessity, from such a point, the new poets of this period (Aris Alexandrou, Manolis Anagnostakis, Dimitris Doukaris, Panos Thasitis, Michalis Katsaros, Kleitos Kyrou, Thanassis Kostavaras, Tassos Leivaditis, Yorgos Pavlopoulos, Titos Patrikios, Takis Sinopoulos) were quick to depict a vivid and extremely painful reality: the bleakness of the Occupation and the Civil War, the moral bankruptcy brought about on both the collective and personal level by the breakdown of social values, the thwarted hopes of the Left for a more just world, and also the belying of the widespread hope for a better future following the collapse of Nazism. Their guiding light in this regard, in so far as their language and the cast of their writing are concerned, was none other than the poetic model provided by George Seferis: low-key voice and abstract or elliptic forms of expression suggesting rather than revealing poetic states of being. One must not draw the conclusion, however, that all poetry written in Greece after the end of World War II is exclusively based on war experiences. A notably important group of poets (Stavros Vavouris, Olga Botsi, Yorgos Geralis, Minas Dimakis, Aris Diktaios, Nikos Karouzos) adopt an existential approach in order to focus on themes such as the meaning of life and of death, the painful daily routine of the body or the mythopoeic function of memory. There is also no lack of a pure (almost impartial) strain of lyricism (Takis Varvitsiotis), of the magic of cryptic writing (Eleni Vakalo, Nikos Fokas), or of writing that occasionally reaches the expressionist howling of Ivan Göll (E.H. Gonatas), as well as various surrealistic treatments. As for surrealism in particular, one could say that it takes three forms. One of these (Manto Aravantinou, Nanos Valaoritis (see p. 184), Hector Kaknavatos (see p. 184), Yorgos Likos) tends towards replicating and partially renewing the dictates of Breton

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(E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

sub-standard speech of marginal groups (Thomas Gorpas) and the solace of a mythicised landscape (Markos Meskos). New horizons were soon to open up in the 1960s, either through purely erotic poetry, which spoke frankly of passion and its pain (Andreas Anghelakis, Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, Tassos Porfyris, Christos Laskaris, Dinos Christianopoulos), or through poetry in an urban landscape that served as the showplace for erotic and existential deprivation (Nikos-Alexis Aslanoglou). In such circumstances it was easy, and more or less natural, for existential issues to surface again. Firmly based on reality, these issues deeply concerned many voices of the new generation (Orestes Alexakis, Zefi Daraki, Kiki Dimoula, Manos Eleftheriou, Amalia Tsaknia and Spyros Tsaknias). While they constituted one of the central themes of poetry during those years, they were soon to bring to an end a period that, so far, has not been revived in modern Greek poetry. The poets who emerged in the years immediately following were to imbue poetry with an altogether different character.

Photo by Stelios Skopelitis

Photo by Stelios Skopelitis

in Paris during the period between the two World Wars – dictates that found their way into Greece at that time. The other two forms take us back in the general direction of post-WWII Greek poetry: one of them persists in putting forward distorted representations of the German Occupation and the Civil War, again with certain allusions to expressionism, this time through dialogue mainly with the writings of Georg Trakl and Dylan Thomas (Miltos Sachtouris, see p. 184); the other assumes a sort of ontological paganism, in which one can sometimes detect traces of the archaic music of pre-Homeric poetry (D. P. Papaditsas). World War II touches no less the next generation, which involves itself too with issues of the Left, mindful, however, to focus interest more upon the social pathology and economic recession of the post-WWII period that is more or less realistically portrayed (Anestis Evangelou, Vassilis Karavitis, Byron Leontaris, Gerasimos Lykiardopoulos, Marios Markidis, Prodromos Markoglou, Tolis Nikiforou). Also in evidence, as a means of exorcising reality, are three other different devices: poetic puns and word-play (Tassos Denegris), the use of the

MANOLIS ANAGNOSTAKIS

TITOS PATRIKIOS

TAKIS SINOPOULOS

Manolis Anagnostakis (1925-) one of the most prominent ‘heretics’ of the Greek Left, who never deserted its ranks, despite his bitter experiences of WWII and the Civil War. These experiences are given expression in his poetry.

Titos Patrikios (1928-) is a poet whose main preoccupations are politics, love and everyday existence. In a clear, immediate and confessional voice he describes his troubled relationship both with the political Left and with post-war Greek society.

Takis Sinopoulos (1917-1981). A poet with deep social and political concerns. His verse depicts desolate individual and collective landscapes which reflect the painful and far-reaching consequences WWII and the Civil War had for contemporary Greek society.

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Photo by Stelios Skopelitis

(Kedros Publications Archive)

Photo by A. Embiricos, c. 1955. (Agra Publications Archive)

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

ELENI VAKALO

NIKOS CAROUZOS

Tasos Livaditis (1921-1988) was involved in Left-wing politics from an early age, and it was his deep-seated social and political concerns that inspired him to write poetry. He later turned to pure existentialism, in which his childhood memories combine with discreet, rather obscure religious references.

Eleni Vakalo (1921-) is a poet who writes in a prefoundly cryptic manner and conjures a world which belongs to the realm of abstract intelligence. However, this does not prevent her from creating extremely moving situations, even when she does so exclusively through semantic and acoustic association.

Nikos Carouzos (1926-1991) began his poetic career with strongly Christian verse, only to become a committed apologist for a terrible existential void. His poetic language developed along the same lines, gradually abandoning religious symbols for a unpredictable language of resistance.

KIKI DIMOULA

NIKOS-ALEXIS ASLANOGLOU

D. P. PAPADITSAS

Kiki Dimoula (1931-) is a poet whose work draws thematically on the endless trials of everyday life, and transforms the abstractions of analytical discourse into the gestures of an immediate and intense confessional language, the mainstay of her poetics.

Nikos-Alexis Aslanoglou (1931-1996) - a highly introspective erotic poet who projected the anxieties and fears of his persona in their search for a spiritual refuge onto the immensity of the city. Endless wandering through the urban landscape is a dominant motif in his work.

D. P. Papaditsas (1922-1987). The first phase of his poetic output bears the influence of Surrealism, but later progresses to a form of philosophical speculation which is dominated by wordplay, frequently stretching language to the borders of silence.

(Nefeli Publications Archive)

TASOS LIVADITIS

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L I T E R A RY R E V I E W S O F T H E F I F T I E S A N D S I X T I E S EPITHEORISI TECHNIS Epitheorisis Technis – ‘Monthly Review of the Arts’, ran to 146 issues, from Christmas 1954 to April 1967 when it ceased publication due to the dictatorship. Although supported by the political Left, the journal was never a party organ. It was run by an editorial committee, with Kostas Kouloufakos, poet, essayist and member of the then outlawed KKE (Greek Communist Party), playing a key role in its format, ideology and contents. The journal was receptive to all expressions of the Greek and European avant-garde, and often printed articles and reviews critical of the intellectual Left. During the difficult Cold War years the review initiated many young people into the world of the theatre, the visual arts, music and issues in education, giving column space to some of the most prominent Greek and foreign writers.

(cover by Yannis Tsarouchis)

EPOCHES Epoches (Monthly Publication for Cultural and General Issues ) was one of the most important periodicals of post-war Greece. It ran to 48 issues, from May 1963 to April 1967, when it was shut down by the Colonels. It was edited by the writer and dramatist Angelos Terzakis (see p. 205), and its advisory board included G. Seferis (see p. 170), G. Theotokas (see p. 205) and K. T. Dimaras. It published both classical and avant-garde pieces, high quality essays on art and the humanities, academic research, and articles on education, language, politics and philosophy, literary reviews, and articles on music, theatre, dance and architecture. In its day, Epoches played a vital role in defining the literary, aesthetic and philosophical tastes of its varied readership.

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DIAGONIOS Diagonios (biannual literary and artistic periodical) was published by the poet Dinos Christianopoulos (see p. 222) and designed by Karolos Tsizek. It was started by a group of young Thessalonica intellectuals and spanned four successful five-year periods: 19581962; 1965-1969; 1972-1976 and 1979-1983). Diagonios was an important forum for literary and artistic debate. The high standard of the contributions, the independent and critical stance of the editors, the quality of its format and appearance and its unbiased outlook made it one of the most valuable and reliable periodicals in circulation.

(cover by Karolos Tsizek)

PALI Pali ran to six issues, from February 1964 to December 1966. It was headed by an editorial committee, but it was Nanos Valaoritis (see p. 184) who was mainly responsible for both the appearance and the contents of the journal. Its dominant aesthetic was surrealism, and it published the work of some of the most prominent Greek surrealists, including Nanos Valaoritis himself, Andreas Embiricos (see p. 178), Nikolas Calas (see p. 183) and Manto Aravantinou (see p. 221). Its stated aim was to open the door to the avant-garde, both at home and abroad. To this end, the publication included work by Allan Ginsberg and Tristan Tzara alongside its Greek contributors.

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Athens at the end of the 1950s. Photograph by Elli Papadimitriou. (Benaki Museum Photographic Archive)

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FROM POVERTY TO PROSPERITY IN THE MODERN METROPOLIS: 1960-1975

The decade of the 1960s ushered in a new era in post-war Greek history. It was a difficult time, an era of emigration abroad, of internal migration to big cities, of endless reconstruction and great political instability. The memory of the brutality of armed conflict was beginning to fade, the extreme measures of law enforcement following the Civil War were being relaxed and a renaissance was in progress in the arts, in literature (poetry), music, the theatre and cinema. At the same time a new crop of writers were making their appearance: Costas Taktsis, Yorgos Ioannou, Ilias Papadimitrakopoulos, Menis Koumantareas, Thanassis Valtinos, Christoforos Milionis, Vassilis Vassilikos, Tolis Kazandzis, Dimitris Petsetidis, Dimitris Nollas and others. They could be called the WWII generation; they were born during the 1930s and first appeared on the literary scene with books published between 1960 and 1975. They grew up under the German Occupation, the Resistance and the Civil War, without participating actively in these events. Judging from their work, however, the events of the period were indelibly engraved on their consciousness, so much so that they are one of the basic elements of their writing. Since most of these writers come from the Greek provinces, this particular element relates to the place where they spent their childhood. The other basic element has to do with Athens and with Thessaloniki, the two largest modern Greek cities and centres of consumer society, because all these writers, with the exception of one, eventually settled in a capital city. Since the material from which the novels of these WWII prose writers are drawn grew, as already noted, out of the two historical elements of childhood and adulthood, there can, as a result, often be found in their work an informal dialogue between the past and the present. The past with its material privation, hardships and danger yet intensity of feeling, converses with the present, a time of prosperity but also of emotional despondency and emptiness. It was most probably out of this relationship between the past and the present that the basic technique employed in the work of these WWII novelists evolved – a technique that joins traditional, or chronological, writing to modernist, freeassociative writing. A given text may, for example, have its origin in the past and unfold chronologically up to a certain point, at which time some sort of association will intervene that takes the discourse back to the past, and we are similarly transported from the past back to the present, and so on. There are of course some works that refer only to the past or only to the present. At any rate, this type of fiction generally gives us an historical-social vision of reality. Another of the features of this technique is that the writers are for the most part short story writers rather than novelists. Ioannou, Papadimitrakopoulos and Petsetidis have written nothing but short stories. The rest have written both short stories and novels. The short story has, as is usually the case in modern Greek fiction, the qualitative edge: short, succinct, lucid and poetically supported discourse is its distinguishing characteristic. In fact, since the historical-social orientation of these prose writers goes hand-in-hand with the corresponding vision of poets who are their contemporaries, we could say

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Third Wedding, Menis Koumandareas’ The Glass Works, Christoforos Milionis’ Westside Neighbourhood, Thanassis Valtinos’ Data from the Decade of the Sixties and Vassilis Vassilikos’ Glavkos Thrassakis, and in the novellas of Dimitris Nollas. But short fictional works also succeed in portraying, through the two-way relationship of past and present, the changes in post-war life within and beyond historical events, such as internal urban migration. Some of these works are in this respect true masterpieces, such as The Sole Inheritance by Yorgos Ioannou, Rosamunde by E.H. Papadimitrakopoulos, Kalamas and Acheron by Christoforos Milionis, The Last Refuge by Tolis Kazantzis, Epilogue to Snow by Dimitris Petsetidis and Our Best Years by Dimitris Nollas. Criticism of the action recounted in these novels centres on political events: the Civil War from 1943 to 1949 and the military dictatorship imposed from 1967 to 1974 by a group of colonels, dashing the hopes for renewal that had been in the wind during the best part of a decade. The criticism even extended, more and more in fact, to life’s less pleasant aspects in the big modern metropolis, with its high-rise apartment buildings, television, material well-being and psychological alienation. The melancholy novels of Menis Koumantareas, such as Koula, The Barbershop and The Handsome Captain, but also The Glass Works, form a vast and varied tapestry of scenes of the renewal of the now booming metropolis of Athens.

(Agra Photographic Archive)

(E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

that these two genres are moving towards common goals. It is probably the first time in modern Greek literature that such a convergence – at least in this sense – can be observed. With regard to the subjects covered in their work, there is a clear tendency in these WWII novelists to have recourse to memory in order to portray events as they unfold and indirectly to criticise whatever is happening. This recourse to memory could be said to occur more frequently in their earlier works. World War II, the Occupation, the Resistance, the Civil War – all or some of these subjects are present in the novels For a Little Self-respect and The Sarcophagus by Yorgos Ioannou, in Toothpaste with Chlorophyl and in Hot Sea Springs by E.H. Papadimitrakopoulos, in Discord and in Akrokeravnia by Christoforos Milionis, in Descent of the Nine by Thanassis Valtinos, in Old Miss Lisabet and in The Parade by Tolis Kazandzis, and in Twelve to Tuppence by Dimitris Petsetidis. Small Change by Costas Taktsis also takes place both before and after the war. Mention must be made too of Menis Koumandareas, Vassilis Vassilikos and Dimitris Nollas, whose work also contains childhood memories, although the memories are more diffuse than in the work of the other writers. The fictional portrayal of social developments and also of personal adventures is of course likely to come across better in more complex works, in novels such as Costas Taktsis’ The

COSTAS TAKTSIS (1927-1988)

THANASSIS VALTINOS (1932-)

Hovering between realism and lyricism, the vile and the pure, the lowly and the lofty, Costas Taktsis’ The Third Wedding is the outstanding novel about the modern Greek bourgeoisie. At the same time it was also the model for the Greek multi-voice novel in so far as its middle-aged heroines all incessantly recount the adventures of their families including their love life, their marriages, divorces, deaths, financial ruin and life’s little pleasures. In spite of the misery, there is a rhythm, an energy and a joie de vivre springing from its pages that made The Third Wedding a great commercial success during the 1980s.

In his novel The Book of the Days of Andreas Kordopatis, which first appeared in 1972. Thanassis Valtinos recounts the adventures of a Greek villager who, at the beginning of the century, attempts to emigrate to America, works there illegally and is finally deported to Greece against his wishes. The versatility and the down-to-earth immediacy of the plain language used by the uneducated, pure-of-heart and forthright Andreas Kordopatis (whose real-life model has spent the greater part of his years in southern Greece), make of him an archetypal hero. This novel, in the form forged here by Thanassis Valtinos, is an expression of the collective consciousness of an important social group at a specific time in Greece’s history.

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(D. Milaraki Archive)

Photo by Dimis Argyropoulos

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

ANTONIS SAMARAKIS

Yorgos Ioannou first made his emotion-charged, low-key, confessional voice heard in his novel For a Little Self-respect. Published in 1964, it introduced a completely new form of short story into the Greek literary scene. The Sarcophagus, The Sole Inheritance and Our Own Blood. This Greek writer was to remain throughout his life a victim of the war. Fuelled by some insignificant detail from the essentially joyless daily existence of an adult, he is led through association back to the past, to the difficult moments of adolescence and to the years of brutality – filled nonetheless with intense experiences and emotions – during the German Occupation and the Civil War in Greece.

Samarakis (b. 1919) is one of the most widely translated of contemporary Greek authors. His books have been published in no less than 30 languages. One of his novels, The Mistake, won a crime fiction award in France in 1970. His prose, simple and intelligible, touches on a range of current issues in Greek political and social life, while he maintains a critical eye on the world, exposing the evil of the violence and tyranny that has characterised the modern state. While he frequently expresses profound concern about the role and place of the citizen in modern political society, his works usually end on a positive note, as he envisages a better and a more just world.

Photo by Yorgos Pavlidis

Photo by Yorgos Pavlidis

YORGOS IOANNOU (1927-1985)

SPYROS PLASKOVITIS

VASSILIS VASSILIKOS

Spiros Plaskovitis (1917-1999) established his reputation both at home and abroad with the publication of The Dam (1960). In it Plaskovitis gives voice to the fear and insecurity of the post-war individual at the end of the Nazi era in Europe, and posits through the allegorical and symbolic prose of The Dam a pertinent ethical problem: Who can guarantee personal and political freedom in a world which could at any moment be transformed into the victim of uncontrolled technological developments and of unofficial power, power beyond the reach of state mechanisms?

The oeuvre of Vassilis Vassilikos (b. 1934) numbers some 90 books embracing practically every type of literary genre, many of which have been translated and published in other languages. His most famous novel, Z (dealing with the murder of the left-wing MP Grigoris Lambrakis and the events that led up to the military dictatorship of 196774), is a kind of ‘fictional documentary’, a type of writing that Vassilikos is particularly interested in: a combination of reality and invention. His diverse authorial personae, the various guises of his heroes, his symbols and fascination with the changing face of society make his work varied and complex. At the same time, his large readership is evidence of the fact that his works are accessible, enjoyable and readable.

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Photo by Stelios Skopelitis

GREECE - BOOKS AND WRITERS – SECTION VI

ALKI ZEI

Athens of the 1960s and the 1970s is in the midst of a building boom and the economy is developing at a galloping pace. In spite of this, people are dissatisfied and indecisive because, instead of leading to creative fulfilment, the new ways of life are merely aggravating the alienation and psychological emptiness. The many attempts made by the heroes of Menis Koumandareas’ novels, from sexual promiscuity to professional and financial ventures, are in this way doomed from the start. An atmosphere of estrangement and deterioration pervades as youthful dreams of revolution crumble, not only because of the autocratic, freedom-curbing state but also because of deeply felt boredom and stifling social and familial compromises.

Alki Zei is another writer who grew out of the experience of the Second World War and the German Occupation and spent many years in the former Soviet Union. Her first novel, To Kaplani tis Vitrinas was published in 1964. In this work, the narrative world is set around the titanic struggle between the forces of Good and Evil, on an island in the Aegean during the pre-war dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas. A clear voice of the political Left, Zei recreates the turbulent atmosphere of the period and introduces her readers to its fascinating characters, something she continues to do in her subsequent novels. She has also written an impressive number of children’s books.

Photo by Stelios Skopelitis

(Kathimerini newspaper – Photographic Archive)

MENIS KOUMANDAREAS (1931-)

NIKOS BAKOLAS

YORGOS HEIMONAS (1938-2000)

Nikos Bakolas (1927-1999). The early works of this Salonika writer develop primarily through stream of consciousness, maintaining the episodes and action he presents under the surface of the discourse. But with Mythology (1977) Bakolas turns to a different mode, raising plot and action to the surface in the context of the history of his native Macedonia, which is interwoven irresistibly with the writer’s family history. With the quasi-epic works which follow, such as The Great Square (1987) and Endlessly Written in Blood (1996) as well as a number of novellas, Bakolas’ exquisite technique and unique prose style secured his position as one of the most prominent fiction writers of the post-dictatorship era.

The writings of Yorgos Heimonas, including Peisistratos, Doctor Ineotis, The Wedding, The Builders and The Poet’s Enemy, are an extreme example of modernism in the area of narrative technique. Heimonas’ language is itself transformed into word-experience; it is at once the container and the contents, the vehicle for ideas and the idea itself, the activator and the action. Because of their intentional unfamiliarity his writings defy a complete analysis by any method and set traps for the reader, because they are at once meaningful and subversive of meaning.

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THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

Fassianos, Tweet-tweet, oil on canvas, 1976. (Private collection)

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SEFERIS’ STATEMENT AND THE EIGHTEEN TEXTS George Seferis’ public statement of March 1969, in which he denounced the military dictatorship as anathema to all the ideals which the world went to war over in WWII, and in which he attacked the ‘compulsory torpor’ it relied on, cleared the way for Greek intellectuals to break their collective publishing silence. The following month, 18 Greek writers signed an antidictatorship declaration, part of which was published on 8 May in Le Monde. The subsequent abandonment of this pre-emptive form of censorship a few months later heralded a new intellectual climate: in 1970 the collaborative volume 18 Texts was published, with Seferis’ poem, The Cats of St Nicholas, as its frontispiece, a work which makes oblique reference to the political asphyxiation of the period. This volume, which was soon (1971) followed by two further publications in the same spirit (New Texts and New Texts II ) included contributions from several younger poets, writers and essayists exposing the antidemocratic nature of the Colonels’ regime. Seferis’ death in September 1971 provided a further occasion for the expression of the common concerns of the Greek intelligentsia. The poet’s funeral took on the proportions of national mourning, as a form of political protest. Two years later the torch of political protest was taken up by the team producing the journal Synechia, which in turn was followed by many similar publications.

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George Seferis’ funeral, Athens 1971. Photograph by K. Megaloeconomos. (E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

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Alexandria in the early 1960s. (E.L.I.A. Photographic Archive)

STRATIS TSIRKAS DRIFTING CITIES, A Greek Novel Stratis Tsirkas was born in Cairo in 1911 and died in Athens in 1980. He is considered to be one of Greece’s outstanding post-WWII prose writers. His work is increasingly imbued with recent Greek history and its attendant political and social complications and shifts. A Diaspora Greek, born in the same city as Cavafy (of whom he has in fact made a noteworthy study), Tsirkas belonged to a dynamic new school of modern Greek prose writing developing outside of the capital. A cosmopolitan, an impassioned idealist and intellectual Leftist heavily involved in anti-fascist activities, with a critical spirit and a predisposition towards argument and dissent, he began his career as a poet and later wrote short fiction. His major work, however, is the trilogy Drifting Cities, comprising three novels: The Club (1961), Ariagni (1962), and The Bat (1965). In them he has succeeded in presenting a dynamic depiction of World War II, at least as it evolved on the Middle Eastern front and in Africa, and in describing the onset of the Greek Civil War, while at the same time delving into the

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human emotions displayed in the face of love and of death, and the conflicts and disagreements over legitimacy and entitlement to power. The universe of Drifting Cities is made up of a vast human mosaic comprising almost everything: the political and moral resistance to Nazism, the inter-party differences of opinion and disputes of the Greek Left; the dramatic course of ideas and of the arts during a notably transitional and as yet unshaped era; the greatness of soul of the common people; intriguing and dangerous women; corrupt political ambitions and interests but also grand visions; as well as the heterogeneity of the population, with its inherent contrasts and often antithetical differences and similarities. The Club is set in Jerusalem, after the fall of Tobruk. There Army units, allied political administrators, politicians, diplomats, adventurers, refugees and members of the Greek Resistance Movement all converge. In this climate of dispersal and uncertainty the humanistic values of a group of intellectuals appear as fixed points. Housed in a single pension are the most important persons in this disparate group made up of different nationalities, cultures and characters, whose destinies and ambitions vary greatly. Among them is Manos Simonidis, the main character of the trilogy, a reserve officer on the Albanian Front who has retreated to the Middle East in order to continue the war. A communist and an intellectual,

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

he is faced with the dilemma of either following the abstract humanism preached by his “Eliot-inspired” friends, or aligning himself with his active but alienated party comrades, the “Talking Heads”, as he calls them, and the “Little Man”, their most typical representative. Cairo is the second “drifting” city of the trilogy. Refugees are returning there from Palestine after the Allied victory in Libya (El Alamein) and in Russia (Stalingrad). Ariagni – from whose name the title is drawn – is a Greek-Egyptian woman, a kind of Mother Courage, unhappily married, with many children and a resourceful nature. She stands by her own peo-

ple, and she gives refuge to the fugitive Simonidis. From the biblical atmosphere, the elitism and the enraged passions of The Club, we are transported to the realism of life in a Middle Eastern capital city, where Greeks, Englishmen and other Europeans, exiled politicians and military personnel from the home front live alongside the local population. We are witness, on the one hand, to the political manoeuvring and machinations between the Greek royal family and Greek liberal politicians, and on the other to their joining forces against the Greek Leftists, who are in control of two brigades and are urgently requesting an Allied landing, with their own participa-

Stratis Tsirkas photographed by Antoine Vitez, 1970. (Chryssa Prokopaki Archive)

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tion, to liberate Greece. In the emergent disunity and the impending civil rift the extremist “Talking Heads” are heavily involved. The British military leadership seizes this opportunity to purge the Greek units and imprison the most active communists in military camps, while the Greek brigades are subjected to an exhausting ten-day march through the Syrian desert. The cosmopolitanism of behind-the-scene politics and diplomacy is counter-balanced by the atmosphere of the working-class neighbourhood where the families of Ariagni and of the Egyptian Yunes and the children in the Arab slums reside. The cultural and other differences and the racial prejudices that separate, into almost air-tight compartments, the local population from the foreigners, are breached by the show of solidarity between Ariagni and Yunes, who keep their love hidden until the very end. The Bat takes us to Alexandria in 1944. Churchill’s postwar plans for Greece and traditional Greek political party alignments provoke the militant Leftists into a conspiracy and uprising that lead nowhere and end in humiliating surrender and disarmament. At the same time scores of central and secondary characters move about on many levels of intrigue. In the foreground, standing apart, are Simonidis and Nancy – the former wife of Campbell, a diplomat. Dominating the world of the Leftist movement is the figure of the organisation’s secretary, Fani, while a new narrator, Paraschos – a cousin of Manos Simonidis – reinforces the multiplicity of voices by inter-

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posing his own nostalgic tales. From these memories and from the story told by one of Nancy’s ageing maids, the dual story of The Bat (of mother and daughter) is pieced together – a story full of sensuality, fantasising, magic and boundless evil. The Alexandrian landscape, with its harbour and its hinterland, is the main setting for the action. The dramatic ending of the mutiny aboard Greek warships presages the post-war tragedy of Greece, which is sketched out in the book’s epilogue. Twenty years after his death, this novelist of the Greek Diaspora remains a pivotal figure, timeless and alive. His trilogy in particular is considered to be a classic work in as much as its underlying meaning, as of all of the author’s writings, can be said to be man’s perseverance on his strenuous and obstinate passage through the reef-infested seas of history. At the same time there is a foreboding of the end of colonialism and the old world, but similarly exposed are some of the consistently enduring features of the modern Greek identity, with a strong Cavafy-esque appeal. Today Drifting Cities seems to be on a new course with new dynamics. After the critical uproar levelled against the Trilogy, particularly by the official Left of the 1960s, and its universal acceptance during the postdictatorship years (1974 and afterwards), it is now entering a more mature phase – one where it is read carefully and fairly, having been re-evaluated without prejudice, and it continues to enjoy well-earned recognition and acknowledgement.

Greece 1957

Greece 1960

Greece 1965

Greece 1976

Turkey 1977

Spain 1984

Greece 1977

France 1999

ASPECTS OF MODERN GREEK DRAMA

Modern Greek dramaturgy was shaped by various factors. The struggle to establish the popular language (the demotic) in literature, translations of foreign classic and modern authors in a vivid, working language and the attempts of Greek playwrights to face and expose contemporary reality, either under the guise of comedy and satire, or under the new conditions of social drama, are the elements from which contemporary Greek drama has emerged. Comedy of manners, satirical revue and realistically expressed social drama have been the forms favoured by contemporary authors.

Photo by Stelios Skopelitis

GREEK COMEDY in its various forms as well as works aiming at social realism and psychological drama succeeded in presenting a wealth of popular characters, a critique of situations and behaviour typical of the Greek bourgeoisie and a satire of political actuality. Works originating from the 19th century were impressively staged anew during the 20th century, such as Vyzantios’ Babylonia, Chourmouzis’ comedies and Dimitrios Koromilas’ comic idylls. The scene of bourgeois drama was further enhanced with works by Grigorios Xenopoulos (see p. 133), Pantelis Horn and Spyros Melas. The 19th century Vassilikos by Antonios Matesis continues to be performed today in contrast to the works of Yannis Kambysis.

Iakovos Kambanellis.

HISTORICAL DRAMA, introduced in the 19th century and focusing on themes from Byzantium and the Greek Struggle for Independence, endured for about a century. It includes the classicist works of Dimitrios Vernardakis with his approach to ‘national drama’ in the mid-19th century, as well as the plays of Nikos Kazantzakis (see p. 158) at the end of the 1920s with their historical and philosophical content. Tragedy written around Byzantine or modern Greek historical topics flourished again during the period between WWI and WWII in works by Angelos Terzakis (see p. 205) and Vassilis Rotas. Dramatic works by Kazantzakis and poetic dramas by Angelos Sikelianos (see p. 154) were produced after WWII, quite some while after they were written. The poetic drama Trisevgeni by Kostis Palamas (see p. 134), written in 1903 and containing elements of realism and symbolism, reached the stage only in 1915 on the initiative of the director Thomas Economou. CONTEMPORARY GREEK DRAMA found its way to the stage thanks to the determined support offered by certain theatres and directors after WWII. The director Karolos Koun and his ‘Theatro Technis’ (Art Theatre) succeeded in attaining, during the ’50s and afterwards, a wider recognition of important dramatists, such as Iakovos Kambanellis, Dimitris Kechaïdis or Loula Anagnostaki, while simultaneously encouraging a larger public to accept the new styles of modern Greek drama. The National Theatre’s ‘New Stage’ under various directors as well as smaller theatres in different Athenian neighbourhoods also played an important part in regularly presenting new authors. Modern Greek plays of the post-war period at times depicted the sad aspects of a cheerless life, the suffering and passions of simple, poor folk within a suffocating routine, or presented their own poetic idioms, creating extraordinary and unrealis-

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Photograph by Yorgos Georgas

GREECE - BOOKS AND WRITERS – SECTION VI

(Kedros Publications Archive)

Loula Anagnostaki.

Dimitris Kecha˚dis.

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tic worlds inhabited by disturbed characters or seekers of the unattainable. Their authors were susceptible to the ‘unmistakable charm’ of two sirens: the one was low comedy, with its explosive comical situations and its brilliant characters, whose brilliance was further enhanced in the film versions of the plays; the other was revue, where the numbers and sketches satirising political and social actuality thrilled the audience with their brio and biting wit. In his play Yard of Miracles, Iakovos Kambanellis addressed the everyday human being beset by life’s woes, daydreaming in the humble courtyard outside his house: a picture of the lower social strata with their wounded collective memory of the past, bearing the misery and pathology generated by the blind alleys of daily life. The author scraped the bottom of the barrel of Greek society within the confines of the yard, a gathering place of typical humans, a public spot inviting variety of versions of private attitudes. It is not a tragic scene, it is bitter and sweet, painful and emotional. The courtyard, a picturesque and familiar place, traditional and well known from previous works, was revived again to form the setting where the Greek’s dream fails to materialize and post-war illusions evaporate. The Yard of Miracles, produced by Koun’s Art Theatre in 1957, became a classic and a point of reference for authors depicting daily life and problems of identity or adaptation to the harshness of reality. Other works were set within a social milieu inspired by rural and urban life, by marginal groups and idiomatic language. Everyday life is the setting common to all those plays which for the past forty years, despite differences in style and intent, have dealt with the fall and denigration of the individual in situations determined by poverty, interest in profit and power. These plays have also confronted the problems of language and identity induced by suffocating family and social structures. After producing The Fair – a family drama set in the fields of Thessaly, a story of human pain, parting and self-delusion in the rural landscape that is slowly dying (1964) – and the one-act plays The Wedding Ring and Backgammon (1972), Dimitris Kecha˚dis delved deeper, together with Eleni Haviara, into the climate of other territories. In their works Laurels and Oleanders (the Greek word for ‘oleander’ is ‘bitter laurel’) and From Kifissia with Force (1995) the dialogue reveals ulterior motives and commitments, intrigues and unsurpassable weaknesses lurking beneath the surface of the words, a way of life in which the characters are trapped. In Yorgos Sevastikoglou’s Angela, written during the ’50s, we find a feminine environment with maids gossiping on the iron stairways at the back of post-war apartment buildings where petty rivalries and passionate love affairs flare up. Since then, many playwrights have focused on illuminating the falsity, rawness and cruelty of social reality and of various social groups in a biting, critical and ironic attitude (Yorgos Skourtis, Marios Pondikas). Kostas Mourselas has looked at the bourgeoisie through a satirical, penetrating lens, identifying comic and ridiculous strains behind good-mannered conduct, lawabiding comportment and relations among friends (Friends, The Aquarium). Yannis Chryssoulis deals with the colourless aspects of daily coexistence, with its subcutaneous and dis-

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

Karolos Koun. Photo by Dimis Argyropoulos.

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guised violence, in what he has written since 1979. Yorgos Maniotis, in his work The Pit, intruded into the forbidden territory of transvestites and hauled his flaming, provocative language out of this “damned” milieu. While constantly changing his style, Maniotis uncovered many another abyss, one of which was maternal oppression (The Football Match, Common Sense). Yorgos Dialegmenos is an author who thoroughly analyses every slice of life he decides to deal with from psychological and linguistic angles. His idiosyncratic naturalism, distilled in the two works for which he has been acclaimed, Aunt Unaccounted for. Stop. (1973) and Mother, Mom, Mama (1980), was not expressed as a photographic depiction of a particular reality but as a striving to expose the details and development of a situation through voices and characters which would otherwise pass entirely unobserved. In such a manner, the marginal characters of I Kiss you in the Face – ragpickers, murderers and prostitutes – are projected in a prismatic way, while in The Night of the Owl the past recurs as a memory laden with the shrapnel of experienced time and with a tempo corresponding in nature to that of the death rattle. The subject of reality was later replaced by dream and nightmare, by the absurd and the uncanny. The forms employed were inspired by elements of the grotesque, expressionistic deformation, sarcasm, derision, delirious speech and surrealist images. The dramatists of poetic theatre moved in different directions and displayed a variety of lyric qualities. For Margarita Lymberaki, even tragedy was a form necessary to express vital existential issues and to bring History and the great myths of the past on stage. Following his caustic farces and “unpleasant comedies” castigating bourgeois life-concepts (Antigone’s Matchmaking, Easter Games, The Comedy of the Fly), Vassilis Ziogas formulated, during the ’80s, a lyric style full of symbolist elements and surrealist images. Introducing mysticism and transcendence, he evokes metaphysics, archetypes, philosophical and scientific reason, the language of the subconscious and psychoanalysis (The Mountain, Philoctetes, The Big Bang). The poetic works of Stelios Lytras are set in dreamy, fairytale landscapes and resort to the world of symbols and pageantry (The Garden of Separated Lovers).

Pavlos Matesis had a long career that led him from caricatures and bourgeois satire to a cataclysm of the poetic “Self” by the phantasm of mythical antiquity. Yet both his earlier cartoon depictions of bourgeois phobias and wretchedness and his more recent works are based on surrealist and ritualistic elements (The Ghost of Mr Ramon Novarro, The Buzz). Dimitris Dimitriadis’ plays convey a poetic vision with frequent outbursts of hyperbole. Baroque language and ritualistic staging unfold extreme images deriving from collective historical memory and originating in the reservoir of personal experience and mythology (The Beginning of Life, 1995). Rhetoric is the theme of all of Andreas Sta˚kos’ works, where life, history, politics are observed through the mirror of theatre with all its tricks, techniques, masks and self-referral. In his lyrical post-modern play The Curtain Falls, a stage fantasy inspired by the meeting of Greek author Constantine Christomanos with the Austrian Empress Elisabeth, Sta˚kos deals with the ghost of creation and beauty. As themes change, style also changes, entering different dramatic fields and creating new patterns. In the dramatic works of some playwrights one recognises significant divergences between various periods. For example, Kambanellis, after the Yard of Miracles, used elements of satire, parody and allegory in his plays. He became involved in musicals and mixed styles. He explored patterns containing the phenomenology of the contemporary Greek family and society, measuring the effects of social change on the human soul, or wandering in the internal reality of mind and soul (The Invisible Troupe). The case of Loula Anagnostaki is a special one, in the sense that already in the ’60s she was focusing on achieving a synthesis of the utterly private and intimate dimension of things with that of the collective. Fantasy and mystery were permanent features of the historical and social background she portrayed of her approach to everyday life and her realistic dialogue. Anagnostaki developed not only the problems of communication among the characters of her plays, but also the quandaries of the OTHER and their effect on space, action and people. She wrote eliptically in a poetically flowing style, endeavouring to fathom the depth of things, her writing full of nuances and musicality (Nike, The Sound of the Gun, Diamonds and Blues, The Distant Trip, The Purple Sky).

A scene from The Yard of Miracles by Iakovos Kambanellis produced by the Theatro Technis of Karolos Koun, Athens, 1957-58.

A scene from Laurels and Oleanders by Dimitris Kecha˚dis produced by the Theatro Technis of Karolos Koun, Athens, 1979-80.

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D. Yeros, Window of the Space Below, watercolour, 1995.

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SNAPSHOTS OF THE PRESENT

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The year 1974 was an important political and social landmark for Greece. The dictatorship of the Colonels fell and democracy, which was to establish itself with little delay and secure its place as an institution, put an end once and for all to the extreme disturbances that had troubled the public life of the country till then. The external interventionism and internal unruliness and instability that had plagued Greek society for sixty whole years became, after 1974, things of the past, giving way to stable economic development and a consequently significant improvement in the standard of living – something which, as would reasonably be expected, dramatically changed people’s concerns: political conflicts and the struggle to survive were no longer pressing priorities, and everyday life soon became the setting in which the comedies and tragedies of the last quarter of the 20th century were played out. Naturally, this new atmosphere could not help but influence literature and also determine to a large extent the directions it would take. The prose writers appearing on the Greek literary scene in the middle and towards the end of the decade of the ’70s had not yet cut themselves off from politics, but they had certainly found a very different meaning and context for it. For most of them politics was now simply a starting point, an excuse to move from an immediate, or realistic, representation and interpretation of reality to a symbolic and codified transcription taking many forms. A host of things can be included here: the struggle between the personal and the collective within a constantly changing social universe; the ironic acceptance and promulgation of the formerly strong tenets of activism; the recourse to traditional archetypes; the escape to the virtual universe of the futuristic novel, as well as the device of digging up known or obscure facts available through historical research. It is logical that such a mediated picture of politics as that subscribed to by these earlier writers would exclude from the arena those younger writers who, first published in 1980 or later, turned their attention, through a kind of simplistic realism that could even border on moralising, to the many, even inexhaustible, aspects of daily life: to sexual and family relationships in the closed, confined atmosphere of the provinces, to the linguistic idiom and behaviour of younger more colourful social groups. Daily life is, however, only one of the themes that emerges from the prose writing of the past two decades in Greece. A large number of writers left behind both politics and daily life to embark on an intensive pursuit of new forms and genres – a pursuit which enabled them to digest not only those techniques handed down to them but also the entire gamut of European and American modernism, eventually leading to clearly post-modernist trends. And at the point where we are today, one can find practically anything: dreamlike or hallucinatory writing, elliptical or fragmented narrative, the interweaving of oral vernacular with learned discourse, the essay with fiction-based action, and also the parodies and caricatures of the conventions of urban realism; and then there is magic realism, the historical or pseudo-historical novel, the fantasy novel, short fiction, horror fiction, the fiction of lists and documentary fiction. This same assortment of techniques – one which has been on the increase in recent decades – can be seen also in Greek

THE THIRTIES: A TURNING POINT – NEW DIRECTIONS (1930 - 1974)

poetry of the past twenty-five years. The poets who took their first literary steps shortly before or after 1974 were influenced initially by the radical political climate of May 1968 in France or by the artistic experiments of Gruppo 63 in Italy. Clearly intent on denouncing accepted social values, the first thing they did at this stage was to express outrage at the levelling effect of capitalistic ideology and its predominant model of prosperity, and to speak out against every form of authority. These actions are reflected in their writing by the rejection of lyricism and by the avoidance of ornate language. The rejection of the polished form and the systematic use of material from popular culture (including everything from imitating the slang of marginal social groups to reproducing the contents of various advertising slogans) prevalent in so many of the collections of the younger writers of this period goes back of course to pop art and to the arte povera movement, which were both at their zenith at about the same time, or slightly earlier, in America and in Italy. Let us not imagine, however, that all this will last for long. As these young writers inevitably approach maturity and in as much as they are in any event abandoning their American and European models, the landscape changes and the tendency towards a plurality of forms will not be long in making its appearance among this group as well. Outrage and controversy are beating a slow retreat and allowing the emergence of more inwardlyfocused (and sometimes purely introverted) concerns, such as existential self-observation, the passions of love and the anxiety of death, the fictionalisation of the countryside and the tyrannical functioning of memory. And very close to these concerns we will soon find literary recreation pure and simple: aestheticism, intertextual creations, new linguistic practices, the personalisation of space and of objects, and the many forms of dialogue with the poetic past, together with a return to traditional metric verse. The ground for those who will follow has now been well prepared in every way. The poets of the decade of the ’80s will continue in the same direction, their only common point of reference now being complete individualisation. Their world is one of absolute heterogeneity: from confession, low-key narratives and autobiography to the morbid perception of deterioration, to the climate of decline and to visionary revelations, and even to the portrayal of physical decay, the geography of the body and the fragmentary language of frenetic modernist methods and the resurgence of folk themes and the reinstatement (once again) of rhymed verse. At the outset of the new century, Greek literature is trying to find its identity within its many voices and many facets. It is difficult for anyone to determine here and now how it will evolve over a given period of time – over, say, one or two decades during which today’s transitional phases will in one way or another have acquired a definite form and crystallized. It is even more difficult for titles and names to be singled out at a stage when the literature in question is discovering and at the same time shaping itself. As epochs pass and time goes by we can see only the flux of things: their birth and their transformations in a place and in a universe that are changing at a startling pace every day.

Yannis Ga˚tis, The Idol, oil on canvas, 1979.

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Fassianos, La Très Belle, oil on canvas, 1971. (Private collection)

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A¡¡∂ÃE

TRANSLATIONS THE PUBLISHING MARKET AND GREEK SOCIETY

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights. Greek edition, 1995.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick. Greek edition, 1991.

The translator Aris Alexandrou (see p. 219) began the long task of translating Dostoyevsky in prison after the Civil War, just like Pavlos Zannas, who started his translation of Proust’s oeuvre in jail, during the Dictatorship in the late 1960s.

Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment. Greek translation of the 1950s.

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The last year in which a censorship trial took place was 1982, for the recently published The 120 Days of Sodom, by Marquis de Sade which, so the prosecution alleged, offended public morals. The publishers were ordered to withdraw the book from sale and it was not until another ten years had passed that the ban on its publication was lifted. To show their support for the publisher of the banned book, 47 publishers signed and published an edition of 120 Days with a special, common cover, as a gesture of protest against censorship.

Remembrance of Things Past is a work that Greeks have been getting to know piecemeal during the last twenty years. Officially, translation of the entire work into Greek will be completed soon, almost eighty years, that is, after its publication. Proust is not an exception. Joyce’s Ulysses was translated seventy years later, French surrealists began to be published en masse by Greek publishing companies only during the ’80s, Wuthering Heights first appeared in a valid and commentated translation in 1995. It took Moby Dick over a hundred years to be read by Greeks in their own language. This time span indicates two opposite trends: Greece’s belated progress and its development. The expansion of the Greek publishing market during the last ten to fifteen years has rapidly and impressively changed not only the general reading climate but also the public’s expectations. Whereas twenty to thirty years ago only a small portion of the latest international publications was translated into Greek and translations of major works of classical literature were still lacking, today it is considered natural that every new novel published in any country of the world and attracting public attention will in a matter of months be translated into the Greek language. This recent development in Greece touches upon a whole sphere of production, claiming a share of the broader economic growth of recent years, while at the same time reflecting new social standards. It is of interest to examine the course of events from different angles, one such event being the creation of domestic demand. Today one may safely assume that Greece is an emerging market (if we accept this scale of grading maturity), containing specific niches of readers with a variety of experience and subject to different influences. In Greece today, just as in every European country, new books by Milan Kundera, Stephen King, Hanif Kureishi, Paulo Coelho, Philip Roth, Orhan Pamuk, Kazuo Ishiguro, John Grisham or Antonio Tabucchi have a public eagerly awaiting them. Despite undeniable improvements in the Greek publishing sector, it would be misleading to jump to hasty conclusions. Instant translation keeping pace with international activity has long been the aim of the Greek market. One cannot say that translation shortages have been sufficiently covered, nor that the past was a period of darkness. Greece’s peripheral location in the south-easternmost corner of the European continent determined the nature of its communication with the developed West from the very start of the country’s existence as a restructured nation about 170 years ago. From the 19th century onwards, modern Greece’s small urban society knew the works of writers such as Sir Walter Scott, Dumas, Dickens, Swift and Defoe. Either in cheap editions or translations of dubious quality, or more often in magazine instalments (a very common practice in Greece up to thirty or forty years ago), western romantic and epic literature exerted its influence on the ideological prototypes of Greek society. In Greece, as in every developing country in past decades, a large part of the bourgeoisie interested in literary matters spoke foreign languages and read foreign books in their original version. This particular social stratification, reflecting the anaemic economic structures of the past, played a role in retarding the production of literary translations.

GREECE - BOOKS AND WRITERS

Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past. Greek edition, 1971.

James Joyce, Ulysses. Greek edition, 1990.

Ezra Pound, Pisan Cantos. Greek edition, 1994.

Primo Levi, If this is a Man. Greek edition, 1997.

Robert Musil, A Man without Qualities. Greek edition, 1992.

Hermann Broch, The Sleepwalkers. Greek edition, 1987-88.

The range of Greek publishing activity began to change gradually after 1960 and more rapidly after the reestablishment of democracy in 1974. One need only compare 1980 to 2000 to assess the leap forward involving new capital investment, the growth of the reading public, expansion of bookstores, commissioning of authors and the increased number of titles being published. One thing led to another, the thirst for information prompted larger investments, a development that made books a focus of attention. This lively activity has many aspects. For one thing, it is not confined to literature. Translations of works in the fields of history, philosophy, science, art and economy, to mention only a few, are currently being produced in remarkable quantities and are following the pattern of literary translations, that is, new works are being translated at the same time as major works of the past. Although there still are important books that remain excluded from the Greek language, the fact is that the gap is becoming narrower and tending to disappear. Further, the revival of the Greek literary scene during the past twenty-five years has set off new mechanisms of supply and demand. It is now a common occurrence for a modern Greek novel to sell 30, 50, 80 or 100 thousand copies (in a country of 10 million), to be adapted for television, or to attract imitators. This means that there now exists a suitable structure of support and dissemination of a local literary work, which in turn increases the desire for contact and information. Familiarity with foreign literature, international intellectual trends, stylistic influences and literary star systems is becoming more widespread and, therefore, more desirable. It may be claimed that the influx of foreign literature and international thinking into modern Greece is the result of growing extroversion among a large segment of Greek society. Greeks have begun to see themselves as members of a broader family, where they can now interact on an equal basis taking advantage of the benefits of intellectual curiosity. It seems that Frankfurt 2001 will corroborate this recent development of the Greek publishing market.

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Alexis Akrithakis, Idéogramme suicidaire, wood, 1978.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ALEXIOU MARGARET, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, Cambridge 1974. BEATON RODERICK, An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature, Oxford 19992. BEATON RODERICK, The Medieval Greek Romance, Oxford 19962. BEATON RODERICK (ed.), The Greek Novel AD 1-1985, London 1988. BECK H.-G., Geschichte der byzantinischen Volksliteratur, München 1971. DIMARAS C. TH., La Grèce au temps des Lumières, Genève 1969. DIMARAS C. TH., A History of Modern Greek Literature, Translated by Mary P. Gianos, London 1972. HOLTON DAVID, (ed.) Literature and Society in Renaissance Crete, Cambridge 1991. HORROCKS GEOFFREY, Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers, London 1997. LAYTON EVRO, The Sixteenth Century Greek Book in Italy. Printers and Publishers for the Greek World, Venice 1999. PANAYOTAKIS N. M. (ed.), Origini della letteratura neogreca, 2 vol., Venezia 1993. PHILIPPIDES DIA M. L., CENSUS of Modern Greek Literature: Check-list of English-Language Sources Useful in the Study of Modern Greek Literature (1824-1987), New Haven, Conn., 1990. PHILIPPIDES DIA M. L., CENSUS of Modern Greek Literature: Update 1988-1999. Check-list of English-Language Sources Useful in the Study of Modern Greek Literature (1988-1999), New Haven, Conn., 2000. POLITIS LINOS, A History of Modern Greek Literature, Oxford 19752. TONNET HENRI, Histoire du roman grec (des origines à 1960), Paris, 1996. VITTI MARIO, Storia della letteratura neogreca, Roma 2001.

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PHOTOGRAPHS AND ILLUSTRATIONS - SOURCES FOUNDATIONS, LIBRARIES, MUSEUMS, ASSOCIATIONS, MONASTERIES AND PUBLISHING HOUSES IN GREECE The American School of Classical Studies at Athens The Association of Smyrnans, Athens The Benaki Museum, Athens The Benaki Museum Photographic Archive, Athens The Benaki Museum – Ghika Gallery, Athens The Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens Cultural Foundation of the Commercial Bank of Greece European Translation Center – Literature and Human Sciences, Athens The French Archaeological School at Athens The French Institute, Athens The Gennadius Library, Athens The Greek Film Archive – Cinema Museum of Greece The Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive (E.L.I.A.) Christos Kapralos Museum, Aegina Kathimerini newspaper – Photographic Archive Monastery of Panteleimon, Athos Monastery of Vatopedi, Athos The Museum of Folk Art, Athens The National Bank Cultural Foundation, Athens The National Book Centre, Greece (EKEBI) The National Gallery, Greece - The A. Soutsou Museum The National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF) – Institute for Neo-Hellenic Research (INR) (Modern Greek Portraiture) The National Historical Museum, Athens The National Library of Greece, Athens The Panorama Cultural Society, Athens The Parnassos Philological Society Agra Publications Ekdotiki Athinon Publications Hestia Publications Ikaros Publications Kedros Publications Nefeli Publications Theatro Technis The Tsarouchis Foundation, Athens

INSTITUTIONS, LIBRARIES, MUSEUMS, MONASTERIES AND PUBLISHING HOUSES OUTSIDE GREECE Biblioteca del Civico Museo Correr, Venice Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris Bodleian Library, Oxford Gad Borrel – Archives Boissonnas Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice

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Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and post-Byzantine Studies, Venice Monastery of Mt Saint Catherine, Sinai National Portrait Gallery, London Österreichische NationalBibliothek, Vienna TopkapÈ Palace Museum, Istanbul The Victoria and Albert Museum, London Editions Alecto

PRIVATE COLLECTIONS Alexis Akrithakis Dimis Argyropoulos Nikos Economopoulos The Estate of A. Embiricos The Estate of N. Engonopoulos Alekos Fassianos The Estate of A. Frangias The Estate of Y. Ga˚tis Yorgos Georgas Nikos Goulandris George Hadjimichalis Elga Hadzopoulou-Kavvadia Ioulita Iliopoulou Stefanos Kaklamanis Marina Karagatsi The Estate of Vasso Katraki The Eleni Kazantzakis Archive Despo Kontoglou-Martinou The Estate of A. Kotzias Ekaterini Koumarianou Nikos Kourkoumelis Socratis Kouyeas Anna Londou Antonis Mailis Dimitra Milaraki Yannis Moralis Kostas Ordolis Angeliki Papadopoulou Aspasia Papathanasiou Yorgos Pavlidis Miltos Pechlivanos The Estate of N.G. Pentzikis Stavros Petsopoulos Chryssa Prokopaki Olga Sella Anna Sikelaniou Stelios Skopelitis Takis Tloupas Yannis Vanidis Toula Voyatzi Johanna Weber Alexandros Xydis Dimitris Yeros

CONTRIBUTORS YORGOS ARAGIS, Literary critic RODERICK BEATON, Professor, Head of the ‘Koraïs’ Department at King’ College, University of London ARIS BERLIS, Literary critic and translator MICHALIS CHRYSSANTHOPOULOS, Associate Professor of General and Comparative Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki CHRISTINA DOUNIA, Doctor of Modern Greek Literature GEORGIA FARINOU-MALAMATARI, Associate Professor of Modern Greek Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki EURIPIDES GARANTOUDIS, Assistant Professor of Modern Greek Literature at the University of Crete ATHENA GEORGANTA, Associate Professor of Modern Greek Literature at the University of Patra DIANA HAAS, Professor of Modern Greek Literature at the University of Patra VANGELIS HADJIVASSILIOU, Literary critic STEFANOS KAKLAMANIS, Associate Professor of Modern Greek Literature at the University of Crete ELISABETH KOTZIA, Literary critic EKATERINI KOUMARIANOU, Historian, University Professor TINA LENDARI, Doctor of Modern Greek Literature ANTONIS LIAKOS, Professor of Modern History at the University of Athens URLICH MOENNIG, Doctor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Literature (University of Hamburg) VASSILIS PANAYOTOPOULOS, Historian KOSTAS G. PAPAGEORGIOU, Poet and literary critic ALEXIS POLITIS, Professor of Modern Greek Literature at the University of Crete RANIA POLYKANDRIOTI, Philologist, Researcher at the Institute of Neohellenic Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation LAKIS PROGUIDIS, Author, founder and director of the French literary magazine L’Atelier du Roman DIMITRIS RAFTOPOULOS, Literary critic NORA SKOUTERI, Social Anthropologist. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki KATERINA TIKTOPOULOU, Philologist, Researcher at the Greek Language Centre ELISABETH TSIRIMOKOU, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Theory at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki ELENI VAROPOULOU, Theatrologist, Theater critic NIKOS VATOPOULOS, Journalist MARIO VITTI, Professor at the Department of Modern Greek Studies at the Viterbo University JOSEPH VIVILAKIS, Lecturer at the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Athens YORYIS YATROMANOLAKIS, Professor of Classical Greek at the University of Athens

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INDEX OF PROPER NAMES Achelis, Antonios, 51 Aeschylus, 142 Aesop, 28, 31, 33 Agras, Tellos, 149 Akontianos, Gabriel, 44 Akrithakis, Alexis, 248 Alexakis, Orestes, 222 Alexandrou, Aris, 218, 219, 221, 246 Alexios III Komnenos, 29 Alexiou, Elli, 220 Ali Pasha, 79 Altamouras, Ioannis, 114 Anagnostaki, Loula, 237, 240 Anagnostakis, Manolis, 221, 222 Anghelaki-Rooke, Katerina, 222 Anghelakis, Andreas, 222 Apokaukos, Alexios, 34 Apollinaire, Guillaume, 207, 217 Apostolidis, Renos, 218 Aquinas, Thomas, 44 Aragon, Louis, 188, 191, 209 Aravantinou, Manto, 182, 221,225 Archilochos, 93 Argyropoulos, Dimis, 230, 239 Ariosto, Lodovico, 51 Aristotle, 33, 72 Arnim, L., 108 Asdrahas, Spyros, 104 Aslanoglou, Nikos-Alexis, 222, 223 Asopios, K., 109 Auden, W.H., 140 Avramiotis, Dionysios, 93 Axioti, Melpo, 167, 209, 218, 220

Bakolas, Nikos, 218, 230 Balzac, Honoré de, 124 Barnard, Anne, Lady, 140 Barthélemy, J.J., Abbé, 70, 88, 91 Bataille, Georges, 180, 183 Bates, Alan, 161 Baudelaire, Charles, 125, 140, 149, 150, 196 Bembo, Pietro, 45 Benoît de Sainte-Maure, 22, 28 Beratis, Yannis, 212, 214 Bergades, 41, 45, 46 Bergson, Henri, 158 Bernardin de Saint Pierre, Jacques Henri, 203 Bertos, Nathaniel-Neilos, 43 Bessarion, Cardinal, 6 Block, Alexander, 191 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 22, 28, 41 Boissonnas, F., 116 Bortoli, Antonio, 48, 55 Bounialis, Marinos Tzanes, 54 Botsi, Olga, 221 Bozza, Francesco, 51

252

Brassaï, Gilberte, 180 Brecht, Bertolt, 220 Breton, André, 178, 180, 183, 187, 221 Breton, Elisa, 183 Breydenbach, Bernard von, 36 Broch, Hermann, 247 Brontë, Emily, 246 Buondelmonti, Christoforo, 14 Byron, Lord, 93, 97, 98, 124, 132

Cacoyannis, Michael, 161, 162 Calas (Kalamaris, Randos, Spieros), Nikolas, 182, 183, 217, 225 Cammeli, Antonio, 51 Carco, Francis, 150 Carrington, Leonora, 183 Catherine of Russia, 61, 65 Cavafy, C.P., 10, 119, 123, 127, 129, 140-147, 150, 172, 176, 234 Césaire, Aimé, 183 Chateaubriand, René de, 89, 91, 93 Choiseul-Gouffier, 71, 92, 93, 108 Choniates, Niketas, 18 Chortatsis, Georgios, 39, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54 Choumnos, Georgios, 44 Chourmouzis, M., 237 Christianopoulos, Dinos, 222, 225 Christomanos, Constantinos, 133, 240 Christopoulos, Athanasios, 65, 66 Chryssoulis, Yannis, 238 Claudel, Paul, 217 Coelho, Paulo, 246 Corbière, Tristan, 150 Crevel, René, 180

D’Annunzio, Gabriele, 154 Dali, Salvador, 180 Damascenus, Ioannis, 15 Damianos di Sancta Maria, 55 Daniel of Tripolis, 102 Dante, 41, 124, 132, 176, 217 Dapontes, Kaisarios, 66 Daraki, Zefi, 222 Dares of Phrygia, 28 Darwin, Charles, 125 Dassin, Jules, 162 Daudet, Alphonse, 128 Defaranas, Markos, 45 Defoe, William, 246 Delacroix, Eugène, 78 Delfino, Niccolo, 45 Dellaportas, Leonardos, 41 Democritus, 64 Denegris, Tasos, 222 Dérain, André, 180

Dialegmenos, Yorgos, 240 Dickens, Charles, 246 Diktaios, Aris, 221 Dictys Cretensis, 28 Dimakis, Minas, 221 Dimaras, K.T., 104, 107, 108, 134, 168, 216, 224 Dimitriadis, Dimitris, 240 Dimoula, Kiki, 222, 223 Diodorus, 33 Dos Passos, John Roderigo, 207 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 125, 128, 246 Doukaris, Dimitris, 221 Doukas, Neophytos, 73 Doukas, Stratis, 207, 212, 213, 217 Drosinis, Georgios, 110, 113, 134, 206 Droysen, Johann Gustav, 107 Duchamp, Marcel, 182, 183 Dumas, Alexandre, 128, 246 Duncan, Isadora, 154 Dupré, Louis, 67, 89 Durrell, Lawrence, 124, 127

Economopoulos, Nikos, 86 Economou, Thomas, 237 Erehnburg, E., 191 Eleftheriou, Manos, 222 Eliot, T.S., 170, 176, 195, 235 Elisabeth, the Austrian Empress, 240 Eluard, Paul, 180, 207, 209, 217 Elytis, Odysseus, 10, 100, 167, 168, 178, 180, 182, 186-190, 216, 217 Embiricos, Andreas, 157, 168, 178, 179, 180, 182, 186, 210, 216, 217, 223, 225 Encyclopédistes, 62 Engonopoulos, Nikos, 52, 167, 178, 180, 181, 182, 216, 217 Enrico, 183 Eugenianos, Niketas, 24 Evangelou, Anestis, 222

Falieros, Marinos, 41, 45 Fallmerayer, Jakob Philipp, 107 Fassianos, Alekos, 231, 245 Fauriel, Claude Charles, 82, 108, 109 Filyras, Romo, 149, 217 Flanginian School, 54 Fokas, Nikos, 221 Forster, E.M., 147 Foscolo, Ugo, 99, 100 Foskolos, Marcos Antonios, 39, 51, 54 Fotakos, 102 France, Anatole, 140 Franco, G., 46 Frangias, Andreas, 218, 219

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES Gaïtis, Yannis, 243 Gatsos, Nikos, 182, 184, 217 Gemistos (or Plethon), Georgios, 129 Georgas, Yorgos, 238 Geralis, Yorgos, 221 Géricault, Théodore, 81 Germanos, Palaion Patron, 102 Gibbon, Edward, 107, 140, 142 Ginsberg, Allan, 225 Giraldi, Giambattista, 51 Giustinian, Leonardo, 41, 45 Glycas, Michael, 18 Glykys, Nikolaos, 55 Glyzounis, Manolis, 55 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 82 Gogol, Nikolai, 128 Göll, Ivan, 221 Gonatas, E.H., 182, 221 Gorpas, Thomas, 222 Grisham, John, 246 Grote, George, 107 Groto, Luigi, 51 Guarini, Battista, 46, 51 Guiron le Courtois, 24 Guizot, François, 107 Guys, Pierre Augustin, 74, 85

Hadjidakis, Manos, 184 Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas, Nikos, 186, 195, 204, 217 Hadjilazarou, Matsi, 182, 217 Hadjimichail, Theophilos, 49, 69, 82, 180 Hadjimichalis, George, 26, 203 Hadzopoulos, Philippos, 171 Haris, Petros, 216 Harisiadis, D.A., 211 Hatzis, Dimitris, 218, 220 Hatzopoulos, Konstantinos, 131, 149 Haviara, Eleni, 238 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 127 Heine, Heinrich, 124, 150 Heimonas, Yorgos, 230 Heliodorus, 72 Heraclitus, 64 Herder, J.G., 109 Hermoniakos, Konstantinos, 30 Hess, P. von, 79 Hikmet, Nazim, 191 Hipponax, 93 Hockney, David, 141 Homer, 30, 132, 158, 170 Horn, Pantelis, 237 Hugo, Victor, 140

Iliou, Philippos, 62 Ioannou, Yorgos, 227, 229 Ishiguro, Kazuo, 246 Isocrates, 72 Istrati, Panait, 159, 161

Jarry, Alfred, 124, 127 Jean-Paul, 127 Johnson, Samuel, 127 Joyce, James, 176, 207, 246, 247 Jozsef, Attila, 191

Kaklamanos, D., 113 Kaknavatos, Hektor, 182, 184, 221 Kalamaris (Calas, Randos, Spieros), Nikolas, 182, 183, 217, 225 Kallianesi, Nana, 191 Kalliergis, Nicolaos, 46 Kalliergis, Zacharias, 46, 55 Kalvos, Andreas, 77, 80, 99-101 Kambanellis, Iakovos, 237, 238, 240 Kambas, Andreas, 217 Kambysis, Yannis, 237 Kapralos, Christos, 213 Karagatsis, M., 204, 210, 216 Karantinos, Sokratis, 217 Karantonis, Andreas, 168, 216 Karavitis, Vassilis, 222 Karelli, Zoe, 207 Karkavitsas, Andreas, 114 Karouzos, Nikos, 221, 223 Karyotakis, K.G., 119, 149-152, 170, 191 Kasdaglis, Nikos, 218, 219 Kasdonis, G., 113 Kassomoulis, Dimitrios, 102 Kastanakis, N., 149 Kastanakis, Thrasos, 213 Katartzis, Dimitrios, 62 Katiforos, Antonios, 61 Katsaros, Michalis, 221 Katsimbalis, Yorgos, 168, 216 Katraki, Vasso, 218 Kavvadias, Nikos, 171, 196-197 Kazantzaki, Eleni, 159 Kazantzakis, Nikos, 10, 93, 119, 158-163, 204, 217, 237 Kazantzis, Tolis, 227, 228 Keats, John, 140 Kechaïdis, Dimitris, 237, 238, 240 Kedrova, Lila, 162 Kierkegaard, So/ ren, 207 King, Stephen, 246 Kipling, R., 128 Kitsopoulos, Yorgos, 207 Kodrikas, Panayotis, 73 Kolokotronis, Theodoros, 102 Komninos Papadopoulos, Nikolaos, 46 Konstantinidis, Aris, 179 Kontoglou, Fotis, 93, 203, 260 Koraïs, Adamantios, 56, 59, 62, 72, 73, 80, 88, 107, 109 Kornaros, Andreas, 51, 52 Kornaros, Vitsentzos, 39, 48, 51, 52, 53 Koromilas, Dimitrios, 237 Kostavaras, Thanassis, 221 Kotzias, Alexandros, 218, 219

Kouloufakos, Kostas, 224 Koumandareas, Menis, 227, 228, 230 Koumetakis, Ilias, 139, 148 Koun, Karolos, 50, 237, 238, 239, 240 Kounadis, Andreas, 55 Kouroplatis, Chryssovergis, 90 Kouyeas, Sokratis, 109 Kundera, Milan, 246 Kureishi, Hanif, 246 Kyrou, Kleitos, 221

Lacan, Jacques, 180 Laforgue, Jules, 125 Lamartine, Alphonse de, 79 Lambros, Mikios, 113 Landos, Agapios, 54 Lapathiotis, Napoleon, 149 Laskaris, Christos, 222 Laskaris, Constantinos, 55 Lautréamont, 207 Lawrence, D.H., 176 Leake, William Martin, 85 Leblanc, Théodore, 83 Leiris, Michel, 180 Leo the Wise, 33 Leontaris, Byron, 222 Lesage, Alain-René, 65 Levi, Primo, 247 Likos, Yorgos, 182, 221 Livaditis, Tassos, 221, 223 Lorca, F. G., 207, 217 Loukanis, Nikolaos, 27, 28 Lucian, 31 Lykiardopoulos, Gerasimos, 222 Lykoudis, Emmanuel, 113 Lymberaki, Margarita, 240 Lytras, Stelios, 240

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 107 Makrembolites, Eustathios, 24 Makriyannis, 77, 97, 102-105 Malakasis, Miltiadis, 149 Malalas, Ioannes, 28 Malikopoulos, Stefanos, 208 Mallarmé, Stéphane, 170, 207 Mamoukas, Andreas, 102 Manasses, Konstantinos, 24, 28 Maniotis, Yorgos, 240 Manoussis, T., 109 Manutius, Aldus, 55 Marcellus, Marie-Louiss J.A. Ch. du, 82, 88, 92, 93 Markidis, Marios, 222 Markoglou, Prodromos, 222 Marmontel, Jean-François, 71 Marx, Karl, 191 Masson, André, 180, 183 Matesis, Antonios, 237 Matesis, Pavlos, 240

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GREECE - BOOKS AND WRITERS Matisse, Jacqueline, 183 Matisse, Teeny, 183 Matta, 183 Matta, Patricia, 183 Maupassant, Guy de, 128 Mavrogordatos, John, 147 Mavroidis, Yorgos, 217 Mavrokordatos, Alexandros, 61, 64, 65, 80 Mavrokordatos, Konstantinos, 61 Mavrokordatos, Nikolaos, 61, 65 Mayakovsky, V., 191 Mayer, Luigi, 67 Melas, Spyros, 237 Melville, Herman, 246 Meskos, Markos, 222 Metastasio, Pietro, 71 Metaxas, Ioannis, 183 Michael VIII Palaiologos, 34 Michelet, Jules, 107 Milionis, Christoforos, 227, 228 Miller, Henry, 168 Mitsakis, Michail, 114, 115 Moisiodax, Josephus, 62 Molière, 62 Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de la Brède et de, 65, 68 Moralis, Yannis, 175, 186, 197, 217 Moréas, Jean, 150 Morezinos, Ioannis, 54 Mourmouris, Ioannis, 52 Mourselas, Kostas, 238 Murner, Thomas, 125 Musil, Robert, 247 Myrivilis, Stratis, 212, 213, 214

Nazianzus, Gregory (the Theologian), 24 Nelly, 164, 202 Neroulos, Iakovos Rizos, 64, 73 Neruda, Pablo, 207 Nietzche, Friedrich, 158 Nikiforou, Tolis, 222 Nikopoulos, Konstantinos, 93 Nin, Anais, 217 Nirvanas, Pavlos, 130 Nollas, Dimitris, 227, 228

Oppian, 32 Ouranis, Kostas, 93

Palamas, Kostis, 73, 105, 109, 113, 121, 134138, 149, 170, 216, 237 Paliouritis, G., 109 Palmer, Eva, 154 Pamplekis, Christodoulos, 60, 62 Pamuk, Orhan, 246 Pantimos, Antonios, 51, 53 Papadiamantis, Alexandros, 114, 119, 128-132 Papadimitrakopoulos, Ilias, 227, 228

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Papadimitriou, Elli, 226 Papadimos, Dimitris, 129 Papaditsas, D.P., 222, 223 Papahadjidakis, Perikles, 206 Papaloukas, Spyros, 203, 217 Papantoniou, Zacharias, 93 Paparrigopoulos, Konstantinos, 77, 78, 106, 107, 112, 140 Papatsonis, Takis, 195, 217 Patrikios, Titos, 221, 222 Pavlidis, Yorgos, 230 Pavlopoulos, Yorgos, 221 Pendedekas, Konstantinos, 80 Pentzikis, Nikos Gabriel, 167, 206, 207, 218 Peret, Benjamin, 183, 217 Perris, 113 Petrarch, 44, 45 Petronius, 219 Petsalis, Diomedes, 168 Petsetidis, Dimitris, 227, 228 Philes, Manuel, 33, 34 Picasso, Pablo, 180, 217 Pierre de la Cypède, 48 Pikatoros, Ioannes, 41 Pikionis, D., 217 Plaskovitis, Spyros, 218, 229 Plato, 72 Plousiadenos, Ioannis-Joseph of Modon, 43, 44 Plutarch, 72 Poe, Edgar Allan, 125, 150 Polemis, I., 134 Politis, Kosmas, 113, 167, 168, 198-201, 204, 216 Politis, Linos, 138 Politis, Nikolaos G., 78, 108, 109, 110 Pondikas, Marios, 238 Porfyras, Lambros, 149 Porfyris, Tasos, 222 Pound, Ezra, 176, 247 Prevelakis, Pantelis, 167, 204, 205 Prodromos, Theodoros, 21 Proust, Marcel, 183, 246, 247 Provelengios, Aristomenis, 134 Pseudo-Hermogenes, 31 Psycharis, Yannis, 113 Quinn, Anthony, 161, 162 Rabelais, François, 132 Randos (Calas, Kalamaris, Spieros), Nikitas, 182, 183, 217, 225 Ranke, Leopold von, 107 Ray, Man, 180 Restif de la Bretonne, 70, 71 Riehl, W., 108 Rigas Pherraios Velestinlis, 56, 59, 60, 62, 65, 70, 71, 89, 90 Ritsos, Yannis, 10, 167, 191-194 Roidis, Emmanuel, 91, 93, 113, 124-127

Roilos, Georgios, 134 Rollin, Charles, 28 Romanos Melodos, 217 Rosaccio, Gioseppe, 43 Rotas, Vassilis, 237 Roth, Philip, 246 Roufos, Rodis, 218 Rougemont, Denis de, 183

Sachlikis, Stefanos, 41, 45 Sachtouris, Miltos, 182, 184, 217, 222 Sade, Marquis de, 246 Sage, Kay, 183 St Basil, 20 St John, 213 Sainte Beuve, 93, 127 Sakellarios, Georgios, 70 Saltas, Jean, 127 Samarakis, Antonis, 218, 229 Sannazaro, Jacomo, 45 Saros, Nikolaos, 55 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 217 Sathas, Konstantinos, 107 Schmidt, Bernhard, 108 Schlegel, A.W., 127 Schweitzer, Albert, 150 Scorsese, Martin, 161 Scott, Walter Sir, 246 Seferis, George, 10, 48, 54, 100, 129, 157, 167, 168, 170-177, 186, 195, 198, 216, 221, 224, 232, 233 Selim III, 79 Sevastikoglou, Yorgos, 238 Shakespeare, William, 51, 124, 132, 142, 203 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 80, 140, 190 Sienkiewicz, Henryk Adam Alexander Pius, 128 Sikelianos, Angelos, 119, 149, 154-157, 216, 237 Sinopoulos, Takis, 221, 222 Skarimbas, Yannis, 167, 208, 218 Skira, Albert, 180 Sklavos, Manolis, 44 Sklentzas, Andreas, 44 Skopelitis, Stelios, 222, 223, 230, 237 Skourtis, Yorgos, 238 Skouzes, Panaghis, 102 Skylitzes, Ioannes, 19 Sofianos, Nikolaos, 55 Solomos, Alexis, 217 Solomos, Dionysios, 39, 66, 77, 80, 94-98, 108, 134 Sotiriou, Dido, 205 Souris, G., 113, 134 Soutsos, Alexandros, 78, 79, 80 Soutsos, Dimitrios, 79, 80 Soutsos, Georgakis Dragoumakis, 64, 65 Soutsos, Michael, 67 Soutsos, Panayotis, 78, 79, 80 Soutsou, Eleni, the Princess, 67 Spieros (Calas, Kalamaris),182, 183, 217, 225

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES Staïkos, Andreas, 240 Stamatis, Konstantinos, 93 Stefanou, St., 113 Stendhal, 82 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 128 Stouditis, Damaskinos, 34 Strabo, 33 Stratigis, G., 134 Svoronos, Yannis, 207 Swift, Jonathan, 124, 246

Troilos, Ioannes Andreas, 39 Tsaknia, Amalia, 222 Tsaknias, Spyros, 222 Tsarouchis, Yannis, 50, 186, 189, 217 Tsirkas, Stratis, 218, 234-236 Tsizek, Karolos, 207, 225 Turgenev, Ivan, 128 Twain, Mark, 128 Tylor, E.B., 108 Tzara, Tristan, 180

Tabucchi, Antonio, 246 Taine, Hippolyte, 127 Taktsis, Costas, 227, 228 Tanguy, Yves, 183 Tasso, Torquato, 51, 54 Tériade (Eleftheriades), 180 Terzakis, Angelos, 167, 168, 204, 205, 213, 216, 224, 237 Thasitis, Panos, 221 Themelis, Yorgos, 207 Theodorakis, Mikis, 170 Theotokas, Yorgos, 167, 168, 198, 204, 205, 216, 224 Theotokis, Konstantinos, 61, 133 Theotokis, Nikiforos, 61 Thierry, Jacques-Nicolas, 107 Thomas, Dylan, 222 Thoms, W., 108 Thucydides, 107 Tolstoy, A., 191 Tommaseo, Niccolo, 82 Trakl, Georg, 222 Triantafyllodimitris, Ioannis, 102 Trikoupis, Spyridon, 80, 94 Trissino, Gian Giorgio, 51

Vakalo, Eleni, 217, 221, 223 Valaoritis, Aristotelis, 134 Valaoritis, Nanos, 182, 184, 217, 221, 225 Valéry, Paul, 170 Valtinos, Thanassis, 212, 213, 227, 228 Vanidis, Yannis, 206 Varnalis, Kostas, 153 Varvitsiotis, Takis, 221 Vassilikos, Vassilis, 227, 229 Vavouris, Stavros, 221 Vecellio, Cesare, 44 Vellianitis, T., 113 Vendotis, Georgios, 70, 89, 90 Venetzas, Nikephoros, 54 Venezis, Ilias, 168, 204, 212, 213, 214 Venizelos, Eleftherios, 119, 158 Verlaine, Paul, 150 Vernardakis, Dimitrios, 237 Viaros, Markos Antonios, 52 Vico, Giambattista, 109 Vikelas, Dimitrios, 113, 114 Vilaras, Ioannis, 65, 66 Villehardouin, William de, 35 Villon, François, 150 Vitez, Antoine, 235

Vizyinos, Georgios, 113, 114, 119, 120-123 Vlachoyannis, Yannis, 104 Vlastos, Nikolaos, 55 Voltaire, 61, 62, 65, 66, 124 Voulgaris, Evgenios, 61, 66 Vousvounis, Antonis, 217 Vyzantios, Dimitrios, 237

Wagner, R., 142 Weber, Johanna, 205 Whitman, Walt, 154

Xanthos, Emmanuel, 102 Xefloudas, Stelios, 93, 168, 207 Xenophon, 72, 213 Xenopoulos, Grigorios, 113, 133, 142, 216, 277 Xydis, Alexandros, 217

Yeats, W.B., 176 Yeros, Dimitris, 241 Yesenin, Sergei, 191 Ypsilantis, Alexandros, 79, 80

Zambelios, Spyridon, 78, 107 Zannas, Pavlos, 246 Zei, Alki, 230 Zenos, Dimitrios, 28 Ziogas, Vassilis, 240 Zografos, Dimitrios, 104 Zografos, Panayotis, 104 Zola, Emil, 125, 128 Zoumboulakis, Stavros, 216

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INDEX OF TITLES Achilleid, 24 Acolouthia of the other-eyed and antichrist Christodoulos of Acarnania, 60 Adoro te devote latens veritas, 44 Advice to Frantziskis, 41, 45 Aeolian Earth, 204 Agamemnon, 142 Aithiopika, 72 Akarei, 184 Akrokeravnia, 228 Alafroiskiotos (Moonstruck ), 154 Alcuni cenni critici sul viaggio in Grecia… del signor Chateaubriand, 93 Alexandrovodas the Callous, 64 Alley, The, 219 Altars, 138 Aminta, L’, 51 Amorgos, 184 Amorosa Fede, 51, 53 Angela, 238 Anglofrancorussian, 65 Anonymous, 64, 65 Antigone’s Matchmaking, 240 Apokopos, 41, 45, 46 Aquarium, The, 238 Architecture of a Dissipated Life, 206 Archive, 206 Argo, 205 Ariagni, 234, 235 Aristandros and Kallithea, 24 Artforum, 183 Art International, 183 Art in the Age of the Risk, 183 Arts Magazine, 183 Askitiki (Saviours of God: Spiritual Exercices, The), 158 Ass, The, 31 Astrolabe, 203 Atalà, 93 Attempt, The, 219 Aunt Unaccounted for. Stop, 240 Axion Esti, 182, 188

Babylonia, 237 Backgammon, 238 Barbershop, The, 228 Bat, The, 234, 236 Battle of the Frogs and Mice, 28 Bed of Solomon, 54 Beginning of Life, The, 240 Belissarios, 45 Best Years, The, 228 ‘Between Piraeus and Naples’, 121 Big Bang, The, 240 Blast-Furnace, 178, 180 Blind Man’s Writ, The, 192

256

Bloodied Earth, 205 Bolivar: A Greek Poem, 182 Book of Exercises, 170 Book of Revelation, 213 Book of the Days of Andreas Kordopatis, 228 Bosporomachia, 66 Bosporus on the Dniepr, 65 Bound, The, 205 Boxer, The, 219 Breeding Ground for Germs, 184 Broad River, The, 212, 214 Builders, The, 230 Burning Light, The, 153 Buzz, The, 240

Calisto, 51 Canzoniere, 45 Captain Michalis, 204 Cat and the Mice, The, 46 Catastrophe of Crete, 44 Cathay, 176 ‘Cats of St Nicholas’, The, 232 Chants populaires de la Grèce Moderne, 82, 92 Chap-book of the Donkey, 44, 45, 46 Characters, 66 Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, 93 Children of Cronus, The, 219 Chimaera, 210 Chorale of the Sponge-divers, The, 192 Christ in Rome, 157 Christ Recrucified, 161 Chronicle (of I. Skylitzes), 19 Chronicle of a Town, The, 204, 205 Chronicle of the Morea, 35 Cistern, The, 170 City, The, 142 Club, The, 234, 235 Collected Poems (of A. Kalvos), 100 Collection (of Damaskinos Stouditis), 33 Colonel Lyapkin, 210 Comedy of the Fly, The, 240 Common Sense, 240 Complete Works (of A. Papadiamantis), 129 Complete Works (of Kostis Palamas), 134 Composition, 98 Consciousness of Faith, 154 Consciousness of my Land, 154 Consciousness of my Race, 154 Consciousness of Personal Creativity, 154 Consciousness of Woman, 154 Concise Canon of Many Amazing Things to be Found in Many Cities, Islands, Nations and Animals, 66 ‘Consequences of an Old Story’, The, 121 Contemporaines, 70, 71

Council of the Whores, 41 Courtyard, The, 218 Creation of the World, 44 Cretan, The, 98, 204 Cretan War, The, 54 Crime and Punishment, 246 Crowd, The, 219 Curtain Falls, The, 240 Cynegetica III, 32

Daedalus in Crete, 157 Dam, The, 218, 229 Danaids, The, 99 ‘Dangerous Thoughts’, 142 Dark Affair, The, 219 Data from the Decade of the Sixties, 228 Day is Breaking, 158 Days, 176 De excidio Troiae historia, 28 Dead Are Waiting, The, 205 ‘Dead Voyager’, The, 132 Death of De’ Medici, 205 Death of Digenis, The, 157 Decadence of the Tough, The, 205 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 140 Defenceless, The, 218, 220 ‘Demaratos’, 144 Democritheraclitus, 64 ‘Demon of Fornification’, The, 172 ‘Denial’, 170 Descent, 213 Descent into Hades, 213 Descent of the Nine, 212, 228 Diable boiteux, Le, 65 Diagonios, 225 Dialogue, The, 94 Dialogue Between an Unfortunate Man and Truth, 41 Diamonds and Blues, 240 Diaspora, 184 Difficult Nights, 209 Digenis Akrites, 18, 20, 21 Discord, 228 Dispute between Candia and Rethymnon, 54 Distant Trip, The, 240 Divine Goat, The, 208 Doctor Ineotis, 230 Don Juan, 124 Don Quixotes, 62, 150 Drifting Cities, 218, 234, 236 Drosilla and Charikles, 24

Easter Games, 240 Easter of the Hellenes, 154

INDEX OF TITLES

Eighteen Short Songs of the Bitter Homeland, 192 Eighteen Texts, 232 Elegies and Satires, 150, 152 Elliniki Vivliothiki (Greek Library), 72 End, The, 201 End of Our Small Town, The, 220 Endlessly Written in Blood, 230 ‘Engomi’, 172 Ephemerides (Diaries), 73 Ephemeris belli Troiani, 28 Epilogue to Snow, 228 Epitaphios, 191, 193 Epitheorisi Technis, 224 Epoches, 212, 224 Ermis o Logios (Hermes the Scholar), 63, 90, 92, 93 Eroïca, 199, 204 Erophili, 39, 46, 50, 51, 52, 54 Erotikos Logos, 170 Erotokritos, 39, 48, 170 Erotopaignia, 43 Essai historique et critique sur les dissensions des églises de Pologne, 61 Essay on Religious Tolerance, 61 Esprit des lois, 68 Essays (of G. Seferis), 101 Etymologikon Mega (Grand Etymological Dictionary), 55 Eve of the Sun, The, 191 ‘Exile’s Letter’, 176 Expression, 203

Fables, 28, 31, 33 Fair, The, 238 Fantastic Adventure, 219 Father’s Counsel to his Son, The, 45 Fedra, 51 Figaro’s Solo, 208, 218 Filostrato e Panfila, 51 Floire et Blanchefleur, 22 Florios and Platziaflora, 22 Flowers of Piety, 54 Folk Life of Modern Greeks and Greek Antiquity, The, 108 Football Match, The, 240 For a Little Self-respect, 229 ‘For the Shop’, 142 Forgotten, The, 184 Fortounatos, 51, 54 Fourteen Poems by C.P. Cavafy illustrated with 12 etchings by David Hockney, 141 Foyers d’Incendie, 183 Fourth Dimension, 192 Fraternal Teaching, 72 Fratricides, The, 161 Free Besieged, The, 77, 98, 153 Free Spirit, The, 198 Freedom and Death, 161

Friends, 238 From Kifissia with Force, 238

Garden of Graces, 66 Garden of Separated Lovers, The, 240 Geography XVI, 33 Geoponikon, 54 Gerusalemme liberata, 51 Ghost of Mr Ramon Novarro, The, 240 Giaour, The, 93 Glass Works, The, 228 Glavkos Thrassakis, 228 God Kononos, The, 203 God’s Pauper: St Francis of Assisi, 161 Grand Meaulnes, 199 Grave, The, 138 Great Eastern, The, 180 Great Square, The, 230 Greek Alexander Romance, 27, 28, 29, 30 Greek Bibliography of the 19th Century. Books and Pamphlets (1801-1818), 62 Grooves of the Millstone, The, 219 Gypsy Girl, The, 128 Gyri, 199

Habiti antichi et moderni di tutto il mondo, 44 Habiti d’Huomeni e Donne Venetiane, 46 Hamlet, 142 Handsome Captain, The, 228 Heartaches of the Lagoon, 138 Hecate, 198, 199 Helen, 172 Hellas, 80 Heroic and Elegiac Song for the Lost Second Lieutenant of Albania, 182, 186, 188 Hestia, 113, 121 Hippias, 99 Histoires extraordinaires, 150 Historia tou Palaiou (The Story of the Old Testament), 44 History of Animals, 33 History of Sosangi, 66 History of the Greek Nation, 77, 106, 107, 112 Hot Sea Springs, 228 How Ignatius Feared Thief, Met his Death, 203 Hundred Voices, 137 Hymn to Liberty, 77, 80, 94 Hymns and Laments for Cyprus, 192

Icons and Images of the Sixties, 183 I Kiss you in the Face, 240 Iambs and Anapaests, 138 Iconostasis of Anonymous Saints, 191 If this a Man, 247 Igitur, 207

Iliad, 25, 27, 28, 30, 73, 199 Illustration, 203 Imberios, 45 Imberios and Margarona, 22 Immigrant, The, 128 In Praise of Women, 46 In the Hatjifrangou Quarter, 201 Inert Life, The, 137, 138 Inner Land, 180 Invisible Troupe, The, 240 ‘Ithaca’, 142 Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem et de Jérusalem à Paris (Travel Itinerary), 89, 91, 93 Itinerary of ’43, 214

Jaguar, The, 219 Journeys, 203 Jungermann, 210

Kadmo, 209 Kalamas and Acheron, 228 Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe, 24 Kaplani tis Vitrinas, To, 230 Katzourbos, 39, 51, 54 ‘King of Asine’, The, 172 King Rodolinos, 51, 54 King’s Flute, The, 138 Kivotio, To (The Mission Box), 217, 219 Kochlias, 207 Korakistika, The, 64, 73 Koula, 228 ‘Kunst und Alterthum’, 82

Lady of the Vineyards, The, 192 ‘Lake Isle’, The, 176 Lambros, 77, 98 Lament of Poor Fallidis, 51 Lamentation of Death, 44 Lamentation of the Mother of God on the Passion of Christ, 44 Lamentation of the Virgin, 44 Last One Hundred Years B.C., The, 191 Last Refuge, The, 228 Last Temptation, The, 162 Laurels and Oleanders, 238, 240 Leaves of Grass, The, 154 Lemon Grove, The, 198 Leonis, 204 Lettres persanes, 65 Liber insularum archipelagi, 14 Library of History III, 33 Life and Death of the ‘Hangman’, The, 133 Life in the Tomb, 212, 214 Livistros and Rodamne, 24, 25 ‘Livre de la conqueste’, 35 Lo Isach, 51 Logbook I, 172

257

GREECE - BOOKS AND WRITERS

Logbook II, 172 Logbook III, 172 Logic, 61 Lohengrin, 142 Lord of the Castle, The, 204 Loukis Laras, 113 Lucifer, 219 Lustra, 176 Lyre patriotique de la Grèce, La, 100 Lyre, The, 99, 100 Lyric Poems, 99 Lyrics, 66

Machine, The, 219 ‘Maid of Honour who Became a Bride’, The, 82 Man without Qualities, 247 ‘Mangeur d’Opium’, Un (‘La Léthé’), 150 Manuscript ’41, 172 Marabou, 196, 197 Mariambas, 208 ‘Marina’, 176 Méditations Poétiques, 79 Melissa, 93 Memnon, 66 Mémoire sur l’état actuel de la civilisation dans la Grèce, 72, 73 Memoirs, 77, 102, 104, 105 Merchants of the Nations, The, 128 Military Handbook, 71 Minotaure, 180 Mirror of Women, 66 Mistake, The, 229 Moby Dick, 246 Monde, Le, 232 Monogram, The, 188 Moonlight Sonata, 192 ‘Moskov-Selim’, 121, 123 Mother, Mom, Mama, 240 ‘Mother of God’, 154 Mournful Rhyme on the Bitter and Insatiable Hades, 41 Mountain, The, 240 Murderess, The, 129 My House, 218 Mythistorema, 170 Mythology (of N. Kasdaglis), 219 Mythology (of N. Bakolas), 230

Nea Grammata, Ta, 216 Nea Hestia, 216 Nepenthe (The Opiate), 150 New Directions, 183 New Political Government, 71 New Texts, 232 New Texts II, 232 Night of the Owl, The, 240 Nights of Phemius, 138 Nike, 240

258

‘Nijinsky’, 172 Notebooks, 182 Novel of Mrs Ersi, The, 206, 218 Number 31328, 212, 214

‘Ode on the Death of Lord Byron’, 97 ‘Ode to the Sacred Company’, 99 Odes, 99, 100, 101 Odyssey, 150, 158 Odyssey (The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel), 158, 161 Oktana, 180 Old Knight, The, 24 Old Mazourka to the Beat of the Rain, An, 191 Old Miss Lisabet, 228 Old Women and the Sea, The, 192 On Animals (Peri zoon idiotetos), 33 On the characteristics of animals, 34 ‘Only Voyage of his Life’, The, 121, 123 ‘Optimism’, 151 Oracles, 33 Orbecche, 51 Orientations, 182, 187 Orlando Furioso, 51 Our Best Years, 228 Our Own Blood, 229 Oxopetra Elegies, 188

Pain of Humans and Things, The, 150 Palaia Istoria, 28 ‘Palm Tree’, The, 138 Pali, 225 Panoria, 39, 51, 52, 53 Papatrechas, 73 Parade, The, 228 Parerga of Philotheos, 65 Paris et Vienne, 48 Pastor Fido, Il, 46, 51, 53 Pedro Cazas, 203 Peisistratos, 230 People and Houses, 119 Peregrinationes in Terram Sanctam, 36 Phaedre, 192 Philocretes, 240 Phyllada tou Megalexandrou (Chap-book of Alexander the Great), 28, 29, 30 Physikes Apanthisma (Handbook of Physics), 68, 70 Physiologos, 33, 34 Pierre de Provence et la Belle Maguelonne, 22 Pilgrim, The, 153 Pisan Cantos, 247 Pit, The, 240 Plague, 219 Poems (of C.P. Cavafy), 144 Poems (of G. Seferis), 175 Poesies, 80 Poetry of C.P. Cavafy, The, 147

Poet’s Enemy, The, 230 Polemos tes Troados (War of Troy), 28 Pope Joan, 124, 125, 127 Porikologos, 34 Poulologos (Bird Book), 31, 34 Poussi, 197 Praise of Porthotsoutsounia, 41 Prayer for the Holy Communion of St Thomas Aquinas, teacher of the Church, 44 Princess Ysabeau, 204 Prisoner’s Story, A, 212 Prologue to Life, 154 Prometheus Bound, 157 Psalms of David, 100, 203 Psalter (of St Basil), 20 Psychology of a Husband from Syros, 125 Ptochoprodromika (the ‘Poor Prodromos’ poems), 18, 21 Punishment of the Magi, The, 184 Purple Sky, The, 240 Pyramids, 191

Re Torrismondo, Il, 51, 54 Reineke, 33 Remarkable Story of the Humble Sachlikis, 41 Remembrance of Things Past, 246, 247 Renart, 33 Report on Andreas Embiricos, 182 Report to Greco, 161 Results of Love, 71 Rhyme of a Girl and a Boy, 41 Rights of Man and the Citizen, 71 Rimada of Belisarius, 44 Rimada tou Megalou Alexandrou, 28 Rimades of Apollonios, 45 Robinson Crusoe, 203 Rodanthe and Dosikles, 24 Roman d’ Eneas, 27 Roman de Renard, 31 Roman de Thèbes, 27 Roman de Troie, 22, 27, 28 Romance of the Rose, 24 Romiosini, 192 Rosamunde, 228 Rosy Shores, 129

Sacra Parallela, 15 ‘Sacred Way’, The, 157 Sacrifice of Abraham, The, 39, 51 Salamis of Cyprus, 172 Salvation of Sinners, 54 Sarcophagus, The, 229 Satire, 80 Satyricon, 219 Scale of Hardness, 184 School for Delicate Lovers, 68, 70, 71 Secret Garden, The, 203

INDEX OF TITLES

Selection from books of the ancient philosophers, 34 Serpent and Lily, 158 Shall We Dance, Maria?, 209 Shepherdess, The (Voskopoula), 39, 51, 53 Shorn, The, 218, 219 Short Stories from Syros, 125 Siege of Malta, The, 46 Synechia, 232 Six Nights on the Acropolis, 176 Sleepwalkers, The, 247 Small Change, 228 Smoke-charred Cooking Pot, The, 192 Sofonisba, 51 Sole Inheritance, The, 229 Song of Armouris, 18, 20, 21 Song of My Sister, The, 191 Sound of the Gun, The, 240 Souvernirs de l’Orient, 88, 92 Spaneas, 18 Spiritual Table, 66 Stathis, 51 Stoicheiomachia, 66 Stolidiaris, O, 66 Stones, Repetitions and Railings, 192 Story and Dream, 41 Strophe (‘Turning-Point’), 170, 173 Study of the Life of Moderm GreeksModern Greek Mythology, 108 ‘Suicide’, 114 Summary of the Eight Parts of Speech, 55 Sun the First, 187, 189 Suppliants, The, 157 Surrealism Pro and Con, 183 Sword-Wielding Mirror that presents a Liar, a Whoremonger and a Thief, 73 Sybilla, 157 Synaxarion of Noble Ladies, 46 Synaxarion of the Estimable Donkey, 31, 33, 34

Tale about Quadrupeds, 31, 32, 33, 34 Tale of Apollonius, 44 Tale of Troy (Diegesis genamene en Troia), 24, 25, 28 Teseida, 22, 28

Testimonies A, B, C, 192 Tetradio, 217 Theramenes, 99 Theseid, 22, 24, 28 Third Wedding, The, 228 Thourios (Battle Hymn), 71 Three Secret Poems, 172 Thrush, 172, 195 To the All-Holy Virgin, 44 Toothpaste with Chlorophyl, 228 Tractors, 191 Transfigurations, 183 Travel Inpressions, 93 Traverso, 197 Tree of Imprisonment, The, 192 Trisevgeni, 237 Trito Mati, To (Third Eye), 207, 217 Twelve to Tuppence, 228 Twelve Words of the Gypsy, The, 134, 138 Twentieth Century, 209 ‘Two Brothers and the Bad Woman’, The, 82 Typikon (of Monastery of Vatopedi), 24

Ulysses, 246, 247 Under Siege, 218, 219 Under the Fig tree, 115 Ursa Minor, 195 Usurped Authority, 219

Varlaam and Ioasaph, 33, 54 Vasanta, 203 Vassilikos, 237 Velthandros and Chrysantza, 24 Verses to this Seventh Age, 44 Vessel, 184 Viaggio da Venezia a Constantinopoli per mare e per terra, & insieme quello di terra Santa, 43 View, 183 Views in Turkey, in Europe and Asia, comprising Romelia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, Syria and Palestine, 67 Village Voice, 183 Violet City, The, 204 Visions and Marvels, 104, 105

‘Voix’, La, 150 Voyage à Athènes et à Constantinople ou Collection de Portraits, de vues et de costumes grecs et ottomans, 67, 89 Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce (Travels of the Young Anacharsis in Greece), 70, 88, 89, 90, 91 Voyage littéraire de la Grèce ou lettres sur les grecs anciens et modernes, 84, 85 Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce, 71, 92, 93, 108

‘Waiting for the Barbarians’, 145 Walk, The, 184 War of Troy, The, 22, 24 War Song, 72 War Songs, 80 Waste Land, The, 170, 176, 195 Watch, The, 197 Waterloo of Two Fools, The, 208 Wax Doll, The, 133 Wedding, The, 230 Wedding Ring, The, 238 Westside Neighbourhood, 228 What the Greeks Must Do in the Present Circumstances, 72 ‘Who was my Brother’s Murderer?’, 121 Without God, 205 Writings or Personal Mythology, 180 Woman of Zakynthos, The, 96, 98 Women, The, 192 Wrought Iron Gate, 219 Wuthering Heights, 246

Yard of Miracles, 238, 240 Ysmine and Ysminias, 24

Z, 229 Zenon, 51 Zorba the Greek, 161, 162

120 Days of Sodom, The, 246

259

Fotis Kontoglou, The Happy Konek-Konek King of Isprovana is Meditating on the Nature of Man, detail, 1932. Fresco from the artist’s home, today in the National Gallery, Athens.

SETTING, LAYOUT, FILMS AND MONTA GE MADE AT THE ‘MEMIGRAF ’ WORK SHOP. PRINTED BY ‘DIONYSIS DESPO TOPOULOS LITHOGRAPHY ’. BOUND IN 6,000 COPIES AT THE BOOKBINDERS THEODOROS ILIOPOULOS AND PAN TELIS RODOPOULOS IN SEPTEMBER 2001 FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CEN TER, MINISTRY OF CULTURE, GREECE. DESIGNED BY STAVROS PETSOPOULOS