When Seferis left

On this day, the great Giorgos Seferis passed away
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Georgios Seferiadis, as was his real name, was born in Vourla, Asia Minor, in 1900
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He was lucky because he came to Greece with his upper-class family in 1914, long before the catastrophe
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She received the best education available at the time, first in Athens and then in Paris and London
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He is then appointed to the diplomatic corps and begins to write…
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In 1931, he was appointed vice-consul in London
while at the same time publishing his first collection of poetry, titled «Strophe»
and signs it as Seferis…
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In 1933, his father, Stelios, was elected Rector of the University of Athens
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In 1935, he returned to Athens and was appointed consul in Korista.
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He continues to write and will continue to do so for the rest of his life
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even at the outbreak of the war and during the heroic resistance of our soldiers in Albania
where he will write for «MERES»
«The whole earth, the entire history of the world, is watching Greece—this small corner, this barren rocky landscape»
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At the time of the occupation, he was serving as head of the Deputy Ministry of Press Affairs and was accompanying the king and the government as they departed for the Middle East
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In Cairo, he took on the role of press director, but he was so repulsed by the gloomy atmosphere at King George’s court that he wrote in *MERES* with utter disgust:
«Every day, I find myself thinking more and more that we are a tangle of worms.».
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Cairo and King George's atrocities will leave a deep mark on you
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He will write about Georgios's contacts with the English diplomats:
«They make fun of and look down on the Greeks. The Greeks are foolish. They don't like them.»
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He is so deeply hurt and disappointed by what he sees in Cairo,
who has pinned all his hopes on the news coming from Greece about our people’s resistance.
He wrote in *MERES* at that time:
«The only consolation is that, when we reach the end of this great adventure,
All of these people will have been swept away by those who are living through the current tragedy of slavery.
»Those who, I imagine, will be able to speak the language of Greece.".
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But instead of things getting better, sometimes they get worse
and when it comes to the history of Greece, things almost always get worse
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In 1944, the government of the Middle East called on the resistance organizations in Greece to form a government of national unity.
So, there,
Georgios Papandreou, who was appointed prime minister by Churchill himself,
in exchange for restoring George to the throne after his release,
launches a direct attack on the EAM and the ELAS…
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Papandreou is so nauseating at those meetings that he prompts Seferis to write in his diary:
«He doesn't understand a thing; he just listens to whatever Lipper tells him,
(British ambassador)
»As if it were the Bible, he spouts rhetoric and acts like a small-town mayor."
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After his release, he continued to serve in the diplomatic corps and, at the same time, wrote, wrote, wrote…
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He began writing his work *MERES* in 1925 and finished it in 1960
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In 1963, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided to award him the Nobel Prize in Literature
His work has been translated since the early 1950s, and he has become well-known everywhere
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The day after receiving his award, he will give a lecture at the Swedish Academy
with his speech beginning as follows:
«I come from a small country.
A rocky promontory in the Mediterranean, possessing nothing but the struggle of its people, the sea, and the sunlight.
Our country is small, but its tradition is vast, and what sets it apart is that it has been passed down to us without interruption.
The Greek language has never ceased to be spoken.
It has undergone the changes that every living thing undergoes, but it shows no signs of decay.
Another hallmark of this tradition is its love for humanity.
Its guiding principle is justice.
»In ancient tragedy, with its meticulous structure, a person who oversteps the bounds must be punished by the Furies…"
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But not even the Nobel Prize was enough to satisfy him,
continue writing…
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In 1964, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Thessaloniki,
and, that same year, was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford
while the following year, in 1965, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Princeton
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The junta catches him off guard
but
In 1969, Seferis smuggled a cassette containing a recorded message against the junta to London,
which was broadcast that same day by the BBC's Greek Service,
while it is being broadcast
and from the Paris radio station
and *Deutsche Welle*.
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Among other things, Seferis said in this message:
«It is a situation [the junta] in which all the spiritual values we managed to keep alive through pain and toil are now being dragged down into the mire, into the stagnant waters.”.
Now I return to my silence.
And I pray to God that I won't find myself in a situation where I have to speak
again.
I am a person with no political ties, and I can
to speak without fear or passion:
I see before me the precipice to which oppression is leading us.
This anomaly must stop.
»It is a national imperative.".
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The junta almost immediately labeled him an agent of international communism
and revoked his diplomatic passport and his title of honorary ambassador
while
The pro-junta newspapers began publishing articles the very next day claiming that Seferis «sold out Cyprus to win the Nobel Prize»
Did they really write that…
(Does this remind you of anything???)
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Just like today—Monday, September 20, 1971—George Seferis breathed his last
And two days later, his funeral turned into a massive demonstration against the junta
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P.S. In his book *Days IX*, published in February 1967, he writes:
«Our town is beautiful.
Except that it's not ours.
»We have to earn it every day.".
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P.S. 2. Personally, though, I identified with it more
with:
«No matter where I travel, Greece breaks my heart…»
I believe that this short phrase encapsulates the entire history of Greece.
from 1821 to the present
and from Asia Minor to Cyprus

Author of the article:

Yannis Golias