Generation of the 30s

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The generation of the 30s ( Greek γενιά του '30 - generation of '30 ) is a group of Greek writers of a social generation who appeared in literature in Greece in the decade between 1930 and 1940 , forced a break with the previous generation of poets and the modernism in modern Greek literature finally introduced. The main initiator of this new poetry is Giorgos Seferis ; From 1935 the representatives of the French also played an important roleRole models inspired surrealism . The main creative phase of this generation ended with the Second World War and especially the German occupation . In addition to literature, the term “generation of the 1930s” is also used for the renewal movement in painting .

Background: The literature of the 1920s

The literature of the 1920s in Greece was largely characterized by pessimism and a principled negation and rejection of society or of life as a whole. Under the impression of numerous negative historical events such as the Asia Minor catastrophe and the accompanying streams of refugees, high unemployment and domestic political instability, a lyric of the narcissistic and hopeless ego blossomed . Representing the general depressive state of mind, Kostas Karyotakis was seen by most critics from the late 1920s onwards as a prime example of a poet whose poetry was not trend-setting and represented an "end" within modern Greek literature. In 1929 Giorgos Theotokás published an important essay entitled Free Mind (Ελεύθερο Πνέυμα), which became the manifesto of the nascent generation of the 1930s. In it he analyzed the situation and confirmed the general desire for a change in modern Greek literature. He went so far as to even call Konstantinos Kavafis , like Karyotakis, an "end" from which one should rather turn away. The literary youth longed for a leader under whose guidance literature could awaken to new life and the path to a brighter future could be taken.

The turning point from 1930 to 1935

Precursors and first attempts

Between 1930 and 1935 a number of writers - often standing between Kavafis and Karyotakis in terms of their literary work and models or influenced by Futurism - appeared with publications that heralded or sought to achieve a turning point in modern Greek poetry. One of the first was Theodoros Doros in 1930 with a very modern collection of poems published in Paris . Nikitas Randos ( pseudonym of Nikos Kalamaris) and Giorgos Sarandaris also matured outside Greece and contributed their part on the way to a new literary movement, but their influence remained small: the former wrote anti-karyotakist poetry, was a revolutionary and Marxist and left Greece again in 1936; the latter ultimately lacked the necessary means of expression to achieve a real turnaround. Alexandros Baras, Nikolaos Kalas, Giorgos Vafopoulos and Nikos Kavvadias also tried to renew the literature , but they also failed to achieve a breakthrough.

Giorgos Seferis

Monument by Giorgos Seferis

However, the first collection of poems by Giorgos Seferis (1900–1971), Strofí ( Στροφή , “Wende” or “Strophe”), published in 1931, played a far more important role - measured by its unbroken popularity today . The collection, which was initially published in an edition of 200 copies, contained both poems that still belonged to the “old”, “pure poetry”, such as Erotikos Logos ( Ερωτικός Λόγος ), which is one of the last outstanding examples of a fifteen silver, as well as poetry of a new style. This meant a liberation from meter , the preference for simple forms of expression and a simple vernacular over more complex linguistic variations such as in Karyotakis and an often impersonal syntax in contrast to the strong self-centeredness of the poetry of the 20s. Like all avant-garde works, Strofí was initially rejected by the critics because of its innovations in metrics and style; only later was its value recognized. With his second collection of poems in 1935, Seferis consolidated the position he held in the renewal of modern Greek poetry.

The year 1935

The year 1935 was a special year in modern Greek literary history for several reasons. It marked the middle of the generation of the 1930s and finally heralded the turning point in literature. The following events in particular were responsible for this:

  • Giorgos Seferis publishes his second collection of poems, Mythistórima ( Μυθιστόρημα - "novel" or "mythical story") and thus affirms his path to modernity in free verse, which he began with Strofí .
  • The "critic par excellence" of the generation of the 30s, Andreas Karandonis, founded the magazine Nea Grammata ( Νέα Γράμματα ), which played a prominent role for the generation of the 30s and united most of the new literary forces in its circle. Odysseas Elytis published his first poems in Nea Grammata in 1935 . The magazine, whose second director was the equally important critic Giorgos K. Katsimbalis , saw itself as a reaction to the poor quality of the poetry of the 20s and early 30s. She wanted to take action against karyotakism and support the promising tendencies in the new poetry.
  • Andreas Embirikos publishes Blast Furnace ( Υψικάμινος ) and thus introduces Surrealism in Greece, which decisively shaped literature in the years that followed.
  • Significantly, the last collection of poems by Kostis Palamas falls in this year - a symbol of the turning point towards a new kind of poetry.

Revolutionary innovations from 1935

The surrealism

The Surrealism movement that originated in France reached Greece in the 1930s - later than in other European countries - and first appeared in literary terms through Embirikos ' Ypsikáminos (1935). In addition to Embirikos, his pupil Nikos Engonopoulos and, in a broader sense, also the early Odysseas Elytis belong to this revolutionary art form, which allowed modern Greek literature to enter a new phase. The main characteristics of surrealist poetry include “automatic writing” , in which images and feelings are reproduced without reflection and which serves to uncover hidden, subconscious forces. In its propagation of the liberation from logic and reason, and the turn to new, unconventional, experimental forms of expression, surrealism was a revolutionary movement. While it had arisen in France as a twofold revolution, namely as the liberation of man on a personal and social level, Surrealism, which came to Greece in 1935, only encompassed the personal dimension; the social and thus communist ideology could not gain a foothold in Greece. The great spiritual pioneer and the leading figure of this current - the liberation of the individual on a personal level, the exploration of one's own inner life and one's own spiritual worlds - was Sigmund Freud ; the psychoanalysis was therefore a key element in surrealist thinking. Giorgos Seferis didn't think much of surrealism; he stayed true to a more conservative (and no less important and innovative) line and described surrealist poetry as "simple" (εύκολη).

Andreas Embirikos

Andreas Embirikos (1901–1975) introduced surrealism in Greece with the blast furnace in 1935. His poetry did not just build on the well-known with new means, but was actually something revolutionary with poetry titles such as Die Vibrationen der Krawatte (Αι δονήσεις του λαιμοδέτου) or The existence of angels in a steam engine (Παρουσίαγγέλωη εντός) αανος. The reactions ranged from incomprehension to ridicule and outrage, while only a few were able to grasp the true meaning of this avant-garde, prose- written literature. Embirikos used "automatic writing" and made use of numerous linguistic elements from high-level or specialist languages. According to today's understanding, the value of this work results less from its poetic content, but rather from its significance in the history of literature.

Nikos Engonopoulos

Nikos Engonopoulos

Nikos Engonopoulos (1907–1985) was the student of Andreas Embirikos and represented an even more extreme, provocative form of surrealism. He cultivated a very original language, as with Embirikos, interspersed with learned elements and was also very successful as a surrealist painter. His first two collections of poetry were Conversations with the Driver Forbidden (1938) and The Pianos of Silence (1939); Perhaps his most famous work, Bolivar (Μπολιβάρ), he wrote in the winter of 1942/43.

Odysseas Elytis

Odysseas Elytis (1911–1996) came into contact with surrealism as early as 1929 and was enthusiastic about the possibilities it offered to preserve the “pure poetic moment”. However, the first poems he published in 1935 did not yet have any surrealist traits; only in the years after 1935 did he publish such works. Even more than its contemporaries, Elytis stands for a bright, affirmative poetry, the center of which is the island world of the Aegean with its sun, sea and simple architecture. It becomes a normative image of human dignity: "This, the world, the small, the big" is what Elytis calls it.

In contrast to Embirikos and Engonopoulos, Elytis, whose main works date from after 1940, represented a less extreme form of new literature and was therefore more accessible to the public; his work met with a great response at an early stage.

Similarities of the generation of poets of the 30s

Certain characteristics were particularly characteristic of the poetry of the 1930s:

  • Turning away from karyotakist poetry. While Seferis' poetry can also still be described as "pessimistic and melancholy", but differentiates itself from Karyotakis in terms of motif and content, the poetry of later representatives of the generation is increasingly characterized by a turn to "affirmative", optimistic thoughts.
  • The motif of youth - the poetry sought by the new generation should be new, fresh, young and powerful. However, this does not apply to the poetry of Seferis, who - although not karyotakist - wrote more pessimistic, melancholy poetry.
  • Turning away from traditional dogmas of poetry, turning to free verse and other unconventional forms of expression.
  • Turning away from pompous monumental poems of the type of Angelos Sikelianos , turning to mostly short, plain, direct texts and simple means. These simple linguistic means often stand in contrast to the difficulty of interpretation - “understanding” the poems of Seferis or the Surrealists is often anything but easy.

Important representatives of the generation of poets of the 1930s

As the most important representatives of the generation of the 30s, the following writers are usually named today:

Ideological dimensions

In Greek literary history, the 1930s were also characterized by the fact that the interaction between literature and politics and ideology became more intense and political-ideological considerations in general also played an increasingly important role in literature. Above all, the communist movement should be mentioned here, which, starting from the Soviet Union , also influenced literature in Greece. In 1934 the Congress of Soviet Writers took place in Moscow , at which “ socialist realism ” was established as an obligatory art form and influenced the strong communist movement in Greece. However, the Greek communists did not succeed in winning over one of the literary greats who had grown up in the 1930s and in controlling the literary movement. Neither through Giannis Ritsos , who turned away from communism after initial sympathy, nor through Kostas Varnalis , who was also flirted with hopefully for some time, the left currents were able to advance their own avant-garde art. However, the ideology of the powerful, future-oriented, optimistic, which the left embodied, was noticeably reflected in literature from around 1935 - Surrealism was a left-wing political trend.

prose

Not only poetry but also prose was given new life by the generation of the 1930s. Numerous prose writers came from the fringes of the Greek world (who had been lost forever since the Asia Minor catastrophe ), which was reflected in many of their works in the form of war and refugee issues and the necessary reorientation. The narrative was increasingly pushed into the background by the novel ; the authors published remarkably often under pseudonyms. One of the most important writers of the time was Stratis Myrivilis (1892–1969), who became the first prose writer of his generation through the Athens edition of his novel Life in the Grave (Η ζωή εν τάφω). Other important prose writers of the 1930s were Ilias Venezis, Kosmas Politis ( Eroica 1938), M. Karagatsis, Thanassis Petsalis, Angelos Terzakis, Pantelis Prevelakis and the aforementioned Giorgos Theotokás .

Other genera

In addition to literature, there is also talk of a generation from the 1930s in other areas, for example in sculpture with the artists Kaprolos, George Zongolopoulos , Loukopoulos and Apergis.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Vitti 1989, p. 36ff.
  2. ↑ See Vitti 1989, p. 86
  3. ↑ See Vitti 1989, pp. 89-103
  4. ↑ So in Politis 1984, p. 260
  5. ↑ See Vitti 1989, p. 124
  6. ↑ See Vitti 1989, p. 124f. In contrast, the main figure on the social side of Surrealism, which did not play a major role in Greece, was Karl Marx .
  7. ↑ See Vitti 1989, p. 128
  8. ↑ See Politis 1984, p. 230f.
  9. ↑ Elytis, Odysseas: To Axion Esti (Gepriesen sei), Hamburg / Düsseldorf 1969 (2nd edition 1979), p. 11ff.
  10. ^ So Politis 1984, p. 229
  11. ↑ See Vitti 1989, pp. 60ff., 95ff.
  12. ↑ On the prose of the 1930s see Politis 1984, pp. 240–256
  13. ↑ Michael Fehr, Museum Bochum: Culture in the Migration Process: Trends in a New European Culture: Documentation of a workshop within the framework of the Kemnade International VII festival from 25.-27. June 1981, p. 78. 1982

literature

  • Argyriou, Alexandros (Αργυρίου, Αλέξανδρος): Η ελληνική ποίηση. Ανθολογία Γραμματολογία . Volume 4: Νεωτερικοί ποιητές του μεσοπολέμου. Εκδόσεις Σοκόλη, Athens 1979
  • Δημαράς, Κ.Θ. : Ιστορία της νεοελληνικής λογοτεχνίας . Athens, 9th edition, 2000
  • Politis, Linos : History of Modern Greek Literature . Cologne 1984. pp. 223-262. ISBN 3-923728-08-5
  • Vitti, Mario : Η γενιά του Τριάντα. Ιδεολογία και Μορφή . Athens 1989
  • [O. A.]: Η μεσοπολεμική πεζογραφία. Απο τον πρώτο ως τον δεύτερο παγκόσμιο πόλεμο . Volume A and following. Εκδόσεις Σοκόλη, Athens 1993