Giorgos Seferis

Seferis (1921)

Giorgos Seferis ( Greek Γιώργος Σεφέρης , actually Giorgos Stylianos Seferiadis ; * February 29th ^July / March 13th  1900 ^Greg. In Vourla , today Urla near İzmir ; † September 20, 1971 in Athens ) was a Greek writer and diplomat who was born in 1963 received the Nobel Prize for Literature . He is considered to be the main initiator of the generation of the 1930s , which made the transition to the modern age in poetry .

Life

Bust of Giorgos Seferis

Seferis is one of the most important poets and essayists of the modern Greek language . According to the Julian calendar, which was still used by the Greek Church at that time, he was born on February 29 or, according to modern calculations, on March 13, 1900 in Vourla, today's Turkish Urla. His father Stylianos Seferiadis was a lawyer, wrote poetry and translated ancient and foreign poets. His mother's name was Despo (short for Despoina; nee Tenekidi), his two younger siblings Ioanna (1902-2000, she married the later Greek President Konstantinos Tsatsos ) and Angelos (1905-1950).

After the start of the First World War , Seferis' family moved to Athens in 1914, where he attended high school and graduated from high school in 1917 . Seferis studied law in Paris from 1918 to 1924 , spent a year in England in 1924 to improve his English, returned to Greece in 1925 and entered the Greek diplomatic service in 1926 . His first collection of poems, Wende , appeared in 1931. After working in the Greek embassy in London from 1931 to 1934, he represented his homeland as consul in Koritza ( Albania ) from 1936 to 1938 . In 1941, after a long-term relationship, Seferis married Maro Zannou and from that year until 1944 shared the fate of the Greek government-in-exile . led to Crete , Egypt and South Africa .

After the liberation of Greece in 1944 he returned to Athens and was again in diplomatic service from 1948; in particular, he was ambassador to Lebanon from 1953 to 1956 and to Great Britain from 1957 to 1962 . During the military dictatorship of the colonels from 1967 to 1974, he published a declaration against the regime dated March 29, 1969. He spent the last months of his life withdrawn. After the poet's death on September 20, 1971, his funeral turned into a march against the dictatorship. In the year of his death, he was accepted as an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Honor

• George Seferis Professor of Modern Greek Studies

plant

Seferis' literary work, which won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963 as the first Greek , includes poems , essays , a novel and diaries . Some of his poems from the 1930s were set to music by Mikis Theodorakis (e.g. from the cycles Epiphany and Mythology ), which contributed to their political significance for the movement against the junta dictatorship (1967-74).

In his speech at the 1963 Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm, Seféris described his country as follows:

"Ανήκω σε μια χώρα μικρή. Ένα πέτρινο ακρωτήρι στη Μεσόγειο, που δεν έχει άλλο αγαθό παρά τον αγώνα του λαού του, τη θάλασσα, και το φως του ήλιου. Είναι μικρός ο τόπος μας, αλλά η παράδοσή του είναι τεράστια και το πράγμα που τχη χαρακαδρδητη χαρακδρατθεω είινις πρθεω. Η ελληνική γλώσσα δεν έπαψε ποτέ της να μιλιέται. "

“I belong to a small country. A rocky cape in the Mediterranean with no other wealth than the struggle for life of its people, the sea and the light of the sun. My country is small, but its legacy is vast and marked by the fact that it has been handed down to us without interruption. The Greek language has never stopped being spoken. "

Volumes of poetry

• Turnaround (Στροφή), 1931
• The cistern (Στέρνα), 1932
• Mythical life report (Μυθιστόρημα), 1935
• Exercise book (Τετράδιο Γυμνασμάτων), 1940
• Log I (Ημερολόγιο καταστρώματος Α΄), 1940
• Logbook II (Ημερολόγιο καταστρώματος Β΄), 1944
• Throttle (Κίχλη), 1947
• Log III - Cyprus, wherever the oracle directed me (Ημερολόγιο καταστρώματος Γ΄), 1955
• Three secret poems (Τρία κρυφά ποιήματα), 1966
• Exercise book II (Τετράδιο Γυμνασμάτων Β΄), 1976

prose

• Essays (Δοκιμές), Volume I (1936–1947), 1974
• Essays (Δοκιμές), Volume II (1948–1971), 1974
• Essays (Δοκιμές), Volume III, postponed writings (1932–1971), 1992
• Six Nights at the Acropolis , Roman, 1974
• The purple booklet. Wind book - Words - Medicinal Herbs and Orthographics , 1987

Diaries

• Days , Volume I, February 16, 1925 - August 17, 1931, 1975
• Days , Volume II, August 24, 1931 - February 12, 1934, 1975
• Days , Volume III, April 16, 1934 - December 14, 1940, 1977
• Days , Volume IV, January 1, 1941 - December 31, 1941, 1977
• Days , Volume V, January 1, 1945 - April 19, 1951, 1973
• Days , Volume VI, April 20, 1951 - August 4, 1956, 1986
• Days , Volume VII, February 1, 1964 - May 11, 1971, 2019
• Political Diary , Volume I, November 25, 1935 - October 7, 1944, 1979
• Political Diary , Volume II, January 13, 1945 - May 5, 1952, 1985

German translations (in book form)

• Poems. German, translated and annotated by Hans-Christian Günther , Verlag Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-8300-0152-5 .
• Logbooks. Greek and German, translated and with an afterword by Gisela von der Trenck, Schwiftinger Galerie-Verlag, Schwifting 1981, ISBN 3-922087-65-5 .
• Logbook III. ... Cyprus, wherever the oracle directed me . Greek and German, translated and annotated by Evtichios Vamvas, Waldgut Verlag, Frauenfeld 2011, ISBN 978-3-03740-397-6 .
• Poetry album . Selected by Asteris Kutulas , transmitted by Asteris Kutulas and Steffen Mensching . New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1988
• Secret poems . Greek and German, translated by Timon Koulmassis and Danae Coulmas . Romiosini-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-923728-22-0 .
• Throttle . Edited and transmitted by Asteris Kutulas, with screen prints by Gottfried Bräunling . editions phi, Echternach 1990
• Everything full of gods. Essays . Edited, translated from Greek and with an afterword by Asteris Kutulas. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-518-22065-9 and ISBN 3-379-00503-7 , (Reclam, Leipzig 1989 - GDR edition).
• Six nights at the Acropolis. Novel . Edited and with an afterword by Asteris Kutulas, translated by Asteris and Ina Kutulas . Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 978-3-518-22147-1 .
• Edmund Keeley, Giorgos Seferis: A conversation , translated and annotated by Fred Kurer, Clemens Müller and Evtichios Vamvas, Frauenfeld 2004, ISBN 3-7294-0330-3 .
• Poetry. Greek and German, translated by Christian Enzensberger . Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 4th edition 2005, ISBN 978-3-518-01962-7 .
• Ionian trip. Translated by Gerhard Emrich . Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 978-3-518-22403-8 .
• Three days at the cave monasteries of Cappadocia. A travel essay, with photos by Giorgos Seferis. Translated and annotated by Clemens Müller and Evtichios Vamvas, Frauenfeld 2015, ISBN 978-3-03740-268-9 .
• Last poems (1968-1971). Greek and German, translated and annotated by Evtichios Vamvas, Waldgut Verlag, Frauenfeld 2017, ISBN 978-3-03740-124-8 .
• Three secret poems. Greek and German, translated and annotated by Evtichios Vamvas, Waldgut Verlag, Frauenfeld 2018, ISBN 978-3-03740-135-4 .

literature

• Zenta Mauriņa : The role of the poet in our time. Essays with literary portraits by Dag Hammarskjöld, Giorgos Seferis, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Jolis-Verlag, Munich 1965.

Web links

Commons : Giorgos Seferis  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Giorgos Seferis in the catalog of the German National Library
• Information from the Nobel Foundation on the 1963 award ceremony for Giorgos Seferis
• Seferis' speech on the award of the Nobel Prize on the official Nobel Prize page . Accessed April 8, 2015
• Essay on Seferis by Asteris Koutoulas
• Giorgos Seferis in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Honorary Members: George Seferis. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 22, 2019 .