Konstantinos Kavafis

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Kavafis around 1900

Konstantínos Petrou Cavafy , commonly known as Constantine Cavafy ( Greek Κωνσταντίνος Πέτρου Καβάφης * 29. April 1863 in Alexandria ; † 29. April 1933 ibid), applies not only Kostis Palamas , Giorgios Seferis , Odysseas Elytis and Yiannis Ritsos as one of the most important Greek poets The modern era.

Life

In 1863, Konstantínos P. Kaváfis was born on April 29th as the ninth and last child of Charíklia Fotiádi and Pétros J. Kaváfis into a Greek merchant family who had made their fortune in Alexandria by trading Egyptian cotton . When his father died in 1870, Geórgio's eldest brother took over the company's Liverpool branch . In 1872 the mother moved with the other children to England , where the family lived alternately in London and Liverpool until 1877 . Kaváfis seems to have attended an English school there. The formative influence of the English years is certain: throughout his life, Kaváfis used a mannered Greek with an English accent, and he wrote his first poems in English.

Kavafis 1929

After Cavafis & Co. went bankrupt (1876), the family returned to Alexandria in 1877. Kaváfis took up a commercial training at a Greek commercial college. Political unrest in the wake of the national movement against the British colonial regiment led to attacks on the foreign population of Alexandria in 1882; the mother fled to Constantinople with the youngest children . Kaváfis lived in the house of the grandfather's Fotiádis family, who belonged to the urban patriciate of the Greeks . Here he finished his commercial training and studied, as he did in Alexandria, the writings of Greek authors of antiquity and the Byzantine period. It is believed that in the years leading up to his return to Alexandria (1885) Kaváfis became aware of his homosexuality , which shaped parts of the later lyrical work.

In Alexandria, after short periods as a newspaper correspondent and as a broker at the Cotton Exchange in 1889 , Kaváfis accepted an initially unpaid position as secretary in the Department of Water Management of the Ministry of Public Buildings. It was only after 33 years as a contract employee that Kaváfis gave up the unpopular bread-and-butter job in 1922 in the position of deputy head of department.

Interrupted by two trips to Paris and London and only three short stays in Athens , Kaváfis also spent the years up to his death in the Egyptian diaspora , in a city of Greek origin. He characterized his self-image with these words: “I am not a Hellene , I am not a Greek. I am Hellenic. ”After unsuccessful treatment for throat cancer diagnosed in Athens in 1932 , Kaváfis died in Alexandria in 1933 on his 70th birthday.

Manuscript Waiting for the Barbarians (1904) Part 1
Manuscript Waiting for the Barbarians (1904) Part 2

Works

German translations (selection)

  • Poems . Translated from modern Greek and edited by Helmut von den Steinen . Suhrkamp Verlag , Frankfurt a. M. 1953 ( library Suhrkamp , vol. 15), 143 p. (Also under the title: Gedichte des Konstantin Kavafis . Ibid., 1960). That., Introduced and translated from Modern Greek by Helmut von den Steinen. 2nd, expanded edition, Castrum Peregrini Presse, Amsterdam 1962, 115 pp. * Are you going to Ithaca ... All the poems. Translated by Wolfgang Josing with the assistance of Doris Gundert. Romiosini Verlag , Cologne 1983.
  • To stay . Love poems. Greek and German. Translation and epilogue by Michael Schroeder. With 13 etchings by David Hockney . Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1989.
  • The lie is just aged truth. Notes, prose and poems from the estate. Edited, translated from the Greek and with an afterword by Asteris Kutulas . Hanser Verlag , Munich 1991.
  • The four walls of my room. Discarded and Unpublished Poems. Edited and with an afterword by Asteris Kutulas , translated by Ina and Asteris Kutulas. Hanser Verlag, Munich 1994.
  • The complete work . Translated from the Greek and edited by Robert Elsie. With an introduction by Marguerite Yourcenar . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 1999.
  • Colored Glass: Historical Poems. Greek and German. Edited and translated by Michael Schröder. Suhrkamp Verlag , Frankfurt a. M. 2001 ( Suhrkamp Library ).
  • Konstantin Kavafis: Kavafis family . Published by Asteris Kutulas, transmitted by Ina and Asteris Kutulas. Axel Dielmann-Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 2001.
  • In secret. The Hidden Poems by Konstantínos Kaváfis . Translated by Jorgos Kartakis and Jan Kuhlbrodt. Illustrated by Anja Nolte Verlagshaus Berlin , Berlin 2014.

literature

  • Margaret Alexiou : CP Cavafy's 'Dangerous' Drugs: Poetry, Eros, and the Dissemination of Images. In: Margaret Alexiou, Vassilis Lambropoulos (eds.): The Text and its Margins. Pella Publishing Company, New York 1985. pp. 157-196.
  • Karl-Markus Gauß , Everyday Life in the World. Two years and many more. Vienna 2015. pp. 52–59.
  • Robert Liddell : Cavafy. London 1974. Paperback: London 2002, ISBN 0-715-63208-6 .
  • Dietram Müller : The transformation of ancient motifs in the work of Konstantinos Kavafis. In: Antike und Abendland , 35, 1989, pp. 131–149.
  • Hanns-Josef Ortheil : Far away singing. In: The white islands of time. NA: btb, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-442-74720-7 . Pp. 261-268. (EA: Ferner Gesang (On Konstantinos Kavafi's poetry). In: Merkur , 1997, Heft 11, pp. 1035-1039.)
  • Marguerite Yourcenar : Présentation critique de Constantin Cavafy. Gallimard, Paris 1978, ISBN 2-07-021294-7 .

Web links

Commons : Konstantinos Kavafis  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Kavafis, Konstantinos
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kavafis, Konstantinos Petrou (full name); Cavafy, Constantine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Alexandria
DATE OF DEATH April 29, 1933
Place of death Alexandria