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Theocharis Detorakis, University of Crete
NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS THE CRETAN
Many people have attempted to interpret Kazantzakis' relationship to the history of his native land, or rather his mythologising of Cretan history. Word has been made of a "folklore" or "poetic" interpretation of history, and from this point of view Kazantzakis is regarded as the creator of the "Modern Greek myth of Crete", i.e. of the wars waged by the Cretans for their freedom. The category of scholars who adopt this approach look on Kazantzakis as the writer most intellectually akin to Herodotus. Others regard Kazantzakis as the closest spiritual brother of Homer, as the "Homer of Modern Greece", in the belief that he is the creator of the finest monument to the Modern Greek ancient spirit. This latter category sees Kazantzakis' works, above all his "Cretan" ones, as the expression in prose of genuine folk songs. Such observations are timely and well made, but they cannot be said to be general truths. It would be wrong to regard Kazantzakis as a myth-maker or poet, who does no more than to use the power of his pen and mind to recast history as myth. In his Cretan works, above all in Freedom and Death, there are factual elements which lose nothing of their historicity; on the contrary, the power of the fiction writer brings them all the more to life. Historians of Crete have no difficulty in separating myth from history, since they can identify historical images in the work which others might regard as mythical.
Kazantzakis spent his childhood years in Heraklion, during the final fifteen years of Ottoman rule. He was only seven years old at the time of the 1889 revolution, and was fifteen when Crete was granted freedom by means of autonomy in 1889. He lived through the final rebellions and became immersed in the heroic spirit on the eve of the liberation of Crete. The rebellion of 1889 was to inspire him to write Freedom and Death. In this work Kazantzakis recast his childhood memories in an epic framework, and brought to life his native city as he had seen it through a child's eyes. The geographical setting of the novel is true to life in every way. The historical events that are recounted are also true to a considerable extent, notwithstanding the legitimate intermingling of myth. Thus one sees names of actual heroes, details of everyday life which are true and events which have been verified by research into the history and folklore of Crete, more particularly of the Heraklion area.
The period of Autonomy and of the International Protectorate of Crete under the Admirals of the Great Powers of Europe (1898 - 1908) is recalled in Zorba the Greek. Here the atmosphere is different, offering us an exquisite fictional representation of this transitional period in Cretan history, together with the ideas and aspirations of the era. But in this novel the element of history provides no more than the backdrop, against which a charming literary myth unfolds. Whereas fiction gives way to historical fact in Freedom and Death, precisely the opposite is true of Zorba the Greek. History gives way to fiction. Be this as it may, Kazantzakis never ceases to draw on the wealthy heritage of Cretan folk life and culture.
Report to Greco provides an overall picture of the "Cretan" period of the author's life. This is the work which not only interprets Kazantzakis' life and thought, but also his mode of literary creation. The confession he has to make reveals much about his relationship with Crete and is useful when interpreting the way he created his works.
Kazantzakis' love and admiration of Crete and of Cretan thought and expression is plain to see throughout all his works. He himself often takes this love to extremes, when he talks of the "Cretan view of things" and claims that there is nothing else in the world he loves more than Crete, that the island plays a decisive role in defining his thought and intellectual development. To Kazantzakis, Crete was the archetype, the starting point and the terminus of his entire career. But beyond the author's emotional and intellectual relationship with Crete, all his works - not merely the Cretan ones - contain an abundance of elements from Cretan history and above all folklore. In some instances these are genuine, in others they are wittingly or unwittingly falsified, depending on the author's aim or on the degree of clarity and accuracy with which characters and events are represented. It is essential that these characters and events be pointed out to his readers and interpreted for them, particularly in the case of foreigners, who have no knowledge of the history and culture of Kazantzakis' native land...
Theocharis Detorakis, 1997
- N. Kazantzakis speaks
for Crete
- N. Kazantzakis speaks
on 18/30** February in Iraklion, Crete, then still part of the Ottoman Empire.
