Tasos Leivaditis

[1] His early and politically committed poetry travelled through the ‘fire and sword’ of history, transforming in the end into powerful and paradoxical prose-poems, and displaying an erotically charged form of ‘neo-romanticism’ mixed with ‘melancholic minimalism’ where “genuine humility offers obeisance to the magic of language.”[2] Leivaditis was born in Athens, Greece, on 20 April 1922.

[7] In 1947, Leivaditis, along with a group of other leftist youths (including Alexandros Argyriou, Titos Patrikios, and Mihalis Katsaros), helped put together the short-lived literary journal, Θεμέλιο (themelio, foundation).

[8] In the same year, Leivaditis also published the poem “Η κυρά της Όστριας” (‘The Lady of Ostro’) in Greece’s longest-running literary journal, Νέα Εστία (Nea Hestia).

Despite the appalling living conditions and the brutality and violence he witnessed and experienced, Leivaditis refused to denounce his communist beliefs and sign a ‘repentance declaration’ (δήλωση μετάνοιας).

Often they committed these to memory, but occasionally they scrawled them on paper, which was almost impossible to find, and hid them in bottles or in crevices, trying to save them from the raids of the Military Police.”[10] In the summer of 1950, Leivaditis was transferred again, this time to Ai-Stratis (Agios Efstratios), a small island in the northern Aegean Sea.

In late 1951 he was moved to the Chatzikosta Prison in Athens, and by the end of the year he was finally free, albeit as an ‘αδειούχος εξόριστος’: a detainee who has been granted leave to return to the community, but who remains under constant surveillance.

In 1954 Leivaditis began working for the weekly newspaper, Η Αυγή (‘The Dawn’), which had begun circulation in 1952 as the mouthpiece of the broadly leftist political party, Ενιαία Δημοκρατική Αριστερά (ΕΔΑ), the United Democratic Left (EDA).

Leivaditis was to work as the newspaper’s literary critic, reviewing newly published poetry books, a role he occupied for the remainder of his life (except for the period of the 1967-74 junta, when the paper was shut down).

[13] After returning from enforced exile Leivaditis published his first poetry books in fairly quick succession: Μάχη στην άκρη της νύχτας (‘Battle at the Edge of the Night’, 1952), Αυτό το αστέρι είναι για όλους μας (‘This Star Is For All Of Us’, 1952), and Φυσάει στα σταυροδρόμια του κόσμου (‘The Wind at the Crossroads of the World’, 1953).

This triptych, which was begun on Makronisos, gives expression to the terrors and horrors of the prison camps and the abject conditions of the civil war years, which incite the exploited and destitute masses to come together to fight for a new, more equal and just, society.

[15] With the Left in Greece defeated in the civil war, and with hopes in Soviet communism dashed, Leivaditis’ poetry begins to move in a different direction, one that is increasingly melancholic, resigned, solitary and skeptical.

[16] Leondaris perceived a new political climate arising in the late 50s and early 60s, whose nucleus, he argued, is “the feeling that man today emerges utterly damaged after suffering a defeat which not only indelibly marks the Greek world, but is, more generally, the defeat of humankind, of civilisation.”[17] Leondaris identifies this new sensibility in a number of writers, and even though he concentrates on Thanasis Kostavaras’ Ο Γυρισμός (‘The Return’, 1963) and Titos Patrikios’ Μαθητεία (‘Exercises’, 1963), he also finds a similar shift taking place in Leivaditis’ work – and in particular from The Wind at the Crossroads of the World (1953) to Symphony #1 (1957).

Importantly, Leondaris makes the qualification that he is not claiming that Leivaditis achieved a greater poetic effect with Symphony #1 than in his previous works by giving up his former political commitments; rather, the later work remains politically engaged, though now “its poetic quality arises from a generative psychic turmoil, from the tribulations of a conscience in crisis.”[20] Leondaris’ article aroused much debate, and Leivaditis’ reflections on the topic were published in the September 1966 issue of Epitheoresi Technis as “Η Ποίηση της Ήττας: Ένα θέμα για διερεύνηση” (“The Poetry of Defeat: An Investigation”).

/ And they laughed, for miracles don’t happen in our times – an uncertain laughter.” The work ends with the poet approaching the front of the stage and exclaiming:Because, truly, my friends, tell me, what is it be all-powerful other than to have this boundless thirst.

[28] During the early years of the dictatorship, when a strict regime of censorship was in place, Leivaditis followed the practice of many other writers in refusing to publish any of their own work and thus avoiding the degrading requirement of having to seek the approval of the censor’s office.

This ‘silent boycott’ was broken once preventive censorship was lifted on November 15, 1969, and after a six-year silence Leivaditis began publishing his own poetry again, beginning with Νυχτερινός Επισκέπτης (‘Night Visitor’) in 1972.

Night Visitor (1972) marks another turning-point in Leivaditis’ oeuvre, for with this work he makes a definitive break from his youthful idealism and opens up a new path that is not only more solitary and sorrowful, but also more philosophical, if not metaphysical and mystical than what is found in earlier writings.

In a manner reminiscent of existentialist literature, questions about the meaning and value of life now loom large, but they go unanswered in a world depicted as unresponsive or even hostile to human concerns.

Alas, this great secret is one that each of us will take to the grave, “without finding out what it is – neither we, nor anyone else.” The quotation is from Leivaditis’ final collection, Autumn Manuscripts (Τα χειρόγραφα του φθινοπώρου), which was published posthumously in 1990.

At his funeral the celebrated Greek actress and then Minister of Culture, Melina Mercouri, proclaimed: “Leivaditis has departed at the height of his powers, having won the praises of critics and the universal recognition of our people, who read him, sung his verses, understood and loved him.

The first of these was for the now-classic film, Συνοικία το Όνειρο (‘Neighborhood of Dreams’, 1961, directed by Alekos Alexandrakis), which caused an uproar at the time for its realistic portrayal of the slums of Athens.

Finally, Leivaditis wrote lyrics to many popular songs, sometimes for film, and set to music by the likes of Mikis Theodorakis, Manos Loizos, and Mimis Plessas.