1/2

“A man of letters,” writes Francois Mauriac, “is like a piece of earth where excavations are taking place; he is always literally stirred, exposed to the sky.”²

We should not be surprised, therefore, if in the pages we shall be reading in the Commemorative Issue on Kazantzakis of Nea Estia (literary journal Νέα Εστία) we encounter so many opinions and interpretations, at least as many as the compact layers which reveal the gaping chasm of an excavation site – and as many ‘hermeneuts’. Let us afford one of them the entitlement to consider that he has, for the time being, executed his investigative and interpretative duties with the book that was published last year [1959]: Nikos Kazantzakis and His Odyssey. A Study of the Poet and the Poem³ which covers the life of Kazantzakis up until 1938, and, this time, to dedicate to his memory the complete biographical timeline of his life. This will allow him to hope that he may contribute to the formation of the historical and literary research much more than if he were to add one more interpretation.⁴

Unfortunately, most of the publications which concern Kazantzakis suffer from grave chronological inaccuracies. The publication of Report to Greco, which is a dramatized autobiography, cannot set things in order; facts are not presented linearly, neither do they progress further than the year that Kazantzakis devoted himself to the writing of the Odyssey.⁵

Many errors may also stem from the testimony of Kazantzakis himself. He did not retain dates; he even misplaced his own year of birth. Once, when I presented him with a questionnaire which he would answer in writing so that I may verify certain facts, most of the dates he submitted to me were wrong. In an autographed note of his with the inscription “Joyful Travels” which I discovered in his belongings, only one of the six dates he mentions – and which were truly memorable – was correct.

Let no one consider that I would have loved and honored more my Sage had he been good with dates! He was aware of this himself; his graces laid elsewhere. In his unpublished novel The Rock Garden⁶ the narrator (who is Kazantzakis himself) hears someone say to him: “If they were to cut open your head, they would not be able to find inside one single number!” Numbers were enveloped in mystery for his spirit, and were as mystifying to him as all things.

I have not recorded here, of course, all the events of his life. I limited myself to the ones I could verify after persistent investigation. And still, there might be some error, like in all human affairs. I collected the information of this biographical timeline from unpublished sources, and from scarce published articles. I avoided oral testimonies and memories; they might have jeopardized the accuracy of my information and compromised my objective. I am well aware that the passages of unpublished texts by Kazantzakis which I scattered here and there may not belong in a biographical timeline. But I will be excused, I hope, for wishing to equip the researcher with valuable evidence from sources which may remain inaccessible for a long time still. Besides, I do not conceal the fact, that these passages validate the notion about the life and work of Kazantzakis which I tried to promote with my book of last year⁷.

Pandelis Prevelakis

2/2

THE SOURCES FOR THE BIOGRAPHICAL TIMELINE

1. A΄. The approximately four hundred letters, books and memorabilia which I received from K. during the thirty-one years of our friendship (1926-1957).
2. Β΄. Miscellaneous autographs and heirlooms which Mrs Helen Kazantzakis allowed me to study at their house in Antibes last summer⁸, namely:
1. 1. Diaries of K. (I mean notebooks in which he inscribed fairly regularly, events in his life, reflections, even his dreams) under the following superscription: Nov – Dec 1914 – 1915 – 1918 – 1922-23 – 1924 etc. –1925-26 (not the whole year) – 1928 (Aug - Dec) – 1935 Japan – China – 1937 the Peloponnese – 1946 England.
2. 2. Pocket diaries (agendas), where K.'s movements and interviews of the years 1946, 1948, 1950 etc. are mainly recorded.
3. 3. Inscriptions in books and notebooks, photographs, memorabilia, etc.
3. C΄. Thirty eight letters K. had sent to his family in Heraklion from time to time and which are kept in the Kazantzakis Hall of the Historical Museum of Crete. (These were brought to my attention by Mrs Helen Kazantzakis who made a copy available to me.)
4. D΄. Letters sent to me by Mrs Helen Kazantzakis during periods when her husband was ill and which mainly consist of information about his health.
5. E΄. The sum, as it were, of K.'s publications, in Greek and other languages, and his yet unpublished books, namely: Symposium, The Rock Garden, Othello Returns, Fratricides, Report to Greco, etc.
6. F΄. Miscellaneous publications (in chronological order of publication):
1. 1. Galatea Kazantzakis, "Men and supermen".⁹ (As a "novel", as it is labeled by the author herself, is of limited value for the biographer, but one cannot simply ignore the information it provides regarding K.'s youth, under the condition that it is scrutinized and verified.)
2. 2. Nikos Kazantzakis's traveling book: Japan - China with an afterword by Eleni N. Kazantzakis about Nikos Kazantzakis's last journey (1957) to China - Japan, by "Difros"Publications, Athens, 1958.
3. 3. P. Prevelakis, "The Poet and the Poem of the Odyssey"¹⁰, publ. "Estia", Athens, 1958.
4. 4. Nikos Kazantzakis, "Letters to Galatea",¹¹ "Difros" Publications, Athens, 1958.
5. 5. Journal Kainourgia Epohi,¹² Commemorative issue on Nikos Kazantzakis,"Difros" Publications, Athens, Autumn 1958.
6. 6. G.K. Katsimpali. "Bibliography N. Kazantzakis, A' 1906-1948"¹³, Athens, Dec. 1958.
7. 7. Miscellaneous publications, mainly in languages other than Greek, with commentaries and information about K. (most of them dated after 1948).

What happiness it is to be well, to have a calm and virtuous soul, and a purpose whose realization hangs solely on you, and every day to accomplish one step forward and to ascend! For 65 years now, I have been coming and going and strolling in this dark dungeon with the two tiny windows, called a "human", and I peer at the world through these windows and cannot get enough of it. I do not know how long this happiness and strength and power and fertility shall last, but I pretend it shall last an eternity; for I know what eternity means. It is quality, not quantity – this is the grand, very simple secret.

Letter of Kazantzakis to Prevelakis

The world is an arena where we have come to wrestle in order to turn our flesh into spirit. Only after all the flesh has become spirit is the world no longer necessary for us. Let Death come then, not before. We must entreat God to give us time to obliterate the flesh.

N. Kazantzakis, Saint Francis, transl. P. A. Bien, 1975, p. 255