81-91

Two foreigners in the same city : two unknown letters from Prevelakis' archive

Μελέτες και άρθρα

• Γλυτζούρης, Αντώνης

In the summer of 1932 Pantelis Prevelakis was a young man staying in Paris, where he was studying History of Art and Aesthetics, working as a translator of French books in modern Greek and keeping pace with the rich artistic life of the city. In those days Nikolai Evreinov, the major figure of the avant-garde theatre, was living also in the French capital. Although the Russian émigré was a well-known playwright in the Greek literary set, even the most sober theatre-historian would be astonished and puzzled when he’d found out at the Library of the University of Crete two letters written by Prevelakis and Evreinov; namely, the Cretan student asked Evreinov for translating in Greek his last and still unpublished play Love under the Microscope (1931). This essay, based on a diverse historical evidence of the era, presents these two unknown letters and seeks to illuminate this odd contact between the two foreigners in connection with (a) Prevelakis’ professional status as a translator; (b) the Greek stage of his time; (c) his ideological concerns; and mainly, (d) his first “theatricalist” experimentations as they are depicted in his first drama The Mime (1928). In addition with the occasional character of this small correspondence in question, the essay comes to a conclusion which shows the inner complexities that are inherent in the reception of artistic movements in the Greek theatre of the Interwar years; notwithstanding the seeming facility in the artistic intercourse between the Greek theatre artists and the European avant-garde.

• Other social sciences
• Languages and Literature

• Θέατρο
• Θέατρο, Ελληνικό
• Ιστορία
• Λογοτεχνία

μεταφράσεις

Το άρθρο αποτελεί εμπλουτισμένη μορφή ομιλίας που δόθηκε στο Ρέθυμνο το Μάη του 2003, στο πλαίσιο των διαλέξεων για τον Π. Πρεβελάκη που οργάνωσε ο Τομέας Βυζαντινής και Νεοελληνικής Φιλολογίας ταυ Πανεπιστημίου Κρήτης. Από τη θέση αυτή ο συγγραφέας θέλει να εκφράσει τις ευχαριστίες του στο προσωπικό της Βιβλιοθήκης του Πανεπιστημίου Κρήτης που διαχειρίζεται το Αρχείο Πρεβελάκη. Επίσης, ευχαριστεί θερμά τη φίλη Άννα Δήμου για τη βοήθειά της στη μετάφραση των επιστολών.