Digital Exhibitions
Women in the life of Kazantzakis
Maria Christodoulaki - Kazantzaki (1862-1932)
Kazantzakis found a counterbalance to Captain Michalis’ paternal strictness in maternal affection. Kazantzakis describes his mother, Maria Christodoulaki, as a “holy woman” in his ‘Report to Greco’.
She came from the village of Asyroti, present day Kryoneri, in the province of Mylopotamos, Rethimno.
“I had never seen my mother laugh; she simply smiled and regarded everyone with deep-set eyes filled with patience and kindness. She came and went in the house like a kindly sprite, anticipating our every need without noise or effort, as though her hands possessed some magical, beneficent power which exercised a benevolent rule over everyday needs. As I sat silently watching her, I reflected that she might be the Nereid mentioned in the fairy tales, and imagination set to work in my childhood mind: My father had glimpsed her dancing beneath the moon one night as he passed the river. He pounced, caught hold of her kerchief, and that was when he brought her home and made her his wife. Now my mother came and went all day long in the house, searching for the kerchief so that she could throw it over her hair, become a Nereid again, and depart. I used to watch her coming and going, opening the wardrobes and coffers, uncovering the jugs, stooping to look under the beds, and I trembled lest she chance to find her magic kerchief and become invisible. This fear lasted many years, deeply wounding my newborn soul. It remains with me even today, still more indescribably. It is with anguish that I observe all the people or ideas that I love, because I know they are searching for their kerchiefs in order to depart.”
Cathleen Forde (1876 – 1963)
Relatively recently, research has revealed that the famous “Irlandeza” (Irishwoman), which Kazantzakis speaks of in his ‘Report to Greco’, is not an authorial invention. She is Kathleen Forde, the daughter of a highly educated pastor from Northern Ireland. Kathleen came to Heraklion in 1898 and worked as an English teacher.
In the summer of 1902, Kazantzakis was learning English with her, and it was she who introduced him to lyrical English poetry and writers such as Keats, Byron and Shakespeare. After the famous night of love the two of them spent on Mt Psiloritis, Kazantzakis left to study in Athens, sending her a small dog, Carmen, as a farewell.
In 1905, Kathleen returned first to Ireland and, eventually, settled in the United States, like millions of other Irish people. Inspired by their brief relationship, Kazantzakis wrote his first work, ‘Serpent and Lily’, but dedicated it to Galatea Alexiou, his first wife.
“This insignificant, slightly stooped Irish girl had become unrecognizable in my work, and as for me, the plucked cock, I had glued to myself huge parti-coloured feathers which did not belong to me.”
“I finished in a few days. Gathering together the manuscript, I inscribed Snake and Lily at its head in red Byzantine characters and, getting up, went to the window to take a deep breath. The Irish girl did not torment me now; she had left me in order to lie down on the paper and she could never detach herself from it again. I was saved!”
Galatea Alexiou - Kazantzaki (1881-1963)
Nikos Kazantzakis saw Galatea Alexiou for the first time on a walk during his holidays in Heraklion. Shortly afterwards he noted in a friend’s scrapbook that all he wanted from life was “Galatea and a hut”. When the notebook fell into Galatea’s hands, she asked to meet her admirer.
Their meeting probably took place in late 1904 and soon developed into a love affair.
Although, technically, Nikos and Galatea were together for many years, their life together, in total, did not exceed five years. Kazantzakis spent most of his time travelling in Greece and abroad.
Galatea went to meet him once in Athens (in 1910, when their cohabitation began) and once in Berlin.
In 1911, the couple was wed in Heraklion, in the church of the cemetery of Agios Konstantinos, due to the objections of authoritarian Captain Michalis.
Their life was not easy due to their financial difficulties.
The most important problem, however, was the difference in their characters:
He was a loner, dedicated to his work, with agonizing quests and torturous questions.
She had a “square mind”, with completely opposite views on life and art, and was much more social.
The letters he sent her during his absence in Europe between 1920 and 1923 are revealing.
Among the various descriptions of European reality, his political plans, and his writing activities, one can make out his certainty that his wife does not appreciate his work and cannot adapt to his way of life.
After a long crisis, their marriage would dissolve in 1926, but Galatea would retain the surname “Kazantzakis”.
According to testimonies, Galatea was deeply pained by the death of her first husband.
Marie Bonaparte (1882-1962)
Prince George, High Commissioner (1898-1906) of the Cretan State, and his wife Marie Bonaparte stood by Kazantzakis, at a time when many people defamed him at the Swedish Academy, so as not to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. “He is a communist,” his opponents said, “who is corrupting Greek youth and Greece will be humiliated if it is honoured in his person.” George even visited him in Antibes, in 1954, with his wife. The prince, during this visit, said to Kazantzakis, in a humorous manner, “Take a picture with me, so that they won’t call you a communist”.
Princess Marie, a descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte, was herself a writer and a distinguished psychoanalyst, a follower and friend of Freud. In fact, Marie’s wealth and the popularity of psychoanalysis contributed to Freud’s escape from Nazi Germany. She read all of Nikos Kazantzakis’ books, loved them, adopted them, and wrote to Kazantzakis that she wanted to meet him. She even recommended them to her niece, later the Queen of Greece, Frederica.
Kazantzakis kept up a correspondence with Princess Marie and dedicated his novel ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ to her.
Elli Lambridi (1896-1970)
Kazantzakis meets the important educator, philosopher, writer, book critic, columnist, and translator Elli Lambridi in February 1918, while travelling in Switzerland. For the next two months they live together in the medieval village of Gandria near Lugano and, after going on a tour, they end up in the village of Grächen in Valais, where they stay until September. In his diary, Kazantzakis speaks of their “impetuous communication” and of a feverish transfusion of his soul into Elli, ‘Mudita’, as he called her.
He later dedicated the tragedy ‘Nikiforos Fokas’ to her, occasionally asking to learn news of her from Prevelakis, and corresponding with her for some time. Elli, who later became closely associated with Sikelianos’ circle, translated ‘Askitiki’ into English and published an extensive study of ‘The Odyssey’ in the journal Neohellenic Letters (1939). Lambridi’s great importance in Kazantzakis’ life is demonstrated by the distinguished position he gave her in his greatest work, ‘The Odyssey’, where she appears as the “liopardi” (leopard).
In a letter sent to her in 1927 he writes:
«Και νά, ήρθες ολάκαιρη θυμομένη, όλη νύχια, δόντια κίνηση –λιοπάρδισα. Και μου γενήθηκε έντονη η επιθυμία να δόσω του Οδυσέα ως μόνη συντροφιά στην έρημο, στην άσκησή του και στην καταστροφή της πολιτείας μου –μια λιόπαρδη. Αφτη θάναι μαζί του πάντα, θα τον αγαπάει και θα τον τσαφουνίζει, θα τον γιομίζει πληγές και χάδια. Έτσι βρήκα πώς θα μπεις στην Οδύσεια, γιατί ωστόρα μου ήταν αδύνατο να Σε βάλω ως γυναίκα.»
Varvara Nikolaevna Tamanchief
In August 1919, in Tbilisi, a beautiful Georgian woman, Varvara Nikolaevna, proposed to Kazantzakis that they leave everything behind and run away together. He wavered for a while, but finally chose the path of duty: his mission to save the Greeks of the Caucasus and his devotion to his writing. In his letters to Stavridakis, he talked about his attraction to this woman.
Their acquaintance was brief, but the dilemma he faced because of her affected him greatly. Later, he mentioned the incident in a letter to Eleni and dedicated a few paragraphs in his ‘Report to Greco’ to it.
“I set my eyes on her as well, thinking to myself, This moment will never come again; this woman will never be found again. Countless ventures, coincidences, accidents, and fates worked for millions of years for this woman and man to be born and for them to couple on a Caucasian seashore, inside this garden with its blossoming rattans. Were we going to let this divine instant escape us? “
Rachel Lipstein - Mink (1899-1978)
Polish-Jewish Rachel Lipstein, literarily embodied in Rachel in the novel ‘Toda Raba’ and in Rala in ‘The Odyssey’, was the first of the ‘Ring of Fire’ of women Kazantzakis met in Berlin.
He met her at the Congress of Education Reformers in October 1922, and they saw each other almost daily for two months. A poet herself, she gave him one of her books and introduced him to Jewish poetry, while Kazantzakis talked to her about his own anxieties, fascinated by her restless spirit. In 1924 they made excursions to Germany, along with her rebellious friends, and they corresponded regularly. They met again in 1946 in Paris. She was now Mrs Mink and had a little boy. Their friendship remained constant throughout Kazantzakis’ life, and he dedicated ‘What I Saw in Russia’ to her. Rachel died in Jerusalem in 1977.
“Dear, dearest Rahel –when I think of you, life appears to me a mystery with great black eyes. Till the very last flash of light in my life, you shall always be with me – an ardent flame, violent and mute. Blessed be the substance that has enveloped and imprisoned this spirit and given it the tangible form called Rahel!”
Itka Horowitz (1883-1937)
As Kazantzakis said, Itka Horowitz, one of the “fiery” women of Berlin, was the “Marxist part” of the soul of the ‘Ring of Fire’. Introducing her in ‘Toda Raba’, he described her as “insensitive and ruthless” with a “clear and balanced mind”. This is what attracted him when he met her in Berlin in the autumn of 1922.
In his ‘Report to Greco’ he described her passion, their life together, the effect her sensuality had on him. Their affair ended temporarily with his departure from Germany.
Their relationship was rekindled in the Soviet Union, where they met again by chance in November 1927. Itka, who had studied medicine and was now divorced, with a young daughter, showed him around Moscow, and in the spring of 1928, they lived together briefly in Bekovo, but then they separate for good. Itka, with her advice and encouragement, helped Eleni Samiou shed her last hesitations and fully commit herself to her relationship with Kazantzakis.
Itka fell victim to the great Stalinist purges of 1936-1938.
Elsa Lange
“Born in a small German village, and yet, longing of the East burns within her”, wrote Kazantzakis about Elsa Lange, this fateful woman of his life. They met in June 1923 in Dornburg. They visited small medieval towns in Germany together, studying Homer, Buddha, and Hasidic texts, and travelled to Ravenna and Assisi. There they decided to shift their feelings in a friendlier direction.
They met again in 1926 in Jerusalem and corresponded regularly. In 1928, before travelling to Moscow to meet Kazantzakis, Eleni Samiou spent a week at Elsa’s house in Düsseldorf. As she notes, it was Elsa who removed her hesitations about a life together with Kazantzakis.
For many years, the Kazantzakis couple believed that Elsa, “’the little silent lady”, had been killed in the bombings of World War II. However, she contacted them in 1952, when Kazantzakis was hospitalized in Utrecht, and visited them in Antibes with her husband and daughter. Kazantzakis always had a portrait of her on his desk and dedicated the tragedy ‘Christos’ to her.
“I recall the people I loved, what joys and what bitterness I gave them. Bitterly, pale, she moves inside me, shedding, as usual, thick, warm tears on my hands, Elisabeth… Always, when I remember her, I am overcome by a fierce, unconquerable desire to die.”
Eleni Samiou (1903-2004)
Eleni Samiou was the only woman who won Kazantzakis’ devotion and surrounded him with so much loyalty and self-denial. They met on an excursion in May 1924 and a few months later, from Heraklion, Kazantzakis wrote her a letter, in which he wished them to be companions for the rest of their lives. The wish was granted in 1928, when Eleni went to meet him in Moscow. This was the beginning of their life together, based on the mutual promise of absolute devotion.
Circumstances often forced them into long periods of separation. But he always wrote to her calling her Lenochka, Comrade, Akritena, Ai-Giorgi (St George). He dedicated the tragedy ‘Odysseus’ to her and wrote the ‘Eleni’ canto for her.
Not without reason: Eleni followed him everywhere, she accepted his wandering lifestyle, taking apart and rebuilding from scratch her home in Gottesgabe, Aegina and Antibes. During the years of the Occupation, she came and went to Athens risking her life to secure some food. She was the first to listen to his works, she saw to their typing, answered letters, and collected the reviews published in the press.
After Kazantzakis’ death, she undertook the promotion of his work, the preservation of his unpublished material, his letters, notes and diaries, while she significantly supported the enrichment of the Nikos Kazantzakis Museum’s Collections. Her most important work was the biography of Nikos Kazantzakis entitled ‘Nikos Kazantzakis, the Uncompromising’.
“I owe all the daily success of my life to Eleni. Without her, I would have been dead for many years now. Companion brave, devoted, proud, ready for any action that needs love.”
