Aris Alexandrou (; real name: Αριστοτέλης Βασιλειάδης, ''Aristotelis Vasiliadis''; 24 November 1922 – 2 July 1979) was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

. Always on the

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and always unconventional ("I belong to the non-existent party of poets"), he is the author of a single novel (''To kivotio'' – '' Mission Box'') which is widely considered to be among the classic modern Greek works in the second half of the 20th century.

Life

Alexandrou was born in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

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to a Greek father (Vasilis Vasiliadis) and a Russian mother (Polina Antovna Vilgelmson). Aristotle Vasiliadis (who at that time had yet not adopted the name Aris Alexandrou) and his parents moved to Greece in 1928, initially residing in

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

and shortly thereafter in

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

. He completed high school in 1940, taking the university entrance exam at the engineering school (following his father's wishes) and failing. After that, he was admitted to the

Athens University of Economics and Business Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB; , ''Oikonomiko Panepistimio Athinon'', abbrev. ΟΠΑ, OPA) is a public university based in Athens, Greece, specializing in the fields of Economics, Business Administration, and Information Tech ...

. In 1942 he decided to drop out of the university and devote himself to work as a translator. At the same time, he joined a small resistance group (this was the time of the Nazi occupation of Greece). This small group was integrated in the communist youth resistance movement; Alexandrou was not able to cope with the hierarchical organization of the communist party and therefore left the party a few months later. The fact that he was no longer actively involved in the Party did not stop the British authorities (after the liberation of Greece and their installation there as a ''de facto'' ruler) from arresting him and sending to the El Tampa camp, wherein he remained up to April 1945. Furthermore, even though he did not participate in the ensuing

Greek Civil War The Greek Civil War () took place from 1946 to 1949. The conflict, which erupted shortly after the end of World War II, consisted of a Communism, Communist-led uprising against the established government of the Kingdom of Greece. The rebels decl ...

(1946–1949) he was arrested due to his refusal to disavow his political beliefs. From July 1948 up to October 1951 he was exiled to the camps of

Moudros Moudros () is a town and a former municipality on the island of Lemnos, North Aegean, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Lemnos, of which it is a municipal unit. It covers the entire eastern peninsula of t ...

Makronisos Makronisos (, lit. ''Long Island''), or Makronisi, is an island in the Aegean Sea, in Greece, notorious as the site of a political prison from the 1920s to the 1970s. It is located close to the coast of Attica, facing the port of Lavrio. The isl ...

and

Agios Efstratios Agios Efstratios or Saint Eustratius (), colloquially Ai Stratis (), anciently Halonnesus or Halonnesos (), is a small Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea about southwest of Lemnos and northwest of Lesbos. The municipality has an area of 43. ...

. In November 1952 he was court-martialled for draft-dodging (while he was in exile). The initial verdict was 10 years in prison; Alexandrou did time in the prisons of Averof,

Aegina Aegina (; ; ) is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina (mythology), Aegina, the mother of the mythological hero Aeacus, who was born on the island and became its king. ...

and

Gyaros Gyaros ( ), also locally known as Gioura (), is an arid, unpopulated, and uninhabited Greek island in the northern Cyclades near the islands of Andros and Tinos, with an area of . It is a part of the municipality of Ano Syros, which lies primari ...

. The review board reduced his sentence down to 7 years, and he was finally discharged in August 1958. After being discharged from prison he married Kaiti Drosou. In 1967 (after the junta of April 21) they decided to move to

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to avoid possible new arrests. Alexandrou died in Paris on July 2, 1979, from a heart attack, having lived to see his only novel published in French translation.

Poetry, prose and translations

Many of Alexandrou's poems were written while he was in exile, and focus on socialism, writing, as well as more personal issues.

Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky ( – 14 April 1930) was a Russian poet, playwright, artist, and actor. During his early, pre-Revolution period leading into 1917, Mayakovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Russian Futurist mov ...

's influence is strong and made explicit. His only novel ('' Mission Box'') is about the Greek civil war, ostensibly still going on in September 1949. However the locations mentioned are fictitious. The setting is the following: A team of soldiers on the communist side (which was fighting against the government side) had to carry out an all-important operation: to transport a mission box from one city to another. The mission goes haywire, and at the end the narrator (who was a member of this team) is arrested (not knowing by whom, but initially assuming that it was by "his" side). The book is made up of the "apology" that he writes out on a daily basis on the sheets of paper that his captors provide him with. ''Mission Box'' is also very interesting for its elaborate prose. The last chapter is a 45-page long sentence (and actually a question since it ends with a question mark) reminiscent of the final chapter of

Ulysses Ulysses is the Latin name for Odysseus, a legendary Greek hero recognized for his intelligence and cunning. He is famous for his long, adventurous journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, as narrated in Homer's Odyssey. Ulysses may also refer ...

. Most of Alexandrou's translations are from the Russian: this was how Alexandrou made ends meet throughout most of his life. His translations consisted mainly of prose writings (

Dostoyevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and world literature, and many of his works are considered highly influenti ...

, Gorky, Ehrenburg among many others) but he also translated poems (for example

, Akhmatova).

Works

* 1975: ''To Kivotio'', Kedros Publ., Athens—English translation: ''Mission Box'', Kedros Publ., Athens, 1996 * 1978: ''Poems (1941–1974)'', Ypsilon Publ., Athens * 1984: ''Dialexa'', Agra Publ., Athens (Greek translation by Alexandrou of miscellaneous poems; edited by Kaiti Drosou)

References

External links

''Poetic and political ethics'' by Dimitris Maronitis
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexandrou, Aris Greek male novelists 1922 births 1978 deaths Soviet emigrants to Greece Writers from Athens Russian–Greek translators 20th-century Greek translators 20th-century Greek novelists 20th-century Greek poets 20th-century Greek male writers