Kavadias

Nikos Kavadias (1910–1975) was a Greek poet and writer, very popular in his native country, who, travelling the world as a sailor, wrote and idealised life at sea and its adventures.

Kavadias was born in Harbin (also Ha-erh-pin) in the historic reagion of Manchuria, in the northern part of today's People's Republic of China. This fact, according to him, linked him emotionally to the Far East, expressed in his short story "Li" (published 1987). His parents, both Greek, from the Island of Kefalonia, returned to their homeland when Nikolas was very young and lived in Kefalonia and Pireaus, the major port of Greece. Finishing High-school Kavadias worked briefly as an office clerk and then embarked in a cargo ship for his first journeys, thus marking the beginning of a life that would be his greatest artistic inspiration. He would later become a radio transmitor for merchant ships, forsaking his dream of becoming a captain.

Early writings

His first collection of poems "Marabou" was published in 1933 when Kavadias was in his early twenties and carries within it the spirit of a romantic young man, impressed with the marvels of the world. Most of these poems tell half fictionous stories that happended on sea and the different places he visited. The collection begins with a poem about the catastrophic love for a young wealthy girl that ended up a poor prostitute that he could barely recognise. Other events recount the stories of a Norwegian captain who died homesick watching a ship sailing towards Norway, a dagger carrying the curse that whoever carries it shall kill someone he loves, and an African story-telling sailor who rescued him from a brawl only to die of fever in the Far East. Most of these poems where made into songs in more recent years and have become popular among young Greeks. Artistically he was influenced by French literature and the poet Charles Baudelaire whom he sites in many of his works.

Later works

His other two collections where published in 1947 and 1975 accordingly. Meanwhile, he had served as a soldier in the second World War and fought in the Albanian front angainst the Italian forces. Another short story "Of War" published after his death in 1987, recounts the story of his rescue by a local during a storm. The war had a deep effect on him and these later collecions show a politically aware man, in support of the somewhat more liberal communists, often helping them by transporting illegal material from abroad, such as books and letters that where banned by the Right wing government that was in power. One of these later poems is about the death of Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto (Che) Guevarra and was written as an answer to the accusations by some active communists who though that his poems romanticized too much on the otherwise harsh and dangerous life of sailors, who where potential symbols of class strugle. Another is about the execution of Andalusian poet and writer Federico Garcia Lorca by the Franco dictatorship, which, in the poem, is assosiated with the destruction of a Greek village and other brutal acts of the Nazi occupying Greece during the War.

His only novel "Nightshift" was published in 1954 and recounts the stories told by the sailors on their nightshift at the ship's bridge. Images from exotic places, prostitutes, captains gone mad and memories of the War blend in to form a dreamy world full of lucid forms, part fictionous, part true.

He is not considered to be an innovator of prose or a match for the greatest Greek poets like Odisseas Elites but is extremely popular in Greece and his best poems are taugh in schools throughout the country. He is considered by many to be the embodiment of the Greek soul for his romantic affiliation with the sea and its journeys and for his humaine look on things he barely understood.

Reference: Nikolas Kavadias "Marabou" 1990, Agra publishing Nikolas Kavadias "traverso", 1990 Agra Publishing Nikolas Kavadias "Nightshift", 1997 Agra Publishing Filippos Filippou "Nikos Kavadias the Politician", 1996 Agra Publishing