The latest issue of the German magazine Metamorphosen was released with a rich tribute to modern Greek literature.

Transformations and echoes of archaeologism

“What would the world without you, Greece?” The lyricist and classical philologist Wilhelm Müller was wondering at the beginning of the 19th century. It was at a time when the Germans had an ancestor of the ancient Greeks spiritually, and the ladies demonstrated their Greek learning in the Prussian lounges. My times. But even today, the veteran literary magazine “Metamorphosen” chose a fragment of this verse to title his dedication to modern Greek literature: “Without you, Greece”. The perpetrator of the venture is the small publishing house of Berlin Elfenbein, which has been repeatedly distinguished in recent years between independent and quality German houses. Elfenbein has always tended to be a great deal of Greek sounds and has included a “small Greek library” in his program. Publishers with love.

However, the origin of today’s Greek -born remains unchanged. In the introduction of the tribute suddenly, the German poet of the early 20th century Klabund appears, reminding that the people of the north build for the fear of the declining dark and enclosed houses. On the contrary, it is certain that in Greece, if Neptune fails to hide in the waves and eats a downpour, he will spontaneously shake the waters above him and burst into thorny laughs. To date, these two elements constitute the quintessence of German Greek -born, respect for ancient culture and the admiration of spontaneous and primordial.

The tribute is marked by classics George Seferis, Yiannis Ritsos, Andreas Empirikos, and so many other good names: Rea Galanaki, Michalis Ganas, Maria Stefanopoulou, Giorgos Lillis, Thanasis Lambrou, Phoebe. Surprisingly, the fine rendering of Constantine Cavafy’s incomplete poems by Asteris and Fiber Kutoula, which would be perfect, if for example in the poem after swimming the nationals, namely pagans, were not transformed into national priests. The question, which is too early to answer, is whether the writers of the issue will surprise and buried literary criticism, as the twine -year -old lyrics of the deserting Greek poet from the Crown Jazra Khaleed.

All the good choice of publishers is also shown by the participation of some German writers in the tribute to Greece due to origin or biography or persistence. Like, for example, Herbert Genzmer who sends the loving hero secretly to Athens in the published excerpt of his new novel after an exhaustive description of his beloved bay in Alonissos. In the capital it is intended to prepare a dark plan. Only he spends the streets at night because he is caught up with unbearable heartburn after the skewers he devoured. But why do these sympathetic philhellenes do not order once after so many decades and something else, artichokes, let’s say, say, or a soup?