Michał Bzinkowski

Jagiellonian University | UJ · Institute of Classics

Kostas Ouranis (1890–1953), a Greek poet and essayist, lesser known abroad, was regarded as one of the first to introduce “travel writing” in Greece. As a correspondent of different newspapers, he travelled to many countries in Europe and abroad and recorded his impressions in travel books, of which the best known is his travelogue on Spain, Sol y...

Wybór najważniejszych esejów Seferisa. Teksty prezentują pełen wachlarz zainteresowań autora oraz pokazują jego ogromną wiedzę i wyjątkowy kunszt literacki.

Heading for Absolute Freedom: An Outline for the Profile of the Protagonist of Nikos Kazantzakis’ Odyssey. This paper focuses on the magnum opus of the well-known Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957), The Odyssey, which even in the author’s country is still astonishingly neglected due to its complexity and obscure language. First published in...

"Akritas" – Nikos Kazantzakis' Little-Known Unrealized Epic Project Kazantzakis’ Odyssey – apart from the abundance of philosophical as well as ideological influences of many different sources which the writer tried to unify into a universal cosmotheory – constitutes a large-scale attempt by a Modern Greek writer to respond to Homeric epic. Yet, t...

The book focuses on the figure of Charos (Χάρος, Χάροντας), widespread throughout the Hellenic world, including Cyprus and the Pontus region, and belonging to folk mythology of Modern Greece. The author, analyzing Greek demotic songs, especially mirologia (dirges) and the songs of the Underworld and Charos, but also alluding to acritic cycle of all...

Images of Sculptures in the Poetry of Giorgis Manousakis The imagery of fragmentary sculptures, statues and stones appears often in Modern Greek Poetry in connection with the question of Modern Greeks’ relation to ancient Greek past and legacy. Many famous poets such as the first Nobel Prize winner in literature, George Seferis (1900-1971), as wel...

Abstrakt In my paper I focus on the well-known Greek mythical as well as literary figure, known mainly from Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus’ faithful wife, Penelope. Attention is given to the interpretation of the Homeric prototype in Modern Greek 20th century poetry. The successive metamorphoses of the image of Penelope are traced in Nikos Kazantzakis’...

Case of the Angels: The Relevance of the Research by Classical Scholar John Cuthbert Lawson (1874-1919) on Modern Greek Culture In my paper I focus on the well-known John Cuthbert Lawson’s study about Modern Greek folklore (1910) and I venture to verify if it may be regarded as a reliable source of information about Greek folk beliefs. I base my a...

What Do These Ithacas Mean? In the Margins of Cavafy's Ithaca in Polish This article analyses all Polish translations of the well-known poem by Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933), Ithaca (Ιθάκη). Comparing the beginnings of the fi rst stanza and the last stanza, which are fundamental to the comprehension of the poem, I point to the main differences...

In the present paper I deal with the modern continuation of the concept of “neutral death” preserved in Greek demotic songs (τα δημοτικά τραγούδια) that have been transmitted in oral tradition from antiquity and are of vital importance to Modern Greek folk culture. Taking into account the dirges called in Greek moirologia (μοιρολόγια), I focus on t...