| “There is in this world an undercover law – if there was not, people
would have been lost ago thousands of years – hard and inviolable: always the evil triumphs and but always at the end… lose.” Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957, a Greek writer) |
(πηγή γνωμικολογικόν) |
| excerpt from an interview of Nikos Kazantzakis with Pierre Sipriot, on French radio, Paris, 1955… “Greece always plays the little game of the great powers. We suffered much under the barbaric games of the Turks. We suffered much and we are still suffering under the hypocritical games of the great powers. The Hellenic people is a martyr-people, even more so in that its need of freedom is as imperious as [its need for] bread…. it has an innate sensitivity which causes it to be vulnerable to any attack on freedom… not only for its own freedom but for all of its manifestation, in connection with no matter which people. I will give you an example. When Hitler threatened to invade Norway I was traveling in Crete. I was crossing a narrow little street when from high up on the mountain I heard a strong voice yell: “Stay there, my child, stay there!” I stopped and lifted my eyes and I saw, leaping from rock to rock, an old shepherd. “How is Norway doing?” he called out, out of breath. “Doing better, grandpa,” I answered, “doing better.” “Glory be to God,” he said and made the sign of the cross. “Do you want a cigarette, grandpa?” “I don’t have need of anything, my child. Since Norway is doing well, I don’t need anything.” There, the Greeks! That old shepherd surely didn’t know where that Norway is to be found, maybe he didn’t know if it was a country or a woman. But he knew what freedom means. The real Hellenic miracle is not called beauty, it is called freedom. Every people to whom a mission is given on the earth, throws forth its own cry. The Hebrew calls God. The Hindu forces himself to grasp the essence beyond phenomena. The Egyptians from the depths of their tomb yell “I beg for immortality.” To the Hellenes was given the mission to transform slavery into freedom. How then can you want a Greek writer not to put all of his energies into the service of freedom? How could you wish me to look at the world with apathy?”(translation: Eva Johanos) |
ΑΠΟΣΠΑΣΜΑ ΣΥΝΕΝΤΕΥΞΗΣ Ν.ΚΑΖΑΤΖΑΚΗ ΣΤΟΝ PIERRE SIPRIOT,ΓΑΛΛΙΚΗ ΡΑΔΙΟΦΩΝΙΑ (ΠΑΡΙΣΙ) 6 ΜΑΙΟΥ 1955 (ΕΛΛΑΔΑ ΚΑΙ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΑ) |