Nikos Kazantzakis’ Travelling: The Morea – Byzantium as an Ideological Construct or a Unique Source of Personal Inspiration?

Abstract

In September 1937, Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) set out on a tour of the Peloponnese commissioned by the newspaper Kathimerini. Relying on Kazantzakis’ account from his Travelling: The Morea, I focus on his impressions of the Byzantine heritage that he had the opportunity to contemplate in situ, as an eye-witness. Such an approach to Kazantzakis’ work (which has previously been mistreated) may shed some light on the Byzantine past not merely as an abstract idea used for ideological purposes, which is rather obvious, but as something more tangible, especially for a Greek, and thus constituting a significant component of personal inspiration for the writer. I will devote my attention both to visible traces of the cultural wealth of Byzantium, especially in Mystras, and to notable and influential Byzantine personages he mentions while sightseeing in the former capital of the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea, i.e., George Gemistos Plethon and Constantine Palaiologos. My aim is to show the uniqueness of the reception of Byzantium in Kazantzakis’ travelogue which, in my opinion, significantly differs from the well-known stereotypical West European perspective.