Odysseas Elytis (November 2, 1911 – March 18, 1996)

Odysseas Elytis (November 2, 1911 – March 18, 1996)

Born in Heraklion in Crete as Odysseas Alepoudellis, he was a Lieutenant in the Greek Army and one of the most popular, important and most loved writers and poets of Greece.

As a child, his family relocated to Athens where Odysseas completed his schooling. He went on to further studies at the Kapodistrian University of Athens, focusing on their law school.

It was there where he discovered his love for writing and poems, meeting other like-minded Greeks, in a period of enlightenment for modern Greek literature, known as the “Generation of the 30’s”.

At the outbreak of WW2, Elytis participated in the Greco-Italian War (1940), where he was promoted to Lieutenant in the Command of the 1st Army Corps on the Albanian front.

His experiences during the times of War, inspired him in many of his works and as a student of Ancient Greece and Byzantium he would mould many of these aspects in his vision of Hellenism in his poems and other writings.

Following the War he travelled throughout Europe, to expand his knowledge and education. In terms of politics, he mostly abstained from siding with or having allegiances with any side, deciding never to delve into that quagmire, as most of his poems expressed love for Hellenism and the Orthodox tradition.

He received many honours both in Greece and abroad in his lifetime. In 1979 he became a Nobel laureate, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.