F:. Hesiod

(Ithaca 1880 – Athens 1947)

From a young age he lived with his family in Romania where he finished high school. He was engaged in learning foreign languages. He returned to Greece in 1898 and turned to journalism. Initially as an editor of the magazine Skrip and then at the newspapers Estia, Politia, and Proia. He also worked as a correspondent from Epirus, Cyprus, Central Asia, Balkan countries, etc. In 1912 he enlisted in the Order of the Garibaldines and fought in the Balkan wars. In 1917 he participated with a group of selected writers (K. Varnalis, K. Palamas, F. Politis, R. Filyras, N. Lapathiotis, etc.) in the publication of the magazine Igeso, which became the breeding ground for many young writers and played an important role in Greek literature. At the same time he worked for a living in a shipowner’s office. With the closure of Egioso, he left the shipowner’s office to take up journalism as a profession. He does excellent translations and his talent as an intellectual is now obvious. Co-founder of the Theosophical Society. Ideologically he embraces Marxism and is inspired by its philosophy and dialectics (1930). He was also a member of the International Social Solidarity (1932). In 1934 he introduced and translated the “Castanian Bible”, a book denouncing the Fascist atrocities in Europe (Italy – Germany). During the Metaxas dictatorship, the publication of his writings was banned. Nevertheless, he continued to write articles under the pseudonym Mavrothalassitis, in Rizospastis, Proia, Neos Vanguards. During the Greek-Italian war he was arrested and imprisoned together with other left-wing intellectuals (Varnalis, Kordatos, Asim. In 1941 he was imprisoned in a camp in Larissa. In 1942 he wrote the wonderful thurion of the National Resistance “Olympus thunders”, set to music by Nik. Tsaconas. He left a large literary oeuvre of poems, prose and studies. He translated Mayakovsky, Shelley, Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, etc. He belonged to the uncompromising thinkers who served their ideology faithfully and fearlessly. He acted as an ideological revolutionary mainly through his pen, as did his close friends Dim. Kazantzakis, P. Kokkalis, I. Kordatos, El. Alexandiou, Dido Sotiriou etc.