The Girl Mouse Seeks a Groom (A Fairy Tale by Photios Kontoglou)

When Photios Kontoglou spoke and wrote about "blessed simplicity", he did not preach "from the pulpit", nor pretend to be a teacher to others about things that are good in theory, but not to put them into practice himself. He was a simple man in everything, since the truth is always simple, and that is why he loved, among other things, simple conversations, simple stories and most of all fairy tales - especially oriental ones.

On the other hand, as he said, "we Greeks have a bad habit of considering foreign things better than our own, so we end up imitating everything, as long as it is foreign. We here can start chanting 'Ti Hypermacho' with instruments and polyphony and everyone will find it normal and a sign of progress. But if we go to La Scala in Milan and start chanting 'Ave Maria' to a tsamiko they will kick us out - and rightly so."

"An Honest Thief" by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Photios Kontoglou

An Honest Thief is an 1848 short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The story recounts the tale of the tragic drunkard, Emelyan Ilyitch. This story is here accompanied by a little-known sketch drawn by Photios Kontoglou, who drew it specifically to depict the character in the story by Dostoevsky. On the back of the original drawing there is a handwritten note by his daughter, Despos Kontoglou-Martinou: "The Honest Thief" by Dostoevsky, 1924, watercolor and ink on paper, 11 X 9.5 cm., Eleni Voila.

Read the complete short story here.  

Photios Kontoglou on Goethe, Kazantzakis and Venezis

Nikos Kazantzakis

By Dr. Constantine Cavarnos

Next we spoke briefly about Goethe, Kazantzakis and Venezis. I was interested in knowing his opinion regarding them. Goethe's name was mentioned as we were talking about Kazantzakis. It became clear that Kontoglou did not share the enthusiasm of many contemporary Greek intellectuals for the famous German writer. The philosopher-theologian Nikolaos Louvaris, for example, refers to Goethe repeatedly, and in fact more often than to any other writer, always approvingly, in his two-volume work Symposion Hosion (Symposium of Holy Men). Kontoglou, on the other hand, refers to him only once in his books, in the Preface of his first book, Pedro Cazas. For Kazantzakis, as I noted in an earlier chapter, he had no use. Photios remarked that both Goethe and Kazantzakis are writers with pompous expression, ostentatious, ever endeavoring to impress others with their assumed wisdom. The excessive admiration of Goethe was, according to Photios, another example of xenomania of contemporary Greeks.

Photios Kontoglou on Fyodor Dostoevsky

By Dr. Constantine Cavarnos

Having high esteem for the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), particularly impressed by his work The Brothers Karamazov, and knowing that I was like-minded, he invited me to join him one afternoon, together with his wife and daughter, Mrs. Despina Martinou, at a cinema on Stadiou Street, where this work was being shown. I gladly accepted the invitation, even though I was even less of a movie-goer than Kontoglou. After the show, he took us for a treat at a nearby shop where pastry was served. There we discussed our impressions about the film.

Both he and I were especially interested in "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" contained in The Brothers Karamazov. We were in accord with the opinion of the emigre Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev, that "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor is the high point of Dostoevsky's work and the crown of his dialectic" (See Berdyaev's Dostoievsky, trans. by Donald Attwater, ch. VIII). I had read this story as part of the reading that had been assigned by one of my teachers at Harvard, Professor Julius S. Bixler, in a course in Philosophy of Religion. The story made a great impression on me, as it had on Kontoglou when he read a French translation of the novel in the early forties. Seeing this film was expected to make this story and other parts of Dostoevsky's magnum opus more vivid for us. But to our disappointment, what interested us most, "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor," had been left out.

Photios Kontoglou on American Writers (Emerson, Poe and Dana)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

By Dr. Constantine Cavarnos

On November 21 [1958], the day after my first lecture on American philosophy, which was on Ralph Waldo Emerson, I visited Kontoglou at his home. He had not come to my lecture. As I noted earlier, he hardly ever left home in the evening. And, so far as I know, he never attended public lectures. He had some acquaintance with Emerson's essays and regarded him as a great philosopher. Emerson was one of the few American writers that really interested him. The others were Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) and Richard Henry Dana (1815-1882).

He asked me to tell him some of the things in Emerson's philosophy that I considered a special significance and which I discussed in my lecture. I mentioned Emerson's emphasis on the soul, his ethical and metaphysical idealism, his distinction between "beauty in nature", which is perishable, and "inward and eternal beauty", and his views on the fine arts, particularly his conviction that higher art is characterized by simplicity, universality, and spirituality. With all these features of Emerson's philosophy he was in sympathy, and he was glad I brought them to the attention of my audience.

Photios Kontoglou on European and Other Philosophers

Blaise Pascal

By Dr. Constantine Cavarnos

Kontoglou said:

I am a primitive man, I am not versed in philosophies and such things. The other day someone was telling me about Descartes, and mentioned his statement: "I think, therefore I exist." This assertion is absurd. For when I think, I do not simply "exist". It is when I am asleep that I "exist".

The person who was telling Kontoglou about Descartes - the 17th century Frenchman who is regarded as the "father of modern philosophy" - used the Greek word hyparcho for the French je suis, or the Latin sum, which mean "I am". Thus, the absurdity noted by Kontoglou does not occur in the French or Latin texts of Descartes. I explained this to Kontoglou. He had a point. When one asks a Greek how he is, and he answers: "I exist," he means that he feels that he is merely vegetating, is making no headway in life.

Kontoglou's statement that he is a "primitive man" was an expression of his humility. For he was a man of wide learning and was acquainted with the thought of a good many philosophers. He has authored a book on the celebrated French philosopher Pascal, who was a contemporary of Descartes. However, he showed little interest in European philosophy. Even Pascal interested him primarily as an apologist of Christianity and a critic of the rationalism of Descartes and others.

Photios Kontoglou on Ancient Greek Philosophers

Wall Painting, with which Kontoglou decorated a wall of his house, 1932; now in the National Gallery. The fifth portrait from the right on top is Pythagoras.

By Dr. Constantine Cavarnos

"Pythagoras," said Kontoglou, "was an important figure. He rose to great heights. He, Empedocles, and some other ancient Greeks were important."

"I believe you would include Heraclitos in your list," I remarked.

"Yes, indeed," he said.

Kontoglou did not explain in just what sense he thought that Pythagoras "rose to great heights", and that Pythagoras, Empedocles, and some others were "important". But from later conversations I had with him and from various writings of his it became clear to me that he believed, as did Saint Seraphim of Sarov and Saint Nektarios of Aegina, as well as earlier Saints, that some of the ancient Greek philosophers had grasped certain important truths, illuminated by God. Saint Seraphim, whom Photios esteemed very highly - as is evident from a long article he wrote about this great Russian Saint - says:

The presence of the Spirit of God also acted among the pagans who did not know the true God, although it did so less strongly than among God's people. Indeed, even among them God found for Himself chosen people.... Such were the pagan philosophers who, although they wandered in the darkness of ignorance of the Deity, yet sought the truth which is beloved of God. By this very God-pleasing search they were enabled to partake of the Spirit of God.*

"John the Blessed": A New Year's Eve Tale by Photios Kontoglou

Describes a visit of St. Basil on New Years Eve, which is also the eve of his feast, years after his repose.

John the Blessed

A Tale of Photios Kontoglou

The Nativity Feast having passed, St. Basil took his staff and traversed all of the towns, in order to see who would celebrate his Feast Day with purity of heart. He passed through regions of every sort and through villages of prominence, yet regardless of where he knocked, no door opened to him, since they took him for a beggar. And he would depart embittered, for, though he needed nothing from men, he felt how much pain the heart of every impecunious person must have endured at the insensitivity that these people showed him. One day, as he was leaving such a merciless village, he went by the graveyard, where he saw that the tombs were in ruins, the headstones broken and turned topsy-turvy, and how the newly dug graves had been turned up by jackals. Saint that he was, he heard the dead speaking and saying: “During the time that we were on the earth, we labored, we were heavy-burdened, leaving behind us children and grandchildren to light just a candle, to burn a little incense on our behalf; but we behold nothing, neither a Priest to read over our heads a memorial service nor kóllyva, as though we had left behind no one.” Thus, St. Basil was once again disquieted, and he said to himself, “These villagers give aid neither to the living nor to the deceased,” departing from the cemetery and setting out alone in the midst of the freezing snow.

Christmas in Greek Literature

Christmas, the great feast of Christianity, is celebrated throughout the world in different ways. Prior to the advent of technology, literature was the only way to document culture-specific traditions concerning Christmas, which eventually emerged as the ideal setting for fairy tales, short stories and novels.

Despite their differences, a multitude of works, from Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol to Nikolai Gogol’s Christmas Eve and Agatha Christie’s The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, all attest to the fact that this period of year signifies a closure, a time of resolutions and decisions on a universal level. Greek Literature includes a great body of works whose focus is Christmas, imbued by the religious spirituality closely linked with the Greek psyche.