Stratis Doukas—A Tenant With A Past

50th Anniversary Lecture Series

The three-storey, historically-significant building and prime example of 1930s Athens architecture in which the Canadian Institute in Greece is now housed was the residence of the well-known writer, artist and art critic, Stratis Doukas, from 1938 until 1981. This event will explore Doukas’ life and works.

Eri Stavropoulou (Professor Emerita, Department of Modern Greek Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), “Human Tragedy and the Miracle of Art: Stratis Doukas, The Story of a Prisoner”.

Mirka Palioura (Assistant Professor, Department of History and Digital Humanities, Ionian University), “The artistic oeuvre of Stratis Doukas”.

Conceived and co-organized by Katerina Pizanias, Ph.D.

LIVE-STREAM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfoNUcwZaFc

ABSTRACTS

Human tragedy and the miracle of art: Stratis Doukas, The Story of a Prisoner

The Asia Minor Disaster and the irrevocable loss of Asia Minor for the Greek people gave rise (among many other profound consequences) to an extensive body of literary production, predominantly in prose rather than poetry, centered on the theme of the Lost Homelands. Through these works, writers sought to preserve the beauty of life in Asia Minor, to convey the tragic magnitude of the Catastrophe, and to depict the painful experience of resettlement in mainland Greece.

Stratis Doukas’s (1895–1983) The Story of a Prisoner (1929) stands among the most significant literary works that portray the struggle of Asia Minor Greeks to survive, escape their persecutors, and abandon their ancestral homeland. Other equally seminal works on the same subject include Ilias Venezis’s Number 31328 (1931) and Dido Sotiriou’s Bloody Earth (Matomena Homata, 1962). All three are based on real personal experiences, which are transformed into literary myth through the process of artistic narration.

In my lecture, after a concise overview of the life and literary career of Stratis Doukas I focus on an analysis of The Story of a Prisoner. In examining the plot, I underline a series of striking contrasts: on the one hand, the brutality of war, the anguish of captivity, and the hatred that separates enemies; on the other hand, friendship, mutual support, solidarity, moral endurance, and human dignity. Of equal importance is Doukas’s narrative style, marked by linguistic austerity and restraint, which is entirely appropriate to the young age and lived experience of the protagonist.

I conclude that The Story of a Prisoner constitutes one of the finest achievements of modern Greek prose: a profoundly moving, deeply pacifist and anti-war work, distinguished also by its powerful use of popular and folk narrative idiom.