Alexandros Papadiamantis

a biography of the writer

and

An Excerpt of his novel

The Demons in the Ravine

Translated from the Greek original text

by Irene Voulgaris

Translation © Irene Voulgaris (2009)

Μετάφραση © Ειρήνη Βούλγαρη (2009)

Tα δικαιώματα τoυ μεταφραστικού αυτού έργου ανήκουν στην Ειρήνη

Βούλγαρη.

The copyrights of this translation work belong to Irene Voulgaris.

Alexandros Papadiamantis

(1851-1911)

“Papadiamantis” (“Papa” meaning priest and “Diamantis” being the colloquial version of

“Adamantios”), the way his father, Diamantis, was addressed, was the pen name the writer chose.

Young Alexandros, or “Alekos” as his father called him, was raised in a poor family in Skiathos, a

small island in the Aegean Sea, with the pure orthodox Christian spirit and “fear of God”. He was

born in 1851 to Adamantios Emmanuel, a poor parson, a descendant of priests and seamen, and

Angeliki Moraitidi who came from an aristocratic family of the island. He was one of nine

children of whom two died very young. In those times, priests did not receive monthly salaries

and pensions from the Greek State, so his father had to make a living by farming.

From an early age Papadiamantis showed his love for knowledge and his unique empathy.

His longing for higher studies led him to leave his island in pursuit of a proper education and a

career in literature in Athens. His constant economic difficulties, however, did not allow him to

complete his formal studies, for he had to work to support himself. Throughout his life, he kept

returning to his beloved island whenever he could no longer stand the affectation of manners and

the vanity of city life. There, he wrote some of his masterpieces and his quiet spirit rested for a

while, close to the translucent, sparkling emerald-blue sea, the “flaxen-haired shepherds” and his

own kin, before resuming his solitary life in the capital.

In spite of the enormous adversities he faced, or perhaps because of them, he persevered and

educated himself by auditing lectures of his choice at the School of Philosophy of the University

of Athens and by teaching himself English and French. It is no exaggeration to say that

Papadiamantis educated himself, attaining a higher level of understanding of Greek literature and

philosophy - from Homer and Plato to his contemporaries, of patristic and literary works of the

Christian Orthodox Church, of history and politics - than that of his lecturers and professors at the

University. A lover of reading from the original, he devoured notable works of centuries and his

sharp intellect did not compromise whenever grave issues threatening his values arose, to the point

of publicly criticizing established professors and theologians.

At the beginning he worked as a private tutor and as a newspaper and magazine contributor.

Being an ardent lover of literature, soon he immersed deeply into reading works of great authors

of his time, in English and French such as Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain, Emile Zola, William

Blake, Alphonse Daudet and Guy de Maupassant. His knowledge of these foreign languages

improved so rapidly, that soon he started translating English, French and American authors into

Greek for magazines and journals where his wonderful translations were published, along with his

own works, in instalments.

With what he earned, the writer could have lived decently. Nevertheless, he barely managed

to pay for his room's rent, or for his meager meals at a tavern, as he used to give away most of his

money to the needy. He hardly ever bought new shoes or clothes, partly justifying, regarding his

appearance, the fact that his acquaintances referred to him as “a monk living in the world”.

Nevertheless, this is precisely what has set him apart from other writers; for Papadiamantis was a

man who felt the pain of those mourning, the hunger and the bitter cold of the poor, the longing of

the immigrant to return home, the despair of the deserted wife, the suffering and helplessness of

the poor widows and orphans, the ways of those who entertain evil thoughts. He lived his stories

and his stories contain this stark reality, in a way few stories ever do. In this respect, Alexandros

Papadiamantis is for Greece what Charles Dickens is for Britain. The main difference between the

two great writers is, apart from the fact that Dickens’s childhood was much more painful than

Papadiamantis’s, that while Dickens got married, had a big family, made a fortune out of his

writing, was highly appraised by his contemporaries on both sides of the Atlantic and enjoyed

publicity, Papadiamantis remained a single, lonely, poor man, despised by most of his peers.

Papadiamantis had a humble nature and avoided being in the public eye at all costs.

His father hoped that he would become a high school teacher and that he would make some

money to help his four sisters get a dowry, so that they would get married; a young girl was not

considered an eligible wife in those times, unless she had a dowry. He never married himself. He

led a secluded, spartan life devoted to writing, to translating, and to singing psalms as a “chanter

on the right” (the one “on the left” was his cousin Alexandros Moraitides, also a writer) in the

chapel of St Elisseos in Plaka, the old district of Athens. Papa-Nicolas Planas was the priest there

then; the legendary, loving shepherd of humble attitude who came from another Aegean island,

Naxos, and who was canonized by the Christian Orthodox Church in the last decade of the 20th

century. Like the monks on the Holy Mountain of Athos where Papadiamantis had spent some

months with a friend who became a monk, and like Papa Nicolas, the writer never sought the

public’s attention but preferred to remain unnoticed. He even shunned publicity when recognition

came a little before his death. Such was the ascetic, humble spirit and life of this extraordinary

literary figure and such was the place he frequented.

Although his incredibly authentic, lyrical and soul piercing writing remains hitherto, almost

a hundred years after his passing away, unsurpassed, and even though scholars have only recently

discovered the equally unparalled beauty of his literary translations, and lectures and films and

events dedicated to his memory and to his works abound all over Greece, his talent was not

recognized by the majority of the prominent literary critics of his time. He did not see any printed

books of his works, and he was despised by most of the established literary figures of his time,

most of whom have already been forgotten, for although he chose to write in their language, the

language of the upper class and of the aristocracy, the “katharevousa”, his themes dealt primarily

with the outcasts of the civilized society, with the poor, with the badly hit by fate widows and

hungry orphans, with evil witches and saints, with the passionate beauty of the sea and of the rural

countryside, with the mundane struggle of the unprivileged creatures to survive, in the midst of

disease, death, poverty and social exploitation and exclusion. Thus, the only ones who

complimented his works in his lifetime were his fellow-journalists and the “demotikistes”, the

writers who wrote in the people's spoken language, the “demotic”. “Demotikistes” chose to write

in this version of Greek, so that their works could reach the uneducated people, who did not

understand and could not afford to learn “katharevousa”. They felt close to Papadiamantis

spiritually, but they were separated from him because of their different linguistic choice; he only

wrote dialogues in “demotic”, but used a very rich and eloquent “katharevousa” for the rest of his

stories. Among those few who had publicly recognized that his works were of a rare literary,

human and moral value as they reflected his living, compassionate spirit and his love for the poor

and their unfair suffering, were the prominent poet and critic Kostis Palamas and his friend

Gabrielidis. The latter wrote about Papadiamantis among other things:

“He is not an ordinary storyteller; he is a spiritual and moral laborer who fights for

progress, for awareness and for justice...”

However, after his death in 1911 of pneumonia, he was unanimously acclaimed as the best

Greek author modern Greece had offered, as “the Saint of Greek Letters!” Some critics even went

as far as to claim that it would be difficult for next generations to produce an author of the same or

even a better caliber. The present reality of the beginning of the new millennium has exceeded

their prediction; no Greek writer has come close to the deeply human, and nature loving power of

his works, or to his rich, uniquely expressive language, let alone equaled it.

Papadiamantis wrote about two hundred short stories and about fifty studies and articles. He

also wrote three novelettes, “The Murderess”, which has been translated into many languages,

“Christos Milionis”, and the “Rosy Seashores”. He also wrote three novels, “The Emigrant”, “The

Merchants of the Nations” and “The Gypsy Girl”. Some of his works have been turned into films.

Today, most Greeks know the writer thanks to his short stories which he wrote from 1887 to

1892 some of which have been published in modern Greek. In spite of their short length, his short

stories, like his larger works, are a fulfillment of his personal vow:

“...for as long as I live and breathe and have my logic, I will never cease singing hymns to

my Christ adorably, describing nature passionately and painting the genuine Greek

customs with affection.”

After his death and the subsequent sudden awareness of the critics regarding the merit of his

literary work, his stories were painstakingly collected from thousands of newspaper and magazine

issues and they were bound in volumes; so were his novels. After all his works were published in

multi-volume editions, the critics were astonished not only by the quality, but also by the quantity

of his work. Scholars are still studying his lesser known stories, discovering unknown ones and

their social and historical settings. Their latest discovery is a large number of anonymous

translations which must be his; the date, the language, and the expressive and stylistic choices

reveal the identity of the translator.

Apart from prose, Papadiamantis also wrote poems. From the time he was a little boy he

occasionally resorted to putting his feelings to paper in verse, and he has thus left us some

beautiful poems in which so many feelings, experiences and reveries are expressed so eloquently

in so few words, that one marvels at the combination! Again, his poetry was underestimated by his

contemporaries, but now this hidden treasure has been found and taken out of its trunk by some

amateur singers who have turned them into beautiful ballads.

In 1908 he returned once again to Skiathos where he stayed until his death. His four beloved

sisters took care of him in turn. He died of pneumonia in 1911, emigrating permanently to

eternity.

HIS WORKS: a representative list of his known works

A. Novels

“The Immigrant” (1879)

“The Merchants of the Nations”(1883)

“The Gypsy Girl”(1884), translated into French and published (1996)

“Christos Milionis” (1885)

“The Murderess” translated into English and published (1977 and 1983),

Bulgarian (2002), Catalan (2009 two different publications), Dutch (1996),

Estonian, French (1976, 1993, 1995), German (1982 and 1995), Hungarian (1986),

Italian (1988 and 1989), Romanian (1963 and 2002), Serbian (2002) and Spanish

(1991 and 2001)

B. Some of his poems

“To my mother” (1880)

“Prayer” (1881)

“Fallen soul” (1881)

“The sleeping princess (1891)

“The nice apparition” (1895)

“To brothers Giannaki and Kosta G. Raftaki” (1902)

“Night of suffering” (1903)

C. Some of his short stories

“Christ’s bread”

“Love in the precipice”

“Holy and dead”

“The sea-shore’s flower”

“Unsung”

“Women of grief and anticipation”

“Easter in the countryside”

“Love Hero”

“The young shepherdess”

“The gleaner”

“Poor saint”

“The fortune from America”

“The seal’s dirge”

“Sea flirts”

“Love in the snow”, translated into English and published (1993)

“The homesick wife”, translated into Portuguese (1988) and Russian (2001)

“The matchmaker”

“The little star”

“The witches”

“Crazy night”

“Under the royal oak”

“Dream on the waves”

“Around the lagoon”

Published collections of some of his short stories in English:

“The Boundless Garden” (2007), Denise Harvey publications, Greece.

[It contains the following stories: Handmaiden, The gleaner, A village

Easter, Black scarf rock, Poor saint, Civilization in the village, The

American, A pilgrimage to the kastro, Carnival night, The monk, At Saint

Anastasa’s, Around the lagoon, Fey folk, Shipwreck’s wreckage, The Easter

chanter, The lady’s house]

“Tales from a Greek Island” (1987), the John Hopkins University Press

[It contains the stories: Fortune from America, The Homesick wife, The

haunted bridge, The matchmaker, The Bewitching of the Aga, Civilization

in the village: A Christmas story, A Dream among the waters, A Shrew of a

Mother, Love the Harvester: A May Day Idyll, The Voice of the Dragon,

The marriage of Karahmet, The American: A Christmas story]

Irene Voulgaris, Amaliada, Greece, 2009.

The Demons in the Ravine

(1900)

I suffered from two temptations and I had two trials in a single day during that trip. I was a ten-year-old

lad. When we reached our destination I had just recovered from the first shock and I felt so much joy and

freshness seeing that place of sparkling beauty which I had never seen before, that I immediately evaded my

father's vigilant watch, who might have believed that I had come to my senses after that morning's fright, and I,

insensibly, went running, hanging around and wandering in Haerimona's ravine with the other children.

High up on the proud hill which overlooks the sea northwards, there's the little chapel of “Agiou Ioannou tou

Prodromou”1. Up and down and everywhere, hills of various forms as well as crests and mountain ridges where

naked, blackened, weather beaten cliffs alternate harmoniously with rich thickets and bushes of holm-oaks and

with wild olive trees, and huge rushes shedding tears of wild mastic and forming a hut with their long,

downward leaning branches which the flaxen-haired shepherds with the long sticks often use as a makeshift

sheepfold. Down, the waves, black and blue, keep kissing the shoreline with wet, watery, drunken kisses, filled

with wild desires and frantic passions; siren's songs on the surface of the seawater and siren beauties and the

ineffable mysteries of sea-nymphs in the bottom.

It was the eve of August 29th, of the “Apotomi tou Prodromou”2, and the old chapel on the desolate hill above

the sea-beaten shore would attract the multitudes of the pilgrims. Crowds of youth, women and children kept

coming in groups. They looked like an army going downhill if one gazed upwards, towards the mountain side

from the south, where from they were coming down, merry, sweating all over, rosy-cheeked and panting, the

celebrators.

We went down that slope in the morning, at sunrise. We had set out from our village which is three hours

way to the south, at dawn; I was riding the mare. Mitros Pranas, the carter, was leading the way, holding the

rope of the rein after my father's insistence, even though he did so against his will, as if he was forced to do it for

nothing. It seemed to him as if he was carrying it all on his shoulders: the mare with her pack saddle and myself

on it. He would rather have followed us whistling, as the habit of all his colleagues is.

My father and three or four women carrying their little baskets were following us on foot. We were going to

have a special divine liturgy that day, on the eve of the celebration, and then we would stay for the feast.

On the mountain crest, as we were about to go down towards the northwestern slope, among the thick fences

and the fragrant thickets, where the pathway is forever dewy and impenetrable by the rays of the sun, Mitros

Pranas wanted to let his mare to our attention to go to a field higher to the top, towards Ai-Thanassi3. At that

moment, as he bade us farewell and went away, he didn't care to hand the animal's rein to my father, but threw

the rope on the ground carelessly, opened his cloth-clad legs and ran away.

The mare, unrestrained, galloped on all four downhill as soon as she felt her freedom – it seems she recognised

her whereabouts were towards that place; and me, without holding the reins with my weak hands, riding on the

pack saddle...

The women started screaming.

Oh! My Virgin Mary!'

' The child! The child!'

'See the stupid fellow! He left the rope on the earth and went away...'

'Oh! The scoundrel!'

'Oh dear! Oh dear! The child...'

'Look, she's going to throw it down now!'

' Hold on, Aleko!'

' Hold on, my child!'

'My Lord! My Virgin Mary!'

My father, out of his mind because of his fright, ran downhill. He took a side path; then he lost the way and

ran in the fields. He was helplessly trying to get ahead of the mare, to restrain her. He wanted to run in parallel

if possible. He was left behind; twenty steps at the beginning; then a hundred, then five hundred steps. He ran,

sweating profusely, out of breath, out of his mind, now red-faced and gloomy and then livid.

' Hold on well my boy! Hold on!'

I was instinctively holding on the two protruding grips, that is the horns of the pack saddle. And the mare

ran, frenzied, and the rope was dragged along, and it so happened that it didn't get stuck anywhere, in a crack or

twig or pole. And who knows whether it would be for better or for worse if it did get stuck. Either the rope

would be cut by the enraged animal's vehemence, and then its mania would increase, or the rope would stand the

test, and then, due to the irregular side jerks of the mare, I might be launched somewhere, in a rock or in a

precipice, or in thorny bushes and sharp trunks of felled trees.

I can no longer recollect what I felt, the fear I was feeling was mingled with an attraction and it did not

paralyse me. I liked that hopping on the pack saddle and I enjoyed the agonising cries of the women a great deal

too much. Μy father, out of his mind, was running, wearing only his “zostikon”4, without anything on his head,

his hair blown away by the wind. Oh, I wonder whether he believed that I deserved such care. And I was

flattered to think that I was a precious thing; what an erroneous thought!

And the women kept imploring:

' Panagia m'! Panagia m!' 5

Oh! How many people from how many ordeals has this devout, spontaneous beseeching of the Christian women

saved!

The way was rough along the mountain ridges and the hillsides. On the right it was ascending, on the left it

was descending, and precipice. My father, maddened, was running down that precipice. Seeing that a lot of

protruding banks were formed on my right, I changed my position, from riding astride to sitting on the one side

of the pack saddle, on the right, and I jumped lightly down on the first bank, and I stood there, safe and sound.

The mare stopped at once as well, and started grazing peacefully. My father and our companions could not be

seen from that spot any more, but their voices could be heard.

'Don't worry! Here I am! I jumped down!' I shouted triumphantly.

Everybody got close to me then. My father could hardly stand owing to the exhaustion.'

' How did you do it?'

I told them how I released the left horn of the pack saddle from my left hand, how I gripped the right horn

with this same hand, how I moved my right hand to the back of the pack saddle, how I changed my position by

sitting sideways on it, and how I saw a small bank and jumped down.

'Glory be to God!'

'I made a vow to Ai-Gianni.'

' Did you make any vows, my child?'

' What vows could I make? I don't have silver to have tiny silver children made, so that I can offer

them.'

The women laughed hearing these childish words...

1St John the Baptist

2the beheading of St John the Baptist

3St Athanasios's chapel

4A Christian orthodox priest's undergarment

5