Nikos Kazantzakis

From the early years in his native Crete to his travels across Europe, Asia, and Africa, Nikos Kazantzakis was above all a spiritual wanderer. With a restless and contemplative spirit, he weaved together ancient Greek tragedy, Christian mysticism, and the revolutionary ideas of the 20th century.

Kazantzakis did not simply craft stories on paper; he created a coherent universe where the human soul contends with the divine, with the earth, with death. In this universe, language is not a tool but a revelation. His written Greek is an invention: a constructed idiom that blends formal and folk elements, neologisms, associative logic, and rich sonic textures. It was a language never spoken on the street, yet read with passion by millions, forging a “new orality” in writing.

Similarly constructed is the image of Greece that emerges in his work: a tragic, rural, pagan homeland, straddling myth and reality. From the martyrdoms of Crete to Antigone’s dance, and from Odysseus’ lonely touch to Christ’s crucifixion, Kazantzakis weaves a primordial, almost metaphysical Greece—not as it is, but as it ought to be: sorrowful, heroic, fertile.

This vision is distilled in his most famous character: Alexis Zorba. In Zorba converge the sensual love of life and the harsh struggle for survival, the immediacy of speech and the philosophy of the body. Though based on a real person, Zorba has become a symbolic national figure: the archetypal Greek of the earth, of joy, of passion and death—a figure so compelling that he gradually fused with the international image of Greece itself.

Kazantzakis was both a celebrant of human greatness and a child of his era’s contradictions. Politically engaged and often misunderstood, he faced fierce criticism and censure during his lifetime. He was remarkably prolific, engaging with nearly every form of writing: poetry (dramatic, epic, lyrical), essays, novels (in both Greek and French), travel writing, correspondence, children’s fiction, translation (from Ancient Greek, French, Italian, English, German, and Spanish), screenplays, history, school textbooks, children’s books (adaptations and translations), dictionaries (linguistic and encyclopedic), journalism, literary criticism, and editorial commentary.

His works The Last Temptation of Christ, Christ Recrucified, and Captain Michalis provoked the ire of the Orthodox Church, which formally petitioned the Greek government for their banning. In response to the Church’s threats of excommunication, Kazantzakis wrote publicly:

“You gave me a curse, Holy Fathers; I give you a blessing: may your conscience be as clear as mine, and may you be as moral and devout as I am.”

The Church’s demand for excommunication triggered reactions across the literary and political worlds. A young Konstantinos Mitsotakis denounced this "persecution of the spirit." The Municipality of Athens protested any effort to suppress Kazantzakis’s works, while the city council of Thessaloniki called the proposed ban “a blow to culture.”

This exhibition invites a multifaceted reading of the author, through photographs, newspaper clippings, manuscripts, and letters. It illuminates his relationships with other thinkers and writers, as well as with the women in his life: Galatea, Eleni, and others.

Kazantzakis, though devoted to solitude and immersed in his intellectual pursuits, was surrounded by women who deeply marked his life and creative journey. His first wife, the writer Galatea Alexiou, was a great youthful love and an early intellectual companion.

“Your face—I want to see it forever, for all eternity, for it not to vanish from my sight—all the power, the life, the love in your face.
You are the only solid face in the chaos of God.
I do not know how to speak tenderly. I do not know how to say the words for you to feel just how much I love you.”

Yet their relationship was marred by clashes, as Galatea’s independent and strong-willed nature conflicted with Kazantzakis’s need for uninterrupted devotion to his work. By contrast, his second wife, Eleni Samiou, stood faithfully by his side, tirelessly supporting his writing, transcribing manuscripts and safeguarding his literary legacy. Kazantzakis acknowledged her vital role, saying that without her, his recognition might never have reached such heights. Beyond his two wives, other women—Kathleen Ford, Rala-Raheel, Itka, Elli Lambridi, and Rachel Lipstein—also touched his life intellectually and emotionally, leaving a lasting imprint on his work. His relationships with women were complex and paradoxical, mirroring the intricacies of his own character and his unceasing quest for the Absolute.

The artifacts of this exhibition compose a digital portrait that depicts not merely a man, but a way of living and thinking. Through the digital cultural archive of SearchCulture.gr, Kazantzakis invites us once more to follow him—on his lonely but redemptive path: ever upward.