Talk:Nikos Kazantzakis

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Paxiwiki. Peer reviewers: Marlinagtz.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:18, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Comments

Greek text formerly encoded in ISO-8859-7 has now been turned into Unicode entities. This sucks for editing Greek, but rocks for viewing it in browsers that are not preset to ISO-8859-7 -- Anon.

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Should his flag and place of birth be switched to "ottoman empire" instead of Greece? --Paolorausch (talk) 05:33, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I noticed someone commented on my talk page, the reason I said this was because he was technical born in the Ottoman Empire, as Crete was still a Ottoman Territory! But I see that the flags have been removed. --Paolorausch (talk) 02:15, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

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I may be wrong about this, but I understood that the really revolutionary thing about the book Osyssey: A Sequel is that it is written in demotic Greek. Until this book, Greek literature was written in Athenian Greek from the time of Theseus, even as this language became more and more separated from the way the Greek people spoke.

Perhaps I am wrong about this. I will investigate further. RayKiddy 05:30, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Not wrong at all - more of "he stirred so many hornets when he assaulted the nest of tradition, it was unclear which sting hurt most" (my phrasing just now, in his spirit.)You mentioned the simplification & modernization of Greek. He discarded the traditional meter and used is own extremely rare one. His theology itself first passed ancient Olympian, and then passed modern Christianity to work toward a collaborative theology. See Kimon Friar's Introduction to the Odyssey sequel. TaoPhoenix (talk) 17:05, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

by Athenian Greek you probably mean Katharevousa. Optim 05:58, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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The really revolutionary things about Kazantzakis were the things he wrote and not how he wrote them. He did too writte in demotic being one of the first to do so but it was not that the reason he is remembered today. It was the power of his spirit which he succesfully communicated to his readers. Because of this he was aphorized by the Greek church. The latter has not been mentioned in the article.

If you mention Church's aphorism, make sure to have facts, I wouldn't be surprised if the case can not be investigated clearly today. I recall from a couple biographies of Kazantzakis that the aphorism came as a result of destain some church leaders felt specifically for the book "Captain Michael" (the one written based on his father, secondary title "Freedom or Death"). It could also be mentioned that not all greek priests see him as a negative influence today. I know personally of a priest in Crete, Greece, that openly admits he likes reading Kazantzakis' books. (In Crete he had always more acceptance and was normally burried by the orthodox christian church (which is independed from the church of greece), Kazantzakis was born in crete's current capital). --Fs 09:27, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

IIRC, he gave a response to the church of the type "Παπάδες με καταραστήκατε, εγώ σας δίνω την ευλογία μου" (priests, you cursed me, I give you my benediction), or sth like that. There are a couple of biographies in english that should include that, the kazantakis museum in crete (in his birth place, a village), should have lots of information around those details. --Fs 17:39, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually the fact about his excommunication is a bit ironic. Although many christian clergymen did condemn him, according to the research of a Greek journalist, typically, his aphorism was never officially applied, because the Ecumenical Patriarch never signed it. The Last Temptation was also included in Index Librorum Prohibitorum. --Dada 18:26, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I included his response to the greek orthodox church and the Vatican in the article. --Dada 18:49, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

"movie banned from greek theaters" this sounds like a total ban. I know personally of people that watched it in a theater there. I'll changed it to 'some theaters' and btw, some references on the matter would be better. --161.76.99.106 08:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Gerasimos

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When using English to name Kazantzakis's novels, we should use the titles as they are published in Britain, Canada, and the United States, for instance Zorba the Greek instead of The Life of Alexis Zorbas. Wikipedia probably has a standard to use when the British and American titles differ. Acjelen 22:44, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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I think there may need to be some clairification on the last paragraph of the Literary Work section:

In Kazantzakis's day, the market for material published in modern Greek was quite small. Kazantzakis also wrote in modern (demotic) Greek, which made his writings all the more controversial.

These sentences suggest a difference between modern Greek and demotic Greek. I do not know if there is one or not. If there is no difference, perhaps the parens should go in the first sentence. The "also" is troublesome. Suggest striking it. Finally, there is no explanation given for why writing in demotic Greek is controversial. I feel that I do not know enough about the subject to edit without destroying meaning, but I believe that someone with a bit more knowledge should attend to this. Cavebutter 18:21, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

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Cavebutter is right, there is no difference between modern and demotic Greek, the "also" should not be there. Writing in demotic was controversial (but not too much so) in the beginning of the 20th century, where writing in Katharevousa was the norm. I will also leave editing to someone else though. (Zizikos 00:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC))

Philosopher?

Are there any sources that specifically call Kazantzakis a philosopher? There is little in the article that suggests this term applies to him, and The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy and The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, both standard reference works, don't include him. UserVOBO (talk) 22:34, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

is his agnosticism cited at all? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.98.6.50 (talk) 06:55, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Religion

I thought he was a Greek Orthodox, but this source claims that he was indeed a agnostic, without a belief in God or afterlife. I am not sure if it is totally accurate anyway.[1]Mistico (talk) 14:46, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I think he would have to be considered an agnostic even if he wrote to the Greek Orthodox Church when he was excommunicated: "The Church of Greece condemned Kazantzakis' work. His reply was: "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 religious as I", like its stated in the entry.Mistico (talk) 14:49, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

A regular religious practice or his agnosticism would just need a strong reliable source. Adherents.com is not that. Span (talk) 15:28, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I'll ask someone to please provide that RS then.Mistico (talk) 16:24, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

This link might be of interest; in it, a Greek Orthodox monk says that Kazantzakis' view of Christ was essentially Nestorian and that is why he was condemned. That does seem to make sense. It'd be interesting to read about the Assyrian Church of the East's reaction to him, and to see if they defended him while so many other Christian groups were condemning him. FiredanceThroughTheNight (talk) 15:55, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Spelling/register of epitaph

Unless I'm misreading it, the in-entry transcription of his epitaph is spelled differently from what's actually in the picture. Any reason? The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 21:05, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

The epitaph reads: Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα. Δε φοβούμαι τίποτα. Είμαι λέφτερος. The fifth word is wrtten with ou ligature. Wassermaus (talk) 16:57, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Too much 'zorba the greek' to be honest.

Intro text makes him sound like he wrote a movie script. It was not his only work, and the actual book is not just like the movie. For the The Last Temptation I agree, it does show on screen a more close resemblance of the mood of his actual writing. --fs 20:04, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Date of birth issues

This source says he was born 2 December 1885, and refers to the fact that some sources give an alternative date of 18 February 1883. That is, it is explicitly denying the February 1883 date. The December 1885 date appears elsewhere in sources.

So, why are there two dates in the literature, and which one is correct, and how do we know? Also, is either of these dates as per the Julian calendar in force in Greece at the time of his birth, or have they been converted to their Gregorian counterparts? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:42, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Note 1 here says that 18 February 1883 was by the Julian calendar, and it equates to 3 March in the Gregorian. But that's inaccurate. In 1883, there was a 12-day gap between the calendars, so 18 Feb + 12 days = 2 March 1883. Confuseder and confuseder. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:06, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

• This seems to shed some light on it. For many years he thought he was born in 1885, but he was mistaken, it was 18 February 1883 (OS). Despite what the above source says, that date equates to 2 March 1883 (not 3 March), and I will be making that change to the article. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:15, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Peer review

Peer Review: Digital Humanities Class # 1 First, what does the article do well? Is there anything from your review that impressed you? Any turn of phrase that described the subject in a clear way? I really appreciate how much background information is given on the pieces he wrote. For example, when it is mentioned that "The figure of Jesus was ever-present in his thoughts" it shows a bit about why he wrote what he did. I like that. That's cool. I also like how the criticism he received is well noted, because that stuff is important.

1. 2 What changes would you suggest the author apply to the article? Why would those changes be an improvement?

This article is really dope, I knew nothing about Mr. Kazantzakis and after reading this article I feel confident that I have a good idea on who he is and what he was about. However, one thing I did notice was the lack of in text citations. I could read on for two or three paragraphs without any in text citations. So, your article is already really cool, doing a lil' more citationing will make it even cooler. These changes would be an improvement because the wikipedia tutorials we did said that in text citations should be included in every couple of sentences. Don't quote me on that but I think I remember something like that being in there.

1. 3 What's the most important thing the author could do to improve the article?

Maybe adding a separate section for criticism would be helpful, but I think the citations are the most important thing.

1. 4 Did you notice anything about the article you reviewed that could be applicable to your own article? Let them know!

Yes I noticed a lot about this article that would be applicable to my own article. To be honest this article is so good it made me realize how shitty my article is. I also did a page on an author, and after reading this article I would like to go back to my page and add more background information on the his novels and his reasoning when writing them.

Year 1954 or 1955?

Here we read:

"1954. The Pope places "The Last Temptation " on the Roman Catholic Index of Forbidden Books. Kazantzakis telegraphs the Vatican a phrase from the Christian apologist Tertullian: "Ad tuum, Domine, tribunal appello" (I lodge my appeal at your tribunal, Lord)."

New York Times, April 29 1954 reported: "VATICAN FORBIDS NOVEL; Volume by Kazantzakis, Greek Author, Is Put on Index"

The article writing about the same event uses 1955. What is the correct year/date?--Њонгарфан (talk) 08:44, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Translations & eBooks

Making translations and ebooks more widely available. 70.180.131.7 (talk) 17:46, 1 July 2024 (UTC)