Manolis Anagnostakis
The Cretan Poet
“Poetry is not the way to talk bur the best wall to hide our face. I get irritated by the pompous way of expression, big talk, the delayed show off of titles and credit which according to me very few people are entitled to have and they are those that do not demonstrate them. History was forged, humiliated and falsified. The issue is to not to rewrite history with silences, in the name of our own considerations this time. This fact throws us into a vicious circle of abortive and bad information regarding younger generations” the doctor- radiologist Manolis Anagnostakis said characteristically. He is considered to be one of the leading poets and essayists of the post-war generation while he was imprisoned and sentenced to death for his political beliefs.
Manolis Anagnostakis was born in Thessaloniki in 1925 but he came from the village Roustika in Rethymnon, where his father’s house still exists.
He studied medicine in Thessaloniki while during German Occupation he joined the EPON. Between the years 1943-1944 he was the chief editor of the magazine “Start” that belonged to the cultural group of the University of Thessaloniki while at the same time his first writings appeared in the “Letters from Piraeus” magazine. He was intensively politically involved in the student movement due to which he was imprisoned in 1948. The following year he was sentenced to death by a special military court but two years later in1951, the general amnesty freed him.
During the years 1955-1956 he specialized as a radiologist in Vienna and then he practiced his medicine in Thessaloniki. Between the years 1959 – 1961 he published the “Review” journal while he was a member of the editorial group of the “Eighteen Texts” (1970), the “New Texts” and the “Continuity” magazine (1973). In 1978 he settled down in Athens.
Manolis Anagnostakis left 88 poems published from 1941 until 1971. Since 1979 that his collective volume with his poems was released and since 1983 that his autobiographic comment ‘P.S’ was privately released, there was no public intervention on his behalf. Manolis Anagnostakis died on June 23rd in 2005 in Athens.
His poems were translated in English, French, German and Italian while composers such as Mikis Theodorakis, Thanos Mikroutsikos, Michalis Grigoriou, Giannis Markopoulos and Dimitris Papadimitriou put music to his poems. He was awarded with the National Poetry Prize (1986) and the Grand Prize for Literature (2002), while he was proclaimed honorary doctor at the University of Thessaloniki.
His main works are:
– Seasons, private edition, 1945.
– Seasons 2,private edition, 1948.
– Seasons 3, private edition, 1954.
– The Poems (1941-1956) private edition, 1956.
– The following 3, private collection, 1962.
– Pros and Cons, 1965.
– The Poems (1941-1971) private collection, 1971, Athens 1976, Athens 1985, Athens, 2000.
– Antidogmatika: Articles and notes (1946-1977), 1978 and 1985.
– The margin ‘68-69, 1979.
– Manoussos Fassis: Children’s muse (songs for pre-school and school ages), 1980.
– Additional (review notes), 1985.
– The poet Manoussos Fassis, his life and work. A first attempt of a critical approach, 1987.
– Low Voice: The lyrics of a past era in the old rates – a personal anthology of Manolis Anagnostakis, 1990.
Source of publication 14th edition In-On