DOI: 10.53084/6555.2025.10.13.006

O.P. Tsybenko
Cultural-historical Perception: Homer in the Greek and Russian Tradition of the 19th–21st Centuries and the Russian experiment with Nikos Kazantzakis’s “Odyssey”

Abstract: In Greek Literature, the Hexameter ceases to be a creative form of epic expression towards the end of the Ancient Era (relatively the 6th century), passing mainly into Byzantine and then modern Greek “political” (that is, “civil”, “common”) verse – 15-syllable. In the 20th century, Homeric translations by N. Kazantzakis – I. Kakridis appeared, performed in 17 syllables and the original epic “The Odyssey” by N. Kazantzakis in the same meter. In terms of semantic content, N. Kazantzakis’s epic is distinguished by a significant variety of cultural and historical components (from the Minoan era to the Russian Revolution of October 1917). The Russian translation of the latter in the size of the original thus removes it from the perception of the existing cultural and historical tradition, therefore, in order to achieve the goals set by the author of the epic, it is proposed to “transfer” it into the Russian tradition of the Homeric epic, which raises a number of problems of a cultural and historical nature.

Keywords: Homer, hexameter, 15-syllable, 17-syllable, “Odyssey”, N. Kazantzakis, translation, arrangement, heroic verse, modern Greek epic

To cite this article: Tsybenko O.P. Cultural-historical Perception: Homer in the Greek and Russian Tradition of the 19th–21st Centuries. Aristeas XXXII (2025): 106–136.

Author:

Oleg P. Tsybenko