The Life and Times of Alexis Zorbas Parnis: The Soviet Cycle of a Greek Partisan of Letters

• In Event: Not Quite the Blond Savior: Greeks and the Russian / Soviet Empire

Abstract

Speaking about Greeks and the Russian / Soviet Empire, we cannot ignore the Greek Communist exile diaspora in the Soviet Union of 1949-1981. One of the reasons to provide more visibility to the aforementioned aspect is that Soviet ideological legacy seems to remain strong within re-immigrated community and can affect broader political and social contexts.
Alexis Parnis (Sotiris Leonidakis, 1924-2023) was a bright representative of the Greek exile diaspora, a resistance fighter and a man of letters, a neighbor and friend of Boris Pasternak during his Soviet period. His 99-year-long life and versatile literary heritage, in particular, the so-called Soviet cycle, or Russian Trilogy (The Proofreader, Pasternak Highway, A Prague to Everyone), demonstrate the evolution of attitudes from a custom poem, praising Stalin, to The Proofreader, satirizing the dictator.

Author

• Viktoriia Chelpan, Mariupol State U (Ukraine)