As consecuencias da vella historia

by Georgios Vizyinos, Alfonso Blanco (tradutor), Georgios Vizyinos

A novela breve As consecuencias da vella historia (1884) aborda, dende unha perspectiva até certo punto romántica, os desequilibrios que unha paixón amorosa insatisfeita pode provocar no espírito, ao tempo que ofrece unha descrición do sufrimento psíquico capaz de acadar cotas febrís. Trata así mesmo cuestións relativas á confusión de identidades e ao desdobramento da realidade, e pon de relevo o destacado papel da cultura alemá na formación da intelectualidade do Estado grego independizado do Imperio Otomán en 1830.

En vida do autor, non recibiu nin a atención nin o recoñecemento que si lle chegarían anos despois, un feito en parte motivado pola defensa activa feita por Georgios Viziinos da variante idiomática de corte purista coñecida como katharévousa, que perdeu a batalla contra a popular, o grego demótico. Houbo ademais outros dous factores que operaron na súa contra: o primeiro, que non fose ningún entusiasta do militarismo e do nacionalismo gregos; o segundo, que ás veces os seus textos pecaban de complexos e unha miga eruditos.

Como obra de ficción, no marco da narrativa grega contemporánea, considérase relevante e orixinal, unha valoración que tamén se acabou facendo do autor décadas despois da súa morte.

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1884

About the author

Georgios Vizyinos (Greek: Γεώργιος Βιζυηνός) was a Greek prose writer and poet, one of the most significant figures of Greek literature. He was born Georgios Syrmas in Vizyi, Eastern Thrace, on March 8, 1849. He was sent at a young age by his parents to Constantinople to become a clothesmaker but instead chose to study first religion and later literature.

In 1873, he published his first collection of poems "Ποιητικά πρωτόλεια". The following year, Vizyinos published his epic poem "Codrus". His third collection was originally entitled "Ares-Mares-Koukounares" but later re-titled "Breezes of the Bosphorus". All three works received awards for poetry.

In 1883, Vizyinos started writing in prose. In a span of merely fifteen months (1883 - 1884) he wrote and published five short novels in the magazine Hestia, thus opening the way for a new literary form and at the same time demonstrating unique thematic, narrative and structural inventiveness. The short stories "Who was my Brother’s Murderer?", "The only Voyage of his Life", "The Consequences of an Old Story" and "Moskov-Selim" deal with the controversial subject of relations and the terms of coexistence among Greeks, Slavs and Turks in the Balkans, as well as the dialogue between the Greeks of Greece and the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire and the Diaspora, and also between Europe and modern and ancient Hellenism. The symbolic function of language and the self-referring function of literature are reflected mainly in the short stories "Between Piraeus and Naples" and "The only Voyage of his Life".
Vizyinos was forced to work as a high school teacher following the death of his chief mentor, Georgios Zarifis in 1884.

In 1892, he was stricken with mental illness and was admitted to Dromokaitios asylum, near Athens. He died there four years later on April 15, 1896.