Yannis Ritsos
(1909-1990)
Biography

Yannis Ritsos was born in Monemvassia (Greece), on May 1st, 1909 as cadet of a noble family of landowners. His youth is marked by devastations in his family: economic ruin, precocious death of the mother and the eldest brother, internment of the father suffering of mental unrests.Readings decide him to become poet and revolutionary. During Greek civil war, Ritsos commits in the struggle against the fascists, and is sentenced to spend four years in detention in various camps of so-called "rehabilitation": Limnos, Ayios Efstratios, Macronissos.
He published Tractor (1934), Pyramids (1935), In 1936, the long poem Epitaph exploits the shape of the traditional popular poetry and express in a clear and simple language a moving message of fraternity. The Song of my Sister (1937), Symphony of the Spring (1938), Old Mazurka to the rhythm of rain (1942), Romiossini (Greecity, published only in 1954, set into music by Theodorakis in 1966),The Lady of the Vineyards (1945-1947), The Moonlight-Sonata (1956) - national price of the poetry, - When comes the Stranger (1958), The Old Women and the Sea (1958), The dead House (1959-1962) which introduces the set of the long monologues inspired by mythology and the ancient tragedies: Orestes (1962-1966), Philoctetes (1963-1965).
Between 1967 and 1971, the military junta constrained him to a new deportation to Yaros and Leros, and an assignment to residence to Samos. This didn't stop him from enriching again his vast œuvre and to prolong the inspiration of the Greek antique: Persephone (1965-1970), Agamemnon (1966-1970), Ismene (1966-1971), Ajax (1967-1969) and Chrysothemis (1967-1970), both written on the islands of his deportation, Helena (1970-1972), The Return of Iphigenia (1971-1972), Phaedra (1974-1975).
Stone, repetition, bars (1968-1969), Gestures, papers; The Wall in the mirror (1967-71), Passageway and staircase (1970), 18 little Songs of the bitter Homeland (1968-1970), put in music by Theodorakis in 1973, and The Sounder (1973). To Become (1970-1977), The Buffer (1976) or Song of Victory (1977-1983) which celebrate the beauty of life, while Erotica (1980-1981) is a vivid hymn to love in all its dimensions. The Monochordeses (1980) show the extreme concentration which Ritsos expressivity has reached.The poems of his last book: Late in the night (1987-1989) are filled with sadness and the conscience of losses, but the humbly poetic way by which Ritsos restores life and the world around him, preserves a gleam of hope in an ultimate start of creativeness.
However, the poet lives the reduction of his health and the downfall of his political ideals grievously. Internally broken, he dies in Athens, November 12, 1990.