Markos Avgeris (real name: Georgios Papadopoulos) (1884-1973) was, first and foremost, a medical doctor. After studying medicine at the University of Athens (1901-1907), he worked in Athenian clinics until 1912, when he enlisted in the Greek Army as a lieutenant and reserve doctor, and served for six years total until 1922. In 1926, he was Inspector of Hygiene for the Ministry of Labour and continued working for the Ministry before his expulsion in 1947 for participation in the Greek Resistance movement during the Occupation (1941-1944), the National Liberation Front (Εθνικό Απελευθερωτικό Μέτωπο, EAM), and the Communist Party of Greece (Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας, KKE).[1]
To his friends and comrades in the Communist Party, Avgeris was known as “The Doctor” (Ο Ιατρός) and it was both literature and social issues that he charged himself with “curing” throughout his long career. He was part of a circle of Greek socialist intellectuals in the 20th century, centred around the Dexameni Café in Athens, which included Elli Alexiou (1894-1988), his close friend until his death, and her sister, Galatea Kazantzakis (1884-1962), Nikos Kazantzakis’ first wife (and, soon, Avgeris’ first).[2] After the Asia Minor Disaster of 1922, he worked for the Ministry of Education, editing the first textbooks that used Demotic Greek rather than the traditional (and conservative-aligned) Katharevousa.[3] He was also involved in the Society of Greek Writers (Η Εταιρία Ελλήνων Λογοτεχνών) from its foundation in 1934, alongside Angelos Sikelianos (1884-1951), Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957), and Kostas Varnalis (1884-1974), amongst others. This society defended the “rights of the Greek writers [and] of the country as a whole” and was largely made up of leftist poets, playwrights, and novelists.[4] Separately, Avgeris wrote in support of the KKE and Marxism in various Greek newspapers and magazines, such as Η Αυγή: Καθημερινή Δημοκρατική Εφημερίδα του Λαού, arguing that the Greek people should educate themselves in Marxist theory.[5]
After Avgeris joined the KKE, circa 1944, revolutionary Marxism became an increasingly prominent feature in his writing. At times he presented a conflicted attitude towards ancient Greek culture. He worried, for example, that it could take vital energy away from modern struggles on the cultural plane. In his 1952 work on poet and playwright Angelos Sikelianos (Σικελιανός Κριτική Μελέτη), however, Avgeris argued that plays, such as Sikelianos’ Sibylla (1940) and Daedalus in Crete (1943), which use mythical allegory for universal themes, fail in Modern Greece, but could be successful in a “freed” world (i.e., a Communist world). As he writes:
In the future, perhaps, a new type of tragedy may be reborn with this kind of historical spirit, a genre as high and imposing as ancient tragedy, where the hero is the bearer of some lofty, universal ideal, the liberating force embodying men’s creative spirit and historical tendencies. But this can [only] be done when the people, free and triumphant over their oppressors, are master of their own fate and can display their great achievements and great figures, when they seek to glorify their people’s victories and their heroes, the spirit of the people and their common beliefs, and when community issues are among their most tireless interests, as they were in that ancient state [δῆμο] that first gave tragedy birth. (Avgeris 1952:92; transl. Coopey)
For Avgeris, ancient Greece and its democracy represented the type of historical and political freedom that many communists hoped to create in the 20th century, with power and interests solidly centred on the community and the greater good. The ancient Greek world, then, becomes a parallel of excellence with the communist world that Avgeris hoped would be born: and so a new form of tragedy, much like Attic tragedy, can only be born from a parallel space to Attic Greece.
During the 1910s, Avgeris also translated prolifically, publishing Sophocles’ Electra and Aeschylus’ Suppliants in Modern Greek, as well as six of Aristophanes’ comedies.[6] He identified strongly with Aeschylus, as a writer famed for fighting at the Battle of Marathon. With reference to his own experience of fighting for the EAM during the Occupation, he wrote:
I joined the people’s ranks as they struggled, and so walked in step with history. In the people’s ranks I shared in their mental exaltation and moral intoxication. In this struggle, I took more than I gave. … I had no intellectual capital, but could boast, like Aeschylus, that I fought in the Battle of Marathon, and that this is my only great virtue. So it should be written on my grave, “He took part in the National Resistance”, and that would be enough for a man’s good death.[7]
On his death in 1973, his long-time friend and sister-in-law, Elli Alexiou, had just that written on his grave.
Μάρκος Αυγερής
Πήρε μέρος στην Εθνική Αντίσταση.Markos Avgeris
He took part in the National Resistance.
This profile was written by Anna Coopey (PhD Candidate, University of St Andrews).
[1] For more on the KKE, see Nikos Marantzidis (2023): Under Stalin’s Shadow: A Global History of Greek Communism (Cornell University Press).
For more on EAM and the Nazi Occupation of Greece specifically, see Mark Mazower (1993): Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-1944 (Yale University Press).
[2] For more on the Dexameni Café, see the 24γράμματα article, “Τα Χαμένα Ιστορικά Στέκια της Αθήνας” – (accessed 13-11-2024, 21:35).
[3] On the “Greek Language Question”, or Το Γλωσσικό Ζήτημα, see Peter Mackridge (2000): “The Greek Language Controversy” from The Hellenic Communication Service, L. L. C. – (accessed 13-11-2024, 21:04).
[4] For more on The Society of Greek Writers, see the current Society of Greek Writers blogspot page – (accessed 13-11-2024, 21:12).
[5] For example, see his 1966 article in Η Αυγή, “Ιδρυτική Διακήρυξη του Κέντρου Μαρξιστικών Μελετών και Ερευνών” (accessed via ASKI Archives) – (accessed 14-11-2024, 09:35). For various other examples of these articles, see the ASKI Archives results for “Μάρκος Αυγέρης” –
[6] These comedies are Acharnians (1911), Peace (1911), Knights (1911), Wasps (1911), Wealth (1912), and Women at the Thesmophoria (1912).
[7] Quote from Avgeris accessed via the article “‘Γιατρὸς” του λαού και των Γραμμάτων” (1999) from Ριζοσπάστης, Sunday 6th June, page 24 – (accessed 17-11-2024, 14:55).
