As a classicist born in Ithaca in 1911, it is perhaps surprising that Panagis Lekatsas did not touch the epic that has made the island so acclaimed worldwide. It seems that the town of Stavros was too small to hold such a towering figure, and his interests stretched far beyond that of the Homeric verses.
From his youth, Lekatsas was a voracious reader, who, by the time he started primary school, had read almost all of the books required for middle school, spending any spare time possible reading and writing. Under the tutelage of his uncle, the philologist Gerasimos Lekatsas, he began to learn about ancient Greece and Rome, and developed an enduring love for the classics. After a short period in Australia with his father and younger brother, he moved to Lefkada for the first two years of high school. It was here that he encountered Pindar, in a public library, and Marxism.
In 1930, he moved to Athens to study law, and, while still studying, published his first book, A Contribution to the Dialectical History of Philosophy (Συμβολή στη Διαλεκτική Ιστορία της Φιλοσοφίας) (1933). In this work, as Tsolias (2003:27) notes, he shows his love for Greek antiquity, and his fantastic knowledge and understanding of the ancient Greek language.[1] He later translated Pindar’s Olympian Odes (1935), which accompanied his own poetry collection, Apollonia (Απολλώνια). Following his studies in Law, he published a full study on the words of Pindar, Epimetron (Επίμετρον, 1938). The work on Pindar was accompanied by the publication of various translations of other ancient authors, including Sappho, Archilochus, Alcaeus, Lycurgus, Longinus, Aristotle (Politics), Hesiod (Theogony and Works and Days), and Euripides (Medea, Cyclops, Alcestis, Children of Heracles).
At the beginning of the Axis Occupation of Greece, Lekatsas joined EAM, the Communist-led resistance movement.[2] He did not, however, join the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) – nor would he ever join – which caused tension among his fellow intellectuals. During the December Events of 1944, popularly known as the Dekemvriana, he was arrested and sent to prison in Goudi.[3] It was during this period of forced inactivity that he wrote one of his most chilling and poignant works: On the Destruction of the State and Tyranny (Δήμου καταλύσεως και τυραννίδος, 1945). This work is an anthology of comments by ancient writers on the eternal conflict between two states, two opposing forces, and he dedicated it to ‘the fallen fighters of the December Events’. Here, we can clearly see the application of ancient authors to leftist melancholia during the “White Terror”, a period of great persecution of the Greek Left by British troops and the Greek Government.[4] The next year, in 1946, he published a translation of Pericles’ Epitaph, again dedicated to those who had died in the December Events, in New Letters (Νέα Γράμματα).
Lekatsas also wrote Spartacus: The War of Gladiators (Σπάρτακος: Ο Πόλεμος των μονομάχων, 1945), a historical work examining the gladiator revolts led by Spartacus (and others) in 73 BC. This subject proved popular amongst Leftist intellectuals of the 20th century.[5] He also published The Epic of the Class Struggle in Ancient Greece (Η εποποιϊα της πάλης των τάξεων στην αρχαία Ελλάδα, 1949), and The Sun State: The Communal Revolution of Slaves and Proletariat in Asia Minor (133-128 BC) (Η Πολιτεία του Ηλίου. Η κοινοκτημονική επανάσταση των δούλων και προλεταρίων της Μικράς Ασίας (133 – 128 π.Χ.)). In the same year, he published his views on Marxist ancient historian George Thomson’s The Prehistoric Aegean in the newspaper Antaeus; later on, in 1957, he would publish a study on George Thomson himself.[6] In 1953, he produced a translation of Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, another text popular with Leftist authors and historians.[7]
In 1954, he found himself in conflict with former friend Yannis Kordatos (1891-1961), a fellow Marxist historian and philologist who had left the KKE in 1924, and strongly criticised the Party. They could not resolve their differences in opinion about the social roots of ancient theatre.
It was 1964 when Lekatsas’ health began to deteriorate, and he spent three months in a coma after an epileptic fit. These fits continued, yet he did not cease publishing, working particularly on a topic that he had focused on a few years before – and, indeed, which he is now most famous for: religion and matriarchy in ancient Greece. He pioneered the study of religion and ethnology, publishing Pre-Hellenic Matriarchy and the Oresteia (Προελληνική Μητριαρχία και Ορέστεια) in 1949, and The Origin of Institutions, Customs, and Beliefs (Η καταγωγή των θεσμών, των εθίμων και των δοξασιών) in 1951.[8] However, ultimately, his health only grew worse, before he passed on 7 September 1970.
The archaeologist Yannis Miliadis wrote the following about the classicist who advocated for Marxist historiography:
“[Lekatsas] knew very well that he was choosing an area of study with no guarantee of easy social success, and a methodology that would probably cause controversy. But he was a hero, an example of a man who was dedicated to his cause, who went against the grain. … His work surprised some, at first, and maybe even annoyed them. Now, it’s watched, studied. Soon, it will be recognised. There is always time to recognise a work which a living, breathing man has watered with love and labour, and sprinkled with the blood of his very heart.”[9]
This profile was written by Anna Coopey (PhD Candidate, University of St Andrews).
[1] From Panagiotis Tsolias (2003): “Παναγής Λεκατσάς. Η Ζωή και το έργο του” (pp. 25-33) from Νέα Κοινωνιολογία, Vol. 37 (Εκδόσεις Παπαζησή).
[2] For more on EAM and the Axis Occupation of Greece, see Mark Mazower (1993): Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-1944 (Yale University Press).
[3] On the December Events, see Menelaos Charalampidis (2014): Δεκεμβριανά 1944, Η μάχη της Αθήνας (Αλεξάνδρεια).
[4] For more on the “White Terror”, see Svetoslav Rajak (2010): “The Cold War in the Balkans, 1945-1956” (pp. 198-220) from Melvyn P. Leffler & Odd Arne Westad (eds.) (2010): The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Volume I (Cambridge University Press).
[5] For other examples, one can see Howard Fast’s (1951) Spartacus, and Arthur Koestler’s (1939) The Gladiators. See also Lyall, Dimitrova and Rudenko’s articles in Clotho, 2022 ‘A Proletarian Classics’.
[6] This was called George Thomson, A Writer Worthy of His Age (Ο Τζόρτζ Τόμσον, ένας συγγραφές άξιος του αιώνα του).
[7] For other examples, take Nikos Kazantzakis’ (1943) Prometheus trilogy, and Tony Harrison’s (1998) Prometheus.
[8] For a full list of his works, see Panagiotis Tsolias (2003): “Εργογραφία Π. Λεκατσά” (pp. 35-36) from Νέα Κοινωνιολογία, Vol. 37 (Εκδόσεις Παπαζησή).
[9] Quote accessed via Andreas Denezakis (2024): “Παναγής Λεκατσάς: Ο θεμελιωτής της εθνολογίας και της θρησκειολογίας στην Ελλάδα” from Ημεροδρόμος – https://www.imerodromos.gr/panaghs-lekatsas-o-themelioths-ths-ethnologias-kai-ths-thrhskeiologias-sthn-ellada/ (accessed 01-03-2025, 14:00).
