Nikos Kazantzakis's Bergsonian Spain: Connecting Philosophy, Spanish Literature and Cultural Landscapes

Anyone who goes to Spain today has a great responsibility, if he decides to report her fearful tragedy to other human beings. He is no longer out of danger. He can no longer be irresponsible, free to portray costumes, landscapes, gardens and old churches and pretty scenes, or exotic spectales: the gypsies of Seville, the dancers and the castanets and the bullfights.

Nikos Kazantzakis, Spain 159-60, penned in Autumn, 1936

We may never know what French philosopher Henri Bergson might have written had he been able to travel extensively throughout Spain¹ — but thankfully we have Nikos Kazantzakis's Bergsonian travelogue Spain (Taxidhevontas Ispania, 1937) to consider. Kazantzakis (1883-1957) — one of the most significant Greek authors of the twentieth century² — was, like many Spaniards themselves,³ a former student of Bergson's in Paris (Poulakidas 267; see also Owens, Creative 56-64). It is clear that these classes, which he attended between 1907-1908, resonated powerfully with Kazantzakis — in 1913, he published a lengthy article on Bergson's thought in the Bulletin of the Educational Society, in 1915 he translated Bergson's Laughter into modern Greek, and as Andreas Poulakidas convincingly argues in his "Kazantzakis and Bergson," the Greek novelist's fiction is heavily marked by the French philosopher's intuitions regarding temporality, memory and consciousness (Poulakidas 267, 273, 268-72; on Bergsonian influence see also Middleton 4-7; Dombrowski 9-26; Bien, Kazantzakis 36-53). N. Georgopoulos alleges an even more profound connection between the thought of each, writing that, "the element that gave that wholeness [of Kazantzakis's thought] its encompassing and integral character and the thread that lent it continuity was the philosophy of Henri Bergson" (34; also Bien, Nikos; Friedman). Even later in life, Kazantzakis would write to a friend, recalling those days in Paris when "awe-struck, I used to attend the courses of my revered master, Henri Bergson" (letter to Börje Knös dated October 4, 1946; excerpt reprinted in H. Kazantzakis 459).

Surprisingly, the Greek's travelogue itself has scarcely been touched by Hispanist critics — just as it has been overshadowed by studies of Kazantzakis's fiction within the humanities more broadly considered. It would seem that the only notable exception to these trends is Emmanuel Hatzantonis's essay titled "Kazantzakis's Spiritual Journey through Spain," published in Hispania in December of 1966. Therein, Hatzantonis provides a general overview of Spain, mentioning that in 1926, Kazantzakis

visited Spain for the first time and had an interview with Primo de Rivera. Six years later he returned to Madrid, meeting such old friends as Timoteo Pérez Rubio and Juan Ramón Jiménez, and making the acquaintance of Lorca, Benavente, Valle-Inclán and other eminent writers. As a result of his intensive study of Peninsular literature, Kazantzakis undertook the translation into modern Greek of selected poems from the works of Unamuno, Salinas, Lorca, Aleixandre, Alberti, Moreno Villa and other contemporary Spanish poets. Unfortunately his enthusiasm for work was interrupted by the news of his father's sudden death. Overwhelmed with grief, he sought relief by means of a long trip throughout the Peninsula, but he came back to Madrid disconsolate and shortly after, left Spain (March 23, 1933). He returned three years later as a correspondent covering the Civil War, and in 1950 as a tourist accompanied by his wife and some friends.

(787)

The brief essay goes on to highlight a number of pertinent details—namely that Kazantzakis's volume eschews a romantic/touristic view of Spain and gives priority to Spain's literature⁴ — yet this approach to "Greece's first travel-book" (790) is in the main focused on pointing out that "Evidently, Kazantzakis's Spain is neither a tourist's chronicle nor a travelogue offering a host of major or minor 'useful' data intended to instruct the prospective Greek tourist" (790). Given that Hatzantonis's published overview is so brief, that it is relatively descriptive instead of analytical, and that it was published over fifty years ago, it is imperative to suggest that there may be much more...