October 21, 2016 (Friday) at 16:00 the Branch of the HFC will host a lecture “Konstantinos Cavafy (1863-1933) – Giorgos Seferis (1900-1971): Parallels” by Andriy Savenko, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Neo-Hellenism at Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University.

K. Cavafy is one of the most renowned modern Greek poets and a prominent figure in the world literature of the twentieth century, whose works remain topical today. The two Nobel Prize winners from Greece, Giorgos Seferis and Odysseas Elytis, referred to Cavafy as their literary and intellectual mentor.

Seferis (real name Giorgos Sefereadis) is a Nobel Prize winner (1963) and a prominent figure in the Greek literature and history. In addition to being a very talented poet, he was also known as a literary critic. He studied works of Greek and foreign writers, translated works of English and French poets, and held honorary doctoral degrees from the universities of Thessaloniki, Cambridge and Oxford. People in Greece also respected him for his active social position and social activities.

The works of K. Cavafy and G. Seferis gave rise to the expansion of Greek poetry into a broader context, its introduction to a new attitude and worldview that, despite their spirit of modernity, still preserve and give a new reflection to a range of meanings hidden in the term “Hellenism” (ελληνισμός). The creative approaches of K. Cavafy and G. Seferis show interconnection through an indissoluble link between a “mentor”, who teaches involuntarily, and his “student”, who in his learning tries to resist his teacher and break free from his influence. The lecturer will attempt to trace the circumstances that made the authors turn to the main themes of their works (Greece, arts, humans, community and time) and find out how they bring together their interpretations and what the fundamental differences between them are.