Russia in travelogues of Nikos Kazantzakis and Kostas Varnalis

Abstract

This article is dedicated to compilation of travelogues “Ταξιδεύοντας. Ρουσία” (Journey to Russia) by N. Kazantzakis and “Τι είδα εις την Ρωσσίαν των Σοβιέτ” *What I discovered in Soviet Russia) by K. Varnalis. Similarity of theme of the texts (both authors describe their impression of visiting Russia as the reporters of the large Greek newspapers) allows tracing the impact of subjective factors upon the author’s perception of Soviet Russia and its representation in both texts. The research is based on the parallel review of the theme of both writings and the applied means of creation of the image of Russia. The conducted analysis demonstrates that Nikos Kazantzakis sees Russia and social experiments of the Soviet government in the mystical sense, perceiving the political coup and shift of power in the country as a testimony to the struggle of latent forces that move the human history. Kostas Varnalis in his notes appears as a communist-pragmatic, viewing Russia as an example of establishing just and perfect human society, success of which proves the failure of the bourgeois world order. The travelogues under consideration are insufficiently studied and have not been translated into the Russian language. Their parallel analysis is carried out for the first time, which defines the scientific novelty of this research.