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A Diary Across Time and Space: Elpida Castanaki, Cairo-Paris-Athens-Antibes, 1933-1963

Vivi Hatzigeorgiou

For more than thirty years, Elpida Castanaki kept a diary in French comprising 130 notebooks. A resident of Paris, she also spent a few years in Athens. Moving between Paris and Athens but also Antibes and Cairo, Elpida always carried some volumes of her diary with her, even in extreme circumstances. This multivolume diary is now part of the Castanakis archive at the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive (ELIA) (Fig. 1 and 2).

A pile of notebooks forming part of the diary of Elpida Castanaki

Journaux Elpida Castanakis

Fig. 1 and 2. Notebooks forming part of the diary of Elpida Catanaki in pile and box at ELIA (Source: ELIA/MIET)

Elpida Castanaki was born in Cairo, on March 17, 1912, as the second of the five daughters of businessman Michalis Mavroeidis and Sappho Kanaki. In 1929, she moved to Paris to pursue literature studies at the Sorbonne. There, she met and fell in love with Thrassos Castanakis, a writer and professor at the School of Oriental Languages. A Greek from Istanbul, Thrassos was married to philologist Angela Valiadi. Despite her family’s objections, the 18-year-old Elpida, decided to commit herself to Thrassos. In the summer of 1931, they settled together in Paris.

From his years in Istanbul, Castanakis maintained a close friendship with the Prassinos family, a relationship that continued in Paris where the family had settled after fleeing what is known in Greece as “the Asia Minor Catastrophe”. The Prassinos children – poet Gisèle and painter Mario – were frequent visitors to the Castanakis home on rue Littré in Montparnasse (Fig. 3 and 4). Elpida and Thrassos affectionally referred to them as “our children.” In their will, they named Gisèle and her husband Petros Frydas, as their literary heirs. These details are drawn from the pages of Elpidas’s diary. What she could not have foreseen, however, was the fate of her diary after her death in 1963 at the age of 51. Thrassos, devastated and struggling with long-term alcoholism, passed away in 1967.

Elpida Castanaki at her desk in Paris

Elpida Kastanaki standing in her home in Paris

Fig. 3 and 4.  Elpida Castanaki at her home in Paris, c. 1935 (ELIA/MIET)

At that point, Gisèle’s husband, Frydas, gathered and organized the papers he found in the Castanakis couple’s residencies in Paris and Antibes. In 1975, he sent them to ELIA, along with a detailed catalogue. But why did Frydas choose ELIA? The extensive Castanakis archive constitutes a significant contribution to the study of Greek literature from the first half of the 20th century. ELIA remains to this date a foundation dedicated to the preservation and study of modern Greek literary and historical archives. Frydas believed that the Castanakis papers should be made available to the research in what seemed – then as now – to be their natural repository. Another factor that may influence archival donations decisions is personal connections. Frydas, an Alexandrian intellectual, was a friend and supporter of Manos Haritatos, also an Alexandrian and the founder of ELIA. The transfer of the Castanakis archive from Paris to Athens was facilitated by a bond of trust forged in Alexandria. The diary was not included in the first donation. It was only in 2017 that Catherine Prassinos, daughter of Mario Prassinos, entrusted it to ELIA. This is how Elpida’s personal journal intime was ultimately transformed into archival material, an object for study and exhibition.

Although the diary’s first entry is dated Cairo, 16 February 1929, it seems that Elpida started writing systematically after her wedding in 1933, notably at Thrassos suggestion. She recalls:

Antibes, Tuesday 21 June 1938. I stretch to re-read my diary for the years 1931 to 1933. The first two years do not exist, only a few dates and from these not all the important ones. In any case, at the time Thrassos had not suggested to me the idea and it was not from me that it would come. The year 1933 begins to turn into a real diary…. All that would have been lost and not only the events but also the words and the very ideas of Thrassos.

A typical teenage diary, marked by gaps and irregular entries, turns into a chronicle of shared life with Thrassos. Elpida assumes the role of guardian of his thoughts and expressions. Nevertheless, the diary’s importance would be greatly diminished if Thrassos were its only focus.

The Castanakis couple moved within the circles of left-wing intellectuals during pivotal moments in European history. Elpida noted the activities of each day. We observe how the French intelligentsia expressed solidarity with the Spanish Civil War, how their friends were exiled in the Greek islands under the Metaxas regime, how the Castanakis fled Paris during the June 1940 exodus. Their journey took them to the village of Monestiés near the Franco Spanish border, where they stayed for three months before undertaking a perilous route via Portugal to Greece where they finally arrived on 20 October 1940 and remained there throughout the war (Fig. 5). Elpida’s entries document not only the escalating destitution during the German occupation but also a remarkable surge in literary production, as expressed through the publication of new periodicals, books and theatrical plays. Petros Haris wrote: “if someone asked me what it is that our country produces during these difficult times I would answer, without hesitation, theatrical troupes and philological periodicals.” (Haris, 1943).

A first page listing places to which the couple and the diary travelled in 1940

Fig. 5. A first page listing places to which the couple and the diary travelled in 1940 (ELIA/MIET)

Thrassos, Elpida and a group of literary friends gathered daily at the Athenian publishing house, Pyrsos, later renamed Aetos. Among them were Varnalis, Kavvadias, Terzakis, Karagatsis, Venezis, Iakovidi, Theotokas, Evelpidis, who met to discuss collaborations, new periodicals and the course of the war.

By 1942, however, signs of exhaustion emerged. Instead of running to the nearby shelter during air raids, Elpida and Thrassos chose to stay in bed, reading War and Peace. Thrassos writes incessantly: short stories, novels, articles; he keeps the theatrical review column in Philological Sunday. Elpida translates plays and short stories from English and French. At the same time, they work hard in their farm at Helliniko, growing vegetables and raising animals that helped them survive during the famine – and friends and poor neighbours, as well.

After the war, they spend their summers in Antibes hosting friends. Thrassos, famous for his culinary skills, prepares special dishes for their guests. Yet new conflicts loomed. The Korean war, although distant, creates an upheaval in Europe. The brother of Thrassos, Loukas, is exiled in Makronisos and Ai-Stratis, along with Ritsos, Dimitris Fotiades and other friends.

The transformation of Elpida’s diary, from a private record of the domestic sphere to public archival source, available to research, raises questions about how objects can acquire a new meaning never anticipated by their creator. Furthermore, the successive transfer of the diary and archive – from Castanakis to Frydas and finally to ELIA – through relationships built on trust, highlights the essential role of interpersonal connections for the circulation and re-signification of objects.

References

Σπύρος Καράογλου, “Από την αλληλογραφία Γιώργου Θεοτοκά-Θράσου Καστανάκη. Το χρονικό μιας φιλικής σχέσης [From the correspondence of Giorgos Theotokas-Thrassos Kastanakis. The record of a friendship]”, Κονδυλοφόρος, no. 1, 2002, p. 118-173.

Αλεξάνδρα Μπουφέα, Τα λογοτεχνικά περιοδικά της Κατοχής [Literary magazines during the Occupation], Αθήνα : Σοκόλη, , 2006.

Δημήτρης Φωτιάδης, Ενθυμήματα [Memoirs],  Αθήνα : Β έκδοση, Κέδρος, 1983.

Petros Haris, «Πρωινός Τύπος» (Proinos Typos), 1st October 1943.

Jean Pierre Joshua, « Le journal comme forme littéraire et comme itinéraire de vie », Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 87, no. 4, 2003, p. 703-714.