Elias Petropoulos

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Elias Petropoulos
Born26 June 1928
Athens
Died3 September 2003(2003-09-03) (aged 75)
Paris
SchoolDecadence, Folklore

Elias Petropoulos (

Greek military junta of 1967–74, resulting in fines and jail terms and ultimately in his decision to leave Greece to live permanently in France.[3]

Biography

Petropoulos was born in Athens on 26 June 1928, but spent his early years in Thessaloniki, where his father, a junior civil servant, was transferred when Elias was six. They lived in an Ottoman house that his father transformed by eliminating the more typical Turkish elements. According to anthropologist Christos Panagiotopoulos, the young Petropoulos did not appreciate the restyling of the house, an incident that will return in his late work as an example of how, by rejecting the Ottoman heritage and claiming for their country a “European” one, the Greeks ended up sacrificing what had become distinctive characters of their culture and even of their food.[2]

As he later remembered, Thessaloniki was the center of Greek left-wing thought, and as a young man Petropoulos acquired there the leftist political ideas he will keep throughout his life.

Nazi occupation.[4] His father was killed at the front.[1] In 1947, during the Greek Civil War, he was briefly imprisoned for his participation in the Democratic Army of Greece.[2]

Although he did not finish high school, he was able to pass the examination and be admitted in the faculty of Law of the

Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, which he left just before graduation.[2] He worked as a civil servant for the city of Thessaloniki, but in 1949 he was fired from his post after having been accused of being a Communist, after which he spent 8 years unemployed and marginalized.[2]

He befriended since he was a teenager the songwriter

gay slang in any language — the Greek drug users' underworld and the criminal subculture.[2]

The publishing of this controversial material that is often irreverent towards the establishment and defies attempts at censorship, earned Petropoulos three different jail sentences during the

atheist (religious beliefs were obligatorily mentioned on Greek identity documents until recent years).[2]

In 1974, the continuous persecution that outlasted the dictatorship forced him to self-exile in

ethnographic works.[1] In 1979, Petropoulos published The Manual of the Good Thief ("Το εγχειρίδιο του καλού κλέφτη"), a satirical but accurate description of the criminal underworld, the abusive practices of the police, and the state of the Greek prisons. The book was banned in Greece, causing international protests.[5] Because of the book, Petropoulos was tried in absentia in Greece and sentenced to eighteen months in jail, which led him to decide to remain in Paris, where he realized his old dream of studying Turkology and the Turkish language at the École pratique des hautes études.[2] He continued to write on Greek criminals and homosexuals, publishing in Paris books that will slowly be accepted and acknowledged in Greece.[2]

On September 3, 2003, he died of cancer in Paris at the age of 75. According to his will, his body was cremated and his ashes were thrown in a sewer by his lifelong partner Mary Koukoulès.[1] This scene was captured on film in the 2004 documentary "Elias Petropoulos: A world underground" ("Ηλίας Πετρόπουλος: Ένας κόσμος υπόγειος"), directed by Kalliopi Legaki. The documentary contains the last interview given by Petropoulos and an overview of his life and work.[2]

Published works

Petropoulos was the author of a large number of books, most of which have not been translated into English and many of which are out of print. He also published poetry, both original and in translation. The following select bibliography attempts to list all of his books in English or French, and the major works in Greek.

Books by Elias Petropoulos:

  • Καλιαρντά 2nd. ed, Athens, Kedros, 1971.
  • A macabre song: testimony of the goy Elias Petropoulos concerning anti-Jewish sentiments in Greece. With a postscriptum by Pierre Vidal-Naquet, texts translated from the Greek and from the French by John Taylor. Paris: [s.n.], 1985 (Paris: Atelier Mérat)
  • Old Salonica. Athens, Kedros, 1980.
  • Rebetika: songs from the Old Greek Underworld translated by John Taylor, illustrated by Alekos Fassianos. London, Alcyon Art Editions, 1992.
    ISBN 1-874455-01-5
  • Ρεμπέτικα τραγούδια. 2nd ed., Athens, Kedros, 1983.
  • Songs of the Greek Underworld: The Rebetika Tradition. Trans. with introduction and add. text by Ed Emery. London, Saqui Books, 2000.

Books about Elias Petropoulos:

  • Harsh Out of Tenderness: The Greek Poet & Urban Folklorist Elias Petropoulos, by John Taylor, Sydney: Cycladic Press, 2020.
  • Ηλίας Πετρόπουλος, ο τεχνιτής της διαστροφής, by Yiannis Vasilakakos, Athens: Odos Panos, 2018.

Film about Elias Petropoulos

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Jackson, Eve (November 19, 2003). "Elias Petropoulos". The Guardian. London. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
  2. ^
    hdl:10670/1.vy6aop
    .
  3. ^
    ISSN 0363-3659
    .
  4. ^ "Rizospastis.gr - Πέθανε ο Ηλίας Πετρόπουλος". 2003-09-05.
  5. ^ Lacarrière, Jacques (December 14, 1979). "Retour de la censure en Grèce". La vie littéraire. Le Monde. Vol. 36, no. 10,847. Paris. p. 20.
    ProQuest 2531758812
    .
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elias_Petropoulos&oldid=1215572263"