Christos Bintoudis in “A” / Myrsini Zorba returned to Sapienza

Christos Bintoudis is one of the three founders of the “Myrsini Zorba” Laboratory of Modern Greek Studies of the University of Rome. He has already started to study – together with Francesca Zaccone and Paschalis Efthymiou – the archive of the former Minister of Culture who moved from Exarchia to Rome three months ago: 4,000 volumes, 57 boxes, 997 kg! We met him on the sidelines of the two-day event organized at the National Gallery in memory of Myrsini an years since her death. With emotion he told us that new archival material was also found, while everything is ready in Rome as on May 31 the IUniversity of Rome and the Laboratory of Modern Greek Studies are planning a scientific conference on the “Cultural mediators of Italy in the long 60s”, with Myrsini Zorba to be the honored person for the bridges he built between Greece and Italy.

What do the new files found in the attic of Myrsini’s house contain?

Antonis Liakos discovered new manuscripts from Myrsini in a piece of furniture in the attic of the house in Exarchia. This is correspondence mainly from the period 1960-70, that is until 1975 when he arrived in Rome. It is a piece that we were missing because in the file that he handed over to usThewe found the others’ letters to Myrsini. Today we also discovered hers. When she goes to Rome, she begins a close correspondence with her parents. We only had her own letters. Today we also found her parents. So, after sorting through this material for the decade as well 1960-70 I don’t think there are gaps. Also today we found notebooks with clearly written poetic texts, most of them dating from her student years until the summer of 1975 when she returns from Rome. My eye was caught by a handwritten journal that read “Pifirst day in Athens after my return from Rome”. I am almost certain that few people know that Myrsini Zorba was involved throughout her life, systematically I could say, with creative writing. Of course, we knew that the young Myrsini had published some adolescent poems in school magazines of the time, but I would hardly have imagined that Zorba wrote literature almost until the last years of her life. In the amany texts belonging to various literary genres have been identified in the archive: poetry, short story, perhaps an attempt to write a novel, as well as a group of four plays which, if they are indeed her original works, could be considered final forms. I believe that this occupation has its importance for understanding the world and thought of Zorba, but mainly the identity of her writing.

Wich ones had the idea of ​​donating the archive of Myrsini Zorbas to the WorkshopThe your;

November 2021, in a pizzeria in the neighborhood of San Lorenzo, Via degli Umbri in Rome, talking with Zorba and Liakos about the Workshop we had just created, Myrsini, after ten minutes of silence, told meohs wants to donate to our Laboratory letters from Kiki Dimoulas that he had received during their long friendship. The letters were delivered inside the “Angel Box”, as I called it, by Antonis Liakos in Athens on February 27, 2022. An year later, as many know, on her last birthday on February 7, 2023, Zorba signed the donation of the library and archive. THE dorea, weighing a total of 997 kg, was arranged in December 2023 in Athens in 57 boxes and arrived in Rome on January 19, 2024.

Wich one is the content of the archive, which after classification and digitization will become the property of university research?

In the transfer we kept the “ceuography of the archive”, that is, the place the archive had in her home. No only this position was not accidental, but constituted a system that Zorba seems to have adopted for arranging her material. That’s how it is aarchive consists of five parts. The first part, found in the central area of ​​the residence, is also its most personal part aarchive: Zorba’s texts, publications, autographs, unpublished manuscripts, workbooks, a rich collection of photographs covering the entire period of her life. Of particular interest are her correspondence, with Zorba as the recipient -as I mentioned above-, notebooks and some manuscripts (unpublished texts mainly from the youth period: 1968-1975). We found diaries (referring to private life), notebooks (referring to political, scientific, philosophical issues, readings, drafts and working notes), agendas (where he reverently noted down each day what he had to do and when he had done it, crossed it out). Reading this material alongside Zorba’s correspondence brought to light many details of her thought, action and life. The secondly part of doreas, which was in the attic of the house, relates to the period when he was a minister. The third part was collected from the basement of the residence and these are records that Zorba created in all phases of her life regarding her activity, her overall work. The largest volume is related to “Odysseus”, the period of the European Parliament, EKEBI and the “Children’s Network”. The quarter part of dorea contains its library – more than 4,000 volumes – collectediit literally came from all areas of the house. There are books on political thought, cultural studies, philosophy, literature, cinema, architecture, music, geography, history, etc.a. Some of the volumes are considered old or particularly rare. An important part of the library concerns Italian culture and especially the 20th century and Italian Marxist thought. The fifth part, transferred separately, consists of Zorba’s electronic archive, hard drives, more than 18 removable memory drives (flash lights), dozens CD and floppy diskss, as well as numerous audio and video tapes of her speaking or appearing at conferences, radio and television. Finally, the dnice contains two works of art: the first by Psychopedis and the second a 2003 screen print by Alexis Veroukas entitled “The meeting”.

So why did Myrsini “choose” to return to Sapienza 50 years later?

I think he wanted to indicate a method of studying it aits file. The return suggests a close and inseparable relationship that exists between Sapienza, Rome and Italy on the one hand, and Zorba’s political and scientific thought on the other. Of course, she arrived in Rome with many tools, as revealed by the first investigations in her archive. Antonis Liakos epimarked a group of texts released before from a few days from the Editors’ Journal to onen volume that reveals to us an extremely mature woman, with an opinion and thought composed, deeply informed, active and full of enthusiasm to take part in an era that had many expectations. These texts will also be published in italic and will preface one of the most important living Italian intellectuals. Proof of the maturity and depth of Zorba’s studies. Gaps that existed in the translation of political terminology during her period are highlighted Xbeing.

From the first quarter survey of afile noi resulting;

We know for certain that Zorba began his systematic study of Marxist thought at the end of 1968. In an entry in her Diary (February 27, 1969) she expresses with particular enthusiasm thoughts aboutn Marxism and philosophy, while a few months later, on 3 Septembryo 1969, notes a thought of hers on Marxism and existentialism, which betrays a good knowledge of the subject. In Rome all these knowledges and experiences mature and acquire specific dimensions. Zorba herself seems to realize in the Italian capital her mission, which now acquires stronger theoretical foundations. The correspondence of that time mas gives information about the relationship with her parents, where she herself often seems to take on the role of guide. From the correspondence with Stratos Dimotzoglou who is in England we are informed that in January 1966 Zorba was already working somewhere, while from the letter she received in October 1972 from her Italian friend Sonja Antonini, who in the early 70s lives in Terni of Italy, we confirm the information that Zorba had already won the scholarship from 1972 tThe italic Kratos but could not be transferred to Rome because she was waiting to receive her passport which the dictatorship did not provide her. Finally, from the diary entries of the young period, it seems that she was particularly strict with herself, extremely organized, hardworking and methodical, while it seems that she felt intense oppression within her environment, at the university, in the junta regime where she was. Thus, the arrival in Rome constitutes for her the first contact, as an adult citizen and as a woman, with a democratic society, of the politician, the publisher, the translator, the woman Myrsini Zorba.