Jerusalem, the Holy Land, and Greekness in Ouranis, Kazantzakis, Sikelianos, and Seferis during the Period of the British Mandate for Palestine

Abstract

Abstract: Representations of Jerusalem and the Holy Land during the time of the British Mandate in Palestine (1918–1948) appear in the works of four modern Greek authors of the interwar period: Ouranis, Kazantzakis, Sikelianos, and Seferis. Their works encompass different genres—travel writing (Ouranis and Kazantzakis), diaries (Sikelianos and Seferis), and poetry (Seferis)—and foreground questions about religion and religiosity, identity, class struggle, and modernization. The landscape of the Holy Land turns out to be different, foreign, sometimes even completely desolate, and this realization initiates a process of remembering which ultimately takes the Greek authors back to the familiar places they apparently call home: the Aegean Sea and the Acropolis.