LIFE DOESN’T GO ON
Life long political activist, and composer, Mikis Theodorakis has spoken at his last anti-Macedonia rally aged 96. Theodorakis was an acclaimed classical composer who switched between symphony, ballet and opera with ease. He also wrote the film scores for Serpico and Zorba the Greek. You’ve almost certainly heard Zorba’s Dance.
His time composed was interrupted several times by Greek politics of the 20th Century. During the civil war, he was frequently imprisoned and tortured. In the 1960s, when a friend was assassinated, he decided to form his own left wing party. This put him directly in the sights of the junta which arrived in 1967, who imprisoned and later exiled Mikis. In exile, he became friends with Salvador Allende, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Olof Palme, all of whom were later shot by extremists! During this time he became one of the international symbols against the Greek dictatorship.
He returned to Greece in 1974 a national hero, and continued to perform until the late 90s, when he suffered lung problems. This was not helped by his being gassed by police when protesting the Greek economic cuts in 2011.
In later years he courted controversy for his views on anti-Semitism, perhaps being one of the many left winger writers unable to differentiate between the Israeli government and the Jewish people. He then fought hard-line anti-Semites like Golden Dawn. An odd public decision by a man whose Maunthausen Trilogy was declared one of the most moving artistic pieces about the Holocaust and who worked with Simon Wiesenthal! But then his views on Macedonia also shifted to the right in extreme old age too.
Perhaps it was the gas.
He was a unique pick for Pazuzu XP.
Mikis Theodorakis
29 July 1925 – 2 September 2021
Unique