Nicos Nicolaides

Biography

Nicolaides died in Cairo in 1956. Before that, for twenty years, he had walked across Europe and the Middle East.

He was born on 3 April 1884 in Nicosia. His parents died one after another when he was six or seven, and he and his younger sister Maria were taken in by their maternal aunt, who was also poor. After finishing the fourth grade of primary school he went to work in a bookbindery, but the bookbinder dismissed him because the boy read the books instead of binding them. He then took refuge with an icon-painter, learned the craft and became known in Cyprus as a painter of icons. Some of his paintings from 1904 survive in villages of the Pitsillia region.

In 1907 he left for Athens, taking with him his first poems and prose, written in formal katharevousa Greek. Some of them appeared the following year in the Athenian publication A.O.D.O. (Apo Ola dia Olous, “From All for All”). For six months he studied at the Fine Arts Department of the Athens Polytechnic. Under the influence of Maurice Maeterlinck and Symbolism he began writing “The Blue Flower”, became acquainted with Christomanos and Athenian theatrical circles, and a few years later was lecturing on Ibsen. Theatre became his third occupation after literature and painting: he worked as author, researcher, producer, scene-painter, actor and, on at least one occasion, accompanist.

In July 1908 Nicolaides left for Alexandria, and then Cairo. Until 1915 he moved between these cities and Athens, with trips to Volos, to continental Europe and to the Middle East. In 1914 he was interned by the Turks in Syria. Such a life was habitual to him: he travelled on foot through nearly all the countries of Europe and a good many in the Middle East and North Africa, slept in lodging houses for vagrants and ate food discarded by restaurants. His health was undermined. His only income came from paintings, which he made on any wooden panel that came to hand. In those years he was also writing short stories and lyric prose, and in these two genres he quickly developed a personal style that made his name in literary circles in Egypt and Athens.

From 1915 to 1919 he lived in Athens and mixed with young writers of his own generation: Nikos Kazantzakis, Kostas Varnalis, Takis Papatsonis, Kostas Karyotakis, Tellos Agras and Cleon Paraschos, as well as Nausica Palamas, the daughter of the poet Kostis Palamas. He later dedicated some of his works to them. He was recognised as a first-rate prose writer of the younger generation, and many saw him as the leading one. Periodicals sought contributions from him; his stories “The Skeleton”, “The Secret”, “The Doll”, “The Servants” and “After Death” made a strong impression. Vlasis Gavriilidis, in his newspaper Akropolis, called him “this outstanding prose writer”.

But in May 1919, at the peak of his fame, he suddenly left Athens and settled in his homeland for four years. He wanted to publish the works he had ready and to make Cyprus a “land of the muses”. This is the account of a young compatriot, Glafkos Alithersis, who prepared the ground in his Limassol newspaper Aletheia (“Truth”). “The Blue Flower” was published in Nicosia at once, but Nicolaides found the intellectual climate discouraging; he spent a few months in Stavrovouni Monastery and then, after some hesitation, moved to Limassol. There he was welcomed by enthusiastic young friends ready to campaign for literature and art. In three years he published three books (a volume of lyric prose, a volume of short stories and a novel, “To Stravoxylo”, “The Peevish Fellow”), staged two tragedies with girl students at the school where he taught painting, put on “tableaux vivants” with success, held an exhibition of his own paintings (possibly the first such event in Cyprus), gave private lessons and handled the artistic side of events such as flower festivals. Most important for the island was the journal Avge, the first genuine literary periodical in Cyprus: it began to appear in Limassol in 1924, when Nicolaides had already left again for Egypt. Its contents were built around texts by Nicolaides, Alithersis and the young people they inspired.

In 1923, disappointed by the weak response to his books, he returned to Alexandria, where he produced “The Blue Flower”, painted the scenery and wrote the music himself. Around 1924 he settled in Cairo and remained there for the rest of his life, though he went on travelling while his means and health allowed, less often as he grew older. He lived in the poor Arab quarters, among the lowest strata of the local population. He kept company with Greeks who met on the premises of the sponge vendor and well-known socialist Sakellaris Yiannikakis: the lawyer Yiannis Lachovaris and young graduates of a Cairo college, interested in art and social justice, among them Stratis Tsirkas, Theodosis Pierides and George Philippou Pierides. Some of them became known across Greece, and Nicolaides’ literary and artistic workshop gave this a significant push. His ties with the Alexandrian elite, including Cavafy and his circle, were slight; with Timos Malakos, Maria Roussia and Alithersis they were closer.

He did not lose touch with his homeland. He visited Cyprus, wrote for the Nicosia journal Kypriaka Grammata, corresponded with friends and supported his sister and her two daughters, paying for one of his nieces to study at Harokopeion College in Athens. With Athens he had almost no contact; he did not distribute his books there, and he was largely forgotten, remembered only by a few friends and admirers.

In Alexandria he published two volumes of short stories, and in Cairo three volumes of lyric prose and two novels, among them “The Three Nails” (1948). He produced plays at the Cairo Opera House and with amateur companies of the Greek community, painted, gave lessons, took part in exhibitions, designed pavilions for the Gezira Exhibition Grounds and sketched the Tower of Tsanaklis in the Egyptian desert. He spoke at peace-movement rallies and took part in Greek community campaigns for democracy in Greece and independence for Cyprus.

Nicolaides died in Cairo in 1956. The date of his death is given differently; by one version it was 24 June.