1. Yiannis Ritsos was a Greek poet and communist and an active member of the Greek Resistance during World War II.
17 Facts About Yiannis Ritsos
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The early deaths of his mother and eldest brother from tuberculosis, his father's struggles with a mental disease, and the economic ruin of his family marked Yiannis Ritsos and affected his poetry.
3.
Yiannis Ritsos himself was confined in a sanatorium for tuberculosis from 1927 to 1931.
4.
In 1934, Yiannis Ritsos joined the Communist Party of Greece.
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Yiannis Ritsos maintained a working-class circle of friends and published Tractor in 1934.
6.
Tractors and Pyramids initially were not well received by leftist critics, who found the language "too embellished" and Yiannis Ritsos overly focused on form.
7.
Yiannis Ritsos was inspired for his landmark poem "Epitaphios" by a photo of a dead protester during a massive tobacco-workers demonstration in Thessaloniki in May 1936.
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Yiannis Ritsos responded by taking his work in a different direction.
9.
Yiannis Ritsos began to explore the conquests of surrealism through the domain of dreams, surprising associations, explosions of images and symbols, a lyricism illustrative of the anguish of the poet, and both tender and bitter souvenirs.
10.
Yiannis Ritsos supported the Left in the subsequent Civil War ; in 1948 he was arrested and spent four years in prison camps.
11.
Today, Yiannis Ritsos is considered one of the great Greek poets of the twentieth century, alongside Konstantinos Kavafis, Kostas Kariotakis, Angelos Sikelianos, Giorgos Seferis, and Odysseas Elytis.
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Yiannis Ritsos was proposed several times for it, and was shortlisted as one of the final candidates at least once, in 1973.
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Yiannis Ritsos's poetry was banned at times in Greece due to his left wing beliefs.
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Notable works by Yiannis Ritsos include Pyramids, Epitaphios, Vigil, Romiosini and 18 short songs of the bitter Motherland.
15.
Yiannis Ritsos won the first Greek state poetry award for Moonlight Sonata:.
16.
Yiannis Ritsos is a Golden Wreath Laureate of the Struga Poetry Evenings for 1985.
17.
Yiannis Ritsos's daughter, Eri, was a candidate for the European Parliament with KKE in the elections of 25 May 2014.