Following the acquisition of the Cavafy Archive in its entirety by the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefits Foundation (2012), and the 2013 UNESCO Year of Cavafy, this seems a timely occasion to publish the review anticipated in BMGS 32, no. 2 (2008) 248 of Cavafy Archive publications under the curatorship of Manuel Savidis. This brief survey includes publications from the Spoudasterio Neon Ellinikon Spoudon (Centre for Neo-Hellenic Studies), where the Cavafy Archive was housed during the period under discussion.
Cavafy's literary estate has had a troubled afterlife. Between the poet's death in 1933 and the permission granted by his heir's widow, Mrs. Kyveli Sengopoulou, to G. P. Savidis in 1963 to investigate and later (in 1969) purchase what remained of it, papers and books were variously lost, damaged and sold. From the point when G. P. Savidis began his work and later acquired ownership of the archive itself, it has fared considerably better: rehoused, photographed, catalogued, investigated and - though incompletely - published.
G. P. Savidis soon realized that a full investigation and publication of the Archive contents would be more than one man's lifework. He himself took care of the first wave of major publications: the magisterial but unwieldy ‘product description’, The Cavafy Editions [in Greek] (1966); the 2-volume canon (1963, revised in 1991); the unpublished poems (1968; revised and expanded in1993) and the so-called disowned poems (1983). The ‘set’ was completed by Renata Lavagnini's exemplary edition of the unfinished poems (1994). Further information and archive items have been published by G. P. Savidis and others in various books, articles and conference proceedings. A great deal of important archival material, however, was still unpublished when Savidis died in 1995.
Upon inheriting the Archive, Manuel Savidis set about redressing this situation. The publications to which he contributed directly (sometimes as editor) and indirectly, through permission granted to other individuals, comprise a collection of Cavafy's prose edited by Michalis Pieris (see below), a monotonic single-volume edition of the canon in approximate chronological order (2003), a volume of John Cavafy's translations (see below), Stratis Haviaras's translation of the canon (reviewed in BMGS 32, no. 2, 2008, 247–50), Charicleia Cavafy's recipe book (see below) and a catalogue of the remains of Cavafy's library (see below). Permission was also granted to Peter Jeffreys to produce an edition of the Forster-Cavafy letters (the manuscripts of which are in King's College Cambridge) and a volume of Cavafy's prose in English translation. These volumes are reviewed in BMGS 35, no. 2, 2001, 243–4.
One of the undoubted highlights of this period was the creation of the two (related but not identical) Cavafy Archive websites, www.cavafy.com (in English) and www.kavafis.gr (in Greek), and the digitization of a rich selection of archive papers (including a large number of unpublished letters to and from the poet) and photographs, made available, together with audio readings of the poems, through this resource. The Archive also issued a CD-rom, ‘Cavafy's Life and Times’, and the Spoudasterio Neon Ellinikon Spoudon, a non-profit company set up in 1996 to house the archive and the libraries of G. P. Savidis and K. Th. Dimaras, which has its own useful website (www.snhell.gr), issued a single audio CD of G. P. Savidis reading 58 of C.P. Cavafy's poems, and a double audio CD of G. P. Savidis reading poems and a short story by Cavafy. The Spoudasterio (under its imprint, Spoudasterio Neoellinismou) also published the invaluable and long-awaited Notes by G. P. Savidis to the poetry of Sikelianos (see below).
At the time of writing, however, several important items still remain unpublished, including most of Cavafy's autobiographical writings, thematic catalogues and notes on poems. Long-promised critical editions (with full transcription, annotation and commentary) of Cavafy's, Aυτοσχόλια [Self-Comments] by Diana Haas and Ημερολόγια [diaries] by Diana Haas with Michalis Pieris are still ‘forthcoming’. Renata Lavagnini's annotated edition of the canonical poems and all known manuscript and print variants is also still awaited. These projected publications date back to the period before 1995. Indeed, Haas's ‘Self-Comments’ project was first announced in the 1970s. Presumably the rights to these putative projects will now have to be renegotiated with the Onassis Foundation (possibly by the same scholars; possibly by others). Given the difficulties inherent in the manuscripts (most notably the problems associated with deciphering Cavafy's idiosyncratic shorthand), it is greatly to be hoped that a team of qualified scholars will collaborate to produce high quality editions, avoiding the kind of howlers published so far in attempted transcriptions. (See, for example, M. Pieris, ‘Κ. Π. Καβάφη [Σημειώματα για τα τελευταία χρόνια και την αρρώστια της Χαρίκλειας Καβάφη] (1899)’, where we read, inter alia, ‘on the fat[?] death I told John [. . .]’ [for what must surely be ‘on the fatal day’], Μολυβδοκονδυλοπελεκητής, 3, 1991, 182). The excellent transcriptions of other documents made by Katerina Ghika, available on the Cavafy website, offer an example of the kind of scholarship required.
What follows is an annotated list of the major (print) publications from the Archive and Spoudasterio, 1995–2012, of interest to literary scholars:
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1. Philippos Iliou, Εργογραφία Κ. Θ. Δημαρά 1917–2004. Athens: Spoudasterio Neou Ellinismou, 2005
This painstakingly-compiled and beautifully-produced volume will be invaluable to anyone working on Dimaras (who personally corrected the proofs and added an Afterword)
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2. Athina Voyatzoglou (ed.), G. P. Savidis, Λυχνοστάτες για τον Σικελιανό. Athens: Ermis, 2003
The collected writings of G. P. Savidis on Sikelianos, gathered together after the model of Μικρά Καβαφικά. Another very useful volume.
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3. Natalia Deliyannaki (ed.), G. P. Savidis, Σημειώσεις στον Λυρικό Βίο του Άγγελου Σικελιανού. Athens: Spoudasterio Neou Ellinismou, 2012
An invaluable volume (reviewed in the last issue: BMGS 40, no. 2, 2016, 327–9).
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4. C. P. Cavafy, Sixty-Three Poems. Translated by J. C. Cavafy, with an Introduction by Manuel Savidis. Athens: Ikaros 2003
First publication of a substantial collection of John Cavafy's quirky translations (reviewed in BMGS 32, no. 2, 2008, 247–50). The poems are also available on the Cavafy website.
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5. Michalis Pieris (ed.), Κ. Π. Καβάφη, Τα Πέζα. Athens: Ikaros 2003
A useful volume that brings together a large selection of Cavafy's published and unpublished prose writings. It is divided into two parts, ‘Published’ (referring to articles, studies and reviews published by Cavay himself between 1885 and 1900) and ‘Hidden’ (an over-used and not particularly useful term in Cavafy studies) designating miscellaneous unpublished and/or unfinished essays, prose poems, stories, ‘fragments’ and other writings even less susceptible to categorization. This appears (to judge from its incomplete nature) to have been intended as Volume 1 of Cavafy's collected prose works, but there is no indication of whether or when a second (hidden?) volume is likely to appear. See also BMGS 35 no. 2 2001 (243-4).
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6. Michaela Karambini-Iatrou (ed.), Η Βιβλιοθήκη Κ. Π. Καβάφη. Athens: Ermis 2003
A complete but amateurishly-presented catalogue of the remnants of Cavafy's library, divided into 12 sections, covering periodicals in Greek and English; books in Greek, Ancient Greek, Latin, English, French, German and Italian; sacred texts (including a translation of the Koran, a 4-volume French Bible, a Greek New Testament and Bibles in English); travel guides (although the first guidebook listed here [p. 119] is a floor guide to the British museum, and there are other anomalous inclusions), and dictionaries. This volume is useful, though disfigured by some errors in the transcriptions of non-Greek bibliographical details. The Introduction appears to be addressed to a general reader, referring to instances of the act of reading in well-known poems and purporting to address (by means of the following ‘analytical description’ of Cavafy's surviving library) the question of how the book, the man and the poet might be connected. The Addenda contain a list of items in other libraries (2 items) and a 10-item list of ‘vanished’ books owned by Cavafy. Rather puzzling ‘lists of printed matter from the Cavafy Archive’ follow. According to the Introduction, two of these lists were made by Cavafy himself (p. θ) These lists are headed by ‘F’ numbers (referring to the films on which Savidis originally recorded all the items in the archive), as though these were self-explanatory. Thus, for example, ‘List of printed matter F134.1-7’. One of these lists, dated 31/10/1943, appears to be a sales catalogue prepared by Sengopoulos (pp. 136–7), whose name appears at the top under the date and again at the bottom. Evidence from Perides and Sareyannis for Cavafy's reading and lost books is included, somewhat illogically, after these lists (pp. 152–65.) At the end of the volume, there is an index of authors, editors and translators. For the Cavafy Archive website, Katerina Ghika edited ‘Cavafy's Virtual Library’, extensively supplementing the print edition of Cavafy's library with the volumes we know he had read and/or once owned: http://www.kavafis.gr/archive/vlibrary/list.asp
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7(a) Manuel Savidis (ed.) C. P. Cavafy, Catalogue for the 2003 Cavafy exhibition at the Megaro Mousikis, Athens
[Item not seen by the reviewer; presumed to be similar to the next item]
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7(b) Manuel Savidis (ed.) Catalogue for the 2008 Cavafy Educational Exhibition at the Elliniko Idryma Politismou. Athens: Elliniko Idryma Politismou (Hellenic Foundation for Culture) 2008
A very handsome volume with a wealth of unpublished photographs from the Cavafy Archive. It includes a useful biographical note by Manuel Savidis, a detailed genealogical table (although the dotted line indicating that Alekos Sengopoulos may have been Cavafy's son is probably misplaced, as the biographical note makes clear), family photos and photos of manuscripts. A tabulated chronology is included at the back.
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8. Manuel Savidis (ed.), Χαρίκλεια Καβάφη, Συνταγές. Athens: Ermis 2003
This is, of course, a curiosity, and not intended as a work of scholarship. It is a beautifully-produced volume, with a photograph of Cavafy's mother as a young woman opposite the suitably ornate title page. The paper is sepia tinted. The editor's Introduction gives brief details of Charikleia Cavafy's life, quoting Cavafy's own mini-biography. It also lists the archive items pertaining to her (photos, letters, practical notes and the ms notebook containing these recipes). The recipes are short and (in many cases) sweet. Tapioca pudding is among them.
