Konstantinos Cavafis | Origin of Street Names

Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis (1863 - 1933) was one of the most significant Greek and European poets, whose literary importance was recognized, and fame came many years after his passing.

He was born in Alexandria, the "capital of memories," as he called this ancient city, which is now part of Egypt and was under the Ottoman Empire at that time.

Thanks to his father's business connections as a successful and wealthy merchant, he spent most of his childhood in England. His knowledge of English and several other foreign languages secured him a steady job in the civil service after Egypt became a British protectorate in 1882.

Interestingly, Kavafis became a poet only in the second half of his life, and poetry, it seems, was a matter of deep intimacy for this unconventional Greek. During his lifetime, without publishing a single collection of poems, he read them and showed them exclusively to his closest friends and occasionally published a few in local newspapers.

Not fitting stylistically and poetically into the mainstream of that time, his work was long underrated, criticized, and unrecognized in Greek public. Historical motifs, subtle patriotism, as well as an open search for personal identity in every aspect (national, philosophical, religious, sexual...), are the main inspiration for Kavafis' poetry.

Among his opus, which consists of just over 150 poems, Ithaca stands out as probably the most famous, a poem about the mythical return of Odysseus to a small Ionian island after the Trojan War.

Konstantinos Kavafis passed away on his 70th birthday. The first collection of his poems was printed and published posthumously, two years later. Subsequently, recognition followed, and today he is considered the most significant representative of modern Greek poetry and one of the most important poets in the world.

The house in which he lived in Alexandria has been converted into a museum and is one of the major tourist attractions in this ancient Mediterranean city, while a street in the Altina neighborhood in Zemun bears the name of Konstantinos Kavafis.