Dionysios Solomos’ “Hymn to Freedom”: 158 verses

Title

Date

2 August 2021

Date Issued

2021

Abstract

“Kavala Municipal Regional Theatre, to mark the bicentenary of the Greek Revolution, prepared a performance dedicated to the poetry of Dionysios Solomos, Greece’s national poet. We were at the 1st Primary School, on the peninsula of Panagia, in a closed building, silent in recent years; we opened it, sat on its desks, ran in its corridors and in its courtyard, read carefully, tried to recite the first verses from the chest, the youth exercises, the epigrams, the satirical poems, we studied the ‘preparation’ of his great work and we came to the ‘Hymn to Freedom’, in its 158 verses, in this inspiring, original, impetuous and youthful poem that he wrote in one month, in May 1823, the 25-year-old Dionysios Solomos, when the figure of freedom appears before his eyes, as if familiar for a long time. Our rehearsals and rehearsals were filmed and will be presented as a kind of ‘working documentary’, in two parts. The first part is a concise chronology of Solomos that talks about his life and work, adorned with some of his first poems and excerpts from his correspondence, while the second and main part is the ‘Hymn to Freedom’, there where we were led by the great historical events that lurk in its 158 verses, the dark days of slavery, the Fall of Tripoli, the battle of Dervenaki, the siege of Messolonghi, the war episodes at sea, the hanging of the Patriarch and finally the appeals to Greeks and Europeans for the happy outcome to the Revolution of 1821.”

(Edited and translated description from organiser’s website)

Type specialization

Documentary- Television program

Format

Images

Language

Greek

Bibliographic Citation

Philippi Festival 2021

Rights

Item sets

Cinema

Performances

Item