POET’S BIOGRAPHY

Christophoros Theoharis Palesis

1872 - 1949

This brief biography of the well known folk poet Christophoros Th. Palesis comes mostly from a brief biographical text written in Greek by his son Antonios Chr. Palesis (1).

Christophoros Theoharis Palesis was born in 1872 in Avgorou, a farming village in the Famagusta region of Cyprus. His father was Theoharis Giorki Tsangaris and his mother Paraskevou Panteli Tseleppi. His family made their living from the few fields they owned and his father’s trade as a shoemaker. There were seven children in the family, four boys and three girls. Christophoros was the second child of the family. When he was little, four or five years old, there was a serious smallpox epidemic in Cyprus and he contracted the disease and almost died. Fortunately, he survived but he suffered the symptoms of the disease until his death, especially the deterioration of his eye sight. Because of this health problem, when he became of school age, his father initially did not allow him to attend. However, when he saw his son’s great thirst for learning, he allowed him to start school. Christophoros excelled through primary school but could not continue his formal education because he had to help his family with the cultivation of their fields. Christophoros’ zeal for learning, however, never stopped. He became a fervent self-learner. He always carried a newspaper in his pocket and, when he was not working, he was reading or writing.

When Christophoros grew into a young man, he fell in love with his wife-to-be Katerina, a young girl from Engomi, Famagusta who came to live in Avgorou with her father Ioannis and her mother Thekla. This love inspired the first poems that he wrote to express his passion for Katerina. In 1897, at the age of 25, he published his first narrative poem titled “Love’s Passion” (“Τα Ερωτικά Πάθη”) and began traveling around Cyprus to sing and sell his poem in festivals and other gatherings, as was the common practice of Cypriot folk poets during those days. The success he had with this first publication encouraged him to continue writing and publishing poetry and participating in various poetic competitions where he excelled. 1897 was also the year he married his first love Katerina with whom he lived in his native Avgorou and had seven children, two boys and five girls. The growing Palesis family did not have any agricultural lands of their own and made a living as laborers working in other people’s fields until Christophoros decided to dedicate himself professionally to his poetic work. Ηis travels throughout Cyprus as a folk poet gave him the opportunity to gain a comprehensive understanding of the Cypriot society, the social, economic, political, and religious issues of his time and the day-to-day lives, hopes, and concerns of the Cypriot people, which he incorporated with love, compassion, and humor in his poetry.

Christophoros Palesis was a very prolific poet. His writings include more than 150 publications of individual poems called “φυλλάδες” (pronounced “phillades”), which were unbound printed poems recounting current dramatic events like murders, love stories, accidents, and social, political, religious and other issues of his time. He also published three volumes of his collected works, one in 1919, one in 1923, and his last one in 1946 titled “Sunsets” (“Τα Ηλιοβουττήματα”, pronounced “Ta Iliovoutimata”) which incorporates a collection of previously unpublished ethical, satirical, political, religious, and other types of poems.

Christophoros Palesis was a truly socially engaged poet. In his prolific writings, he endeavors to bring about positive social change by describing human and social transgressions and inviting his audience, through social commentary or satire, to recognize the human, economic, and social injustices in their world and re-examine their own faults and prejudices. In an autobiographical poem titled “For Those Who Don’t Know Me” (“Για όσους δεν με ξεύρουσιν”) that he wrote in his sixties, he describes his poetic work as follows:

“[…] A sixty-two year load I carry on my back,

still wrestling with poetry, never changing my rhythm,

always thinking , always writing every new event

about love or murder or a person’s martyrdom.

But the world will not change, regardless how much you pound it.

Alas! it is declining rather than gain some reasonable sense.” (2)

Palesis never lost his deep passion and commitment for poetry.  At the age of seventy-five, he suffered a stroke and remained bed-ridden, but he continued rhyming and writing until he died at the age of seventy-seven in the morning of July 29, 1949.

The poetry of Palesis remains relevant and popular, especially within Cypriot society.  As a case in point, his long narrative poem titled “Ειρηνού και Βάσος” (“Irine and Vassos”), which was initially published in 1922, has been republished 13 more times, was adapted into film in 1981 by the Cyprus National Broadcasting Corporation (Ραδιοφωνικό Ίδρυμα Κύπρου - RIK), and a theatrical adaptation was presented in 1989 and 2007 in both London and Cyprus.  This poem, which can be described as the Romeo and Juliet of Cyprus, tells the dramatic story of two village teenagers who fall deeply in love but face difficult obstacles due to differences in their social status. They are pulled dramatically apart by family and social forces, but their love has become an inescapable destiny that dominates their feelings and thoughts, their actions, and their whole existence. In their hearts and minds, loving and living have become one… More information about this poem and directions on how to preview and purchase it in paperback, eBook, or audiobook format can be found on this website here: Irene and Vassos New Editions.

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Footnotes

1. The original biographical text is available on the Greek version of this website here.

2. Here is the Greek version of this poem:

   […] Μάρτιες εξήντα δυό εις την ράχην μ’ αριθμώ

   με την ποίησιν παλαίω, δεν αλλάσσω τον ρυθμό.

   Πάντα σκέπτομαι και γράφω κάθε νέον γεγονός

   περί έρωτος ή φόνου ή τα πάθη κανενός.

   Πλην ο κόσμος δεν αλλάσσει όσον κι’ αν κουπανιστεί

   Δυστυχώς χειροτερεύει αντί να σωφρονιστεί.