I WAS BORN GREEK, I WILL DIE GREEK. MELINA MERCOURI: (in Greeklish) - 773

This was Melina Mercouri’s response to Patakos’ announcement that he was taking away her Greek citizenship. Two days later, New York stores were selling badges that said ‘’Melina is Greek’’.To say that Melina Merkouri is not Greek is like saying that Pelé is not Brazilian or that the Pyramids are not Egyptian or Elginia is not Greek. No one has done so much in recent years to attract any sympathy for Greece. No individual has been more responsible for the wave of tourism in Greece. This was done before the Colonels. Today she still remains in Greek people’s memory a violent and steadfast opponent of the Dictatorship. During the years of the Dictatorship in Greece, listening to a record by Melina Mercouri was a crime that was tried in the military court. Melina Mercouri’s autobiography tells us the whole story of her Greekness. She is very honest about the political side of her youthful life and honest about her struggles to become an actress, her golden childhood, her films. With the film “Never on Sunday” she gained worldwide fame. Ten thousand dock workers in Genoa quit their jobs as a sign of political protest when Melina Mercouri escaped by a hair’s breadth from a bomb blast. Who is this unusual artist and brave woman? In her autobiography she tells with temperament and ruthless sincerity her rise, her unusual weddings, her acquaintance with other celebrities such as the poet Nikos Kazantzakis and the screen diva Greta Garbo. Melina’s grandfather was Mayor of Athens for thirty years and in the interwar years the Mayor of Athens was more glamorous than the King of Greece. Her father was elected Member of Parliament at the age of twenty-two. This shows that Melina’s destiny is closely linked to the destiny of Greece and explains why she felt deeply hurt on April 21, 1967, when the junta suddenly seized power in the city that gave birth to democracy. ‘’I WAS BORN GREEK, I WILL DIE GREEK, MELINA MERCOURI’’ is the blood of this wound. Of course, Melina Mercouri narrates her life as a woman and an artist. But she mainly tells her long-term love for Greece, the Greek sun, the Greek hills, the Greek sea and the Greek people, so dignified and alive despite its misery. Against this charming background, her passionate commitment to politics after the coup of the Colonels becomes even more exaggerated and real. Melina decided to tell her personal story in her own way (and illustrate it with her personal photos). The result is a perfect project but above all a declaration of her love for the homeland.Foreign everywhere after the coup, deprived of her citizenship by the Colonels, a privileged person who lacks the essential: a homeland, Melina Mercouri showed in her book the multiple aspects of her personality. Successively sensitive, sensual, angry, enthusiastic, smiling, pessimistic, hoping beyond all hope, she really is the incarnation of the People of Athens who, as soon as they leave work, seem to transform the crossing of a street ‘’in red light’’ into a cute ballet but who does not stop playing a rosary or a bunch of keys – a sign of a deep agony in front of life.
ASIN: B09GZFG1VF
VSKU: BVV.B09GZFG1VF.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:KALANTZI, NATASHA
Binding: Hardcover