George Vrisimitzakis

George Vrisimitzakis (Alexandria, 1890 – Annecy, France, 1947) was an Egyptian poet and anarchist intellectual of Cretan origin. He studied French literature and the natural sciences in Paris. From the summer of 1912 to the spring of 1913, he lived in Viareggio, Italy, where he became involved with the Italian anarchists. On returning to Alexandria, he devoted himself to literary studies, wrote a critique of the work of Constantine Cavafy (“The Work of C. P. Cavafy”, Greek ed. Ikaros, 1975), undertook translations (including texts by anarchist theorists), published Greek-language articles in the Italian anarchist newspaper in Cairo, “Idea” ("Idea") and published the magazine "Grammata". In his text "The Individual Revolution" (1914), he emphasised that "nothing characterises mediocrity more surely than never having been regarded as dangerous and rebellious".

He spent the summer of 1915 in Paris, returned briefly to his homeland, where, on behalf of the magazine "Grammata", he organised political lectures at the Alexandria Public Library and translated various classic works by anarchist theorists, including Bakunin’s "Animality and Humanity", which was first published in 1917. Between 1918 and 1919 he lived in Athens, where he contributed to the magazine “Vomos”. In 1920 he returned to Alexandria, where he lived until 1926. He then settled permanently in France, until his accidental death on 19 December 1947 in Annecy. In the final years of his life, he published many of his writings in French literary journals, usually under the pseudonym "Philetas". His essay "The Greekness of Cavafy’s Work" (1928) also dates from this period.