This text by Stratis Tsirkas is a speech he delivered at the Spiritual Center of Alexandria, during an event by the Greek community on the occasion of the celebration of March 25, 1947.

In his foreword, Dionysis Kapsalis notes: "Just as Seferis in 1943, in his own lecture on Makrygiannis, so too did Tsirkas in 1947, in the same place, Egypt, and again during wartime, seek a voice that touches deeper layers of collective memory, an authentic holding during times of dizzying uncertainty. The brave General from Lidoriki was the most suitable candidate for this role.

Tsirkas will add "The Woman of Zakynthos," which has meanwhile been published in the new, carefully edited edition by Linos Politis (1944), giving greater scope to his own speech. However, the tone continues to be set by Seferis, whom Tsirkas admires and closely follows, then as well as later. Are they therefore parallels? In wartime, Seferis and Tsirkas speak from the same awkward position of the disarmed comrade behind the lines who is anxious about the outcome of the battle, with one significant difference: Seferis's war was against the common enemy; Tsirkas's war is the Civil War.

So how, with what common measure, will we compare and factor in the need that drives each to Makrygiannis or Solomos when the historical cleavage of a civil war has placed them on opposing banks of an unbridgeable chasm? The answer, difficult in any case, can nevertheless be based on two assumptions. First, that the previous great cleavage, the War against the Axis, has not been annulled; its moral authority is still active for both men. Second, that not only as writers but also as citizens, Seferis and Tsirkas may ultimately stand on common ground, and their need to turn to Makrygiannis and Solomos in time of war may have been shaped by the same materials: in Seferis's words, 'the struggle, the blood, the pain, and the thirst for justice.'"