In September 1934, Andreas Empeirikos completed his first poetic work titled "1934". It is a complete poetic unit ready for publication that contains its detailed Contents at the end of the notebook. It consists of poems written in 1933 and mainly in 1934. The most famous one, which Elytis enthusiastically talks about in "Reference to Andreas Empeirikos," is "The Spectacle of the House Painter as a Moving Landscape". Empeirikos does not proceed with the publication because, in the meantime, he writes the purely surrealistic "Ypsikaminos", with which he will make a spectacular entrance into Greek letters a few months later, in the spring of 1935, alongside his historical lecture on "surrealism" and the beginning of the practice of psychoanalysis.

The poet lost the manuscript after the war. Towards the end of his life, around 1971-1972, renegotiating his past, he tried to reconstruct the collection, finding 14 out of the 39 poems (one of which he radically reshapes) and adding a new poem. He gives this new notebook the imaginative and poignant title PREHISTORY OR ORIGIN. In 2006, the original manuscripts were found in the famous suitcases of his mother, which were discovered in the storage of his house.

His first collection has now been reconstituted and published by Agra Editions, with an introduction and literary editing by Giorgis Yatromanolakis and with the care of the poet's son, Leonidas Empeirikos. The title contains the beginning and the end of the arc: 1934—PREHISTORY OR ORIGIN. The volume includes the composition of 1934, the poems of 1933 that were excluded for personal reasons (a poem for Nikola Kalas, etc.) and political reasons (revolutionary poems) as well as the last two poems of Prehistory or Origin that he composed in 1971-72 at the end of his life.

The volume also contains 3 sketches by painter George Gounaropoulos, which he prepared in October 1934 specifically for the anticipated publication. The poet, 40 years after his death, continues to bring his gifts to the lovers of his work.

BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

ANDREAS EMPEIRIKOS was born in 1901 in Braila, Romania, and died in Athens in 1975. From 1926 to 1931, he was in Paris, undergoing psychoanalysis with R. Laforgue and deciding to become a psychoanalyst. In 1933, he met André Breton, connected with him in 1934, and participated in the surrealist group in Paris.

In 1935, he delivered the famous lecture "On Surrealism" in Athens and published "Ypsikaminos," the quintessential surrealistic text. In 1945, "Endochora" was published, followed by "Writings or Personal Mythology" in 1960 and "Argonaut" or "Voyage of the Balloon" in 1964-65 in the periodical "Pali," with cuts. After his death, in 1980, the complete "Argonaut," the collection "Octana," and his play "The Four Little Girls," translated by the poet, were published.

In 1985, "All Generations" or "Today as Tomorrow and Yesterday" and "Armalas" or "Introduction to a City" (an introduction to a novel that was not written) were published. Between 1990-1991, the epic love novel "The Great Eastern" was published in eight volumes. In 2011, the anthology "Condensed Anthology of the Great Eastern," selected and edited by G. Yatromanolakis, was released.

Also, in 2001, the 100th anniversary of Andreas Empeirikos' birth was celebrated, initiated by E.KE.BI. In 2009, the volume "Andreas Empeirikos, Letters to Father, Brother Marakis, and Mother [1921-1935]" was released, in 2010 the book "On Surrealism: The 1935 Lecture," and in 2012 the trilogy "The Ornaments of Love and Armaments."

A.E. is the introducer of the science of psychoanalysis in Greece and the teaching psychoanalyst of D. Koureta and G. Zavitianos. The three, with the collaboration and contribution of Maria Bonaparte, formed the first Greek psychoanalytic group as part of S.P.P. (Psychoanalytic Society of Paris). He practiced psychoanalysis in Athens for sixteen years (1935-1951). Almost the entirety of Andreas Empeirikos' work is published by Agra Editions, with Giorgis Yatromanolakis as the editor.