Nikos Kazantzakis on Palestine, Jerusalem, and the Zionist movement: literary and historical considerations

This article examines Kazantzakis’ travel writing in his 1926 newspaper series on ‘the Land of Palestine’, which introduces Zionism, and in his posthumously published chapter ‘Jerusalem’ in Journeying (1961). Revisiting the relation between the two, I argue that each is to be seen as a distinct work. While free from the antisemitic sentiment of Venizelist circles, the Greek author's reportage has three important silences – and these are matched by a sweeping lack of scholarly interest in this material. This article hopes to generate renewed interest so that Kazantzakis’ 1926 reportage may help construe a more complex reception of Zionism in interwar Greece.