The first impression of a visitor entering the ground floor hall in Benaki Piraeus Museum it is a bright red color and a feeling of joy and optimism. And it suits her very well. Alki Zey, in how she encountered the adventure of life and writing. So even before starting the tour in the area where the exhibition “Alka’s Great Walk” takes place, we, the visitors, already felt a little closer to her, a piece of her era and her books, inspired by great ideals and visions.

December marked the centenary of the birth of Alkis Zeya, so the year 2023 is dedicated to her within the framework of the Literary Years institution, which has been operating in Ministry of Defence. The exhibition, created by the Ministry in collaboration with the Benaki Museum, is dedicated to a prolific, distinguished and especially loved by generations of readers of all ages writer. He refers in detail to her work, but at the same time tells the story of a woman “who lived a rich and full life, inextricably linked with the critical events and events of the 20th century in Greece”, as exhibition curator, culturologist comments historian and head of YYPOA Literature Sissi Papatanasiou. “From my young years until now, let’s not say exactly how many there are, because I myself will be scared, I have survived a war, two civil wars, two dictatorships and two refugees. I experienced them not as a mere observer, but each time taking an active part, and even if I wanted to, these events that shook our country could not affect my work. Involuntarily, my life became entangled in History, and I became a part of it. So my writing work, whether I want it or not, is full of History… If I manage to get the kids to at least listen to it, the future will tell,” said Alki Zey herself.

Children must listen to it. And not only that, because the “Big Moose Walk” will appeal to both the young and the old. The graphic design of photographer Maria Stephosis created a chronology on one side of the hall – a panorama of almost eight decades of the last century. Toward the end of the route—and as we follow the author from her birthplace, Athena, Samos, and Chios to Rome, Paris, Tashkent, and Moscow—is her secretary with Faber pencils. This is the first position she has acquired in her life when she finally settled in Greece after the fall of the April dictatorship. Prior to that, she wrote wherever and whenever she could: at the kitchen table in the small houses of the former Soviet Union, where she lived with her family – theater actor Giorgos Sevastikoglu and two children, Irini and Petros – or in a cafe when they were in exile in Paris during the junta.

Books and heroes

The ergobiographical tour, complete and impeccably documented, presents archival materials, the personal effects of Alkis Zeiss and anecdotal records in display cases.

The other side of the hall is dedicated to books and their characters, which magically come to life under the spotlights, – signs the sketch of the exhibition stage designer Pavlos Thanopoulos. The complete and impeccably documented biographical tour showcases archival material, personal effects and anecdotal records in display cases. Oral documents and audio-visual material have been collected, and a documentary film “The Big Elk Walk” by Marguerite Manda is shown in a small cinema. A huge board is filled with the covers of her books, translated into all languages ​​of the world, and the Raspberry Theater will host events and discussions with young school students who will visit the exhibition.

“It took memory and a lot of love to write the story of my life. In a novel, you can say whatever you think, move your characters however you want, make them say whatever you think,” wrote Alki Zey. “But when the faces are real, you can’t be so wrong … Fortunately, my sister exists, and her memory is infallible, and her life is intertwined with mine. As soon as he read what I wrote, he said, “This is how we lived, this is who we met and fell in love with.” “Now,” I tell her, “that you remembered our history again, do you want us to live a different life?” “Nothing,” he replied spontaneously. “Nothing,” I added.

The duration of the exhibition is until 30.04.