"Lu Xun – Nikos Kazantzakis. The meeting of two giants of literature" - Sculptural composition unveiling cultural event at The Nikos Kazantzakis Museum
The Nikos Kazantzakis Museum, staying true to the path opened by the author himself with his travels to China, has developed close ties with this distant country. Leading examples are its twinning with the Museum of the great Chinese writer Lu Xun (2012), the "Travelling China" Arts and Literature Festival organized with great success in Myrtia and Heraklion (2019) and the signing of a new memorandum of cooperation between of two museums in 2023. The Lu Xun Museum is located in Shaoxing, the hometown of this great writer.
Lu Xiun wrote short stories, essays, poems, made a lot of translations and is considered as the founder of Modern Chinese Literature. Chinese friends of the Kazantzakis work called the great writer "Chinese Kazantzakis" and Kazantzakis "Greek Lu Xiun".
As part of the collaboration between the two museums, the Shaoxing Lu Xun Museum undertook the construction of two identical statues to be placed at their entrances. The life-size bronze sculptural composition represents Lu Xun and Nikos Kazantzakis discussing. Sculptor is the great artist Wu Weishan, Director of the National Art Museum of China, who has also sculpted the statues of Socrates and Confucius in the Ancient Agora of Athens.
The unveiling ceremony of the Lou Xun Museum's donation to The Nikos Kazantzakis Museum will take place on Wednesday, June 19, 2024, at 20:00 in the square of The Nikos Kazantzakis Museum in Myrtia village, Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
The ceremony will take place as part of the event "Lu Xun – Nikos Kazantzakis: The meeting of two giants of literature" organized by The Nikos Kazantzakis Museum to give an additional dimension to the Greek-Chinese friendship. In addition to the unveiling ceremony, the event will include an academic speech by Elena Avramidou, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Peking University on "Nikos Kazantzakis and Lu Xun: Convergences and divergences". Also, videos will be shown highlighting Kazantzakis' and the Museum's timeless ties with China. The event will close with a concert with the leading soloists Katerina Hatzinikolaou on the violin and Apostolos Palios on the piano who will perform great works of Chinese and Greek music by the composers Yiannis Konstantinidis, Mikis Theodorakis, Siχong Ma and Huawei Huang.
Xun and Kazantzakis never actually met in their lifetime. Kazantzakis, however, knew of the existence of Lu Xun, "the so-called Gorky of China", as he characteristically wrote. However, these two giants of literature are now "talking" through their museums. This sculptural composition will henceforth function as an open channel of communication between Modern Greek and Chinese civilization, but also a bridge that will in a way unite the places of origin of the two authors.
The event is a co-organization of the Nikos Kazantzakis Museum and the Region of Crete with the support of the Municipality of Archano-Asterousia and the Cultural Association of Myrtia.
Transport sponsors: Aegean Airlines, Minoan Lines, KTEL Heraklion-Lassithi
Hospitality sponsors: Marin Hotel, Capsis-Astoria Hotel
Major sponsor: Evangelos Marinakis
