Nikos Kazantzakis Museum

“My father’s family comes from a village called Varvari”, wrote the famous Cretan author Nikos Kazantzakis in his book Report to Greco. This village, known today as Mirtia (15 km from Heraklion) is where the Museum of Nikos Kazantzakis is located. It was one of the first museums in Greece to be dedicated to a particular author.

The idea of founding this museum was conceived by the theatrical set designer Yorgos Anemoyannis, who eventually managed to achieve his dream. The building which houses the museum was acquired thanks to his consistent and persistent efforts, while he also took active part in putting the collection together, with the invaluable help of Eleni Kazantzaki (the author’s wife) and many other contributors.

The museum was inaugurated on June 27 1983, by Melina Mercouri, the Greek Minister of Culture at the time. Since then, it has welcomed thousands of visitors from all over the world. Visiting the museum, one has the opportunity to become acquainted with the personality of the author, by way of his personal correspondence and diaries, various other personal items and momentos from his travels, seldom published photographs, models of theatrical sets and costumes from theatrical performances of his plays, rare audio-visual material, as well as works of art inspired by his books.

The museum was thoroughly renovated in 2008, adopting a new collection display concept. This resulted in amore functional and visitor-friendly museum, especially for younger visitors, such as to successfully communicate the importance of the diverse works of Kazantzakis, and to show all aspects of the versatile personality of this great writer and thinker of the 20th century.

The permanent collection was subsequently enriched with more acquisitions that are related to Kazantzakis with one way or another. With the renewed display concept and the use of modern technology, these exhibits have helped create a more engaging presentation, which is also philologically accurate, up-to-date and dynamic.

An effort has been also made to highlight the cognitive and educational role of the museum, by way of setting up educational programmes, multimedia productions, publications, workshops, etc, activities that focus right where the museum aims.