A historical and philological approach to the perception of Constantinople. Through the diaries, poetry, essays, official documents, and correspondence of Giorgos Seferis, the image of the city during the interwar period and the early post-war years is revived. Fourteen visits, some single-day and others multi-day, were not enough for Seferis to see Constantinople and experience it as he would have liked. On his last trip, departing on March 30, 1951, he noted in his diary: "I bid farewell to the city at noon, not without sorrow; I did not see it as much as I would have liked."
He had first visited it in 1928 almost indifferently. He left filled with its donation. The city had broadened his feelings for Hellenism and had offered him a different perception of History, beyond the ethnocentric view. He bid farewell to it as the capital of two empires, the Byzantine and the Ottoman, with mixed feelings, premonitions, and concerns for the future. [...]