Culture January 1, 1

Nikos Stabakis introduces this anthology by noting the conspicuous absence of Greece—its classical tradition a symbol of the “insipid rationality” against which André Breton and his circle rebelled—from the “Surrealist Map of the World” printed in Variétés in 1929. For most viewers of that map, the omission of Greece from a minuscule Europe comprising only Germany, an anachronistic Austro-Hungary, and a bull’s-eye dot for Paris is probably far less noticeable than that of, say, the United States, or the fact that New Guinea is roughly four times the size of Australia. It is true, though, that to this day Greek