Early Life and Education
Kavvadias was born in Nikolsk-Ussuriysky (now Ussuriysk) in the Primorsky Krai region of Russia, part of historic Outer Manchuria. This fact, according to him, linked him emotionally to the Far East, expressed in his short story Li. His parents were Greeks from the island of Cefalonia and as a young child he had the opportunity to travel extensively. His family returned for a few years to their home island and finally moved to Pireus, Athens' port, in 1921. He wrote his first poems while in grammar school.
After graduating from high school in Pireus he took the entrance exams to become a doctor in 1928. His father fell sick that same year and young Kavvadias was forced to get a job as an office clerk in a shipping office to help his family. He lasted only a few months there and after his father's death, he went on board the freighter ship Agios Nikolaos (Saint Nicholas) as a sailor. He worked for a few years on freighter boats, coming back home always wretched and penniless. He decided to get the captain diploma, but settled for a radio officer's diploma. He got it in 1939, but by that time World War II had started and he was sent to fight in Albania.
During the German occupation of Greece, he joined the National Liberation Front (EAM) and became a member of the Communist Party. When the war was over in 1944, he embarked and traveled continuously as a radio officer all over the world until November 1974, having the opportunity to get to know the sea and its exotic ports. Through his experiences in the sea he collected material for his poetry. Returning from his last trip and as he was preparing the publication of his third collection of poems, he died suddenly from a stroke on February 10, 1975, after only three months off sea.
His work is filled with references to life in the sea. His poetry was popularized in Greece, partly because some of his poems have been set to music by Thanos Mikroutsikos in his very popular albums Σταυρός του Νότου (Southern Cross) and Γραμμές των Οριζόντων (Horizons' Lines).
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