Georgios Vizyinos
Georgios Vizyinos was a Greek short story writer and poet. His poems, which are considered influential in Greek literature, focus on ethnography and he was referred to as a "painter of souls". Most of his writings are self-narrative and self-investigative in nature.
After a rough childhood and unsuccessful attempts to marry a 14-year old student while he was in his 40s, Vizyinos tried to commit suicide and was admitted to a mental institution, where he died in 1896 at age 47, likely from syphilis.
Biography
Vizyinos was born as Georges Syrmas in Vize, to the north-west of Constantinople. He was one of five children from a destitute family. His father, Michael Syrmas, worked in lime kilns and died of typhus when Vizyinos was five years old; two of his sisters died in early childhood, including Anna, who died from accidental suffocation by her mother; and one of his brothers died in mysterious circumstances.In 1860, at age 10, he was sent to Constantinople to live his uncle and learn tailoring. When he was 18, as a protégé of the Archbishop of Cyprus, Sophronios II, he moved to Cyprus. In 1872, he was admitted to the Halki seminary on the island of Halki, where he studied religion and literature under poet Ilias Tantalidis.
He was introduced to George Zarifis, who funded his studies of philology in Athens; in 1874 and 1875, he studied at the Athens School of Philosophy. He was awarded a doctorate in Leipzig, Germany, where he studied under Wilhelm Wundt. In 1881, he completed his dissertation paper, titled "The Relation of Psychology and Pedagogy with the Children’s Play". He returned to Athens, where he was treated with disbelief and ridicule by the literary circles. He moved to Paris in 1882 and then London, where he mingled with Greek authors and became changed his craft from poems to short stories.
After Zarifis died in 1884, Vizyinos had to earn a living on his own. He became a secondary school teacher and, beginning in 1890, a professor of rhythmics and drama at the Athens Conservatoire. There, he fell in love with a 14-year old student, Bettina Fravasili, but the love was unrequited love, and after being cruelly rejected by the student's mother in a proposal to have her married, his mental illness was triggered.
In 1892, Vizyinos was in such a state of delusion that he dressed up and prepared for a wedding. When it did not happen, he tried to commit suicide and was instead saved by a friend.
Vizyinos was admitted to Psychiatric Hospital Dromokaition in Athens in April 1892.
He died there in 1896, aged 47, desolate, four years after being admitted, likely from syphilis. He received a public funeral with eulogies given by Aristotelis Kourtidis and Kostis Palamas. After his death, Vizyinos's mother cried so much that it led to blindness.