Stratis Doukas
Biography
Stratis Doukas was born in 1895 Moschonisia, now Cunda Island in Turkey. He enrolled in the Faculty of Law of the University of Athens and lived with Photis Kontoglou, with whom he had been friends since high school.
He interrupted his studies after the outbreak of the First World War and visited Lesbos and Mount Athos. later he volunteered for the National Defense. He fought in Macedonia and Asia Minor and was wounded. He retired from the army in 1923 and focussed on spreading Asia Minor folk art and handicrafts (pottery and tapestry) in Greece, while at the same time he organized painting exhibitions with works by Photis Kontoglou and Spyros Papaloukas .After a serious illness in 1927 and his recovery in Thessaloniki, he took up painting and toured the Macedonian province twice, an experience that gave him material for a journalistic investigation that he published in the newspaper Proia. From 1937 to 1939 he worked as secretary of the Thessaloniki Tourist Board and during the Greco-Italian War of 1940-41 he served as an officer.
He took part in the National Resistance. He was arrested and imprisoned by the German occupiers for his actions. After the liberation, he served in the clinics of the International Red Cross and worked for with various magazines.
In 1962 he left to undergo prostate surgery in Moscow . The operation was ultimately not performed and Doukas spent the rest of his life bedridden, continuing to write. He died in 1986. As well as his fictionalised memoir of his experience as a prisoner of war, he wrote various short pieces.
Other links
Stratis Doukas
Stratis Doukas (in Greek)
Bibliography
(Only works published in English)