Crete, or love, not infatuation

"Mysterious Crete: Freedom, History, Legend" by Piotr Goćek is a love letter to the largest Greek island. It's worth noting that we're talking about mature love—one that isn't content to contemplate the beautiful surface; it yearns for something more.

And Crete has more to offer. Piotr Gociek believes that this island is "in a class of its own. It contains everything." He takes the reader on a journey not only to places like Knossos and Gortyna, but also to cultural sites connected to Crete. So, of course, there are the books and films about "Zorba the Greek," but also the works of Zbigniew Herbert, Lawrence Durell, Homer, and the paintings of El Greco. The author also recalls historical events, both from ancient Greece and the 20th century – including the German conquest of the island in May 1941, which began with the largest airborne operation of World War II conducted by the Third Reich. This makes the journey the author proposes both a horizontal one, so to speak, and a journey inward and backward.

Piotr Gociek points out that Crete is one of those places in the world that has suffered more than one catastrophe and often had to be rebuilt on ashes (which Poles, in particular, understand perfectly and can empathize with). "Neolithic, Minoan, Mycenaean, Egyptian, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Venice, Turkey, German. Fires, earthquakes, invasions, wars," the publicist enumerates.

So while Crete's landscapes are impressive, the sea beautiful, and the weather breathtaking, the key to understanding the love this writer and publicist has for the island lies elsewhere. As Piotr Gociek says: "I also travel because it's a place for me to meditate on what was, what is, and what might be. So I touch stones carved by the hands of Minoan builders, I touch the columns of Greek temples, I gaze at Roman mosaics, I search for St. Paul's footprints in the sand, I examine the traces of Turkish keels in the walls of monasteries. I wonder if it was easier for the Cretan insurgents to escape the Turkish thugs by sea, or perhaps for the Polish insurgents to escape across the partitioned borders. I wander the Venetian walls, I pray at the cemetery of Allied soldiers. I am on a pilgrimage to the past, though I'm not heading there."

And one more of the final quotes: "Without a past, we are nowhere and going nowhere. We hang in timelessness." ©℗

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