Kostas Kotzias

Kostis Kotzias (Athens, 1921 – Moscow, 5 November 1979) was a Greek prose writer and playwright. His best-known work is The Smoked Sky, which was also made into a television series on ERT in 1985. He was the brother of fellow writer Alexandros Kotzias. Kostas Kotzias was born in Athens, the firstborn son of Panagiotis Kotzias from Dimitsana and Xena née Alexandropoulou from Chalkida. His brother is also the writer Alexandros Kotzias. The Kotzias family was wealthy, but was financially devastated during the German occupation, as his father had already died in 1936. He finished high school at Leonteio Lyceum and enrolled in the Medical School of the University of Athens, but interrupted his studies in the last year and after a period of involvement in construction businesses together with his brother, he turned to journalism and literature. Although he studied medicine, he stopped his studies and worked as a builder with his brother for a while. Eventually he devoted himself to literature. He was a member of EAM and EPON during the period of Occupation and resistance and a founding member of the Union of Young Greek Writers (1943) and later an active member of the left. After the seizure of power by the junta of Colonels George Papadopoulos in 1967, Kotzias fled to Russia. He settled in Moscow, where he wrote and developed a very rich political and anti-dictatorship activity, as a result of which his Greek citizenship was taken away from him until the change of government and…