Tony Harrison: A Maybe Day in Kazakhstan

Length / Form Film Poem

Allusion to Classical figure Argonauts, Kleisthenes

Allusion to Classical place Athens, particularly the Acropolis, the Parthenon and the Theatre of Dionysus. Juxtaposed references to Georgia and a golden fleece suggest Colchis (now Western Georgia).

Relationship to Classical text The deportation of ethnic Greeks from the Black Sea coast to central Asia, under Stalin, and the journey of some on to Greece is figured as a reverse Argonautica.

Classical/post-Classical intertexts Commissioned to mark the 2,500th ‘anniversary of democracy’/Kleisthenes’ reform of the Athenian constitution. The film reflects on the aspirations of a recently democratised Kazakhstan, following the break-up of the former Soviet Union.