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 A towering man with a brooding
presence and a shock of wavy hair, Theodorakis's
work evoked a progressive, democratic vision of
the world, though his political struggles
reflected a darker side of Greece rarely seen by
visitors.
As news of his death at home in Athens at the
age of 96 swept across the country of 11
million, authorities declared three days of
mourning and tributes poured in from across the
political spectrum.
"Today we lost a part of Greece's soul. Mikis
Theodorakis, Mikis the teacher, the
intellectual, the radical, our Mikis has gone,"
said Culture Minister Lina Mendoni.
Theodorakis introduced a carefree image of
Greece to the world in the 1960s with "Zorba",
the earthy soundtrack to a movie starring
Anthony Quinn as the lovable, eponymous rogue
who dances barefoot on a Cretan beach.
But, at what was a tumultuous time in Greek
history, he also came to epitomise the bitter
struggles of class resistance with the thumping
intensity of his "Romiosini" (Greekness) cycle
of songs that became anthems for the political
left.
Praising a man he dubbed the "Universal Greek",
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said: "We had
all forgotten that he was a mere mortal. But his
legacy of music, his political activism and his
service to the nation in times of crisis lives
on."
Greece's Communist party KKE called
Theodorakis's body of work "a constant
confrontation with injustice and defeatism, of
new struggles and resistance".
It also released a letter Theodorakis penned to
the party last year in which he stated: "I want
to leave this world as a Communist."
JAILED AND TORTURED
Born on the Greek island of Chios on July 29,
1925, Theodorakis was repeatedly jailed for his
beliefs.
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 He was arrested in 1947,
accused of being a sympathiser with guerrilla
forces in the civil war that broke out soon
after World War Two between right-wing royalists
and left-wing popular forces.
Sent to a notorious camp on the island of
Makronisos in 1948, he was beaten and tortured,
had his legs broken and on one occasion was
buried alive and left for dead. He was released
in August 1949.
Theodorakis entered politics in 1963 after his
friend Grigoris Lambrakis, a left-wing lawmaker,
was murdered during a peace demonstration. The
Costa Gavras film “"Z", scored by Theodorakis,
was based on the killing.
The composer was elected to Lambrakis's seat in
February 1964. When a military junta seized
power in April 1967, he went underground,
working against the coup until his arrest and
imprisonment later that year.
He remained in jail - where he was again
tortured - until international pressure helped
secure his release in April 1970.
He served as a deputy for the newly legalised
Communist Party from 1981 until 1986, but began
to have doubts about the left and abandoned
politics.
He returned to parliament in 1989, but this time
for the conservatives, run by Constantine
Mitsotakis, father of the current Prime
Minister.
“"I'm not a communist or social democrat or
anything else. I'm a free man," he told Reuters
in an interview during the 1990s.
(Reporting by George Georgiopoulos and Michele
Kambas; additional reporting by Renee Maltezou;
editing by Robin Pomeroy and John Stonestreet)
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