ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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"Tais Afi" - a historical novel (the author defined as "historical and fantastic") of the Soviet writer Ivan Antonovich Efremov, published in 1972; the last work of the writer. The action takes place in the era of Alexander the Great and Ptolemy I. The central idea of the novel is the equality of all people in the field of the spirit, the idea of a woman as the crown of evolution. The main character of the writer made a real historical persona - the famous hetera Tais. The plot fully reproduces the testimony of Plutarch, Arrian, Diodorus, and the assessment of the role of Tais of Athens in the academic studies of A. Bonnard and G. Lamb.

In the center of the work is a historical event known from ancient sources: the burning of the Persian capital of Persepolis by the companion of the Macedonian conqueror. Tais of Athens combines philosophical chapters and dynamic action. Tais travels throughout the ancient world, gaining knowledge, maturity and wisdom, moving from Athens to Sparta, through Crete to Egypt, then, with Alexander’s army to Babylon and Ekbatana. At the end of the novel, returning as queen, wife of Ptolemy, to Egypt, Tais renounces power and goes to Uranopolis. The burning of the royal palace symbolizes the destruction of an empire based on hierarchy and oppression. The great commander intended to unite the peoples of the West and the East in homonoia, equality in reason, but did not succeed: victory over the Persians was followed by the usual enslavement of peoples.

The first publication (strongly abbreviated) - in the magazine "Young Guard" with illustrations by I. Shalito and G. Boyko in 1972 (No. 7 - pp. 8-83, No. 9 - pp. 75-160, 193-240, No. 10 - pp. 103-160, 193-221, No. 11 - pp. 142-192, 225-267), followed by numerous publications. The text of the novel without censorship of the author's manuscript was first published in 1992. In 2013, a translation of the novel into Italian was published, which almost instantly became a bibliographic rarity.

Plot
The novel opens with the author’s introduction with the justification of the motives for choosing the heroine and the necessary historical information and consists of seventeen chapters and a brief epilogue.

The action begins in 337 BC, when Tsarevich Alexander and his closest friends - Ptolemy, Nearchus and Hephaestion, meet a very young, seventeen-year-old, but already famous hetera Tais on a sea bath in Athens. She was the daughter of an Athenian and a Cretan woman, inherited her mother's appearance, but because her parents' marriage was invalid, she was sent to the heter school in Corinth. After an evening with friends, Tais chooses Ptolemy and joins him in a freshly plowed field. Leaving Athens after a friend, the prince, he gives Tais a promise to become king and make her his queen. After the destruction of Thebes, Tais buys at the slave market a young Theban Hesion, the daughter of the philosopher Astiochus. In an effort to learn the fate of her father, Tais turns to Aristotle, who founded his Lyceum in Athens, causes the wrath of his students, and she is saved by a Spartan friend Egesihor, who received a military education. All forced to flee Athens