The History of Violence and the Culture of Ascesis in the Literature thought of Alexandros Kosmatopoulos

In this study, we attempt to examine two important parameters that characterize the literary work of Alexandros Kosmatopoulos, the presence of violence in the time course of human history and the culture of asceticism, as it is revealed in the textual monuments of the hesychastic Orthodox tradition. For this reason, our interest is focused on author’s two books that were published in the same year, and we believe that they could constitute a monograph on the history of violence and its therapeutic treatment by the hesychastic culture of the Desert Fathers. Our goal is therefore, on the one hand, to highlight those historical elements that describe the presence of violence in Byzantine and Greek history in the first book entitled The Field of Blood, and on the other hand, to present the author’s position on the treatment of violence through the culture of asceticism as it is depicted in his work Theriomachia.