On November 1, 1755, a powerful and destructive earthquake occurred in Lisbon, Portugal, which was felt as far as Venice. Tsunamis and fires followed, resulting in the destruction of a large part of the city. The death toll reached 20,000! The event shocked Europe, intellectuals, and ordinary people, who questioned who was responsible for the terrible disaster: nature, God, or man? Or all of them together?
Intellectuals clashed, giving different interpretations. In 1756, Voltaire published a poem titled "Poeme sur le desastre de Lisbonne" [Poem on the Disaster of Lisbon], expressing his contemplation on the subject. The same year, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote a letter addressed to Voltaire, in response to his aforementioned poem.

We have the special pleasure to present for the first time in Greek this letter in the book you are holding in your hands (bilingual edition). We approached Dimitris Kitsikis to translate it, appreciating his deep knowledge of both the Greek and French languages, and we warmly thank him for immediately accepting our proposal. We consider his translation truly poetic and, as the Greek Rousseau himself says, it manages to linguistically transport us to the 18th century. At the same time, the text is highly interesting and prompts us to reflect on the parallels with the present era, in light of the current circumstances of the so-called pandemic - a disaster for humanity, not primarily in terms of the disease itself, but in terms of how we, as a society, react to it.