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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 13, 2007 8:04:26 GMT -5
 3.Athletes
GREEK OLYMPIC GAMES MEDALS Year City Athletes Medals (gold, silver, bronze) 1896 Athens 230 46 (10, 19, 17) 1904 Saint Louis 20 4 (0, 3, 1) 1908 London 20 4 (0, 3, 1) 1912 Stockholm 29 2 (1, 0, 1) 1920 Antwerp 52 1 (0, 1, 0) 1956 Melbourne 13 1 (0, 0, 1) 1960 Tokyo 48 1 (1, 0, 0) 1968 Mexico 44 1 (0, 0, 1) 1972 Munich 59 2 (0, 2, 0) 1980 Moscow 41 3 (1, 0, 2) 1984 Los Angeles 61 2 (0, 1, 1) 1988 Seoul 58 1 (0, 0, 1) 1992 Barcelona 72 2 (2, 0, 0) 1996 Atlanta 121 8 (4, 4, 0) 2000 Sydney 155 13 (4, 6, 3) 2004 Athens 440 (223 m, 217 w) 16 (6,6,4) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FROM WIKIPEDIA. The following list is not complete...i remember the golden olympic medal of Stelios Migiakis in Moscow olympics,1980.Also,i dont see the golden medals of Melisanidis and the bronze of Piros Demas.There might be more missing names...Olympic gold medalists for GreeceA Nikolaos Andriakopoulos B Thomas Bimis C Constantine II of Greece D Pyrros Dimas G Nikolaos Georgantas Ioannis Georgiadis H Fani Halkia I Ilias Iliadis K Kakhi Kakhiashvili Nikolaos Kaklamanakis Perikles Kakousis Pantelis Karasevdas Konstantinos Kenteris Aristidis Konstantinidis L Spiridon Louis M Ioannis Malokinis Ioannis Mitropoulos O Georgios Orphanidis P Voula Patoulidou Ioannis Phrangoudis Leonidas Pyrgos S Nikolaos Siranidis T Dimosthenis Tampakos Konstantinos Tsiklitiras Athanasia Tsoumeleka Olympic silver medalists for GreeceA Joannis Andreou Nikolaos Andriakopoulos Sotirios Athanasopoulos B Niki Bakoyianni C Spiridon Chasapis D Hrysopiyi Devetzi Michalis Dorizas G Nikolaos Georgantas Miltiades Gouskos K Nikolaos Kaklamanakis K cont. Telemachos Karakalos Dionysios Kasdaglis Anastasia Kelesidou Georgios Kolettis M Mirela Manjani N Alexandros Nikolaidis Stamatios Nikolopoulos O Georgios Orphanidis P Panagiotis Paraskevopoulos Demetrios Petrokokkinos Pavlos Pavlidis P cont. Antonios Pepanos Petros Persakis Ioannis Phrangoudis T Dimosthenis Tampakos Ekaterini Thanou Alexandros Theofilakis Ioannis Theofilakis Konstantinos Tsiklitiras Georgios Tsitas V Kharilaos Vasilakos X Thomas Xenakis Olympic bronze medalists for GreeceC Efstathios Chorophas Stephanos Christopoulos Ioannis Chrysafis D Evangelos Damaskos Themistoklis Diakidis Dimitrios Drivas G Nikolaos Georgantas Dimitrios Golemis K Filippos Karvelas K cont. Artiom Kiouregkian L Dimitrios Loundras M Mirela Manjani Ioannis Mitropoulos Nikolaos Morakis N Alexandros Nikolopoulos P Georgios Papasideris Konstantinos Paspatis Petros Persakis Ioannis Phrangoudis P cont. Perikles Pierrakos-Mavromichalis R Georgios Roubanis S Georgios Saridakis Konstantin Spetsiotis T Ioannis Theodoropoulos Nicolaos Trikupis Konstantinos Tsiklitiras V Sotirios Versis ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- but here's a much better list...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Greece_at_the_Olympics ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_HymnThe Olympic Hymn (Olympiakós Ýmnos), also known informally as the Olympic Anthem, is a choral cantata by opera composer Spyridon Samaras, with lyrics by Greek poet Kostis Palamas.The anthem was performed for the first time for the ceremony of opening of the first edition at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Both poet and composer were the choice of the Greek Demetrius Vikelas, who was the first President of the International Olympic Committee.The anthem by Samaras and Palamas was declared the official Olympic Anthem by the International Olympic Committee in 1958 at the 54th Session of the IOC in Tokyo, Japan. Since 1960, it has been used at the opening ceremonies of each Olympic Games, and also during its closing ceremonies as well. |
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 13, 2007 8:05:05 GMT -5
GREECE AS A EUROPEAN CHAMPION
Eurobasket 1987In 1987 Greece was the Eurobasket host. That competition (commonly called Eurobasket 1987) was the 25th regional championship held by FIBA Europe. Twelve national teams affiliated with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) entered the competition. Athens was the location of the event. Greece won the tournament with a final game against the USSR. The Greek squad consisted of Panagiotis Giannakis, Panagiotis Fasoulas, Fanis Christodoulou, Nikos Stavropoulos, Argiris Kambouris, Nikos Linardos, Panagiotis Karatzas, Michalis Romanidis, Nikos Filippou, Liveris Andritsos, Memos Ioannou, the MVP of the tournament Nick Galis, and was coached by Kostas Politis. The national team's two point victory (103-101) over the Soviets in the final made basketball the national team sport overnight. The points in the games were scored by Nick Galis 296 (averaging 37 per game - top scorer of the tournament and MVP), Panagiotis Giannakis 101, Panagiotis Fasoulas 98, Fanis Christodoulou 70, Argiris Kambouris 53, Liveris Andritsos 24, Mixalis Romanidis 18, Memos Ioannou 16, Nikos Phillipou 16, Linardos 4, Karatzas 2, Stavropoulos 1. The next year, Greece was poised for its first Olympics appearance in 36 years, but it was not to be. Disappointing performances saw the team bow out in pre-olympic competition. During the very next European championship, however, Greece again reached the final. Greece beat the Soviet Union in the semifinal, before bowing to a superior Yugoslavian team in the final. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Eurobasket 2005During Eurobasket 2005, Greece advanced from the group phase in second place, with two victories and one defeat and then beat Israel 67-61 in an elimination game to reach the quarter-finals. There they faced Russia, beating them 66-61. In the semifinals, Greece beat France with a narrow 67-66 victory. France led by 7 with 1 minute to go, but Greece won the game with a last-second three-pointer by Dimitris Diamantidis from the top of the key. In the Final, Greece beat Germany 78-62, and were crowned European Champions for the second time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2004 European Football Championship On May 23, 2004 Greece coach Otto Rehhagel named a 23-man squad for the Euro 2004 championships which took place in Portugal from June 12 to July 4. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- National volleyball teamBronze medal in european championship (1987)
The National Men Volley Ball team ranks amongst the best, on a global scale, following a continually upward path since 1952, when it was founded. It has offered our country moments of thrill by achieving important distinctions both at a European and Global scale. Team's Milestones: bronze medal at the Gent European Medallistship in 1987, 9th place at the Men's 2003 World League, 7th place at the 2003 Men's World Medallistship, 9th place at the 2003 European Medallistship. BEST NATIONAL TEAM PLACINGS Olympic Games Men: 5th in 2004 Olympic Games Women: 9th in 2004 World Championships Men: 6th in 1994 World Championships Women: 11th in 2002 World League Men: 5th in 2004 European Championships Men: 3rd in 1987 European Championships Women: 8th in 1991 Universiades Men: 7th in 1985 Universiades Women: 17th in 2003 Mediterranean Games Men: 2nd in 1979 Mediterranean Games Women: 2nd in 2005 Medals in Junior Competitions Youth Boys World Championships: 2nd in 1997 Youth Boys European Championships: 2nd in 1997 EUROPEAN CUPS MEN Olympiakos Pireus (C2 1996, 2005) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greek national water polo teams
Member aetos ivan had written:men ....all the teams...those guys are wonderfull...present in all the Olympic turnaments since 1968(except 1976,i think) and participated in the tournaments of the Olympics in 1920,1924 and 1948...3rd this year in worldchampionship...4th in Olympic Games 2004...2nd in Fina cup 1997 etc women ....2004 Olympic Games...2nd ....2005 World League....1st ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greece U20 are the new European Championswww.eurobasket.com/Greece/basketball.asp?NewsID=166907Greek U20 National Team triumphed at home European Championship. They thus snapped the hegemony of Serbia in Europe winning the first title since 2002. Seven Greek players scored in double digits to pace the Hellenes to the huge success. France also got things to be proud of as they have shown the best result ever at the tournament. They finished in the third position in 2002. Edwin Jackson (191-G-89) was the catalyst for France early on as his seven points put the visitors on top. But Greece gradually took over and when Kostas Papanikolaou (203-F/G-90) drained back-to-back treys they led by 6 points into the second period. Konstantinos Sloukas (197-G-90) and Kostas Papanikolaou opened the second frame with two more three-pointers boosting the margin to 12 points. But Edwin Jackson and Antoine Diot (191-G-89) did not allow Greece to run away. France stayed within striking distance and trailed by just 6 points at halftime. Jackson dropped two trebles and Seraphin added a bucket to ensure an 8:0 start to the second half from Les Bleus. Edwin Jackson continued to pace France but Greece regained control late in the period. Charalampos Giannopoulos (206-F-89, agency: FCM) accounted for 5 points giving the hosts a 64:61 before the fourth quarter. Georgios Bogris (209-C/F-89) and Charalampos Giannopoulos extended the lead to 10 points early in the fourth quarter. Antoine Diot dragged France within 5 but Greece kept a tight grip on the game and rallied to the victory at the end. Kostas Papanikolaou finished with 15 points, 6 boards and 4 assists for Greece. Georgios Bogris, Charalampos Giannopoulos and Konstantinos Sloukas added 14 points each in the victory. Edwin Jackson responded with game-high 32 points and 8 boards for France. Antoine Diot chipped in 21 points, pulled down 7 boards and issued 6 assists in the loss. Greece U20: Kostas Papanikolaou 15, Georgios Bogris 14, Charalampos Giannopoulos 14, Konstantinos Sloukas 14 France U20: Edwin Jackson 32, Antoine Diot 21 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The greek national basketball teamwww.neoskosmos.com/news/en/Greece-bronze-european-basketballGreece win bronze at European Basketball Championships.Greece defeat Slovenia 57-56 in bronze medal playoff match This is the second time Greece will go home with a medal in the last four years after winning the gold at EuroBasket 2005.The greek national team was also the european champion back in 1987------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- APRIL 2010: A triple triumpth for greek women sports
A.European women's water polo Champions Cup (Vouliagmeni)
B.women's water polo LEN Trophy (Ethnikos)
C.Eurocup women's basketball (Athinaikos) english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90779/90867/6946546.html[glow=red,2,300]Vouliagmeni women water polo team[/glow] Greece's Vouliagmeni wins European women's water polo Champions Cup April 11, 2010 Greek team Vouliagmeni won on Saturday the European women's water polo Champions Cup, by beating Russia's Kinev Kirishi 10-7 in the final played on the Greek island of Corfu.Vouliagmeni wins the trophy for a second successive time. "I am so happy Vouliagmeni and Ethnikos won the two European cups and we will contest the European Super Cup," said coach Alexia Kammenou, referring to Ethnikos' win in women's water polo LEN Trophy final on Wednesday against Russia's Khanty-Mansiysk. Ethnikos' game was also played in Greece, as well as another game on Thursday which was won by the Greek team of Athinaikos at the women's European Basketball Cup after beating Russia's Nadezhda. "The win of our athletes proved we can achieve when we set targets and fight for them," Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou underlined in a message sent to congratulate the athletes. Source:Xinhua [glow=red,2,300]Ethnikos women's water polo team[/glow] women's water polo LEN Trophy by Maria Spiliopoulou ATHENS, April 10,2010(Xinhua) -- Greek team Vouliagmeni won on Saturday the European women's water polo Champions Cup, by beating Russia's Kinev Kirishi 10-7 in the final played on the Greek island of Corfu. Vouliagmeni wins the trophy for a second successive time. "I am so happy Vouliagmeni and Ethnikos won the two European cups and we will contest the European Super Cup," said coach Alexia Kammenou, referring to Ethnikos' win in women's water polo LEN Trophy final on Wednesday against Russia's Khanty-Mansiysk. Ethnikos' game was also played in Greece, as well as another game on Thursday which was won by the Greek team of Athinaikos at the women's European Basketball Cup after beating Russia's Nadezhda. "The win of our athletes proved we can achieve when we set targets and fight for them," Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou underlined in a message sent to congratulate the athletes. Editor: Zhang Xiang www.fibaeurope.com/cid_KNce8jInH7.... leMode_on.html [glow=red,2,300]Athinaikos women's basketball team[/glow] Sony Athinaikos captured the EuroCup Women title on Thursday night by completing a narrow two-legged triumph over Russian outfit Nadezhda.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.euroleague.net/final-four/barcelona-2011/panathinaikosPanathinaikos basketball club
 Panathinaikos wins sixth crown! Panathinaikos won its sixth Euroleague title on Sunday evening by holding off Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv 70-78 in the championship game of the 2011 Euroleague Final Four at Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greek women's water polo team European Water Polo Championship,Zagreb 2010. The Greek team took the silver medal. RANK TEAM 1st Russia 2nd Greece 3rd Netherlands 4. Italy 5. Hungary 6. Spain 7. Germany 8. Croatia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Women%27s_European_Water_Polo_Championship---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.hurriyetdailynews.com/olympiacos-crowned-europes-best-in-istanbul--.aspx?pageID=238&nid=20678
Olympiacos crowned Europe's best in Istanbul
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News Europe's champion was crowned in a fierce final game as Olympiacos and CSKA Moscow battled it out last night in Euroleague's final game in Istanbul. CSKA Moscow was enjoying a 19 points lead well into the third quarter until Olympiacos charged into victory in the final quarter. The heated game ended with a 62 to 61 end score, with Olympiacos claiming the title of Europe's best. Milos Teodosic of CSKA and Vassilis Spanoulis of Olympiacos outshined their peers by scoring 15 points each. After battling their way to Istanbul, four great teams to compete to be the greatest had been settled as CSKA Moscow, FC Barcelona Regal, Olympiacos Piraeus and then defending champion Panathinaikos. Olympiacos Piraeus has defeated FC Barcelona Regal as CSKA Moscow had joined in after overcoming Panathinaikos in the semifinals.
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 13, 2007 8:05:42 GMT -5
Wrestlers.Mike Zambidis "Iron" Mike Zambidis (born July 15, 1980) is a Greek kickboxer well respected in the kickboxing community due to his explosive fighting style.Career ISKA Balkan Champion (1997) World PROFI Europian Champion (1998) WOKA World Middleweight Champion (2000) Professional Boxing and Martial arts Board of Victoria World Super welterweight champion (2001) KING OF THE RING winner (Italy, 2002) K-1 WORLD MAX OCEANIA 2002 winner (2002) KING OF THE RING winner (Italy, 2003) A-1 WORLD COMBAT TOURNAMENT winner (2004) KING OF THE RING winner (Sydney, 2005) WKBF World Super welterweight Champion (2005) KING OF THE RING European Champion (2006) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Zambidiswww.ironmikezambidis.com/php/bio.php--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Arnaoutis From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Mike Arnaoutis (Mighty Mike) (born September 6, 1979 in Zefyri, Athens, Greece), is a professional boxer in the light welterweight (140 lb) division. Mike is currently the USBA light welterweight champion of the world. A title he is holding since his first fight under his new managers Jimmy Hartofilis and Dennis Mihalatos. The fight went the distance and Mighty Mike Arnaoutis was victorious against Harrison Cuello on March 8th 2008. Mike then fought undefeated Lanardo Tyner on May 9th 2008 in Ballys Atlantic City Hotel and Casino. Arnaoutis handed Tyner his first loss in a twelve round unanimous decision. On September 5th 2008 Mike knocked out Nasser Athumani also in Ballys Atlantic city via a third round knock-out. He is scheduled to fight Ben Ankrah in NYC's Roseland Ballroom on October 29th 2008. www.mightymikearnaoutis.us---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Londos Christopher Theophelus (January 2, 1897 - August 19, 1975) better known as "The Golden Greek" Jim Londos was a professional wrestler who was one of the most popular stars wrestling offered during the Great Depression. Career Jim Londos was born Christopher Theophelus in the late 1800's in Argos, Greece as the youngest of thirteen children. At age thirteen he ran away from home and eventually ended up immigrating to the United States. Working whenever he could Theophelus landed a job as a catcher in a carnival acrobatic act. It was during this period that he was exposed to professional wrestling and began training. Londos' first matches would be as "the Wrestling Plasterer" Christopher Theophelus, a gimmick that saw him coming to the ring in overalls. After a number of years he dropped this in favour of wrestling under the name Jim Londos and being a no nonsense wrestler. Londos was well known for his good looks and his well muscled physique. He capitalized on this by having himself matched up against the ugliest apponents he could find. This promotional tactic worked very well and Londos became one of the most popular wrestlers in the 1930's and early 40's. Considered to be a national hero in Greece, Londos once drew a crowd estimated to be made of nearly 100,000 fans to see one of his matches when he travelled there. Londos retired in 1946 and would spend the remainder of his life working for charitable organizations. His favorite charities dealt with Greek war orphans of the Second World War. He died of a heart attack August 19, 1975. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_LonginidisStan "The Man" Longinidis Stan "The Man" Longinidis (born June 25, 1965) is retired Greek-Australian kickboxer and 8 time World Champion of kickboxing. Stan is one of the few fighters to have won World titles in three different styles, International Rules Kickboxing, Full Contact and Muay Thai, others being Fred Royers and Ernesto Hoost. Titles 1984 Australian Amateur Super heavyweight Champion 1989 North American Heavyweight Champion 1989 United States Heavyweight Champion 1989 Intercontinental champion 1990 KICK Full Contact Super Heavyweight Champion 1991 WKA World Junior Heavyweight Champion 1992 WKA World Super Heavyweight Champion 1992 ISKA Oriental Super Heavyweight Champion 1993 ISKA Free Style Heavyweight Champion 1994 WAKO World Super Heavyweight Champion 1994 Thaipan 1 tournament winner) 1996 WMTC World Super Heavyweight Champion 1998 WKBF World Heavyweight ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Alan Katsidis Michael Alan Katsidis is a professional boxer of Greek descent. He is currently the World Boxing Organization (WBO) lightweight interim champion. His professional record is 23 wins with 20 KO's. He is undefeated.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Katsidis
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 13, 2007 8:12:56 GMT -5
Diaspora athletes.(thank you member Halvas for info about Nick Gallis!) Nikos GallisNew Jersey born Greek-American, former star of Seton Hall University, Nick Galis leads the Greek National Team to victory over powerful Yugoslavia and Russia in the 1987 Euro-Basket Championships, hosted in Athens that year. It is the beginning of a love affair with the game for the people of Greece and since that magical day you can't find a village without a court and the Greeks have become a European power themselves. Galis is the father of modern Greek basketball and continues to be a positive role model for the Greek youth. Some magic moments of Galis' carrer in ARIS from 80s and early 90s. download: rapidshare.de/files/23046566/GALIS.avi.html He has number 6, which will be raised in the roof of Alexandrion Melathron (Pale de Spor) on September in an international exhibition game to honour him that is expected to have thousands of Galis fans, who is by the way nowadays a successful businessman. a video with more amazing efforts of him (and co-players) in a Euroleague game of late '80s in Alexandreion stadium of Thessaloniki. download: rapidshare.de/files/23047923/TREISER_F.avi.html both videos created by Ierolohites tifozzi club. PS Today in history we won the European Championship 1987 by beating Soviet Union 103-101 and in the semi-finals Yugoslavia of Drazen Petrovic ! rapidshare.de/files/23046566/GALIS.avi.html rapidshare.de/files/23047923/TREISER_F.avi.html------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Karnazes
Dean KarnazesDean Karnazes (given name is Constantine Karnazes) is a Greek-American ultramarathon runner, and author of Ultramarathon Man (ISBN 1585422789) which sheds light on ultra endurance running for the general public. Among his accomplishments, Karnazes has: continuously run 350 miles in 80 hours and 44 minutes swam across the San Francisco Bay ran the inaugural South Pole Marathon in running shoes mountain biked 24 straight hours completed the 100 mile Western States Endurance Run eleven times, all under 24 hours won the 2004 Badwater Ultramarathon run the 199 mile Providian Satun Relay - single-handedly - six times designed a pair of laceless running shoes for North Face called the Anuva 50 BOA, due to be released in August of 2006 won the 2006 Vermont 100-mile Endurance Run Karnazes is a controversial figure in the ultramarathon world. His self-promotion is regarded by some as out of sync with the relatively self-effacing world of ultrarunning. Others welcome any attempt to increase the sport's popularity by anyone. Dean is generally regarded as friendly and encouraging, which in the ultrarunning world counts for more than a string of victories or publications. He holds graduate degrees in Science and Business. Karnazes, 43 years old, resides in San Francisco, California, with his wife, Julie, and two children, Alexandria and Nicholas. Dean is a sponsored athlete of The North Face. Karnazes plans to run the Endurance 50, billed as running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days, starting September 17 at the Lewis and Clark Marathon in St Louis. Eight of the fifty will be official marathons. Rather, Karnazes will only run the course of established marathons (such as the Boston Marathon). Karnazes will run the Boston course in mid-October (the race is normally held in April). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yiannis Kourosen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiannis_KourosYiannis Kouros (born February 13, 1956 in Tripoli, Greece) is a Greek ultramarathon runner based in Melbourne. He is sometimes called the "Running God" or the "Pheidippides Successor". As of June 2006, Yiannis is undefeated in any continuous world-class ultramarathon competition over 100 miles. He holds every men's world record from 100 to 1,000 miles, from 200 to 1,600 km, and from 1 day to 10 days. In 1991, Yiannis starred as Pheidippides in the movie A Hero's Journey about the history of marathon running. Yiannis has also contributed many literary and musical works, including over 1,000 poems (several of which appear in his book, Symblegmata (Clusters)), and the book The Six-Day Run of the Century. Tributes to Yiannis come from the world over, including from the Indian ultrarunner Arun Bhardwaj who named his son Yiannis. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.coachwyatt.com/harryagganis.htm
Harry AgganisThey called Harry Agganis "The Golden Greek." Today, with television making false gods of all sorts of disreputable characters who happen to be good athletes, America cries out for a role-model of Harry Agganis' stature. By all acounts, he was that rarest of athletes - a gentleman and a scholar. Not only was he a great athlete and movie-star handsome - 6-2, 200 pounds and built, in the words of teammates, "like a Greek god" - but he was a man of great humility and dignity - nobility, even - beloved by his teammates, by the people of the neighborhood where he was raised, by the entire city of Boston; he was a clean-living member of his Greek Orthodox Church; he was a son utterly devoted to his widowed mother. He was born April 30, 1930, the seventh and youngest child of George and Georgia Agganis, Greek immigrants who settled in the large Greek-American community of Lynn, Massachusetts. He was christened Aristotle George Agganis, but despite the fact that Greek was spoken in the Agganis home, the nickname "Ari" which his mother gave him eventually gave way to the Americanized "Harry." He grew up playing baseball and football on the sandlots of Lynn and attended Lynn Classical High, where his feats as a left handed quarterback drew crowds of 20,000 to the city's Manning Bowl in those sports-crazed days right after World War II. In his two seasons as starting quarterback, Classical was 21-1-1, and following his junior year, travelled to Miami to defeat Granby High, of Norfolk, Virginia, in a packed Orange Bowl stadium on Christmas Day. Tennessee's General Bob Neyland, who witnessed his performance, said, "That young man could step into any college backfield right now." (The team declined an invitation to a similar bowl game at the end of his senior season when Classical was told it could not bring its two black players.) In his senior year, 1947, a total of 160,000 people attended Lynn Classical's home games, and Harry, wearing number 33, just as he would in college, in honor of his idol, Redskins' quarterback Sammy Baugh, never disappointed them. In three seasons at Classical, he completed 326 of 502 passes for 4,149 yards and 48 touchdowns. He scored 24 touchdowns himself and kicked 39 extra points. Yet personal records were of little interest to him. In those days of quarterbacks calling their own plays, his high school coach, Bill Joyce, constantly had to urge him to throw more. On one occasion he even went so far as to tell Harry that if he didn't pass, he wouldn't play; Harry complied, naturally, but finally, after three quarters of play in which he was 23 of 32 for four touchdowns, he asked the coach, "Now can I let the other guys run?" Following his senior year, he was named the All-America High School Quarterback. So outstanding was he that he was offered scholarships by more than 75 colleges around the country. Notre Dame's Frank Leahy called him, "the finest prospect I've ever seen." But Harry had a strong sense of family obligation: his father had died when Harry was 16, and Harry decided to pass over much better-known programs and attend small-time Boston U. in order to remain closer to his widowed mother. It has been said that his decision to attend B.U. was influenced somewhat by the Pappas brothers, wealthy and prominent Greek-American food merchants who supported the school., and by Tom Yawkey, owner of the Red Sox, who hoped Harry's presence would draw larger college crowds to Fenway Park, where B.U. played its home games. (Since Harry was also a high school and semi-pro baseball player of considerable renown, it is probable that Mr. Yawkey may also have had the Red Sox' future interests in mind.) During the Agganis years at B.U., the Terriers achieved a national prominence they had never known before, have never known since, and will likely never know again (since B.U. dropped college football following the 1997 season). His presence at B.U. generated such excitement that his freshman year, at a time when frosh were ineligible to play varsity football, B.U.'s frosh game at Holy Cross drew 18,000 people on a Friday afternoon. Called up to serve in the Marines, he missed the 1950 season at B.U., instead playing service football and baseball for Camp LeJeune, North Carolina. Upon his return to B.U, he immediately picked up where he'd left off - arriving in Boston less than two days before the team's opener against William and Mary, he had exactly one hour of practice, then started and threw for two touchdowns in a B.U. win. His three varsity seasons at B.U. saw the Terriers compile a record of 17-10-1, playing out of their class against such powers as Miami and national champion Maryland with its famed Modzelewski brothers. The 1952 B.U. game against Maryland drew 40,000 people to Fenway Park. (The legendary Vin Scully's first network job was the radio broadcast of the 1949 B.U.-Maryland game, from the roof of Fenway.) Equally outstanding as a runner, passer, punter (46.5 yards average for three years) and defensive back (15 interceptions in one season). Harry set numerous B.U. records, yet he refused to enhance his personal glory by padding his personal stats. When his coach at Boston U., Buff Donelli, informed Harry that he should pass more because he was within eight touchdown passes of the national record with four games left, Harry told him, "Who wants records? Let's win the games!" He capped his college career by playing 59 minutes in the Senior Bowl game, throwing for two touchdowns intercepting two passes, and winning the Most Valuable Player award as the North won, 20-14. His team was coached by the Cleveland Browns' Paul Brown. He had already been drafted first by the Browns in the hope that he would be the successor to their All-pro quarterback Otto Graham, but despite being offered a then-record sum of money (said to be $50,000) to sign with the Browns, he chose instead to cast his lot with baseball - and with his beloved Red Sox., and the chance to remain near his mother. Baseball wasn't his best sport, but he said, "I've already proven myself in football. I don't know if I can make good in baseball - but I have the confidence I can." Not that he was all that bad in baseball - at the age of 14, during World War II, he was playing semi-pro ball against grown men, many of them major leaguers who had been drafted and were able to play ball while on weekend passes. As a high schooler, he played in all-star games in New York and Chicago. Characteristically, he signed with the Red Sox a week before baseball's "bonus baby" rule took effect so that he could spend time in the minor leagues. Had he waited a week, the Red Sox would have been forced to keep him with the big-league club for two years, and he might never have had the chance to develop. After one year in the minor leagues in Louisvile, where he finished second (by one vote) to Don Zimmer of St. Paul in the voting for American Association MVP, he was brought up to the Red Sox in 1954. In the Sox' home opener, he hit a triple that would have been an inside-the-park home run had he not been forced to slow down for the runner in front of him. Overall, his rookie season was only so-so; he batted .251 with 11 home runs. A highlight of his rookie year came when he managed to play in an afternoon game at Fenway Park and attend his graduation from B.U. that same evening. His two-run homer broke up a tie in a game that was threatening to go into extra innings, and then he was able to hurriedly change into his cap and gown in the clubhouse - much to the amusement of his teammates - before racing up Commonwealth Avenue to arrive just in time for graduation ceremonies. The next day's Boston Globe ran side-by-side photos - on the left, Harry Agganis crossing the plate with the winning run; on the right, Harry Agganis receiving his diploma from Boston University, under the headline "HARRY'S HEYDAY." True to character, he was unselfish with his new-found baseball wealth. When members of Lynn's Greek community threw a benefit dinner in his honor, he refused to keep any of the money raised, sending it instead to Loggonike, the little village in Sparta, Greece where his parents had come from, to be spent on athletic equipment for its children. He offered to move his mother out of the second-floor flat in which she had raised her family, but when she refused to move, he instead made a sizeable donation to Saint George's Greek Orthodox Church in Lynn. He as a man of strong faith. Wherever the Red Sox were on the road, he would seek out a Greek Orthodox Church. He was a man of intellectual dimensions as well, and enjoyed attending stage plays and musicals with his girfriend, Jean Allaire (who herself would go on to a long career on Boston television as the star of Miss Jean's Romper Room). His second year got off to a promising start, and he was hitting .313 (with a respectable slugging percentage of .45 in the early going, when he began having problems with his health. He was hospitalized briefly with pneumonia, but returned to action - perhaps too soon. On June 2 in Chicago he went 2-for-4 against the White Sox and was robbed of a third hit by a great catch by Jim Rivera. One of his hits, though, should easily have been a triple, but he had to pull up, exhausted, at second base. That night on the train, coughing and feverish, he contacted the trainer, who called Joe Cronin, the Red Sox GM, back in Boston. Cronin ordered Harry flown back immediately to Boston, where he was hospitalized with a case of pneumonia, along with phlebitis (an inflammation of the walls of veins) in his right leg. He would never leave the hospital. On June 27, 1955, as doctors sat him up in a chair for the first time since he was admitted, he suffered a massive pulmonary embolism (a blood clot which works its way to the lungs), and was dead within minutes. Harry Agganis, the Golden Greek, was dead at the age of 26, a life of personal and athletic promise left eternally unfulfilled. "Harry Agganis was one of the greatest," said Red Sox teammate Ted Williams, the all-time great who had been his mentor. His wake was attended by an estimated 30,000 people, and another 20,000 lined the streets as his funeral procession passed. He was buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in his native Lynn, next to his father. His mother, broken-hearted by the loss of her beloved Ari, joined them 12 years later. In 1974, Harry Agganis was inductd into the College Football Hall of Fame. Every year, the New England Sports Writers present the Harry Agganis Award to the outstanding New England college football senior. For 39 years, the Harry Agganis All-Star game has featured some of the state's top football players in a charity game. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lefter KucukandonyadisLefter Kucukandonyadis was one of the best footballers in Fenerbahce's history: Born in 1925. Started playing football at Taksimspor. Transferred to Fenerbahce in 1947. Also played for Nice(France) and Palermo(Italy). Dubbed ''the ordinarious professor'' because of his unmatched technique. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sotiris Ninis Sotiris Ninis is a young Greek footballer from the Greek minority of Albania currently playing for Panathinaikos football club in Athens,Greece. Playing Career He begun is career in 2004 as a youngster in Panathinaikos FC football academies, joining from feeder club Apollon Smyrnis. During these 2 years, Ninis became an integral part of Panathinaikos FC Youth Squad and his coaches believe him to be the next promising talent of Greek football. As a result, on December 22 the club directors offered him a 5 year contract and just 2 weeks after that day, in January 7 2007, Panathinaikos coach Victor Muñoz selected him in the main squad for the match against Aigaleo FC in Olympic Stadium (1-0 for Panathinaikos). His outstanding performance earned him the title of the Superleague Matchday MVP and he immediately became the hottest name in every Greek football quarter. He became the second youngest player ever to wear the club's shirt in a league match, at the age of sixteen (the first was Kostas Antoniou -15 years old- in 197 . In February 2006, he officially rejected a call to play for the Albanian Under-21 national team. On January 27, 2007 Ninis became the youngest Greek player to score in the history of the Professional Greek League at the age of 16 years, 8 months and 17 days. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.helleniccomserve.com/tompappas.html By Mary Papoutsy Hellenic Communication Service
Tom PapasAlthough his personality is reserved, this towering track and field athlete has just earned the title of World’s Greatest Athlete, an epithet which has filled his dreams for years. A native of Oregon, Pappas gives much of the credit for his success to his supportive and sports-minded family. In fact, Tom isn’t the first noted athlete in his family. He is quick to point out that his grandfather, who had also competed in the decathlon, was a semi-professional football player until he suffered a neck injury and switched to wrestling. His father, Nick, was the crew chief for a land-speed record set at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats. And both of his brothers also competed in multiple sports. A writer for the AHEPA Hellenic Heritage Foundation, Chris Mellas, indicated in 2000 that the three Pappas brothers, Paul, Tom, and Bill, held the world record for three brothers in the decathlon with a combined top score of 22, 558. Tom’s entry into Track and Field took place after watching his older brother Paul compete at the University of Oregon. The following year, when Tom enrolled in Lane Community College, Tom began his soaring career in the decathlon. The rest, as most sports fans know, is history. Nearly 27, Tom has won the IAFF World Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Paris, France this year, defeating defending champ Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic in the 2-day, 10-event competition. With this latest victory, Pappas has surpassed records set by the legendary athlete Dan O’Brien and has become only the second American to win the World Championships. With this victory at the Stade de France, Pappas sets his sights on the Olympics next year in Athens. It will be a homecoming of sorts for him, since his great-grandfather emigrated to the U.S. from Athens. Tall and blond, he reveals that most people think he doesn’t look Greek. But that hasn’t stopped the flood of emails from Greece, according to him, from people asking him questions. If this popular interest in him is a reliable indicator, then he is likely to be one of the favorites next year at the summer games. In addition to the world championships, Pappas has an impressive record of wins to his credit: 2000 Olympic Trials Champion; 5th in the 2000 Olympics; 2-time USA Outdoor Champion (2002 and 2003); 2003 World Indoor Heptathlon gold medalist; 1999 NCAA Champion; 1999 US runner-up; 1995 Pan-American Junior Champion. While a student at the University of Tennessee, he was named GTE Academic All-American with a GPA of 3.83; he earned All-American in 1997 with the 19th best decathlon score in the country. Pappas continues his grueling training schedule for the upcoming Olympics. His former collegiate coach, Bill Webb, works with him regularly in Knoxville, as he trains 6 days a week, 5-6 hours daily, with double sessions twice weekly. The regimen splits between technical and strength aspects, but Pappas has added a stronger endurance component to it to help his 1500-meter run. But Pappas doesn’t mind all the attention that his recent magnificent wins have garnered. He’s delighted to be considered the front-runner and favorite at the 2004 games and feels that he’s up to the next challenge. Winning is not “all Greek” to Tom, but in the genes. Although a fourth-generation Greek-American, Pappas is cognizant of his ancestral heritage and proud of it. for more info: www.greeknewsonline.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1071 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vassilis HatzipanagisVassilis Hatzipanagis (born October 26, 1954 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan) was a football (soccer) attacking midfield who played for Iraklis in Salonica, Greece. Football legend has it that a group of Greek defenders once threatened to sue Vassilis Hatzipanagis because "he makes a fool of us on the pitch and we want compensation". Exaggeration aside, Hatzipanagis was the most spectacular player ever to grace Greece's soccer arenas. An attacking midfielder with Iraklis FC, he packed in the crowds at Thessaloniki's Kaftantzoglio stadium, where his performances earned him the moniker of 'the footballing Nureyev'. However, the reason he gave for his fancy footwork was simple enough. "When I see defenders in front of me, I want to dribble around every one of them," he once said. Born to Greek immigrants to the USSR in October 1954, he was spotted by Pakhtakor, a club in Tashkent (now Uzbekistan). They wanted to invest in this raw yet refined player, but the law was strict: he had to apply for Soviet citizenship to be eligible for the Soviet top flight. After much pressure from Pakhtakor officials, Hatzipanagis's parents finally acceded to the request. Their son made his professional debut at the age of 17, and was soon called into the USSR's Under-19 squad. He graduated to the senior squad, without playing a game, and represented the Soviet Union in the 1976 Olympic qualifying tournament. However, despite being told by national coach Konstantin Beskov that his ability was "way above Greece's level", he turned his back on the Soviet league - where as a left-sided attacker he was considered second only to the great Oleg Blokhin - to move to the land of his fathers. Hatzipanagis signed for the Thessaloniki club Iraklis, and such was his reputation that he filled the stadium for his first match in December 1975. The Iraklis fans would be the reason this exceptional talent never joined another team. Despite interest from S.S. Lazio, Arsenal FC, FC Porto and VfB Stuttgart, the club's board feared the consequences of selling the crowd favourite. So Hatzipanagis stayed at Iraklis until 1990 and made a farewell appearance in a friendly against Valencia CF in October 1991 - his 37th birthday. Another highlight for Hatzipanagis was his only appearance for the Greek national side, in a friendly against Poland at the Apostolos Nikolaidis stadium in May 1976. The Athens crowd were bewitched by the long-haired wonder, who seemed to do whatever he wanted with the ball. Afterwards, however, Hatzipanagis was notified that he was ineligible for international duty having played for the USSR at junior levels. Further recognition did come in June 1984, when he was invited to join a World XI featuring Franz Beckenbauer, Mario Kempes, Kevin Keegan and Dominque Rocheteau, for a match against New York Cosmos in New York. And then, in 2004, he was selected as Greece's Golden Player of the past 50 years. Now aged 50, Hatzipanagis said: "It is very touching to see that you are not forgotten, that your contribution is appreciated even after so many years." He added: "I regret not having been able to wear the Greek national jersey more than once. And I regret not having made a career abroad. I would have liked to play in a better league, to have enjoyed football at that level. If I could turn back the clock, I would do some things differently." Links UEFA.com's article on Greece's Golden Player Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/"
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 15, 2007 7:32:50 GMT -5
The greek national weightlifting team
Pyrros Dimas
Pyrros Dimas born October 13, 1971 is a Greek weightlifter and three-time Olympic champion.At the 2000 Summer Olympics, he won yet another gold medal, this time in the 85 kg class. This made him one of just three weightlifters at that time to have won three Olympic gold medals, the others being Naim Süleymanoğlu (Turkey, but born in Bulgaria) and Kakhi Kakhiashvili (Greece, but born in Georgia). Halil Mutlu (like Süleymanoğlu, a Bulgaria-born Turk) would become the fourth in 2004. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kahi Kakhiasvili Golden olympic medal in 82.5-90 kg, Barcelona 1992
Golden olympic medal in 91-99 kg, Atlanta 1996
Golden olympic medal in 94 kg, Sidney 2000OLYMPIC PARTICIPATIONS: 1992 (1st), 1996 (1st), 2000 (1st), 2004 OTHER DISTINCTIONS: With the Greek National Team he has won seven gold medals, two silver and three bronze in world championships (1994, 1995, 1998, 1999), six gold, one silver and four bronze in European championships (1995, 1996, 1998, 1999) and he has also been a medallist in Mediterranean Games. Moreover, he has broken all the world records of his category. He moved to Greece in 1994 from Georgia having already in his collection one gold Olympic medal (1992) and distinctions in world and European championships (1-1-1 from world championships and 5-3-3 from European ones). With the Greek national team (his mother has Greek origins – she is nee Labrianidis) took his first gold medal in total in world championship. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Valerios Leonidiswww.olympionikes.gr/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=96&Itemid=31&lang=enSilver olympic medal in 59-64 kg, Atlanta 1996OLYMPIC PARTICIPATIONS: 1992 (5th), 1996 (2nd), 2000 (6th) OTHER DISTINCTIONS: He has won ten silver and one gold medal in world championships (1993, 1994, 1995, 1998, 1999) and four gold , five silver and four bronze in European championships (1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1999) and he is also a medallist at Mediterranean Games. His battles with the Turkish Naim Souleimanoglou at the 60kg and 64 kg categories are the best ever in the history of weightlifting, especially their stirring fight in Atlanta (1996). In 1992 at the Olympic Games of Barcelona he lost the bronze medal and placed 5th because he was heavier from his opponent who placed 3rd, even though they had the same points. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leonidas SabanisSilver medal in 54-59 kg, Atlanta 1996
Silver medal in 62 kg, Sidney 2000OTHER DISTINCTIONS: He has won with the Greek national team five gold, three silver and one bronze medal in world championships (1995, 1998, 1999, 2002) and nine gold, five silver in European championships (1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2004), medallist in Mediterranean Games. Leonidas Sabanis was destined to be the first Greek athlete to mount the victor’s podium at the Atlanta Olympic Games. On 21 July 1996, his impressive effort in the 59-kilogram category put him second behind China’s Tang Ningsheng. Sabanis set an Olympic record in the snatch, lifting 137.5 kg and followed that up with 167 kg in the clean and jerk, for a total of 305 kg. But the Chinese athlete was unbeatable, and passed him with a world record total of 307.5 kg. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leonidas KokkasSilver in Weightlifting,Atlanta O lympics. On the same day as Leonidis was battling it out with Suleymanoglu in Atlanta, another Greek weightlifter, Leonidas Kokkas, was surpassing himself. Competing in the 91 -kilogram category, and having undergone a back operation just a few months earlier, he puy on a tremendous performance. He lifted 175 kg in the snatch and 215 kg in the clean and jerk for a total of 390 kg. This was enough to net him the silver medal, since Germany’s Oliver Caruso, who lifted the same weight, was heavier than him. First by a considerable margin was Russia’s Alexei Petrov, who lifted a total of 402.5 kg. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Viktor Mitrou Sydney Olympics silver medalist.On Friday 22 September 2000 in Sydney, a nail-biting finish was building up, with Viktor Mitrou in the dual role of hero and victim. For a while it looked as if the Greek weightlifter had the gold medal in the 77-kilogram category in the bag. He had lifted 202.5 kg in the clean and jerk, giving him a total of 367.5 kg, which he and the other members of the Greek squad believed would be enough for victory, since he had overtaken the Armenian Arsen Melikyan, the leader after the snatch. But everybody had reckoned without Xugang Zhan of China. Zhan made a terrific lift of 207.5 kg in the clean and jerk, to equal the world record. That put him level with Mitrou on 367.5 kg. However, because in such cases the lighter man wins, and because Mitrou weighed 76 kilos and 480 grams, while the Chinese athlete was 76 kilos and 200 grams, the Greek came second. Zhan won the gold, and the silver medal went to Mitrou, who broke down and wept afterwards.
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 15, 2007 7:34:03 GMT -5
Other important Greek athletes.Anna Verouli (javelin)Anna Verouli (born 13 November 1956 in Kavala) is a retired Greek javelin thrower. She won the gold medal at the 1982 European Championships in Athletics, and a bronze medal at the 1983 World Championships in Athletics. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sofia Sakorafa (javelin)Sofia Sakorafa 74,20 m,GRE Khania 26 Sep 1982. Javelin,women,world record in 1982.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ekaterini Koffa (sprinter)Ekaterini Koffa (born 10 April 1969) is a retired Greek sprinter who won the 200 metres at the 1997 IAAF World Indoor Championships. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Konstantinos Koukodimos (long jumper)Konstantinos Koukodimos (born 14 September 1969 in Melbourne, Australia) is a retired Greek long jumper, best known for his bronze medal at the 1994 European Championships. His personal best is 8.36 metres, achieved in June 1994 in Khania. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Olga Vasdeki (triple jumper)Olga Vasdeki (born September 26, 1973 in Volos) is a triple jumper from Greece Year Tournament Venue Result 1996 European Indoor Championships Stockholm, Sweden 3rd 1997 Mediterranean Games Bari, Italy 1st 1998 European Championships Budapest, Hungary 1st IAAF World Cup Johannesburg, South Africa 1st 1999 World Championships Seville, Spain 3rd ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paraskevi Tsiamita (long jump and triple jump)Paraskevi Tsiamita (born March 10, 1972) is a former athlete from Greece who competed in long jump and triple jump. In 1998 she improved her personal best in triple jump by approximately one metre, and became world champion in 1999 with a personal best jump of 15.07 metres. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ekaterini Voggoli (discus)Ekaterini Voggoli ,born October 30, 1970 in Larisa, is a Greek discus thrower. She is the 2002 European champion and World Championship bronze medallist. In June 2004 she beat Anastasia Kelesidou's Greek record by 2 centimetres, throwing 67.72 metres. Achievements Year Tournament Venue Result Extra 2002 European Championships Munich, Germany 1st 2003 World Championships Paris, France 3rd World Athletics Final Monte Carlo, Monaco 3rd ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kostas Gatsioudis (javelin) Career Highlights 2nd- World Championships, Seville 1999 3rd- World Championships, Athens 1997 2nd- World Junior Championships, Seoul 1992 10th- Olympic Games, Atlanta 1996 2nd- Bruno Zauli (Super League), Munchen 1997 3rd- Bruno Zauli (Super League), Paris 1999 6th- World Junior Championships, 1990 9th- European Junior Championships, 1991 1st- Mediteranean Games, Bari 1997 1st- European Under 23 Cup, 1994 1st- Bruno Zauli (1st Division), 1994, 1995, 1998 1st- Balkan Games 1992 1st- Junior Balkan Games, 1991 3rd- CISM World Championships, 1995 5th- World School Championships, 1990 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Herodotos Giorgallas (gymnast)Herodotos Giorgallas born December 14, 1977, is a Gymnast from Cyprus who took gold at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester. Herodotos shared the gold with Steve Frew of Scotland. He won the bronze medal in the Gymnastics for Men's Rings at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Niki Xanthou (long jump) Personal Data b. 11 Oct 1973 h/w: 1.74m/55Kg Event: Long Jump P.B.: 7.03m (outdoor), 6.91m (indoor) 2002, European Indoor Championships, Gant, 1st. 1999, World Indoor Championships, Maebashi, 4th. 1998, European Indoor Championships, Valencia, 5th. 1997, World Championships, Athens, 2nd. 1996, Olympic Games, Atlanta, 4th. 1996, Indoor Balkan Games, 1st. 1995, Indoor Balkan Games, 1st. 1994, Bruno Zauli European Cup, 2nd. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eleftheria Ftouli and Evanthia Makriyianni (synchronized swimmers)Eleftheria Ftouli and Evanthia Makriyianni Greek synchronized swimmers,perform the freestyle routine at the European Aquatic Championships in Budapest, Hungary, yesterday. Their performance earned the pair bronze medals in the synchronized duet. After the event, 25-year-old Ftouli announced her retirement from the sport. Greece won its first medal at the championships on Saturday when 16-year-old Natalia Anthopoulou also picked up bronze in her event, the synchronized solo. Late yesterday the eight-woman Greek national team took fourth place in the overall team event. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nery_Mantey_Niangkouara
Nery Mantey Niangkouara (swimmer) Nery Mantey Niangkouara (born March 14, 1983 in Athens, Greece) is a Greek is a former swimmer. She began her career at Nereus Halandri. In 2001 she won 2 silver medals at the Mediterranean Games in the 100m and relay race. free. She was 5th in the European Championships in 2002 in Relay 4Ch100.She won the first medal for the Greek colors in the European Swimming Championships in Madrid, with a time of 55.05 in the 100m free. In the 2004 Olympics in Athens was 6th in the 100m free and 7th in the 50 meters, and was canceled in 4CH100 m free.[1] At the end of July 2005 the athlete took 7th place at the World Aquatics Championships in Montreal in the final of the 100m free.[2] To 2006 continued the very good performances. The Neri Niangkouara qualified for the final 100 meters freely with performance of the 2nd semi (54.63, record, old 54.81 own by August 14, 2004) the European Aquatic Championships in Budapest in August 2006. The Niangkouara managed to finish in third place in the final, August 2, 2006, with national record (54.48). The old was all of the previous day, 54.63. The 2007 Niagkouara had good position in the International Military Games in India in the 50 meters freestyle, and finished in 6th place with 25.65. In November 2007, the Neri announced its decision to withdraw permanently from the pools. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vasiliki Arvaniti and Vasiliki Karadassiou (beach volley)Vasiliki Arvaniti and Vasiliki Karadassiou-beach volley-ranked as Europe’s top team on the 2005 SWATCH-FIVB World Tour as the pair finished fifth in points. In addition, the pair captured the 54-country Confédération Européenne De Volleyball (CEV) continental championship in Moscow last August to clinch the 2005 point’s title. While Karadassiou was named the top women’s player for the 2005 season by the CEV, Arvaniti became the youngest woman (20 years, three months, 15 days) to win a SWATCH event. She and Karadassiou upset top-ranked Juliana Felisberta Silva and Larissa Franca of Brazil in the finals of the Norway Grand Slam event last July in Stavanger. Arvaniti and Karadassiou, who won two of four CEV events in 2005, combined for $166,500 in earnings. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sofoklis Schortsianitis (basketball) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofoklis_SchortsanitisSofoklis Schortsanitis (born June 22, 1985) is a Greek professional basketball player. He was born in Tiko, Cameroon[2], to a Greek father and a Cameroonian mother. A 2.08 m (6'10")[3] 140 kg (309 lbs.) center, Schortsantis was selected by the Los Angeles Clippers in the 2nd round (34th overall) of the 2003 NBA Draft. He currently plays for the pro club Olympiacos in the Greek League and also in the Euroleague. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vlasis Maras (gymnast)www.ana-mpa.gr/anaweb/user/showplain?maindoc=8654135&maindocimg=8654611&service=144Maras becomes first athlete to hold 5 gold medals in European Championship. Greece's horizontal bar champion Vlasis Maras on Sunday became the first athlete in the world to win five gold medals in any apparatus in the European Gymnastics Championships, as he took the gold again at the 2010 Championships in Birmingham. Maras took the gold in the Senior Mens High (or Horizontal) Bar final, with Epke Zonderland from the Netherlands taking the silver, and the bronze shared by Philipp Boy and Fabian Manguechen, both from Germany. Greece's Vassilios Tsolakidis also brought home the silver medal in the Senior Mens Parallel Bars, while Eleftherios Kosmidis also took the silver in the Floor final. Maras now holds five gold medals in the European Championships on the horizontal bar: Patras 2002, Ljubljana 2004, Volos 2006, Milan 2009, and Birmingham 2010, while he also holds a silver medal in the 2008 World Championships in Lausanne. Maras further holds two World Championship gold medals on the horizontal bar, in 2001 in Ghent and 2002 in Debrecen, while he also holds a bronze in the World Championships in Aarhus in 2006. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Periklis Iakovakis (sprinter)Periklís Iakovákis, born 24 March 1979 in Patras is a Greek athlete mainly competing in 400 metres hurdles. He is the Greek record holder with a time of 47.82 seconds and fifteen times national champion in the event. He has competed at four Summer Olympics (2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012) and is a six-time participant at the World Championships in Athletics. He was the world bronze medalist in 2003 and the European champion in 2006. His first major win came at the 1998 World Junior Championships and he won the gold medal at the 2001 Mediterranean Games. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Kanellos Kanellopoulos cycling champion recreated 1988 the mythological flight of Daedalus and Icarus, pedaling the 74 miles from Crete to Santorini in his ultra-light plane The Daedalus. He obtained THE INTERNATIONAL HARMON TROPHY which also was given to Charles Lindbergh. On The Wings of Mythology Once again a Greek flies from Crete under his own power from TIME Journal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rhythmic Gymnastics national teamThe first efforts to develop Rhythmic Gymnastics in Greece were made in the early 60s and about 20 years later, in the 80’s, the first National Championships were organised. Greece’s tenacity in developing a successful Rhythmic Gymnastics programme paid off. Since the beginning of the 90’s the Greek Groups gymnasts are winning medals at many major Championships. In their Olympic debut in Sydney 2000 the Greek group - Irini Aindili, Maria Georgatou, Hara Kariami, Klelia Pantazi, Anna Pollatou and Eva Christodoulou won the bronze medal, while Evmorfia Dona took the 7th place in the individual event. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------www.hellenicathletes.com/news_archive.php?date_news=20080302105622EINDHOVEN 2008 - EUROPEAN SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS Sprinters of the pool win gold for Greece,by Christopher Galakoutis Ioannis Drymonakos (swimmer)Ioannis Drymonakos set a new European record of 1:54.16 in the 200 butterfly, smashing his PR by over two seconds. He powered up the home straight to finish ahead of 2005 world champion Pawel Korzeniowski of Poland (1:54.38) after overtaking Nikolay Skvortsov on the last lap, with the Russian fading to third place. The 23-year-old Drymonakos’ powerful display propelled him to 2nd on the all-time list behind only Michael Phelps of the US, who set a world record of 1:52.09 at last year’s world championship in Melbourne. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aris GrigoriadisFormer world champion Aris Grigoriadis earned the second title of the night for Greece less than a half-hour later, when in the men's 50 backstroke he stopped the clock in 25.13, edging Flori Lang of Switzerland by just 0.05. Grigoriadis, the 2005 world champion, was second in the 100 backstroke this past Wednesday. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kostas Douvalidis (by Chris Galakoutis) Despite its tiny population relative to other sporting powers, Greece has enjoyed many successes in sport. One of those sports is track and field, where the country - albeit fully aware of recent shortcomings - continues to produce promising young talent. One of the new talents is 110m hurdler Kostas Douvalidis Ricks. The son of an American father from Atlanta and a Greek mother, Douvalidis was born in the Macedonian city of Drama, in Northern Greece, on March 10, 1987. He had his first notable result internationally at the IAAF World Youth (under 18) Championships in 2003 in Canada, where he made the final only to injure his left foot in the blocks and record a DNF. Later that summer, he ran at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Paris, where he took the bronze medal (3' 0" hurdles) with a time of 13.75 seconds, running into a headwind. In 2004, he clocked a World Youth best performance of 13.22 (3' 0" hurdles) at "Petralia 2004" in Skopelos on October 2nd. That run bettered the mark of 13.26 set by France's Ladji Doucouré on June 16, 1999 in Bydgoszcz, Poland. In 2005, he won the silver medal at the European Junior Championships in Kaunas, Lithuania, recording a time of 13.99 seconds into a 2.4m/s headwind. In the heats, he ran 13.78 seconds setting a Greek junior record. And this past summer, Douvalidis won the bronze medal in Beijing at the IAAF World Junior Championships, breaking multiple Greek junior and senior records in the rounds as well as the final, where he crossed the line in 13.39 seconds. “I love sports and especially the 100mh," said Douvalidis when we contacted him recently. "For 10 years now, this is what I have been doing and this is what I love. “I want to be like Ladji. I want to achieve what he did because he is a great athlete.” Douvalidis, whose mother also competed in track, is currently a member of the Greek military, where service is mandatory. As a result of his time off the track in support of the nation, any chance of competing at the IAAF World Championships in Osaka in 2007 appears to be a long-shot at this point. "I am not sure if I will be ready for the World's," he said. "I would like to be there, but I still have to finish my military commitment and am not sure how far behind that will leave me." However, he should be done with the military service by the time preparing for Beijing roles around, something he told us he thinks about. “My biggest dream is to be present at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. That’s my goal right now,” he said. "But it is too early to think big thoughts about the Olympics. Above all else the most important thing is our health. As long as I can stay healthy everything else will take care of itself." Douvalidis continues to live in Drama, where he is coached by Haralambros Sdrolas, and is a member of the A.O. Dramas athletics club. The larger Athens based clubs have shown an interest in signing him, but he told us that for the time being he has no plans to relocate, although he may consider doing so in the next year or so. Kostas Efthimiadis contributed to this report. www.runningnews.gr/snitzforum/post.asp?method=TopicQuote&TOPIC_ID=830&FORUM_ID=14------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marcos Paghdatis (tennis)Marcos Paghdatis (born 17 June 1985, Limassol, Cyprus) is a Cypriot professional tennis player. He was the finalist in the 2006 Australian Open. As of January 30, 2006, he is the #27 ranked player in the world.
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 16, 2007 6:06:21 GMT -5
Some old timers... Demetrius Vikelas (February 15, 1835 – July 20, 190 an author, was the first president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 1894 to 1896.Born in Ermoupolis, Syros,Greece. Vikelas represented the Pan-Hellenic Gymnastic Club at the 1894 Paris congress convened by De Coubertin, where the modern Olympic Movement was founded. Originally, it had been De Coubertin's idea to hold the first celebration of the modern Olympics in Paris in 1900, but Vikelas convinced him and the newly created IOC that they should be held in Athens. As the constitution of the IOC at that time required the IOC president to be from the country which would host the next Games, Vikelas became the IOC's first president. After these first Olympics, which proved a success, Vikelas withdrew from the IOC and turned his attention elsewhere. He died in Athens, aged 73. Today the Sport Center (Stadium) in Hermoupolis, which seats 2000 people with an Olympic size swimming pool, 4 tennis courts, 2 gym halls, basket and volley ball courts, track and field, floor football court and soccer field, bares Demetrios Vikelas' name. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WIKIPEDIA
Spiridon (Spiros) Louis
Olympic Medal Record
Men's Athletics
Gold 1896 Marathon Spiridon Louis (January 12, 1873 – March 26, 1940) was a Greek water-carrier who won the first modern-day Marathon at the 1896 Summer Olympics, thereby becoming a national hero. Louis was born in the town of Marousi, which is now a suburb to the north of Athens, into a poor farmer's family. His name is transcribed from the Greek in various ways; his given name is also seen as Spyridon (Spyros) and his family name as Loues. Louis's father sold mineral water in Athens, at the time devoid of a central water supply, and his son helped him by transporting it. Preparation Louis in traditional dressAfter the decision to revive the Olympic Games in 1894, preparations were made to organise the first modern Olympics in Athens. One of the races would be the Marathon, an event which had never been held before. It had been suggested by Frenchman Michel Bréal, who was inspired by the legend of the messenger Phidippides, who had run from the town of Marathon to Athens to announce the Athenian victory in the Battle of Marathon. The Greeks were very enthusiastic about this new event, and decided to stage qualifying races for the Greek participants. These were organised by an army colonel, Papadiamantopoulos, who had been Louis' commanding officer during his military service (1893-1895). The first qualifying race – the first ever marathon race – was held on March 22, and was won by Charilaos Vasilakos in 3 hours, 18 minutes. Louis participated in the second qualifying race, two weeks later. Papadiamantopoulos, who knew Louis's running talents, had convinced him to participate, and Louis crossed the line at fifth place, behind winner Dimitrios Deligiannis. On April 10 (or March 29 by the Julian Calendar, then in use in Greece), the Olympic Marathon was scheduled. The Greek public had been very enthusiastic about the Games, but was disappointed in the fact that no track and field event had yet been won by a Greek competitor. The victory in the discus throw, a classical Greek event, by the American Robert Garrett had been particularly painful. Because of its close connection with Greek history, the public desperately hoped the Marathon would be won by one of their countrymen. The marathon race LouisIn Marathon, Colonel Papadiamantopoulos gave the starting signal for the small field of runners, consisting of thirteen Greeks and four foreigners. The early leader of the race, which led over dusty dirtroads along which throngs of Greeks had gathered to watch, was the Frenchman Albin Lermusiaux, who had earlier placed third in the final of the 1500 metres. In the town of Pikermi, Louis made a stop at a local inn to drink a glass of wine. After asking for the advantage of the other runners, he confidently declared he would overtake them all before the end. After 32 km, Lermusiaux was exhausted, and had to abandon the race after a collapse. The lead was taken over by Teddy Flack, an Australian runner who had already been victorious in the Olympic 800 and 1500 m. Louis slowly closed in on Flack. The Australian, not used to running long distances, collapsed a few kilometers onwards, giving Louis the lead. Meanwhile, in the stadium, the atmosphere was tense, especially after a cyclist brought the news that the Australian runner was in the lead. But another messenger was sent out by the police as soon as Louis moved into the lead, and as the word spread that it was a Greek that led the race, the cry "Hellene, Hellene!" was taken up by thousands of rapturous spectators. When Louis finally arrived in a stadium erupting with joy, two Greek princes – Crown Prince Constantine and Prince George – rushed to meet him and accompanied him on his final lap for a finishing time of 2:58:50, fuelled along the way by wine, milk, beer, an Easter egg, and some orange juice. Louis's victory set off wild celebrations, as described in the official report of the Games: "Here the Olympic Victor was received with full honour; the King rose from his seat and congratulated him most warmly on his success. Some of the King’s aides-de-camp, and several members of the Committee went so far as to kiss and embrace the victor, who finally was carried in triumph to the retiring room under the vaulted entrance. The scene witnessed then inside the Stadion cannot be easily described, and even foreigners were carried away by the general enthusiasm." Reportedly the King offered Louis any gift he would care to ask of him, and all Louis could think of was a donkey-drawn carriage to help him in his water-carrying business. Adding to the celebrations, two more Greek runners entered the stadium to finish in second and third place. Third place finisher Spiridon Belokas was later found to have covered part of the course by carriage, and was disqualified, and his place was taken by the Hungarian Gyula Kellner. After his victory, Louis received gifts from many countrymen, ranging from jewelry to a life-long free shave at the barber shop. It is unknown if Louis took all these gifts, although he did take back home the carriage he had asked of the King. He retreated to his hometown, never again competing in running. He lived a quiet life, working as a farmer, and later as a local police officer. After the Olympics In 1926, Louis was arrested on charges of falsifying military documents and was imprisoned. After spending more than a year in jail, he was found not guilty, and was acquitted. The affair predictably caused a press uproar. His last public appearance came in 1936, when he was invited as a guest of honour by the organizers of the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin. After bearing the standard of the Greek team during the opening ceremonies, he was received by Adolf Hitler and offered him an olive branch from Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games, as an, obviously inopportune given the circumstances, symbol of peace. A few weeks before the German invasion of Greece, Louis passed away in his native town of Marousi. Many sports clubs in Greece and abroad still carry his name, as does the main stadium at the Athens Olympic Sports Complex, where the 2004 Summer Olympics were held, as well as the road passing outside (Spiros Louis Avenue). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/NewSport/Koutalianos.jpgPanagis -or Panais- Koutalianos was born in Koutalis (Ekinlik) in 1847. He was a man of herculean power which became known while he was working on a big ship. The anchors of the ship were tangled with those of another and while 10 men couldn't untangle them, Panagis Koutalianos did the job all by himself. Some time later he went to France where he became a student of the famous wrestling teacher Bernardt. He learned to fight and he traveled all over the world as a weight lifter and wrestler. He married and stayed for many years in Buenos Aires and he was never defeated in any of the fights either in America or Europe. He died in 1916. He is a sort of a legend and many posters and sketches showing him fighting have been saved. You can find some of the posters and sketchers below. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Konstantinos Tsiklitiras lived October 30, 1888 - February 10, 1913) was a Greek athlete and Olympic champion. Born in Pylos, he moved to Athens to study commerce. Tsiklitiras soon took up sports. He practised soccer (for Panathinaikos) and water polo, but is best remembered for winning four Olympic medals in standing long jump and standing high jump. He became Greek champion 19 times. His career came to a halt in 1913 when he volunteered to fight in the Balkan Wars, where he contracted meningitis and died at the age of 25 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Panagiotis Paraskevopoulos (1874 - 1956) was a Greek athlete. He competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. Paraskevopoulos competed in the discus throw, an event which the Greek public felt that a Greek athlete was sure to win. Indeed, when Paraskevopoulos threw the discus 28.95 metres, it seemed as if he had won the event. The only athlete left to throw was Robert Garrett of the United States, who had been unable to throw the discus any distance in his first two throws. Garrett's final attempt, however, was a good one and sailed to 29.15 metres, relegating Paraskevopoulos to second place. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Nikolaos Andriakopoulos was a Greek gymnast. He competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. Andriakopoulos competed in the rope climbing event. He and countryman Thomas Xenakis were the only two out of the five entrants to climb all the way to the top of the 14 metre rope. Andriakopoulos finished in 23.4 seconds, defeating Xenakis to claim the gold medal. He also entered the team parallel bars event. In that competition, Andriakopoulos was a member of the Panellinios Gymnastikos Syllogos team that placed second of the three teams in the event, giving him a silver medal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stylianos Kyriakides
ATHENS, Greece — Hellenic pride overflowed worldwide as millions tuned in to the closing ceremonies of the Athens 2004 Games. Preceding the closing ceremony on NBC was a 30-minute special entitled Journey of a Warrior, the true story of champion Greek runner Stylianos Kyriakides, who against all odds, entered the 1946 Boston Marathon to bring the world’s attention to the plight of his war-torn country. Journey of a Warrior chronicled Kyriakides’ life through his years in Cyprus and Greece as the Balkan champion. The archive footage also showed his meeting with the first modern Olympic marathon winner Spiridon Louis and Kyriakides’ survival during Nazi occupation. Kyriakides escaped execution during the war and was ravaged by hunger. He eventually would win the 50th Golden Anniversary Boston Marathon, despite being told by Boston doctors he would die in the streets. Appearing on and contributing to the documentary were Hellenic Voice sports writer and author Nick Tsiotos and author Andy Dabilis. The two co-authored the 2001 book Running With Pheidippides, which vividly chronicled Kyriakides’ story. The idea for the book came when they were on tour promoting their first book, Harry Agganis, The Golden Greek at Holy Trinity Church in Pittsburgh, PA. Tsiotos was reading an article on the 100th anniversary of the Boston Marathon featuring the 1946 race as one of the five all time Boston Marathon races. Dabilis agreed that the story featuring Johnny Kelley, America’s marathoner of the century, was a story worth researching. But Tsiotos stunned his partner when he boarded a plane the next weekend for Athens. “We knew it was a powerful story. When I told Andy I was leaving on my school vacation in April of 1996 for Greece, Andy thought I was crazy. I told him something was driving me and it was a matter of ethnic duty. I returned a week later with family photos, documents, hundreds of newspaper clippings, audio tapes and memorabilia. His beautiful, courageous late wife Iphigenia was articulate and shared all her memories with me at that time. Kyriakides’ children Demetri, Eleni and Maria all spoke English and were perplexed but proud that a Greek American from Boston came to their home 50 years later,” said Tsiotos. “When I was interviewed initially [by NBC], I never thought it would be aired on prime time worldwide with millions watching. The program was a tribute to the Greeks and Stylianos Kyriakides. One of the themes in our book was for the public to see through the eyes of a marathoner, a war- ravaged Greece and its heroic resistance to tyranny. It bothered me deeply that many Americans were not aware of Greece’s sacrifice in World War II and the hundreds of thousands who starved to death. I heard the stories of occupation from my parents and uncles who served in the U.S. military. It was very emotional for me to watch the show, especially when the narrator talked about the 1,621 males that were executed by the Nazis in the town of Kalavrita. My father had relatives amongst them including the village priest. The footage aired by NBC of Greece’s suffering and heroic stance was outstanding. The program educated, enlightened and touched the hearts of millions in the American public and wherever else it was aired. Andy and I are very pleased that the true story of Greek tribulation has been depicted,” said Tsiotos. “The program covered Kyriakides’ life, including the shadowy Berlin Olympics. It also covered the great friendship he had with American marathoner Johnny Kelley who wrote the foreword for the book. Kyriakides proved to the world that one man could make a difference and that he was a true son of Pheidippides, running 26 miles for food, clothing and medical equipment,” Tsiotos continued. “I enjoyed speaking Greek in the documentary and I believe what I said at the beginning of the documentary that the ‘Ancient Greeks believed that fate is written.’” Olympic host Bob Costas introduced the program. Also appearing on the show were Dabilis, Michael Dukakis, former presidential candidate; Payton Jordan, legendary Olympic track coach; Dominitsa Lanitou, Greek Olympian; Judge Harry Demeter and former Greek Defense Minister Yiannis Varvitsiotis. Tsiotos has been the sports writer at The Hellenic Voice for the past four years and the entire staff is proud of his most recent accomplishment appearing as guest on The Journey of A Warrior Olympic special. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Harilaos VasilakoS
 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charilaos_VasilakosHarilaos Vasilakos (1877 - 1969) was a Greek athlete, and the first man to win a marathon race. He also won a silver metal at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens.He was born in Tripoli. On March 10, 1896, Greece held the first modern Panhellenic Games. The main purpose of the games was to help the country formulate the team that would compete in the first Modern Olympic Games, later the same year. Most of the participants were young army recruits who had been selected by their commanders for their athletic skill. Vasilakos, born and raised at a mountainous village in the Mani peninsula, already had a reputation as a strong long-distance runner, and won the race with a time of 3 hours and 18 minutes. Vasilakos was one of 17 athletes to start the marathon race on April 10, 1896. He finished in second place, behind Spiridon Louis, with a time of 3:06.03 as one of only nine finishers. Both races were on 40 kilometre courses rather than the now-standard 42.195 kilometres. Vasilakos went on to become a customs agent in Athens, where he died in 1969.
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 16, 2007 18:45:46 GMT -5
4.AUTHORS.
Nikos Kazantzakis "I HOPE FOR NOTHING,I'M SCARED OF NOTHING,I AM FREE." www.philosophers.co.uk/cafe/phil_jan2003.htmAlthough many may be familiar with the novels Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ, both of which have been adapted into films, few are as familiar with their author, Nikos Kazantzakis. Although Kazantzakis has a large following in the United States, and is becoming more and more accepted in his homeland of Greece, he has, as yet, failed to achieve the recognition elsewhere that he so richly deserves. Novelist, dramatist, poet and journalist, Kazantzakis's philosophy consist largely in a pioneering attempt to retain a spiritual world-view whilst heeding Nietzsche's devastating attack on metaphysiscs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Constantine P. Cavafy, also known as Konstantin or Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, or Kavaphes (April 29, 1863 - April 29, 1933) was a Alexandrine poet who is among the 20th century's most important literary figures, though he is relatively little known in the English speaking world; he also worked as a journalist and civil servant. Cavafy was a skeptic who attacked traditional values of Christianity, patriotism, and heterosexuality, though he was not always comfortable with his role as a nonconformist. He published 154 poems; dozens more remained incomplete or sketchy. His most important poems were written after his fortieth birthday. Ithaka
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
Translated by Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Giorgos SeferisNobel prize in literature,1963. nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1963 nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1963/seferis-speech.html-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Odiseas ElitisNobel prize in literature,1979.nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1979 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elia Venezis was a greek writer. He was born in 1904 in Ayvalik of Asia Minor and died in Athens in 1973. He has writted numerous books throughout his career as an author. His most famous book is Number 31328. Elias Venezis is not his real name, but his pen name. He is categorised among the writers of "the generation of the 30s". During the Asian Minor Catastrophe he was 18 years old and was enslaved in the Labour Battalions of the Turkish State. In his book The Number 31328 - The Book of Slavery he describes 14 months of his life that he spent into the concentration camp, enforced to hard labour. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yannis Ritsos (May 1, 1909–November 11, 1990) was a Greek poet. He is considered to be one of the four greatest Greek poets of the twentieth century, together with Kostis Palamas, Giorgos Seferis and Odysseus Elytis. The French poet Louis Aragon once said that Ritsos was "the greatest poet of our age." He was unsuccessfull proposed nine times for the Nobel Prize for Literature. When he won the Lenin Peace Prize (also known as the Stalin Peace Prize prior to 1956) he declared "this prize it's more important for me than the Nobel". His poetry was banned at times in Greece for its left wing content. Notable works by Ritsos include Tractor (1934), Pyramids (1935), Epitaph (1936), and Vigil (1941–1953). Ritsos mainly wrote poems with political content, "serving communism with his art" as modern philologists describe. One of his few works that differ is Moonlight Sonata. I know that each one of us travels to love alone, alone to faith and to death. I know it. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t help. Let me come with you. —from Moonlight Sonata. Translation by Peter Green and Beverly Bardsley ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nikos Gatsos was born in 1911 or in 1914 in Asea Arcadia. When he came to Athens to study at the School of Philosophy, he could already speak fluent English and French. His first poems - which were short and had a classic approach- were published in the «Nea Estia» in 1931 and in «Rithmo» in 1933. Thereafter, he worked mainly with «Nea Grammata» and «Kalitechnica Nea» and the «Philologica Chronica» in which his review articles and notes were published. His exemplary poetry compilation, Amorgos, was published by «Aeto» in 1943. At the end of the war, he worked for the «Anglo-Greek Review» as a translator and for the National Radio Institute. He also started writing lyrics for Manos Chatzidakis’ music and in this way he marked contemporary Greek music. Later on, he worked with Mikis Theodorakis and other well-known composers. His ability to handle the language with such preciseness led the Arts Theatre, the National Theatre and the People’s Theatre to entrust him with the translation of many theatrical works -translations which remain «classic». He was buried in Asea on 12 May 1992. some of his poems... www.geocities.com/mariakou1------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stratis TsirkasStratis Tsirkas, an Alexandrian Greek, lived and worked in Egypt for more than fifty years before settling in Athens. He is unquestionably one of the most popular and gifted writers of the Greek post-war period. This fascinating film portrait utilizes biographical data including letters, notes, and diaries, as well as aspects of the author's life as expressed and presented in his novels. Tsirkas' life was a constant struggle for political and social issues, both in Greece and in Egypt. Tsirkas' work includes the acclaimed trilogy Drifting Cities, the novel Lost Spring, and the essay Kavafis and his Era (which won the Greek State Prize in 195 . Drifting Cities was translated into French in 1971 and was awarded the French Critics Prize for the best foreign novel of the year. It has also been translated into English, Spanish, Italian, Romanian and Arabic. His collections of poems, novels and political articles and translations have left an indelible mark upon modern literature. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nikos Kavvadias (January 11, 1910 – February 10, 1975) was a Greek poet and writer; currently one of the most popular poets in Greece, who, used his travels around the world as a sailor, and the idealised life at sea and its adventures, as powerful metaphors for the escape of ordinary people outside the boundaries of reality. Early life and education He was born in the small town of Nikolski Ousouriski, near Harbin (also Ha-erh-pin), in the historic region of Manchuria, in the northern part of today's People's Republic of China. This fact, according to him, linked him emotionally to the Far East, expressed in his short story "Li" (published 1987). His parents were Greeks from the island of Cefalonia and as a young child he had the opportunity to travel extensively. His family returned for a few years to their home island and finally moved to Pireus, Athens' port, in 1921. He wrote his first poems while in grammar school. After graduating from high school in Pireus he took the entrance exams to become a doctor in 1928. His father fell sick that same year and young Kavvadias was forced to get a job as an office clerk in a shipping office to help his family. He lasted only a few months there and after his father's death, he went on board the freighter ship "Agios Nikolaos" as a sailor. He worked for a few years on freighter boats, coming back home always wretched and penniless. He decided to get the captain diploma, but settled for a radio operator's diploma. He got it in 1939, but by that time WWII had started and he was sent to fight in Albania. During the German occupation of Greece, he was stranded in Athens. When the war was over in 1944, he embarked and traveled continuously as a radio operator all over the world until November 1974, having the opportunity to get to know the sea and its exotic ports. Through his experiences in the sea he collected material for his poetry. Returning from his last trip and as he was preparing the publication of his third collection of poems, he died suddenly from a stroke on February 10, 1975. His work is filled with references to life in the sea. His poetry was popularized in Greece, partly because some of his poems have been set to music by Thanos Mikroutsikos in his very popular albums Stavros tou Notou (Southern Cross) and Grammes Orizonton (Horizons' Lines). Early writings His first collection of poems, "Marabou", was published in 1933 when Kavadias was in his early twenties and carries within it the spirit of a romantic young man, impressed with the marvels of the world. Most of these poems tell half fictitious stories that happened on the sea and the different places he visited. The collection begins with a poem about the catastrophic love for a young wealthy girl that ended up a poor prostitute that he could barely recognise. Other events recount the stories of a Norwegian captain who died homesick watching a ship sailing towards Norway, a dagger carrying the curse that whoever carries it shall kill someone he loves, and an African story-telling sailor who rescued him from a brawl only to die of fever in the Far East. Artistically he was influenced by French literature and the poet Charles Baudelaire whom he cites in many of his works. Later works His other two collections are "Pousi" which published in 1947 and "Traverso" which was published after his death 1975 . Meanwhile, he had served as a soldier in the Second World War and fought on the Albanian front against the Italian forces. Another short story, "Of War", published after his death in 1987, recounts the story of his rescue by a local during a storm. The war had a deep effect on him and these later collections show a politically aware man, in support of the somewhat more liberal communists, often helping them by transporting illegal material from abroad, such as books and letters that where banned by the Right wing government that was in power. One of these later poems is about the death of Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto (Che) Guevara and was written as an answer to the accusations by some active communists who thought that his poems romanticized too much on the otherwise harsh and dangerous life of sailors, who were potential symbols of class struggle. Another is about the execution of Andalusian poet and writer Federico García Lorca by the Franco dictatorship, which, in the poem, is associated with the destruction of the Greek village of "Distomo" and other brutal acts done by the Nazi forces occupying Greece during the Second World War. His only novel "Nightshift" was published in 1954 and recounts the stories told by the sailors on their nightshift at the ship's bridge. Images from exotic places, prostitutes, captains gone mad and memories of the War blend in to form a dreamy world full of lucid forms, part fictitious, part true. He is not considered to be an innovator of prose or a match for the greatest Greek poets like Odysseas Elytis but is extremely popular in Greece and his best poems are taught in schools throughout the country. He is considered by many to be the embodiment of the Greek "soul" for his romantic affiliation with the sea and its journeys and for his geniouenly humane look on things he could barely understand. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Embirikos
Andreas EmbirikosAndreas Embirikos (Brăila, 1901 – Athens, 1975) was a Greek surrealist poet and the first Greek psychoanalyst. Embirikos came from a wealthy family as his father was an important ship-owner. He was born in Brăila, Romania, but his family soon moved to Ermoupolis in Syros. When Embirikos was only seven years old they moved to Athens. While he was still a teenager his parents divorced; he started studying at the Faculty of Philosophy of the National and Capodistrian University of Athens, but he decided to move to Lausanne to stay with his mother. The following years Embirikos studied a variety of subjects both in France and in the United Kingdom; however it was in Paris where he decided to study psychanalysis together with René Laforgue. Timeline 1929 Meets with the surrealists and is interested in automatic writing. 1931 Returns to Greece and works for some time at the shipdocks. 1934 Develops an intermittent companionship to Marguerite Yourcenar 1940 Gets married with poetess Matsi Hatzilazarou; nevertheless, they divorce four years later. The same year he divorced his wife, he was arrested by the communist organization OPLA[1] and was treated in a humiliating way. 1935 Gives the famous lecture On surrealism (Ðåñß óïõññåáëéóìïý) in Athens and publishes Blast furnace; a pure surrealist text. 1947 Gets married for the second time with Vivika Zisi. A year later, his father, with whom Embeirikos' relationship was rather normal, dies in Geneva. 1962 Together with Yorgos Theotokas and Odysseas Elytis, he was invited to travel to the USSR by the "Greco-Soviet" Union; the trip was an adventurous one and it inspired him the poem ES ES ES ER Rossia. 1975 He dies in Kifissia; his mother preceded him by only two years. Poetry His poetry can be defined by two major tendencies. On the one hand, he was one of the major representatives of surrealism in Greece. His first poetic collection, Ipsikaminos, was a heretic book, characterized by the lack of the punctuation and the peculiarity of the language. As the poet himself admitted it was precisely the originality and extravagance of his work that contributed to his relative commercial success. On the other hand, together with Yorgos Seferis, Embirikos was the most important representative of the generation of the 1930s. He contributed greatly to the introduction of modernism in Greek letters and he helped change once and for all the poetic atmosphere of Greece. Megas Anatolikos Arguably, the most significant and influential work by Embirikos is Megas Anatolikos. The poet dedicated many years of work to this particularly long novel, that consists of more than one hundred chapters. In this work, Embirikos narrates the first trip of the ocean liner Great Eastern (ÌÝãáò Ἀíáôïëéêüò) from England to America. Embirikos describes the Great Eastern as a hedonic vessel, where the multitude of the passengers enjoy love without and beyond limits. During the ten-day trip (an allusion to the Decameron) they discover a new form of happiness and innocence. For this work, Odysseas Elytis called Embirikos "a visionary and a prophet". Literary critic Embirikos also wrote articles of literary criticism; at least two of them are worth-mentioning. The first is "The hidden necrophilia in the works of Edgar Allan Poe"; the second, "Nikos Engonopoulos or the miracle of Elbassan and Bosphorus". -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nikos Engonopoulosen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikos_EngonopoulosNikos Engonopoulos (October 21, 1907 – October 31, 1985) was a modern Greek painter and poet. He is one of the most important members of the Greek Generation of the '30s as well as a major representative of the surrealistic movement in Greece. His work as a writer also includes critique and essays. Biography Nikos Engonopoulos was born in Athens in 1907 and was the second son of Panaghiotis and Errietti (Henrietta) Engonopoulos. During the summer of 1914 when Nikos Engonopoulos family went on a trip to Constantinople his family was obliged to settle there, due to the outbreak of World War I. In 1923, he was enrolled in a lycée in Paris, where he studied for a period of four years. After his return to Greece, he served as a private in the 1st Infantry Regiment. Later on he worked as a translator in a bank and as a secretary at the University of Athens. In 1930 Engonopoulos was employed as a designer in the Urban Planning Department of the Greek Ministry of Public Works. In 1932 he joined the Athens School of Fine Arts, where he studied under the supervision of Konstantinos Parthenis. He also attended classes at the art studio of Photios Kontoglou. During that time he met important artists, the poet Andreas Embirikos and painters such as Yannis Tsarouchis, Giorgio de Chirico and Yannis Moralis. His first paintings, mostly temperas on paper depicting old houses, were presented at an Art of Modern Greek Tradition exhibition, organised in January 1938. Soon after the exhibition, he published translations of poems by Tristan Tzara, which were published in February. A few months later, his first collection of poems (Do Not Distract the Driver) was published, followed by a second one (The Clavicembalos of Silence) the next year. Overall he is considered one of the finest surrealist poets of Greece. His first individual exhibition was held in 1939. Three years later, he finished his most popular long poem Bolivar, a Greek Poem, inspired by the revolutionary leader Simón Bolívar and published in 1944. The poem was also released in the form of a song, in 1968, with music composed by Nikos Mamangakis.
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 16, 2007 18:52:42 GMT -5
Penelope Deltafrom wikipedia Penelope Delta (1874–27 April 1941) was a Greek author of books for older children. Delta was born in Alexandria, Egypt, to the wealthy cotton merchant Emmanuel Benakis and Virginia Horemis. She had two older siblings, Alexandra and Anthony (whose Tom Sawyer-like mischiefs she immortalized in her book Trellantonis), and three younger ones, Constantine, who died at the age of two, Alexander, and Argine. The Benakis family temporarily moved to Athens in 1882, where she later married a wealthy Phanariote entrepreneur, Stephanos Deltas, with whom she had three daughters, Sophia Mavrogordatos, Virginia Zannas, and Alexandra Papadopoulos. They returned to Alexandria in 1905, where she met the true love of her life, Ion Dragoumis, then the Vice-Consul of Greece in Alexandria. Out of respect for Deltas and her children, Delta and Dragoumis decided to separate, but continued to correspond passionately until 1912, when Dragoumis started a relationship with the famous stage actress Marika Kotopouli. In the meantime Penelope had twice attempted suicide. Delta moved to Frankfurt, German Empire in 1906, when her husband went to run the offices of the Horemis-Benakis cotton business there, and her first novel Gia tin Patrida (For Sake of the Fatherland) was published in 1909. The novel is set in Byzantine times, and Delta started corresponding with the historian Gustave Schlumberger, a renowned specialist on the Byzantine Empire. Their continued interaction provided the material for her second novel, Ton Kairo tou Voulgaroktonou (In the Years of the Bulgar-Slayer), set during the reign of the Emperor Basil II. The Goudi Rebellion in 1909 inspired her third novel, Paramythi Horis Onoma (A Tale with No Name), published in 1911. In 1913 the Deltas returned to Alexandria yet again, and then in 1916 they settled permanently in Athens, where her father, Emmanuel Benakis, had been elected Mayor. While there, they became close friends with Eleftherios Venizelos, whom they entertained regularly at their opulent mansion in the northern suburb of Kifisia. Penelope's father had been a political associate of Venizelos since his move to Athens in 1910, and had served as Finance Minister in the first Venizelos administration. Her long correspondence with Bishop Chrysanthos, Metropolitan of Trebizond, provided the material for her 1925 book, The Life of Christ. In 1925, she was diagnosed with polio. In 1927, she started writing the trilogy Romiopoules (Young Greek Girls), a thinly-veiled autobiography, which she did not finish until 1939. Set in Athens, the first part, To Xypnima (The Awakening) covers the events from 1895 to 1907, the second part H Lavra (The Heat) covers 1907 to 1909, and the final part, To Souroupo (The Twilight), covers 1914 to 1920. The political events of this tumultuous era are given first-hand treatment in this book, as she experienced them in the most personal level: her father was almost executed for treason by the Royalist Party, whereas Ion Dragoumis was actually assassinated by the Venizelos factions in 1920. Delta wore nothing but black since then. In the meantime she published her three major novels: Trellantonis (Crazy Anthony; 1932), which detailed her mischievous elder brother's Antonis Benakis childhood adventures in late 19th century Alexandria, Mangas (1935), which was about the not dissimilar adventures of the family's mongrel dog, and Ta Mystika tou Valtou (The Secrets of the Swamp; 1937), which was set around Giannitsa Lake in the early 20th century, when the Greek struggle for the liberation of Macedonia was unfolding. She would famously forbid her grandchildren from visiting her during the day, when she was writing, but would then spend the entire evening with them, reading to them what she had written that day, in lieu of bedtime stories. During the last year of her life, and as her paralysis was advancing, she received the diaries and archives of her lost love, Ion Dragoumis, entrusted to her by his brother Philip. She managed to dictate 1000 pages of manuscripted comment on Dragoumis' work, before deciding to take her own life. She is rumoured to have ingested poison on the very day the Wehrmacht troops entered Athens on 27 April 1941. At her request she was interred in the garden of the stately Delta mansion in Kifisia. Chrysanthos, by then Archbishop of Athens, officiated at the funeral. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
Kostis PalamasKostis Palamas (January 8/13, 1859-February 27, 1943 [1]) was a Greek poet. Born in Patras, he received his primary and secondary education in Missolonghi. In the early 1880s, he worked as a journalist and literary critic. He published his first collection of verses, "The Songs of My Fatherland," in 1886. He was secretary general of the University of Athens, between 1897 and 1926. He died during the German occupation of Greece during World War II and his funeral was a major event of the Greek resistance. Palamas wrote the words to the Olympic Hymn, composed by Spyros Samaras. It was first performed at the 1896 Summer Olympics, the first modern Olympic Games. The Hymn was then shelved as each host city from then until the 1960 Summer Olympics commissioned an original piece for its edition of the Games, but the version by Samaras and Palamas was declared the official Olympic Anthem in 1958 and has been performed at each edition of the Games since the 1964 Summer Olympics. He has been called the "national" poet of Greece and was closely associated with the struggle to rid Modern Greece of the "purist" language and with political liberalism. He dominated literary life for 30 or more years and greatly influenced the entire political-intellectual climate of his time. Romain Rolland considered him the greatest poet of Europe and he was twice nominated for the Nobel prize for poetry but never received it. His most important poem "The twelve lays (or words) of the gypsy" (1907) is a poetical-philosophical journey. His "Gypsy" is a free thinking, intellectual rebel. He is a Greek Gypsy, in a post classical, post-Byzantine Greek world. He explores work, love, art, country, history, religion and science, keenly aware of his roots and of the contradictions between his gypsy, classical and Christian heritage. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kostis_Palamas" -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lorentzos Maviliswiki.phantis.com/index.php/Lorentzos_MavilisLorentzos Mavilis (given name Laurentius), poet, was born in Ithaca on September 6, 1860 to Corfiot parents. With the aid of his teacher, Ioannis Romanos, he met with the intellectual men of his country, especially with Iakovos Polylas, Gerasimos Markoras, etc., and so he was initiated into the poetry of Dionysios Solomos. A multilingual man, he studied the poetic masterpieces of the European literature, of which he translated many. He lived for several years in Germany, where, as a student, he was influenced by Kant and Schopenhauer. He participated in the patriot struggle in Crete, as well as in the Greek-Turkish war of 1912 for the liberation of Ioannina, as captain of the Garibaldini. He was killed in action, November 29, 1912 on Mt. Driskos, near Ioannina. A bust of Lorentzos Mavilis in CorfuLorentzos Mavilis' poetry was the result of the meeting of modern artistic movements, his socialist ideas and the poetry tratidion of his native Ionian Islands. Mavilis had almost exclusively cultivated the sonnet form. "Elia" and the "Lithi" are considered the most characteristic. He also translated works by Schiller, Byron, Shelley and Tennyson and from Sanskrit. Retrieved from "http://wiki.phantis.com/index.php/Lorentzos_Mavilis" -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lafcadio Hearn aka Koizumi Yakumoen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafcadio_HearnPatrick Lafcadio Hearn (27 June 1850 - 26 September 1904), also known as Koizumi Yakumo after gaining Japanese citizenship, was an author, best known for his books about Japan. He is especially well-known for his collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories, such as Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. Hearn was born in Lefkada (the origin of his middle name), one of the Greek Ionian Islands. He was the son of Surgeon-major Charles Hearn (of County Offaly, Ireland) and Rosa Antonia Kassimati ,[1] who had been born on Kythera, an island in the Myrtoon Pelagos (currently in the municipality of Athens). His father was stationed in Lefkada during the British occupation of the islands. Lafcadio was initially baptized Patricio Lefcadio Tessima Carlos Hearn in the Greek Orthodox Church. at 19 he was sent to live in the United States of America, where he settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. For a time, he lived in utter poverty, which may have contributed to his later paranoia and distrust of those around him. He eventually found a friend in the English printer and communalist Henry Watkin. With Watkin's help, Hearn picked up a living in the lower grades of newspaper work. Through the strength of his talent as a writer, Hearn quickly advanced through the newspaper ranks and became a reporter for the Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, working for the paper from 1872 to 1875. With creative freedom in one of Cincinnati's largest circulating newspapers, he developed a reputation as the paper's premier sensational journalist, as well as the author of sensitive, dark, and fascinating accounts of Cincinnati's disadvantaged. He continued to occupy himself with journalism and with out-of-the-way observation and reading, and meanwhile his erratic, romantic, and rather morbid idiosyncrasies developed. In the autumn of 1877, Hearn left Cincinnati for New Orleans, Louisiana, where he initially wrote dispatches on his discoveries in the "Gateway to the Tropics" for the Cincinnati Commercial. He lived in New Orleans for nearly a decade, writing first for the Daily City Item and later for the Times Democrat. The vast number of his writings about New Orleans and its environs, many of which have not been collected, include the city's Creole population and distinctive cuisine, the French Opera, and Vodou. In 1890, Hearn went to Japan with a commission as a newspaper correspondent, which was quickly broken off. It was in Japan, however, that he found his home and his greatest inspiration. Through the goodwill of Basil Hall Chamberlain, Hearn gained a teaching position in the summer of 1890 at the Shimane Prefectural Common Middle School and Normal School in Matsue, a town in western Japan on the coast of the Sea of Japan. Most Japanese identify Hearn with Matsue, as it was here that his image of Japan was molded. Today, The Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum and Lafcadio Hearn's Old Residence are still two of Matsue's most popular tourist attractions. During his 15-month stay in Matsue, Hearn married Setsu Koizumi, the daughter of a local samurai family, and became a naturalized Japanese, taking the name Koizumi Yakumo. In late 1891, Hearn took another teaching position in Kumamoto, Kyushu, at the Fifth Higher Middle School, where he spent the next three years and completed his book Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (1894). In October 1894 he secured a journalism position with the English-language Kobe Chronicle, and in 1896, with some assistance from Chamberlain, he began teaching English literature at Tokyo (Imperial) University, a post he held until 1903. In 1904, he was a professor at Waseda University. On September 26, 1904, he died of heart failure at the age of 54. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nikos Tsiforosen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikos_TsiforosNikos Tsiforos (1912 – 6 August 1970) was a Greek screenwriter and film director. He wrote 64 films between 1948 and 1970. He also directed 17 films between 1948 and 1961. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1912. Two years later, his family was permanently resettled in Athens. Since his eleven years of age, Nikos Tsiforos began to write with fury. He wrote his first play in 1938 which was played out in a summer theatre in Freattyda. His first try did not succeed but Nikos was not disappointed. From there he went on to get a degree in Law, as well as worked for two years at the Election Council. He later resigned to go into ships and travel. His father was sailing in ships and Nikos wanted to live so he can write. He continued to change jobs continuously until 1939, wrote films as well as different types of writings. His first big success was in 1944 by the companies of Dimitris Horn and Mairi Aroni which elevated himself into the Akropol Theatre. This was with his theatrical work I pinakothiki ton ilithion which means the Museum Hall of Idiots, implying we take the most idiotic role models, put them in a frame and hang them up to see as examples. From 1948 to 1949 he wrote and directed his first film Teleftea apostoli which means Last Mission. Four years later, he was a reporter and wrote for the Greek newspapers (Φιλελεύθερος / Liberal, Βήμα / Step, Ελεύθερος Κόσμος / Free World) and the magazines Trust, Romance, Postman, Pantheon, while writing over 40 theatrical plays and more than 80 film scripts. He wrote solemnly by himself, otherwise worked mainly with Polyvios Vassiliadis his writing partner in many successful films (with which they became the most important writing duo in theater, at the time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Angelos SikelianosAngelos Sikelianos (1884–1951) was a modern Greek poet and playwright. One of Greece's most important 20th-century lyric poets, he emphasized national history, religious symbolism, and universal harmony in poems such as The Light-Shadowed, Prologue to Life, Mother of God, and Delphic Utterance. His plays include Sibylla, Daedalus in Crete, Christ in Rome, The Death of Digenis, and Asklepius. Biography Sikelianos was born in Lefkada where he spent all his childhood. In 1900 he entered the Law School of Athens but he did not graduate. The next years he traveled a lot and devoted himself to poetry. In 1907, he married American born Eva Palmer, who has at the time an archaeology student in Paris. Their marriage took place in America and they moved to Athens in 1908. During that period, Sikelianos came in contact with Greek intellectuals and in 1909, he published his first collection of poems Alafroískïotos (The Light-Shadowed), which had an immediate positive impact and was recognized by critics as an important poetic work. In May 1927, with the support of his wife, Sikelianos held the Delphic Festival, as part of his general effort towards the revival of the Delphic Idea. Sikelianos believed that the principles, which had shaped the classic civilisation, if reexamined, could offer spiritual independence and serve as a means of communication among people. The event consisted of Olympic contests, a concert of byzantine music, an exhibition of folk art as well as a performance of Prometheus Bound. It became very successful and despite lack of state assistance, it was repeated once more, the following year. The revival was permanently abandoned due to the excessive expense of organizing it. In honour to the memory of Angelos and Eva Sikelianos, the European Cultural Centre of Delphi bought and restored their house in Delphi, which is today the Museum of Delphic Festivals. Eva Palmer left for the United States, and Sikelianos married Anna Karamani. During the German occupation, he became a source of insipiration to the Greek people, especially through his speech and poem that he recited at the funeral of the poet Kostis Palamas. It was he who composed the letter which was spearheaded by Archbishop Damaskinos to save the lives of Greek Jews by appealing directly to the Germans. The letter was signed by many prominent Greek citizens in defense of the Jews who were being persecuted. There is no similar document of protest of the Nazis during World War II that has come to light in any other European country.[1] In 1949 he was a Nobel Prize for Literature candidate. He died in Athens, in 1951, and was buried in Delphi. jacketmagazine.com/27/w-sike.html  this beauty is sikelianos' wife,eva palmer...Eva Palmer was a bisexual biscuit-fortune heiress who reportedly initiated Nathalie Barney, her lover of many years, into lesbian sex when they were teens. Eva and Angelos had been introduced by Angelos’s sister, Penelope, and her husband, Raymond Duncan (Isadora’s brother). The two soon hatched a plan to revive the ancient theatre, art and games festival at Delphi. Eva would supply the money, hard-work and know-how (the last of which she gathered along the way), and Angelos would provide the inspiration. The husband and wife team wanted to establish a cultural center [and university] at Delphi that would unite people from all over the world. They believed that Delphi was still a world center with the power to inspire human perfection. The couple organized revivals of the Delphic Festivals in 1927 and 1930 that featured their own productions of Aeschylus’s plays [as well as Delphic games and an arts and crafts show]. Attracting an international audience of artists and intellectuals, they made Delphi a place of pilgrimage, as it had been in ancient times. jacketmagazine.com   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eleni Sikelianos   photos from jacketmagazine.com look what i have found while i was searching for poet's sikelianos biography...as it seems the great granddaughter of angelos sikelianos is quite a popular american poet...google search for "eleni sikelianos=20.100 results...jacketmagazine.com/27/w-sike.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eleni Sikelianos is the author of, most recently, The California Poem (Coffee House Press) and The Book of Jon (Nonfiction / Memoir, City Lights). She currently lives in Colorado, and teaches at the University of Denver. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.beardofbees.com/sikelianos.html Eleni Sikelianos was raised in California and received her MFA in Poetry from the Naropa Institute (now Naropa University) in Boulder, Colorado, where she currently teaches. She has also been a guest poet at the University of Denver since 2001. She is the author of several books and chapbooks, including The Monster Lives of Boys and Girls (Green Integer 2003), Earliest Worlds (Coffee House 2001), The Book of Tendons (Post-Apollo Press 1997), and To Speak While Dreaming (Selva Editions 1993). Two more books, The California Poem (Coffee House Press) and The Book of Jon (City Lights) are due out in 2004 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kostis Moskofweekly.ahram.org.eg/1998/385/eg7.htm Rooted in the Mediterranean With the death last week of Kostis Moskof, poet, literary translator and cultural counsellor at the Greek Embassy in Cairo, Greek-Egyptian cultural relations have been deprived of one of their mainstays. "In his 10 years as cultural counsellor [at the Greek Embassy in Cairo] Moskof did more for Greek-Egyptian relations than all that was done in the previous 100 years", says Egyptian novelist Edwar El-Kharrat. Born in Thessaloniki in 1939, Moskof came from an old Greek family of partly foreign descent; his mother, Amina, was half-Palestinian and the Moskofs, as the name indicates, had lived in Russia at one point in their history. An aristocratic bohemian, a scholar gypsy, Moskof would laughingly refer to his background as "what used to be described as Levantine". Ill-health, which was to plague him throughout his life, began in childhood, but it did not manage to damp his ambition and will to succeed. A staunch leftist, Moskof was professionally a maverick, whose wide-ranging career, according to his friend Naim Attiya, took him from journalism, via a PhD from France in the History of Civilisations and tenure as counsellor to the late Greek Minister of Culture Melina Mercuri, to his posting to Cairo in 1989. Greek-Egyptian relations, whether one chooses to date them back to Alexander or to Mohamed Ali, were in the last throes of decline by the late 1980s -- a decline precipitated by the nationalisations of the 1960s. In his work as cultural counsellor, Moskof represented not the contemporary Greece which is turned towards Europe, but one culturally identified with "the Mediterranean, our common body", to cite his own words. Egyptian poet Ahmed Abdel-Moeti Hegazi describes Moskof as a proponent of "Hellenistic culture", that Egyptian-Greek hybrid of ancient times. If anyone at all gave voice to this Hellenistic identity in modern times, it was the Alexandrian poet Constantine Cavafy whose work formed a bridge between modern Alexandria and the ancient Ptolemaic city. Cavafy became a figurehead, a point of departure for many activities organised and sponsored by Moskof. An annual "Cavafia" festival was already in existence when Moskof moved to Egypt. Moskof transformed what had been essentially a cultural soirée into an International Cavafy Conference. The papers read went beyond Cavafy scholarship to topics that touched, even if at a tangent, on themes opened up by the poet's work. More pertinently, the event was recast as a forum for Greek-Egyptian/Arab dialogue, with academics and poets from the Middle East invited to participate. A series of awards presented annually encompassed prizes for Egyptian poetry, for non-Egyptian Arab poetry, for Greek poetry and for Greek-Egyptian scholarship. Among the poets and writers who received such awards are Ahmed Abdel-Moeti Hegazi, Farouk Shousha, Afifi Mattar, Edwar El-Kharrat, Saadi Youssef and Mohamed Al-Faitouri. Indeed, translator Naim Attiya discloses that the funds for these prizes "came out of Moskof's own pocket... he's a man who gave to culture unstintingly, out of his time, money and health." The Cavafy Conference was also an occasion for the launch of literary works translated from Greek into Arabic (by Cavafy, Yannis Ritsos and Stratis Tsirkas, among others) commissioned by Moskof. These and other volumes enriched the library of the Cavafy Museum, the flat where the poet had lived for the last 25 years of his life, which Moskof had turned into a museum and centre of studies. Through his post and his contacts in Greece, Moskof also sought to introduce Egyptian and Arab culture to Greece. Moskof's 1994 anthology of 18 contemporary Egyptian poets in Greek translation was the first of its kind. To mark the launch of the anthology, Moskof had invited a number of Egyptian and Arab poets to Greece in 1995 to give readings in Athens and Thessaloniki. Having been invited myself to Greece to cover the readings, I remember being told by the director of letters at the Greek Ministry of Culture that the Arab literature translated into Greek was mostly confined to Naguib Mahfouz. "Moskof's translation of Egyptian poets into Greek was a task that entire institutions were unable to do -- and he undertook the task single-handedly," comments El-Kharrat. Reflecting on the many facets of Moskof's contribution to Greek-Egyptian cultural exchange poet Hassan Telib says: "There are different means of serving culture and specifically poetry, and usually people content themselves with either writing poetry, translating it or critiquing it. But Moskof, himself a poet, combined all these... he was an entire institution in and of himself... he had a coherent cultural project which did not subscribe to the notion that east is east and west is west, but rather believed that the culture of the Mediterranean is one and that the variations all stem from the same root and reconfirm it, as he demonstrated through his work." Many fear that Moskof's commitment may prove irreplaceable. "I feel I have lost a brother, in both the literal and in the cultural sense," says Hegazi. "My vision of the future of Egyptian culture is one premised on our restoring our relations with Greece and the Mediterranean. I hope that Moskof's death will not mark the end of the bonds he created, but that whoever will replace him will continue his work." Both El-Kharrat and Attiya feel that it is essential that a memorial poetry reading for Moskof be held either in Cairo or Alexandria. Hala Halim -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eugenios Trivizaswww.rdg.ac.uk/AcaDepts/lw/Sociol/publish/people/academic/eugene/bio.htmwww.sandisproductions.com/trivizas.htmA university professor,a criminologist,one of Greece's leading writers for children... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Freddie Germanos www.imdb.com/name/nm0314561/bioFreddie Germanos was one of the most loved Greek journalists and authors. Freddie was one of the most senior journalists of TV in Greece, when the state channel started transmitting back in the 60s. One of the most loved TV shows that he was presenting was "Alati kai piperi" (1968), where famous Greek people could discuss everything and anything.Three decades later all of his books were best-sellers and Freddie was one of the most-beloved and read authors of Greece. 'Tereza', the last of his Great best sellers, was about the true love story of Ernest Hemingway with Greek model Picasso Tereza. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thea HaloFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Thea Halo (b. 1942) is an American writer and painter of Assyrian and Greek heritage. Born in New York City she is the 8th child of Abraham and Sano Halo. Thea began writing poetry and short-stories in 1992 and in 2000 she published her book "Not Even My Name" (ISBN 0312262116), the memoir of her mother who belonged to Turkey's Greek minority. Sano Halo, to date, is still alive. www.notevenmyname.com/Not Even My Name is the unforgettable story of Sano Halo's survival of the death march at age 10 that annihilated her family as told to her daughter, Thea and the poignant mother/ daughter pilgrimage to Turkey in search of Sano's home 70 years after her exile. Sano, a Pontic Greek from a mountain village near the Black Sea, also recounts her ancient, pastoral way of life in the Pontic Mountians. The dreadful realization that something was amiss came little by little to Sano's village. Strangers began to inhabit the fields and forests, always watching from a distance like birds of prey. Turkish soldiers made periodic raids to seize men for slave labor in foul, lice-infested labor camps, where most died of disease, malnutrition and exposure. Then in the spring of 1920, Turkish soldiers pounded on doors with the butts of their rifles and shouted General Mustafa Kemal's (Ataturk) proclamation: "You are to leave this place. You are to take with you only what you can carry " On their death march, victims lay where they fell and buzzards hung above their heads. So ended the 3,000 year history of the Pontic Greeks in Turkey. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Katerina Gogou www.last.fm/music/Katerina+GwgouAn intellectual poet,who begun her carreer as a teenage actress in greek comedies. Katerina Gogou did poetry in a time when other “poets” did public relations. Above all, she herself was poetry. Amongst pills, drinks, burned cigarettes, ghettos, betreyals… She was born in Athens. From a young age she worked as an actress in theatre and the movies, mostly in films by the company Finos Films. Her first poetry book was Three clicks to the left and was published in 1978. She also published the books ‘Idionimo (1980), The Wooden Coat (1982), Absentees (1986), The month of frozen grapes (1988). As Leonidas Hristakis mentions, Katerina was outside of any kind of publishing and artistic cliques - for this reason you’ll rarely see her mentioned by the (deceitful) media. She committed suicide in 1993 at the age of 53… --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nicholas Gagewikipedia Nicholas Gage (born Nikola Gatzoyiannis July 23, 1939 in the village of Lia in Epirus, Greece) is a Greek American author and investigative journalist. He is most famous for two books of autobiographical memoirs, the best selling Eleni and A Place for Us. Eleni describes the life of his family in Greece during the Second World War and Greek Civil War. Gage’s mother, Eleni, was executed for arranging the escape of her children from their Communist-occupied village. Decades later, as an adult, Gage sought out those responsible for her death. A Place for Us relates the Gage family’s experiences as immigrants in 1950s America in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1985 his story Eleni was made into a feature film starring John Malkovich as Gage. In 1987, Eleni was cited by Ronald Reagan as an inspiration for his summit meetings to end the arms race with the Soviet Union. Gage first achieved fame as an investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. His unparalleled coverage of the Mafia led to two best-selling books, The Mafia Is Not An Equal Opportunity Employer and Mafia, U.S.A. He was also instrumental in exposing corruption in the past of Vice President Spiro Agnew, which led to Agnew’s resignation. During the Watergate era, Gage was the first reporter to hear any of the Nixon tapes. His experiences as a reporter were the basis for the television show “The Andros Targets”. Gage was an Executive Producer of The Godfather Part III, co-writing an early draft of the script with Mario Puzo. The movie was nominated for seven Golden Globes and seven Academy Awards. His book Eleni, which has been translated into 32 languages, was awarded first prize by the Royal Society of Literature of Great Britain and was nominated in the category of best biography by the National Book Critic's Circle. His most recent book is "Greek Fire", an account of the relationship between Aristotle Onassis and opera singer Maria Callas. Mr. Gage is the honorary President of the World Council of Epirotes and a recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence. He continues to speak throughout the world and writes for such publications as The New York Times and Vanity Fair. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Antigone KefalaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Antigone Kefala (born 1935) is a contemporary Australian poet and prose-writer of Greek-Romanian heritage. She has also been a teacher, and a member of the Literature Board of the Australia Council. Born in Brãila, Romania in 1935, Antigone Kefala and family moved to Greece and then New Zealand after World War II. Having studied French Literature at Victoria University, she relocated to Australia in 1960. There she has taught English as a second language and worked as a university and arts administrator. Her poetry and prose is written in both Greek and English, with Absence: New and Selected Poems reissued in a second edition in 1998. Her work is characterised by an austere allusiveness unusual in Australian poetry. Aside from Greek and English it has been translated into Czech and French. Works Poetry The Alien (Makar: 1973) Thirsty Weather (Outback: 1978) European Notebook (Hale & Ironmonger: 1988) Absence: New and selected poems (Sydney, Hale & Iremonger: 1992, 2nd ed. 1998) Prose fiction The First Journey (Wild & Woolley: 1975) The Island (Hale & Ironmonger: 1984) Summer visit: Three Novellas (Giramondo, 2003) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.prixeuropeendelitterature.eu/html/ficheauteur.asp?id=26
Kiki DimoulaEuropean Literature Prize for 2010 (Prix Européen de Littérature 2010) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiki_DimoulaKiki Dimoula (born Athens 1931) is an acclaimed Greek poet. She worked as a clerk for the Bank of Greece.Since 2002, Dimoula is a member of the Academy of Athens.[1] She has been awarded the Greek State Prize twice (1971, 1988), as well as the Kostas and Eleni Ouranis Prize (1994) and the Áñéóôåßï ÃñáììÜôùí of the Academy of Athens (2001). She is to be awarded the European Literature Prize for 2010. Her poetry has been translated into English, French, German, Swedish, Danish, Spanish, and many other languages. Work Dimoula's work is haunted by the existential dissolution of the post-world era. Her central themes are homelessness, insecurity, absence and oblivion. Using diverse subjects (from a "Marlboro boy" to mobile phones) and twisting grammar in unconventional ways, she accentuates the power of the words through astonishment and surprise, but always manages to retain a sense of hope.
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 18, 2007 15:34:32 GMT -5
5.Martyrs and Warriors.CYPRUS
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyprusA.Cyprus under the British EmpireIn the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) and the Congress of Berlin, Cyprus was leased to the British Empire which de facto took over its administration in 1878 (though, in terms of sovereignty, Cyprus remained a de jure Ottoman territory until 5 November 1914, together with Egypt and Sudan) in exchange for guarantees that Britain would use the island as a base to protect the Ottoman Empire against possible Russian aggression. The island would serve Britain as a key military base for its colonial routes. By 1906, when the Famagusta harbour was completed, Cyprus was a strategic naval outpost overlooking the Suez Canal, the crucial main route to India which was then Britain's most important overseas possession. Following the outbreak of the First World War and the decision of the Ottoman Empire to join the war on the side of the Central Powers, on 5 November 1914 the British Empire formally annexed Cyprus and declared the Ottoman Khedivate of Egypt and Sudan a Sultanate and British protectorate. In 1915, Britain offered Cyprus to Constantine I of Greece on condition that Greece join the war on the side of the British, which he declined. In 1923, under the Treaty of Lausanne, the nascent Turkish republic relinquished any claim to Cyprus,and in 1925 it was declared a British crown colony.Many Greek and Turkish Cypriots fought in the British Army during both world wars.During the Second World War, many enlisted in the Cyprus Regiment. The Greek Cypriot population, meanwhile, had become hopeful that the British administration would lead to enosis. The idea of enosis was historically part of the Megali Idea, a greater political ambition of a Greek state encompassing the territories with Greek inhabitants in the former Ottoman Empire, including Cyprus and Asia Minor with a capital in Constantinople, and was actively pursued by the Cypriot Orthodox Church, which had its members educated in Greece. These religious officials, together with Greek military officers and professionals, some of whom still pursued the Megali Idea, would later found the guerrilla organisation Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston or National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA).The Greek Cypriots viewed the island as historically Greek and believed that union with Greece was a natural right.In the 1950s, the pursuit of enosis became a part of the Greek national policy. Initially, the Turkish Cypriots favoured the continuation of the British rule.However, they were alarmed by the Greek Cypriot calls for enosis as they saw the union of Crete with Greece, which led to the exodus of Cretan Turks, as a precedent to be avoided,and they took a pro-partition stance in response to the militant activity of EOKA.The Turkish Cypriots also viewed themselves as a distinct ethnic group of the island and believed in their having a separate right to self-determination from Greek Cypriots.Meanwhile, in the 1950s, Turkish leader Menderes considered Cyprus an "extension of Anatolia", rejected the partition of Cyprus along ethnic lines and favoured the annexation of the whole island to Turkey. Nationalistic slogans centred on the idea that "Cyprus is Turkish" and the ruling party declared Cyprus to be a part of the Turkish homeland that was vital to its security. Upon realising the fact that the Turkish Cypriot population was only 20% of the islanders made annexation unfeasible, the national policy was changed to favour partition. The slogan "Partition or Death" was frequently used in Turkish Cypriot and Turkish protests starting in the late 1950s and continuing throughout the 1960s. Although after the Zürich and London conferences Turkey seemed to accept the existence of the Cypriot state and to distance itself from its policy of favouring the partition of the island, the goal of the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot leaders remained that of creating an independent Turkish state in the northern part of the island. In January 1950, the Church of Cyprus organised a referendum under the supervision of clerics and with no Turkish Cypriot participation,where 96% of the participating Greek Cypriots voted in favour of enosis,The Greeks were 80.2% of the total island' s population at the time (census 1946). Restricted autonomy under a constitution was proposed by the British administration but eventually rejected. In 1955 the EOKA organisation was founded, seeking union with Greece through armed struggle. At the same time the Turkish Resistance Organisation (TMT), calling for Taksim, or partition, was established by the Turkish Cypriots as a counterweight.The British had also adopted at the time a policy of "divide and rule". Woodhouse, a British official in Cyprus, revealed that then British Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan "urged the Britons in Cyprus to stir up the Turks in order to neutralise Greek agitation". British officials also tolerated the creation of the Turkish underground organisation T.M.T. The Secretary of State for the Colonies in a letter dated 15 July 1958 had advised the Governor of Cyprus not to act against T.M.T despite its illegal actions so as not to harm British relations with the Turkish government.
B.Independence and inter-communal violenceOn 16 August 1960, Cyprus attained independence after the Zürich and London Agreement between the United Kingdom, Greece and Turkey. Cyprus had a total population of 573,566; of whom 442,138 (77.1%) were Greeks, 104,320 (18.2%) Turks, and 27,108 (4.7%) others.The UK retained the two Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, while government posts and public offices were allocated by ethnic quotas, giving the minority Turkish Cypriots a permanent veto, 30% in parliament and administration, and granting the three mother-states guarantor rights. However, the division of power as foreseen by the constitution soon resulted in legal impasses and discontent on both sides, and nationalist militants started training again, with the military support of Greece and Turkey respectively. The Greek Cypriot leadership believed that the rights given to Turkish Cypriots under the 1960 constitution were too extensive and designed the Akritas plan, which was aimed at reforming the constitution in favour of Greek Cypriots, persuading the international community about the correctness of the changes and violently subjugating Turkish Cypriots in a few days should they not accept the plan.Tensions were heightened when Cypriot President Archbishop Makarios III called for constitutional changes, which were rejected by Turkey and opposed by Turkish Cypriots. Intercommunal violence erupted on December 21, 1963, when two Turkish Cypriots were killed at an incident involving the Greek Cypriot police. The violence resulted in the death of 364 Turkish and 174 Greek Cypriots,destruction of 109 Turkish Cypriot or mixed villages and displacement of 25,000-30,000 Turkish Cypriots. The crisis resulted in the end of the Turkish Cypriot involvement in the administration and their claiming that it had lost its legitimacy;the nature of this event is still controversial. In some areas, Greek Cypriots prevented Turkish Cypriots from travelling and entering government buildings, while some Turkish Cypriots willingly withdrew due to the calls of the Turkish Cypriot administration.Turkish Cypriots started living in enclaves; the republic's structure was changed unilaterally by Makarios and Nicosia was divided by the Green Line, with the deployment of UNFICYP troops. In 1964, Turkey tried to invade Cyprus in response to the continuing Cypriot intercommunal violence. But Turkey was stopped by a strongly worded telegram from the US President Lyndon B. Johnson on 5 June, warning that the US would not stand beside Turkey in case of a consequential Soviet invasion of Turkish territory.Meanwhile, by 1964, enosis was a Greek policy that could not be abandoned; Makarios and the Greek prime minister Georgios Papandreou agreed that enosis should be the ultimate aim and King Constantine wished Cyprus "a speedy union with the mother country". Greece dispatched 10,000 troops to Cyprus to counter a possible Turkish invasion. C.1974 Cypriot coup d'état and Turkish invasion of CyprusOn 15 July 1974, the Greek military junta under Dimitrios Ioannides carried out a coup d'état in Cyprus, to unite the island with Greece.The coup ousted president Makarios III and replaced him with pro-enosis nationalist Nikos Sampson.In response to the coup,five days later, on 20 July 1974, the Turkish army invaded the island, citing a right to intervene to restore the constitutional order from the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee. This justification has been rejected by the United Nations and the international community. The Turkish air force began bombing Greek positions in Cyprus, and hundreds of paratroopers were dropped in the area between Nicosia and Kyrenia, where well-armed Turkish Cypriot enclaves had been long-established; while off the Kyrenia coast, Turkish troop ships landed 6,000 men as well as tanks, trucks and armoured vehicles. Three days later, when a ceasefire had been agreed,Turkey had landed 30,000 troops on the island and captured Kyrenia, the corridor linking Kyrenia to Nicosia, and the Turkish Cypriot quarter of Nicosia itself.The junta in Athens, and then the Sampson regime in Cyprus fell from power. In Nicosia, Glafkos Clerides assumed the presidency and constitutional order was restored, removing the pretext for the Turkish invasion.But after the peace negotiations in Geneva, the Turkish government reinforced their Kyrenia bridgehead and started a second invasion on 14 August.The invasion resulted in the seizure of Morphou, Karpass, Famagusta and the Mesaoria. International pressure led to a ceasefire, and by then 37% of the island had been taken over by the Turks and 180,000 Greek Cypriots had been evicted from their homes in the north.At the same time, around 50,000 Turkish Cypriots moved to the areas under the control of the Turkish Forces and settled in the properties of the displaced Greek Cypriots. Among a variety of sanctions against Turkey, in mid-1975 the US Congress imposed an arms embargo on Turkey for using American-supplied equipment during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.There are 1,534 Greek Cypriots and 502 Turkish Cypriots missing as a result of the fighting. D.Post-divisionAfter the restoration of constitutional order and the return of Archbishop Makarios III to Cyprus in December 1974, Turkish troops remained, occupying the northeastern portion of the island. In 1983, the leader of Turkish Cypriots proclaimed the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which is only recognised by Turkey. The events of the summer of 1974 dominate the politics on the island, as well as Greco-Turkish relations. Around 150,000 settlers from Turkey are believed to be living in the north—many of whom were forced from Turkey by the Turkish government—in violation of the Geneva Convention and various UN resolutions.Following the invasion and the capture of its northern territory by Turkish troops, the Republic of Cyprus announced that all of its ports of entry in the north were closed, as they were effectively not under its control. The Turkish invasion, followed by occupation and the declaration of independence of the TRNC have been condemned by United Nations resolutions, which are reaffirmed by the Security Council every year.The last major effort to settle the Cyprus dispute was the Annan Plan in 2004, drafted by the then Secretary General, Kofi Annan. The plan was put to a referendum in both Northern Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus. 65% of Turkish Cypriots voted in support of the plan and 74% Greek Cypriots voted against the plan, claiming that it disproportionately favoured the Turkish side.In total, 66.7% of the voters rejected the Annan Plan V. On 1 May 2004 Cyprus joined the European Union, together with nine other countries.Cyprus was accepted into the EU as a whole, although the EU legislation is suspended in the territory occupied by Turkey (TRNC), until a final settlement of the Cyprus problem. In July 2006, the island served as a haven for people fleeing Lebanon, due to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah (also called "The July War"). Efforts have been made to enhance freedom of movement between the two sides. In April 2003, the TRNC unilaterally eased border restrictions, permitting Cypriots to cross between the two sides for the first time in 30 years.In March 2008, a wall that had stood for decades at the boundary between the Republic of Cyprus and the UN buffer zone was demolished.The wall had cut across Ledra Street in the heart of Nicosia and was seen as a strong symbol of the island's 32-year division. On 3 April 2008, Ledra Street was reopened in the presence of Greek and Turkish Cypriot officials.North and South relaunched reunification talks on 15 May 2015. ============================================================================== en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EOKA EOKA (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston,Greek for National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) was a Greek Cypriot nationalist military resistance organisation that fought for the end of British rule of the island, for self-determination and for union with Greece (enosis).The organisation was headed by George Grivas. Grivas had rich military experience having been educated at the Hellenic Military Academy, having served as an officer in the Greek army and having fought for Greece in both World Wars.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgios_Grivaswww.militaryphotos.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-88115.htmlGeorgios Grivas (Digenis)/EOKA------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Grigoris Pieris Afxentiou/EOKAFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Born February 22, 1928 Died March 3, 1957 (aged 29) near Machairas Monastery, Nicosia District Nationality Cypriot Ethnicity Greek
Grigoris Pieris Afxentiou (1928–1957) was a guerrilla fighter who fought against the British rule of Cyprus and is considered a national hero. In the hierarchy of EOKA he was second in command to general Georgios Grivas. His nom-de-guerre was Zedhros.
Afxentiou was born in the village of Lyssi in Mesaoria, Famagusta District on February 22, 1928 to Pieris and Antonia Afxentiou.He attended Lyssi primary school and received his secondary education at the Hellenic Gymnasium in the nearest city, Famagusta. Army service He left for Greece where he was unsuccessful in gaining a place at the Hellenic Military Academy in Athens. In December 1949 he joined the Hellenic Army as a volunteer. From March to October 1950, he attended a reserve officer’s academy on the island of Syros. He then served with the Hellenic Army on the Greek-Bulgarian frontier, as a second lieutenant, before returning to Cyprus and joining the EOKA struggle. He was discharged from the ranks of the Greek Army on November 15, 1953 and returned to Cyprus, where he helped his father with his business by working as a taxi driver. At that time he also got engaged to be married. EOKA Afxentiou joined the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA) where he soon became Second in Command, adjutant to EOKA leader George Grivas.He was originally assigned the regional command of the district of Famagusta which he knew well.It was Grigoris Afxentiou who first thought of obtaining explosives from the sea bed, in shallow waters off the coast of Famagusta, as used by local fishermen to dynamite fish. Explosives were made from the surplus shells dumped in the sea by the British Army at the end of Second World War.Afxentiou was well liked by his peers and it did not take long for General Grivas to promote him to Commander of the Kyrenia district. In the spring of 1955, he conducted attacks against the British-controlled Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation and the electricity company in Nicosia. Known by the code name Zidros, since the day of his attacks, he was top of the British list of most wanted men.They initially proclaimed a reward of £250 for his arrest, which was soon raised to £1,000,and then £5,000 pounds for blowing up British property. When the reward was proclaimed, he went into hiding in the Pentadactylos mountain range where he trained EOKA fighters on weapon use and guerrilla warfare. He was very active in the Pentadaktylos range as well as Mount Troodos. During October, 1955, on the day after Field Marshal Harding's arrival on Cyprus Afxentiou raided Lefkoniko Police Station, in broad daylight, and seized the entire armoury that was stored there. Although the raid was planned well in advance it clearly appeared as a challenge to the Field Marshal's authority who thereafter pursued Afxentiou zealously. In December, 1955, Afxentiou was relocated on orders of General Grivas to the Troodos mountain range and the General's hideout at Spilia, which led to Afxentiou's involvement in the Battle of Spilia. On March 3, 1957, after an informant had betrayed his location, the British forces surrounded Afxentiou outside his secret hideout near the Machairas Monastery.At the time, inside the hideout were Afxentiou and four fellow guerrilla fighters. Realising he was outnumbered, Afxentiou ordered his comrades to surrender but stayed behind to fight to the death.The British asked Afxentiou to surrender his arms but he replied "Molon labe" ("come and take them") quoting King Leonidas of Sparta at Thermopylae. Unable to drive him out and after sustaining casualties, the British forces resorted to pouring petrol into his hideout and lighting it, burning him alive. In fear of a popular uprising, the British buried his scorched body at the Imprisoned Graves, in the yard of the Central Jail of Lefkosia,where he lies today. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evagoras_PallikaridesEvagoras Palikaridis/EOKA Evagoras Pallikarides (26 February 1938 - March 14, 1957) was an EOKA fighter during the 1955-1959 campaign against the British in Cyprus....At his trial Pallikaridis did not deny possession of the weapon. He said he did what he had to do as a Greek Cypriot seeking his freedom. He was sentenced to die for gun possession on February 27, 1957. Pallikaridis was hanged on March 14, 1957, at the age of 18. He was buried at the Imprisoned Graves (fylalkismena mnimata) in the Central Jail of Nicosia. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Markos Drakos/EOKA
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markos_DrakosMarkos Drakos was a Cypriot guerrilla fighter who was killed in the EOKA struggle (1955 - 1959) against the British. He was born in Lefkosia, on September 24, 1932 and studied accounting. When EOKA was formed, Drakos was among the first to join, training others in the use of arms and recruiting members. On April 1, 1955, considered to be the first day of the struggle, Drakos and his "Astrape" ("Lightning") team blew up the radio station of Athalassa, destroying it completely. On June 30, 1955, Drakos was arrested by the British but managed to escape 3 months later. A bounty of 5,000 pounds was placed on his head but that did not deter him from taking part in more battles and acts of sabotage. Finally, on the night of January 18, 1957 the British forces attacked Drakos and his men at their hideout in Solea. Drakos fought in the rain and hail storm, almost single-handedly, allowing his comrades to escape. His body, with 40 bullet-holes, was recovered and interred by the British in the Central Jail of Lefkosia. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kyriakos Matsis/EOKA
Kyriakos Matsis(1926-1958) was a Greek Cypriot guerrilla member of EOKA. He was Yiannakis Matsis' brother who is Member of the European Parliament for Cyprus Early life Matsis was born in Palechori, Cyprus. He received his secondary education at Famagusta gymnasium and then studied agriculture at the University of Thessaloniki. EOKA In 1955, when the fight against the British began, he became one of the first members of EOKA. In 1956, he was caught by the British, and was imprisoned. He managed to escape, and fled to the mountains of Pendadactylos (ÐåíôáäÜ÷ôõëïò), where he set traps and continued fighting. He was then named "áåôüò ôïõ Ðåíôáäá÷ôýëïõ", Greek for "eagle of Pentadactylos". Bravery and Death On November 19, 1958, the British discovered a hideout in Dikomo, in Kyriakos Diakos' house, where Matsis and his company, Andreas Sofiopoulos and Kostas Xristodoulou, hid. The British found it when a traitor told them their exact position. The British surrounded the house, and Matsis burned all his letters before telling his two friends to surrender. When the British called for his surrender, he didn't answer immediately, later shouting "If I come out, I'll come out shooting!". Matsis was killed in the ensuing gun battle. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyriakos_Matsis" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michalis Karaolis/EOKA
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michalis_KaraolisMichalis Karaolis (1934-1956) was born in the village Palechori of Pitsilia, Cyprus. He was a member of EOKA and was the first to be sentenced to death and hanged alongside Andreas Dimitriou on May 10, 1956. He was 22 years old when he was executed. When he finished primary school in his village he went to the English School in Nicosia. After his graduation, he found a job in the civil service. He became one of the first members of EOKA. A member of his team killed Officer Poullis, suspected of being a traitor, while Karaolis was going to meet Grigoris Afxentiou on the mountains of Pentadactylos ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ wiki.phantis.com/index.php/Andreas_DimitriouAndreas Dimitriou/EOKA
Andreas Dimitriou was a Cypriot guerilla fighter, one of the first two men executed by the British colonial authorities in the EOKA struggle (1955 - 1959). Dimitriou was born in Agios Mamas, Lemesos province, on September 18, 1934. He lost his father early in life. He had a primary school education but did not complete secondary school. He was one of the first persons to join EOKA and when the struggle broke out, on April 1, 1955, he operated in the Ammochostos harbour area where he worked. His biggest achievement was the theft of a large amount of British weaponry and ammunition after it was unloaded from the ship and before it could be stored in the local depot. On November 28, 1955, Dimitriou shot and injured a British Intelligence agent named Taylor. He was himself injured and captured by Taylor's escorts and jailed. Dimitriou was tried, convicted and executed by hanging on May 10, 1956, along with Michalis Karaolis. He was buried in the Imprisoned Tombs in the Central Jail of Lefkosia. The death of the two men sparked anti-British riots in Greece where 4 persons died and 200 were injured.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  Anastasios "Tassos" IsaacAnastasios "Tassos" Isaac (1972 – 11 August 1996), was a Greek Cypriot refugee who participated in a civilian demonstration against the Republic of Turkey's military occupation of the northern part of the Republic of Cyprus. The demonstrator's demand was for the complete withdrawal of Turkish troops from the island, and the return of Cypriot refugees to their homes. Isaac was killed by a mob of Turkish people in the United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus. In August 1996, in order to commemorate the 22nd year of Cyprus being a divided country, over 200 bikers from several European countries had organized a rally from Berlin (the last divided city in Europe other than Nicosia) to Kyrenia. They left Berlin on 2 August and were planning to arrive at their destination on the 11th where they would be joined by Cypriot bikers. Simultaneously, around 2,500 members of the far right Turkish organization Grey Wolves were being transported to the northern part of Cyprus by the Turkish Government in order to confront the European and Cypriot bikers. Due to heavy political pressure (even by the U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali) being applied to the Cypriot Motorcycle Federation to cancel the 11 August event, CMF finally succumbed. This was met with disapproval by a large portion of the bikers and other protesters, who decided to march on their own. Among them was Tassos Isaac, who together with other demonstrators, entered the United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus near Deryneia, just south of the town of Famagusta. During the confrontation in the UN buffer zone between the Cypriot bikers and the Turkish Grey Wolves, Isaac found himself trapped in barbed-wire without his co-protesters noticing he was left behind. Soon, a large group of Grey Wolves ran towards him and attacked him. They continued for several minutes, unchallenged by the nearby UN peacekeepers. By the time the Cypriots managed to take him back from the mob, aided by the UN peacekeepers, Tassos Isaac was dead.According to a video footage that captured the attack, along with the UN peacekeepers, a Turkish Cypriot policeman was also watching nearby without intervening. Funeral and reactions Tassos Isaac's funeral was held on 14 August 1996 and was attended by thousands of people. Protests after the funeral led to the death of Isaac's cousin, Solomos Solomou. On 22 November 1996, the Cypriot Police issued international arrest warrants for the death of Tassos Isaac against Hasim Yilmaz, a Turkish settler and former member of the Turkish Secret Service, Neyfel Mustafa Ergun, a Turkish settler, serving in the Turkish North Cypriot police, Polat Fikret Koreli, a Turkish Cypriot from Famagusta, Mehmet Mustafa Arslan, a Turkish settler, leader of the Grey Wolves in Northern Cyprus, and Erhan Arikli, a Turkish settler from the former Soviet Union. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Solomos Solomou
 Three days after Isaac's funeral, a group of Greek Cypriot mourners went to the buffer zone in Dherynia to lay wreaths at the site of the murder. The second cousin of Isaac, Solomos Solomou, climbed a flagpole flying the Turkish flag close to the cease-fire line, a flare went up as a signal to fire and he was immediately shot at by a Turkish or Turkish Cypriot "soldier" and other Turks from a number of directions. He fell to the ground and died instantly. The autopsy later revealed he had been hit by five bullets. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Captain Sotirios StavrianakosOn 16th August 1974 and while Attila 2 invaded a burning Cyprus, major target of the invaders became the ELDYK barracs west of Nikosia. 2 ELDYK companies resisted literaly till the last man in this modern Thermopylae. Words of captain Sotiris Stavrianakos to his men gave new life to Leonidas of Sparta : "Even if the Turkish tanks pass over us, we will stay here to fight their infantry.... We are Greeks and we fight for Greece we cannot turn our back to the enemy" , and that's exactly what happened. Cptn Sotiris Stavrianakos was ordered to leave the island a few days before his death but he refused. As he said to his wife in the phone, "I can't leave my children alone" meaning his soldiers. He died trying to either through a grenade at a Turkish M-48 or to kill the tank commander with his pistol.... A handfull of men with small arms fighting against 20000 Turks invading with full air support and some 60 tanks! No antitank weapons bearly no antiaircraft weapons completely deserted from Greek government... On 6th August 1974 while a truce was on, a company of ELDYK men attached to a location called Caravas fought together with a company of the 286th Mechanised Infantry Battalion and 256 & 321 Infantry Battalions. Total of 600 men against 8000 Turkish infantry & 40 M-48 Tanks.... resistance was heroic but in vain.... In the final battle for the ELDYK barracs, turkish airforce used napalm bombs to defeat the handfull of men who fought the battle of their lives... Most of ELDYK men are still in a long line of 1691 missing. Some were reported to be alive in the depth of Turkey even untill recently.. Others were left unbarried, bodies were mutilated, heads of the dead were cut and Turkish troops were then making photos joking with the enemy.... A handfull of men, fighting till the last drop of their blood....
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 18, 2007 15:35:18 GMT -5
As my own small contribution to Balkan peace i have deleted the biographies in this specific sub-category and kept only the links. www.venizelos-foundation.grBALKAN WARS AND ASIA MINOR CAMPAIGN (1912-1922)--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Eleftherios Venizelos,prime minister of Greece.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleftherios_Venizelos-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_I_of_GreeceConstantine I, King of the Hellenes (1868 -1923) ruled Greece from 1913 to 1917 and from 1920 to 1922. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  A photo from wikipedia A photo from wikipediaAdmiral Pavlos Kountouriotis
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlos_Kountouriotis------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Averoff
George M. AveroffGeorge M. Averoff (15 August 1815, Metsovo – 15 July 1899, al-Raml/Ramleh, Alexandria),was a Greek businessman and philanthropist. He is one of the great national benefactors of Greece. Born in the town of Metsovo (Epirus, Greece, then Ottoman Empire) Averoff moved to Alexandria while still young.He was an Aromanian. 
Greek cruiser Georgios Averofen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_cruiser_Georgios_AverofGeorgios Averof is a modified Pisa-class armored cruiser built in Italy for the Royal Hellenic Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. The ship served as the Greek flagship during most of the first half of the century. Although popularly known as a battleship (θωρηκτό) in Greek, she is in fact an armored cruiser (θωρακισμένο καταδρομικό),the only ship of this type still in existence.The donation for building the flaghip of the Greek Navy was paid with the help of a wealthy Greek benefactor, George Averoff, whose name she consequently received. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Bishop of Smyrne,Chrisostomosen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysostomos_of_Smyrna-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  General Theodore Pangalos.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodoros_Pangalos_(general)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Konstantinos Nider
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantinos_Nider-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Admiral Nikolaos Votsis
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolaos_Votsis------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolaos_PlastirasGeneral Nikolaos Plastiras
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panagiotis_DanglisGeneral Panagiotis DanglisPanagiotis Danglis (1853–1924) was a Greek Army general and politician. He is particularly notable for his invention of the Schneider-Danglis mountain gun, his service as chief of staff in the Balkan Wars and his participation in the Triumvirate of the Provisional Government of National Defence during World War I.
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 18, 2007 15:36:11 GMT -5
WORLD WARS
 Adolf Hitler about the Greeks...
www.hitler.org/speeches/05-04-41.html
Adolf Hitler
May 4th 1941, Reichstag, Berlin
Quote:
The German armed forces have truly surpassed themselves in this campaign. There is only one way of characterizing that campaign:
Nothing is impossible for the German soldier. Historical justice, however, obliges me to say that of the opponents that have taken up arms against us, most particularly the greek soldiers, have fought with the greatest bravery and contempt of death.They only capitulated when further resistance became impossible and therefore useless.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Greece_during_World_War_IIMilitary history of Greece during World War IIwww.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=127556The Greeks at El Alamein,Egypt. (1942)  The Greek memorial at El Alamein, today. The Battle of Rimini,Italy-The 3rd Greek Brigade www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=103359www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=198============================================================================
Lieutenant General Emmanouil Zymvrakakis/The batle of Skra (WWI)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Battle of Skra di Legen (Skora di Legen) was a two day World War I battle which took place at the Skra fortified position, located NE of Mount Paiko North of Thessaloniki on May 30, 1918.The Allied force comprised three Greek divisions under Lieutenant General Emmanouil Zymvrakakis plus one French brigade. The three Greek divisions included the Archipelagos Division under Major General Ioannou, the Crete Division under Major General Panagiotis Spiliadis, and the Serres Division under Lieutenant Colonel P. Gardicas. Victory of the allied troops with a decisive Greek contribution. In May 1918 Greek military units held a leading part in the battle of Skra di Legen, that resulted in the capture of a particularly fortified position, controlled until then by the Central Powers, chiefly Bulgarian troops. The battle of Skra confirmed in the eyes of the allies the fighting readiness of the Greek army which had practically just been restructured ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ioannis_Metaxas Ioannis Metaxas
Ioannis Metaxas(1871 – 1941) was a Greek General and the Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death.In foreign policy Metaxas followed a neutral stance, trying to balance between the UK and Germany. In the late 1930s, as with the other Balkan countries, Germany became Greece's largest trading partner. Metaxas himself had a reputation as a Germanophile dating back to his studies in Germany and his role in the National Schism. The regime's literature gave praise to fellow European authoritarian states, especially those of Francisco Franco, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. However, events gradually drove Metaxas to lean toward France and Britain. King George and most of the country's elites were staunchly anglophile, and the predominance of the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean could not be ignored by a maritime country such as Greece. Furthermore, the expansionist goals of Mussolini's Italy pushed Greece to lean towards the Franco-British alliance. Metaxas' efforts to keep Greece out of World War II came undone when Mussolini demanded occupation rights to strategic Greek sites. When the Italian envoy presented these demands on 28 October 1940, Metaxas curtly replied in French: "Alors, c'est la guerre" ("Then it is war"). However, according to popular legend, Metaxas simply told the Italian envoy in Greek, "Ohi!" ("No!")--an incident that has become encapsulated in Greek popular feeling. "Ohi Day" is still celebrated in Greece each year. A few hours later, Italy invaded Greece from Albania and started the Greco-Italian War. Thanks to preparations and an inspired defense, the Greeks were able to mount a successful defense and counteroffensive, forcing the Italians back and occupying large parts of southern Albania,where a sizeable Greek minority still lives. Death and legacy Metaxas never saw the German invasion of Greece during the Battle of Greece because he died in Athens on 29 January 1941 of a phlegmon of the pharynx, which subsequently led to incurable toxaemia. He was succeeded by Alexandros Koryzis. After the death of Metaxas, the German invasion of Greece had to take into account the fortifications constructed by Metaxas in Northern Greece. These fortifications were constructed along the Bulgarian border and were known as the Metaxas Line.
To this day Metaxas remains a highly controversial figure in Greek history. He is reviled by some for his dictatorial rule and admired by others for his popular policies, patriotism, defiance to aggression and his military victory against Italy. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Field Marshal Alexander Papagos
photo taken from TIME magazine content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19401216,00.html en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_PapagosAlexander Papagos (9 December 1883 – 4 October 1955), was a Greek Field Marshal who led the Hellenic Army in World War II and the later stages of the Greek Civil War and became the country's Prime Minister after his victory in the 1952 elections. His premiership was defined by the Cold War; American military bases were allowed on Greek territory, a powerful and vehemently anti-communist security apparatus was created, and the communist leader Nikos Ploumpidis was executed by firing squad. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandros_Koryzis Alexandros KoryzisAlexandros Koryzis (1885 – April 18, 1941) was the Prime Minister of Greece briefly in 1941. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Konstantinos Davakis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Born 1897 Kechrianika, Laconia, Greece Died 21 January 1943 (aged 45–46) in the Adriatic Sea off southern Albania Allegiance Country flag Greece Service/branch Hellenic Army Years of service 1916–1943 Rank Colonel Unit Pindus Detachment (1940) Battles/wars Battle of Skra-di-Legen Battle of Doiran Greco-Italian War (Battle of Pindus) Awards Silver Medal of Sacrifice by the Athens Academy Konstantinos Davakis (1897 – 21 January 1943) was a Greek military officer in World War II. He organized the Greek defensive lines during the Battle of Pindus that led to Italian defeat in the first stage of the Greco-Italian War of 1940. He was born in the village of Kechrianika outside of Sparta, Laconia prefecture in 1897. After graduating from military school, he saw action in World War I and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). Greco-Italian War Davakis was a colonel when Italy attacked Greece on 28 October 1940. As commander of the Pindus detachment (Απόσπασμα Πίνδου), he successfully repelled the Italian Julia Alpine Division's attack in late October 1940 but was seriously injured in November of the same year, when he counter-attacked, nearly destroying it. Davakis' detachment, composed of two infantry battalions of the 51st Infantry Regiment, one cavalry troop and one artillery battery, was the first Greek unit that received the "blow" of the Italian invasion. Davakis' forces were overstretched, covering a 30 km front on mountainous terrain. His unit resisted the Julia Division's advance for two days, by which time sufficient reinforcements could be brought up to contain and defeat the Italians. Wounding and death On 2 November 1940, near the village of Samarina, while directing his unit, Davakis was hit in the chest suffering serious lung injury and lapsing into a coma. Although he regained consciousness two days later, he remained hospitalized in battlefield. In December 1942, he was arrested by the Italian occupation authorities, along with other Greek officers, suspected of participation in the Greek Resistance. The officers were to be shipped to POW camps in Italy on the Citta di Genoa liner, but the ship was torpedoed and sank off southern Albania in January 1943. Davakis' body was recognized by local Greeks and buried at Vlorë. His bones were transferred to Athens after the war. Legacy The military camp "Colonel Konstantinos Davakis" in Sparta bears his name. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Band Col. Christodoulos Tsigantes/Sacred Band
 Sacred Band can refer to one of two elite military units of the ancient world: *the Sacred Band of Thebes *the Sacred Band of Carthage *In ancient Carthaginian history the name referred to an elite military unit, which made up history's first special forces unit. In modern Greek history, the name has been used to denote two military units: *A battalion, founded by Alexander Ypsilantis in February 1821, composed of 500 young Greek students who rallied to his cause. It was destroyed almost to a man in the Battle of Drãgãºani (June 19, 1821). *A special operations unit, formed in 1942 during the Second World War in the Middle East, composed entirely of Greek officers and cadets under the command of Col. Christodoulos Tsigantes. It fought alongside the SAS in the Libyan desert and the Aegean, as well as with General Leclerc's Free French in Tunisia. It was disbanded in August 1945, and is the precursor of the modern Greek Special Forces. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spyros Pisanos
WWII air ace.see "airmen" category. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mordechai Frizis
 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordehai_FrizisMordechai Frizis (1 January 1893 – 5 December 1940) was a Jewish Greek military officer, who distinguished himself in World War II, and was killed on 5 December 1940, fighting against the Julia Division.During World War II, Frizis,as a Colonel, participated in the Greco-Italian War, and succeeded in repelling an Italian attack on the bridge of the Thyamis River, followed up by a Greek counterattack. When the Italians countered with aerial bombing, his men dismounted and took cover in trenches, while he continued riding his horse throughout the battlefield and shouting "courage" to rally his men, but was severely wounded in the stomach, but continued trying to rally his men. When the Italian aircraft withdrew, it was discovered that he had died of his injuries. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ioannis Agorastos Plagis
WWII air ace.See category "airmen" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Konstandinos KoukidisKonstandinos Koukidis was the Greek Evzonas on flag guard duty on the 27th of April 1941 at the Athens Acropolis, at the beginning of the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II. The Nazi troops ordered him to surrender, deliver the Greek flag to them and raise the Nazi swastika flag. Koukidis instead stayed loyal to his duty by taking the flag down, wrapping himself in it and jumping from the Acropolis to his death. A commemorative plaque is placed on the Acropolis today, to remind people of his act of pride and sacrifice. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrasyvoulos_TsakalotosThrasyvoulos TsakalotosGeneral Thrasyvoulos Tsakalotos (April 3, 1897, Preveza — August 15, 1989, Athens), was a Hellenic Army officer who served in World War I, the Minor Asia Campaign and World War II. He was commanding officer of the 3rd Greek Mountain Brigade during the Gothic Line offensive of the Allies(Italy). In 1948, he was appointed commanding officer of the II Army Corps and thus contributed to the victory of the Hellenic Army in the Greek Civil War. Tsakalotos also served as Greece's ambassador in Yugoslavia in the 1950s. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charalambos_KatsimitrosCharalambos Katsimitros From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia General Katsimitros (1886 in Kleitsos, Evrytania - 1962 in Athens) was a Greek general who distinguished himself during the Italian invasion of Greece. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,772474,00.html World War: Sons of Greece
William Helisnews.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19410307&id=Q_kLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OVUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4028,827416 The Evening Independent - Mar 7, 1941 "Balkans will stop Hitler,says Consul"-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Manolis Glezos-Apostolos Santasen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manolis_GlezosManolis Glezos is a Greek left wing politician and writer, worldwide known especially for his participation in the World War II resistance. On May 30, 1941, he and Apostolos Santas climbed on the Acropolis and tore down the Swastika, which had been there since April 27, 1941, when the Nazi forces had entered Athens. That was the first resistance act that took place in Greece, and probably among the very first ones in Europe. It inspired not only the Greeks, but all subjected people, to resist against the occupation, and established them both as two international anti-Nazi heroes. The Nazi regime responded by sentencing Glezos and Santas to death in absentia.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolos_SantasApostolos Santas (born 1922) is a Greek veteran of the Resistance against the Axis Occupation of Greece during World War II, most notable for his participation, along with Manolis Glezos, in the taking down of the German flag from the Acropolis on 30 May 1941.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jerzy Iwanow Szajnowicz (Georgios Ivanof)A Polish hero of the Greek resistance against the Nazis.He was also a distinguished athelete of Thessaloniki's sports club "Heracles" (Hercules) in north Greece.Today,Hercules basketball team's stadium is called Ivanophio to honor him.www.executedtoday.com/2010/01/04/1943-jerzy-iwanow-georgios-ivanofalso www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=16073JERZY IWANOW-SZAJNOWICZ by Paul Neumann Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz, the son of Varsovite Leonarda né Szajnowicz and Russian colonel Vladimir Ivanov was born on 14 December 1911 in Warsaw. A student, outstanding Olympics sportsman, officer of the Independent Carpathian Rifle Brigade he joint the British Special Operations Executive unit No.004 in Cairo and was transferred by a submarine on 13 October 1941 to Greece as a spy and diversionist. The Polish commando, having the cryptonym "033B", equipped with a pistol, switchblade and a small radio transmitter, immediately after the landing started his activities. He organized intelligence net with aquainted for years Greeks and collected information on German and Italian supply transports sent from Athens' port Piraeus to the Field-Marshal Rommel's corps. Having reports received by radio British bombers could attack ships waiting for departure in the port or sailing to Africa. In the spring 1942 Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz, under the name Kiriakos Paryssis, got, by an order of the unit No.004, a job at a shipyard in Skaramanga (the Bay of Eleusis). On 15 March he swam to the submarine U-133, being at the time the base of German divers, and sank her by the means of a magnetic depth charge. In March and April he sunk several further ships in the port of Piraeus and sent detailed reports on military installations in Salonika, which subsequently were destroyed by British bombers. His further diversion actions were: sinking or damage of several German and Italian transports in Pharos, setting in fire ships and vessels in Parikia bay in Pharos, collision and setting in fire of lorries with fuel and explosives in Pharos. In Korinth he managed to install a time bomb in the submarine U-372. The explosion of the bomb, while the submarine was on a secret assignment in the Levantine waters, forced the submarine to surface. Subsequently she was detected by British ships and sunk off Haifa. He also sabotaged works at the Italian aircraft factory Malziniotti. The Pole acted until 8 September 1942 when he was arrested third time (he managed to escape from two previous arrests) in Athens what happened due to betrayal of a supposed friend. He was court-martialled on 2 December and got three death sentences. He died on 4 January 1943 in Averof shot by SS-men while he tried to escape on the way to execution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sofia Vempo
www.imdb.com/name/nm0892843/bioSofia Vempo was a well known singer and actress of Greece before the second world war. During the war against the Italians and the Germans, she became very popular because she sang some wonderful songs that inspired the Greek people and humiliated the dictators of Germany and Italy. ============================================================================== MEGA TO TIS THALASSIS KRATOS. Ioannis Toumbas/Greek destroyer Adriasen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_destroyer_Adrias www.hellasarmy.gr/hn/images/l67adrias-3b.jpgAdrias (L-67) after being struck by a German mine on October 22, 1943. Adrias was a Hunt III class destroyer that was originally built for Royal Navy as HMS Border (L67) but never commissioned. Before her completion, she was loaned to Royal Hellenic Navy on July 20, 1942 and commissioned as Adrias (L67) on August 5, 1942 in order to relieve heavy losses of ships sustained by the Royal Hellenic Navy during the German invasion of 1941 and throughout the war. Adrias took her name from the ancient Greek town of Adria in Italy, at the mouth of the Po river, after which the Adriatic Sea is named (Herodotus vi. 127, vii. 20, ix. 92; Euripides, Hippolytus, 736). Command of Adrias was accepted by Cmdr. Ioannis Toumbas in Newcastle, England, on July 20 1942. Upon completion of the training period on August 26, while sailing under foggy conditions with only the left engine functioning, she ran aground near Scapa Flow. It took four months to repair. No responsibility was attributed to the captain for the accident. In the beginning of January, 1943, after the completion of repairs, Adrias sailed to the Mediterranean where she participated in missions escorting convoys. On January 27, 1943, while positioned 360 nautical miles (667 km) NW off Cape Finisterre Adrias was believed to have sunk the German U/Boat U-553 (British Admiralty's signal presumed her possibly sunk). When the war ended the loss of the German submarine was officially confirmed to have occurred on 27 January. However, the name of the ship that caused the sinking was not mentioned. During that same operation on February 13, 1943, Adrias sunk or seriously damaged the U/Boat U-623 (the last report from that submarine was dated February 9, 1943). Adrias took part in numerous convoy escorts in the Mediterranean Sea as well as in the Sicily landing operations, where on the night of 20 July, 1943, in cooperation with British destroyer HMS Quantock she successfully confronted 3 German torpedo boats during a night engagement and sunk two of them. On 20 September, 1943, representing Greece, she participated in the force of 4 Allied ships to which the Taranto-based Italian Fleet, sailing towards Malta, surrendered. On October 22, 1943, during operations in the Dodecanese Islands and while near the island of Kalymnos with the British destroyer HMS Hurworth, Adrias struck a mine. From the explosion, her bow was torn off. The English Flotilla Commander onboard Hurworth ordered Cmdr. Toumbas to abandon ship. Hurworth, while trying to come to Adrias's rescue, also hit a mine and sunk taking 143 men with her. In spite of the damage suffered, Adrias took on the survivors of Hurworth (among them her CO) and managed to reach the nearby coast of Gumusluk in neutral Turkey with 21 men of her crew dead and 30 wounded. After some minor repairs, the ship sailed on December 1 for Alexandria, despite her missing bow. After a trip of 730 nautical miles (1,350 km), of which 300 were within the range of Luftwaffe's Junkers Ju 88 bombers based in occupied Greece, (the threat of them forced her to sail only at night despite her limited maneuverability), she managed to reach Alexandria on 6 December (day of the Feast of St. Nicholas, patron saint of seamen) where she was enthusiastically greeted by the British Fleet and other Allied ships. This achievement was considered a brilliant example of seamanship, and provided a morale boost to the Royal Hellenic Navy and other allied ships in the Mediterranean Sea. After the liberation of Greece from the Germans, Adrias, with her bow temporarily repaired, arrived in Faliro with the rest of the ships of the Hellenic Fleet. The ship was never fully repaired due to the termination of war operations in the Mediterranean and sailed to England where she was returned to the Royal Navy. Of the same class of ships serving in the Hellenic Navy were: Adrias (DO6) formerly HMS Tanatside (L69) (loaned to Hellenic Navy as a replacement of this ship), Hastings formerly HMS Catterick (L81) loaned to Hellenic Navy in 1946, Kanaris built as HMS Hatherleigh (L53) , Miaoulis built as HMS Modbury (L91), Pindos built as HMS Bolebroke (L65). The Hellenic Navy gave the same name to commemorate this ship to Standard type frigate Adrias (F459) in 1994. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9e/RHS_Vasilissa_Olga.jpgLt. Cmdr. G. Blessas/Greek destroyer Vasilissa Olga (D15)Vasilissa Olga was a Greek destroyer of the Vasilefs Georgios (modified G) class, which served with the Royal Hellenic Navy during the Second World War, becoming its most distinguished and successful ship until her loss in 1943. She was named after Queen Olga of Greece, the wife of King George I, and was the second ship to bear this name. Built by Yarrow & Company (Scotstoun, Scotland), along with her sister ship, the Vasilefs Georgios, she was the most modern ship of the Greek Navy at the outbreak of the Second World War. She participated in the naval operations of the Greco-Italian War, in convoy escort duty and in the first and third naval raids against Italian shipping in the Strait of Otranto (14-15 November 1940, and 4-5 January 1941). After the German invasion of Greece, along with several other ships, she escaped to Alexandria in May 1941. She was assigned the British pennant number H 84, and after undergoing modernization in Calcutta (November-December 1941), she returned to active duty in the Mediterranean Sea. Under her captain, Lt. Cmdr. G. Blessas, she enjoyed several successes: On December 14, 1942, she sank the Italian Adua-class submarine Uarsciek (620 tons) off Malta, along with the British destroyer HMS Petard.[1] On January 19, 1943, Olga, along with the British destroyers HMS Pakenham and HMS Nubian, intercepted and sunk the Italian transport ship Stromboli (475 tons) off the Libyan coast. On June 2, 1943, Olga and the British destroyer HMS Jervis sunk the Italian Spica class torpedo boat Castore (ca. 790 tons) off Cape Spartivento.[2] Olga also participated in the capture of Pantelleria and the Allied invasion of Sicily. During the Allied operations during the Dodecanese Campaign in the Aegean Sea in September 1943, together with the British destroyers HMS Faulknor and Eclipse, she sank a German convoy, consisting of the transports Pluto (2,000 tons) and Paolo (4,000 tons), near Astypalea. During the Battle of Leros, she transported members of the Long Range Desert Group to the island, but on September 26, she was attacked and sunk by 25 Junkers Ju 88 bombers in the Gulf of Lakki in Leros. Cmdr. Blessas, 6 officers and 65 other members of the crew perished with the ship. A monument has been erected in Lakki in honour of the ship. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nikolaos Roussen/Papanikolis submarineen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolaos_Roussen Nikolaos Roussen (1913-1944) was a Greek naval officer who distinguished himself during World War II. He served in the two most successful Greek submarines of the war as executive officer and captain, and died during the suppression of the Navy mutiny in April 1944 Roussen was born in Athens on 25 April 1913. After completing his studies in the Hellenic Naval Academy in 1929-1933, he was commissioned as Ensign. His first command was the torpedo boat Doris (1936-1937). He was subsequently promoted to Sub-Lieutenant and entered the Submarine School. During the Greco-Italian War, he served in the submarine Katsonis. In December 1940, he was promoted to Lieutenant. Following the German invasion and capitulation of the Army, the surviving ships of the fleet fled to Alexandria in Egypt. In the Middle East, he served aboard the cruiser Averof before returning to the Katsonis as its XO. On 10 October 1942, Roussen was assigned as captain of Katsonis' sister vessel, the submarine Papanikolis. With this vessel, Roussen operated in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea, scoring a number of successes. On 30 November, Papanikolis successfully ambushed and sank a 8,000-ton cargo vessel at the Alimnia islet, near Rhodes, and on subsequent patrols in January, March and May, she captured two large schooners and sank further five. In early 1944, political tensions grew both in occupied Greece and in the Greek Armed Forces in the Middle East. As liberation drew nearer, the simmering conflict between the country's dominant resistance group, the Communist-controlled National Liberation Front (EAM), with the conservative sections of Greek society, and with the royalist Greek government in exile, erupted. In April 1944, pro-EAM demonstrations took place in several Greek units in Egypt, and the majority of the Navy's ships were commandeered by their crews. In order to quell this mutiny, the government formed special boarding detachments of reliable officers. Thus, on 22 April 1944, while leading his detachment to recover the corvette Apostolis, Roussen was mortally wounded. On 27 April, he was posthumously promoted to Captain. Awards and honours Roussen was awarded several decorations for his successful service as a submarine commander: the War Cross Second Class, on 5 January 1940 (as XO of the Katsonis) and again on 25 February 1943, the War Cross First Class on 30 January 1942 and again posthumously on 23 April 1944, while on 1 September 1943 he was awarded the British Distinguished Service Cross. On 27 September 1945 he was posthumously awarded the Outstanding Actions Medal for his war service. Two Hellenic Navy ships have been named after him: the landing ship Ypoploiarchos Roussen (L-164) (1958-2001),[1] and the new fast attack craft Roussen (P67), the lead ship of the Roussen class, commissioned in December 2005. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.macedoniaontheweb.com/forum/general-greek-history/489-today-hellenic-history-22.htmlEpameinondas Kontogiannis/Triton submarine16 November 1942The Greek submarine Triton,under the command of Lieutenant Epameinondas Kontogiannis,attacks a German convoy in the Kafireas straits near Euboea island and sinks the oil tanker ALBA JULIA.It is pursued by the German patrol boat UJ201 for six hours and is torpedoed,sinking in the position 37.07 Â 024.39 Á.In total 23 of her crew die and 30 are captured among them her CO. while 2 escape swimming to the shore (Chief Petty Officer Maroulas and Petty Officer Papadimitriou). ============================================================================ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distomo_massacre The Distomo massacre
The Distomo massacre (Massaker von Distomo or Distomo-Massaker) was a Nazi war crime perpetrated by members of the Waffen-SS in the village of Distomo, Greece, during the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II. On June 10, 1944, for over two hours, Waffen-SS troops of the 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division under the command of SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritz Lautenbach went door to door and massacred Greek civilians as part of a 'retaliation measure' for a partisan attack upon the unit. A total of 214 men, women and children were killed in Distomo,a small village near Delphi.According to survivors, SS forces "bayoneted babies in their cribs, stabbed pregnant women, and beheaded the village priest." Following the massacre, a Secret Field Police agent accompanying the German forces informed the authorities that, contrary to Lautenbach's official report, the German troops had come under attack several miles from Distomo and had not been fired upon "with mortars, machine-guns and rifles from the direction of Distomo". An inquiry was convened. Lautenbach admitted that he had gone beyond standing orders, but the tribunal found in his favour, holding that he had been motivated, not by negligence or ignorance, but by a sense of responsibility towards his men. Legal Proceedings Four relatives of victims brought legal proceedings against the German government to court in Livadeia, Greece, demanding reparations. On October 30, 1997, the court ruled in favour of the plaintiffs and awarded damages of 28 million Euros. Eventually in May 2000, the Areopago, the Greek High court, confirmed this ruling. The judgment, however, could not be enforced in Greece because, as necessary under Greek law, the execution of a judgment against a sovereign State is subject to the prior consent of the Minister of Justice, which was not given. The plaintiffs brought the case to court in Germany, demanding the aforementioned damages be paid to them. The claim was rejected at all levels of German court, citing the 1961 bilateral agreement concerning enforcement and recognition of judgments between Germany and Greece, and Section 328 of the German Code of Civil Procedure. Both required that Greece have jurisdiction, which it does not as the actions in question were sovereign acts by a state. According to the fundamental principles of international law, each country is immune from another state's jurisdiction. In November 2008, an Italian court ruled that the plaintiffs could take German property in Italy as compensation that was awarded by the Greek courts.The plaintiffs were awarded a villa in Menaggio, near Lake Como, which is owned by a German state nonprofit organization, as part of the restitution. In December 2008, the German government has filed a claim at the International Court of Justice in the Hague. The German claim was that the Italian courts should have dismissed the case under the international law of sovereign immunity. In January 2011, the Prime Minister of Greece, George Papandreou, announced that the Greek Government will be represented at the International Court of Justice in relation to the claim for reparations by relatives of victims.In its 2012 final judgment, the court ruled that Italy had violated Germany's state immunity, and directed that the judgment by the Italian courts be retracted. In film A Song for Argyris is a 2006 documentary film that details the life story of Argyris Sfountouris, a survivor of the massacre. The massacre is described in Peter Nestler's experimental documentary Von Griechenland (1966). ................................................................................ Other massacres in Greece commited by the Nazis*Massacre of Kondomari 2 June 1941 Crete 60 victims *Alikianos executions 2 June 1941 and 1 August 1941 Western Crete 180+ victims*Razing of Kandanos 3 June 1941 Western Crete 180 victims *Holocaust of Viannos 14–16 June 1943 Viannos and Ierapetra regions 500+ victims *Kommeno massacre 16 August 1943 Kommeno 317 victims*Massacre of Kalavryta 13 December 1943 Kalavryta 1,200+ victims *Pyrgoi (former Katranitsa) massacre 20 April 1944 Pyrgoi 346 victims*Executions of Kaisariani 1 May 1944 Kaisariani 200 victims*Distomo massacre 10 June 1944 Distomo 218 victims*Massacre of Pikermi 21 July 1944 Pikermi 54 victims*Massacre of Mousiotitsa 25 July 1943 Mousiotitsa 153 victims*Executions of Kokkinia 17 August 1944 Kokkinia 300+ victims *Holocaust of Kedros 22 August 1944 Amari Valley 164 victims*The Massacre of Chortiatis 2 September 1944 Chortiatis 146 victims======================================================================THE GREEK RIGHTEOUS GENTILES
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righteous_among_the_Nations Righteous among the Nations (Hebrew: חסידי אומות העולם, Chassidey Umot HaOlam, more literally: righteous men of the world's nations, also translated as "Righteous Gentiles") is used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis.
The 306 Greek righteous among the Nations(Righteous Gentiles) The complete list www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/pdf/virtial_wall/greece.pdfSome of the greek Righteous Gentiles are: Archbishop Damaskinos
Princess Alice of Greece
Bishop Chrysostomos of Zakynthos
Angelos Evert, head of Athenian police
Bishop Ioakim of Volos
Lukas G. Karreri, mayor of Zakynthos
Dr. Kostas Nikolaou
Yerassimos Paloumbis Kephalonia
Princess Helen of Greece and Denmark
........................................................ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archbishop_Damaskinos_of_Athens According to the The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation the appeal of Archbishop Damaskinos and his fellow Greeks is unique as no document similar to the protest against the Nazis during World War II has come to light in any other European country. The letter in part reads: “ The Greek Orthodox Church and the Academic World of Greek People Protest against the Persecution... The Greek people were... deeply grieved to learn that the German Occupation Authorities have already started to put into effect a program of gradual deportation of the Greek Jewish community... and that the first groups of deportees are already on their way to Poland...
According to the terms of the armistice, all Greek citizens, without distinction of race or religion, were to be treated equally by the Occupation Authorities. The Greek Jews have proven themselves... valuable contributors to the economic growth of the country [and] law-abiding citizens who fully understand their duties as Greeks. They have made sacrifices for the Greek country, and were always on the front lines of the struggle of the Greek nation to defend its inalienable historical rights...
In our national consciousness, all the children of Mother Greece are an inseparable unity: they are equal members of the national body irrespective of religion... Our holy religion does not recognize superior or inferior qualities based on race or religion, as it is stated: 'There is neither Jew nor Greek' and thus condemns any attempt to discriminate or create racial or religious differences. Our common fate both in days of glory and in periods of national misfortune forged inseparable bonds between all Greek citizens, without exemption, irrespective of race...
Today we are... deeply concerned with the fate of 60,000 of our fellow citizens who are Jews... we have lived together in both slavery and freedom, and we have come to appreciate their feelings, their brotherly attitude, their economic activity, and most important, their indefectible patriotism...”
Damaskinos went on to publish the letter, even though the local Schutzstaffel commander, Jürgen Stroop, threatened to execute him by firing squad. Damaskinos's famous response to him was:
“ According to the traditions of the Greek Orthodox Church, our prelates are hanged, not shot. Please respect our traditions!” Read more: illyria.proboards.com/thread/2577/golden-modern-greeks#ixzz48fdL5tG9
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 18, 2007 15:37:48 GMT -5
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 18, 2007 15:42:17 GMT -5
OTHERS ΑΝΔΡΩΝ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΩΝ ΠΑΣΑ ΓΗ ΤΑΦΟΣ.  www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_1_15/06/2006_70909Costas Iliakis/HAF
Turkey is mulling whether to seek compensation from Greece for the F-16 fighter jet it lost in a deadly collision over the Aegean with a Greek jet last month, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan said yesterday. The Greek pilot, Costas Iliakis, was killed in the crash on May 23 but the Turkish pilot was pulled out of the sea with minor injuries. Tan said at a news conference in Ankara that the Turkish military was conducting an ongoing investigation into the causes of the accident, adding that the findings so far had been “favorable.” The spokesman added that Ankara would definitely seek compensation from Athens if the military report found the Turkish pilot was not to blame for the crash. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.acig.org/artman/uploads/pic06_epa_f-5a_and_skampardonis.jpgfrom www.acig.orgThomas Scampardonis/HAFHere is an incident that in my opinion is the most important contribution of the Northrop F-5A in the modern history of the Hellenic Air Force. Lets clear that we are talking about the shooting down of a Turkish F-102 by a Greek F-5 on July 21st 1974, and the destruction of a second one. The incident which resulted in two Turkish pilots loosing their lives was recalled by one of the two Greek protagonists, then young pilot and today retired Brigadier General Thomas Skamparthonis.www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_298.shtml-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Despina Achladioti/The lady of Ros islanden.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_of_RoDespina Achladioti was a Greek patriot born on the island of Kastellórizo in 1893. Before the start of World War II, in which her home island was ravaged repeatedly, Achladioti sailed with her husband and mother to the nearby deserted island of Rho where they lived off of a few goats, chickens, and a vegetable garden. Her two companions died only years after the arrival, and Achladioti personally rowed her mother's remains back to Kastellórizo for burial. Achladioti's most renowned deed is that every day she would fly a Greek flag over the island. This made her a Greek hero, especially when Greece nearly went to war with Turkey in the 1970s, because the flag would be easily visible from Turkish soil. She raised the flag every day, regardless of the weather, from the time she arrived on the island until her death in 1982 at the age of 89. Despite not having veteran status, she was buried on the island with full military honors. A Greek military unit is now based on the island, with the main duty of keeping the tradition of raising the flag. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.ahistoryofgreece.com/photos/velos.htmNikolaos Pappas/Greek navy"to kinhma tou naftikou"The Greek Navy destroyer VELOS (Arrow), formerly the USS Charette, has been preserved as a Museum in the Hellenic Navy Sea Park, Gulf of Athens. On 23 May 1973, VELOS and her crew, while participating in a NATO exercise, was part of a failed mutiny against the Greek dictatorship. Captain Pappas and his crew sailed to Fiumicino, Italy where those who wished to defect were granted political asylum. The Incident attracted worldwide attention. The ship returned to Greece after a month with replacement crew. The VELOS is new preserved as a museum in Faliron, Athens. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imia/KardakChristodoulos Karathanasis, Panagiotis Vlahakos,Ektoras Gialopsos/Greek Navy
Imia crisis AB-212 Π.Ν 21
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 24, 2007 18:21:47 GMT -5
GREEK AMERICANS
George Dilboy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_DilboyGeorge Dilboy, (February 05, 1896–July 18, 1918), Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company H, 103d Infantry, 26th Division was the first Greek-American to be awarded the Medal of Honor during World War I, for leading an attack on a machinegun position and continuing to fire at the enemy despite being seriously wounded, killing two of the enemy and dispersing the remainder of the gun crew. General John Pershing listed George Dilboy as one of the 10 greatest heroes of the war. Dilboy is buried in Section 18 of Arlington National Cemetery. The Dilboy Field and its Dilboy Stadium in Somerville, Massachusetts were named after him, as was Somerville's Dilboy Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The Dilboy post is VFW Post #529 and is located at 371 Summer Street. There is a monument and bust honoring Dilboy in front of Somerville's City Hall. Born in the Greek settlement of Alatsata, in Ottoman Turkey in Asia Minor, near Ýzmir, the Belleau Wood hero astounded Germans by singlehandedly attacking The Wood which was infested with machine gun nests, and wiping out three guns before the Germans fled. Equally astonished were his fellow Doughboys of World War I. Dilboy's early years were spent living in a region of the world were dangerous feuding between Ottoman Turks and Greeks was an ongoing event for nearly 400 years. He and his family emigrated to America, in 1908, and settled first in Keene, New Hampshire and then in Somerville, Massachusetts. But Dilboy returned to mainland Greece in 1909 where he volunteered to fight in the Greek Army in Thessaly during the First Balkan War of 1912. He remained there to successfully fight in Macedonia in the Second Balkan War of 1913. Returning to Somerville, he went to school and worked for a few years before volunteering to fight in the U.S. Army in the Mexican Border War in 1916-1917, he entered service at Keene, New Hampshire. He obtained an honorable discharge, but within months thereafter, re-joined the US Army to fight in France during World War I, where he was killed in 1918 at age 22. At the request of his father, Antonios, Dilboy was buried at his birth place Alatsata, which was at that time a predominantly Greek city. After a funeral procession through the streets of his birthplace — said to have been witnessed by 17,000 mourners — his flag-draped casket was placed in the Greek Orthodox Church of the Presentation in Alatsata to lie in state before the high altar. But rampaging Turkish soldiers soon seized the town and during the three-year Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1923, Turkish troops burned Smyrna to the ground and massacred tens of thousands of Greeks. The church was ransacked and Dilboy's grave desecrated. The American flag was stolen from atop Dilboy's coffin. The coffin was overturned, after which — according to an account by Bishop John Kallos — the bones of the Greek-American war hero were scattered by the marauding attackers. President Warren G. Harding was outraged and sent the warship USS Litchfield to Turkey in September 1922 to recover the bodily remains.[1] Harding also demanded and received a formal apology from the Turkish government. Dilboy's remains were collected and a Turkish guard of honor delivered his casket (draped once again in an American flag) to an American landing party in Smyrna. His remains were taken aboard the USS Litchfield and returned to the United States. On November 12, 1923, he was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery, where his gravestone proclaims his Medal of Honor status. Dilboy had the distinction of being honored by three U.S. Presidents, Woodrow Wilson, who signed the authorization awarding the Medal of Honor, Warren G. Harding, who brought him back to Arlington National Cemetery and Calvin Coolidge, former Governor of Massachusetts, who presided at his final burial. George Dilboy Memorial erected May 24, 1942 by the George Dilboy Memorial Foundation at the Hines Veterans Administration Hospital in Hines, IL (a western suburb of Chicago.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Angelo Spiro Klonis
(thanx to Patrinos) Another Greek American "adventurer". In 1936, at age 15, Angelo left his home in Kephallonia, Greece, as a "stowaway" on a boat bound for Los Angeles, California, in search of a better life. He worked his way from Los Angeles through the western half of the country, finally to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1938, where he found a small European-style town with a Hispanic culture, a Greek community and a temperate climate, all of which appealed to him. He happily put down roots. ... ... ... www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0510/swanson.htmlAnd a very good documentary by Papachelas for the US "Greek Regiment", a fascinating story! www.skai.gr/master_avod.php?id=81521&cid=61569&bc=61569&lsc=1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ user.pa.net/~cjheiser/ct7/337moh.htmen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Carr_(Medal_of_Honor_recipient)
Chris Carr (Christos H. Karaberis)Chris Carr (April 6, 1914 – September 16, 1970) was a United States Army soldier and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II.Carr was born Christos H. Karaberis in Manchester, New Hampshire. He joined the Army from his hometown and by October 1, 1944 was serving as a Sergeant in Company L, 337th Infantry Regiment, 85th Infantry Division. On that day and the following day, near Guignola, Italy, he single-handedly attacked and captured five German machine gun emplacements. For these actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor a year later on November 1, 1945. After the war, he legally changed his name from "Christos Karaberis" to "Chris Carr". He reached the rank of sergeant first class and served in the Korean War before leaving the Army. Carr died at age 56 and was buried in Los Angeles National Cemetery, Los Angeles, California.
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 24, 2007 18:23:25 GMT -5
6.Musicians
For some reason many of youtube videos get deleted after a few months and this isn't very helpful,especially if it concerns the biographies of mucisians or actors.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Artistic music (entehno),the begginingManos Hatzidakis en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HatzidakisManos Hadjidakis (October 23, 1925 – June 15, 1994) was an Academy Award-winning Greek composer. He was born in Xanthi, Greece. In 1960 he received an Academy Award for Best Original Song for his Song Never on Sunday from the film of the same name. He is widely popular among Greeks and can be credited with the introduction of bouzouki music into mainstream culture. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mikis Theodorakis
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheodorakisMikis Theodorakis (b. July 29, 1925, Greek island of Chios) is one of the most popular Greek composers. He is particularly well known for his songs and for his scores in the films Zorba the Greek (1964), Z (1969), and Serpico (1973). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yannis Markopoulosen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yannis_Markopoulos]Yannis Markopoulos (born 18 March 1939) is a Greek composer from Crete island. ...In 1977 he composed the music for the BBC television series Who Pays the Ferryman? The musical theme topped the British charts for months and gained the composer international renown. Numerous invitations for concerts abroad followed, in Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Canada, Russia, Australia and the United States. Markopoulos continued composing music for the theatre and for the cinema, collaborating with directors such as Jules Dassin, George Cosmatos, Nikos Koundouros and Spyros Evaggelatos. Through his work Yannis Markopoulos did much to shape the musical landscape of the 1970s. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stavros Xarhakosen.wikipedia.org/wiki/XarhakosStavros Xarhakos (born March 14, 1939) is a Greek composer and conductor.He was born in Athens, where he studied at the Athens Conservatoire. He emerged in the Greek music scene around 1963, composing music for the theatre and cinema. Among his collaborators was lyricist Lefteris Papadopoulos. In 1967 he went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger. He stayed there for four years, and went on to study with David Diamond at the Juilliard School of Music. While he mainly composed in the style of Greek Popular music, Laïka, he also composed in the classical music genre. His musical output comprises 42 albums, 21 film scores and music for 15 TV productions. Internationally he is known as the composer for the Rebetiko music score, and composing the music for the 1983 BBC TV mini series, "The Dark Side of the Sun". He served director of the National Orchestra of Greek Music. He was later involved in politics, elected Member of the Greek Parliament twice, before becoming a MEP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Manos Loizos
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manos_Lo%C3%AFzosManos Loizos was considered to be one of the most important Greek music composers of the 20th century.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mariza Koch en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariza_KochMariza Koch is a Greek folk music singer who has recorded 18 albums since starting her career in 1971.On the wider stage she is best remembered for representing her homeland at the Eurovision Song Contest 1976 with the song Panayia Mou, Panayia Mou. Mariza Koch was born in Athens in 1944 but lived in her mother's hometown in Santorini from a tender age. In an off-beat but original way Mariza Koch began her musical career in 1971 with an album titled "Arabas". It consisted of a collection of traditional Greek folk songs blended with unusual beats from traditional and modern electronic instrumental sounds. One could even term the sound as folk rock. On the other hand Mariza's unique vocals became the center piece of the music which on more than one occasion needed no accompaniment. No matter what one called it, the album was a resounding success. More albums followed with the sound eventually mellowing back into the original folk sounds of the past, where traditional instruments are used in there entirety.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Maria Farantouri
biographycorner.com/biography_f/farantouri-maria_biography_7a2b7cee.html Maria Farantouri has been referred to as the "Joan Baez of the Mediterranean" by "Le Monde". "Her singular voice is a gift of the Olympic Gods", wrote "The Guardian". And François Mitterrand enthused : "For me, Maria is Greece. This is how I imagine the goddess Hera : strong, pure and vigilant. I know of no other artist who has given so much meaning to the word sublime." Maria Farantouri has had huge successes with her innumerable concerts all over the world and has left an indelible impression everywhere. She is considered the ideal performer of the songs and other works of the world-famous Greek composer, Mikis Theodorakis, and thus of the New Greek Song. Born in 1947, music and singing soon became a passion for Maria. After early performances with a choir, her unique contralto voice fast turned her into a celebrated soloist. She was only 16 years old when Mikis Theodorakis discovered her, announcing : "You will become my priestess." Out of this prophecy developed an artistic and personal friendship which is still flourishing and which has been crowned by numerous records, concert tours and musical projects. Characteristic of these are musical settings of lyrics by major poets, both Greek (Elytis, Seferis, Kalvos, Ritsos) and international (Pablo Neruda, Federico Garcia Lorca...), which lend poetry and depth to her singing. Forced into exile after the military coup in April 1967, she became a symbol of resistance and democracy through the hundreds of concerts she gave with songs by Mikis Theodorakis, meanwhile a prisoner of the junta. After her return to Greece in 1974, Maria Farantouri embarked on a number of projects together with some very different artists, which extended and varied her musical repertoire. She worked, among others, with John Williams, Zülfü Livaneli, Leo Brower, Lucio Dalla and Maria del Mar Bonet. Maria Farantouri recorded many albums with songs by Manos Loizos, Eleni Karaindrou and Manos Chatzidakis, but also Bertolt Brecht. Highly valued and exemplary of her musical message is the performance of the "Mauthausen" Cycle by Theodorakis, with the Israel Symphony Orchestra under Zubin Mehta in 1991. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marinella en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MarinellaMarinella (born in Thessaloniki,May 20, 1935) is a popular Greek singer whose career has spanned several decades.
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Kostas Hatzis
A famous greek gypsy mucisian,husband of prominent singer Marinella. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- George Dalaras
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DalarasGeorge Dalaras is a renowned contemporary Greek singer. He was born in Nea Kokinia, Piraeus on 29 September 1949. His father was Loukas Daralas, a famous singer of rebetiko.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dionissis Savopoulos
www.hri.org/news/misc/cult/1996/96-10-02.cult.htmlen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysis_SavvopoulosDionysis Savvopoulos (born 2 December 1944) is a Greek music composer, lyricist and singer. He was born in Thessaloniki. In 1963 he moved to Athens, terminating his law studies in favour of his career in music. He met great success since his early days as a musician and soon became very popular, both in Greece and abroad.
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Flery Dandonakifrom wikipedia Hadjidakis returned to Greece in 1972 and recorded Magnus Eroticus with singer Fleury Dantonaki, an opera-trained dark-toned alto who proved the consummate interpreter of his music, and singer Dimitri Psarianos. "Noted singer Dantonaki dies
Noted Greek singer Flery Dantonaki died early Saturday after a long bout with cancer.
Dantonaki was among the favourite singers of late composer Manos Hatzidakis.
According to the internationally acclaimed composer, Dantonaki was "unprecedented...She does not think about the public. She thinks about the absolute control of her voice and offers herself entirely to this pursuit of perfection."
Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos also praised the performer, adding that her funeral will be paid by the ministry." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Haris Alexiou en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haris_AlexiouHaris Alexiou (born in Thebes, Greece as Harikleia Roupaka), is a Greek singer. She is one of the most popular singers in Greece and has been commercially successful since the 1970s. She has worked with important Greek songwriters and composers, performed at top musical theatres all over the world and has received several awards. She has recorded over thirty albums and has been featured on albums of other musicians. She lives in Athens since 1958, when she and her family moved there from Thebes. Her grandmother's family migrated in 1924 from Smyrne. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Vasilis Lekkas
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 24, 2007 18:24:10 GMT -5
Artistic music,the next generation.
Alkinoos Ioannidisen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkinoos_IoannidisAlkinoos Ioannidis (born September 19, 1969) is a Greek-Cypriot composer, lyricist, singer and orchestrator. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nikos Papazoglou-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eleni Tsaligopoulou
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Eleftheria Arvanitaki
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleftheria_ArvanitakiEleftheria Arvanitaki is a Greek pop folk singer of Icarian descent, born October 17, 1957 in Piraeus. She started her career in singing in 1980, by joining the group "Opisthodromiki Kompania"(Retrograde Company) and in 1981 she had her first guest appearance on a CD, by being featured in the album of Vangelis Germanos titled "Ta Barakia". She broke away from the group and started a solo career in 1984 with her album Eleftheria Arvanitaki. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pyx Lax-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andriana Babali-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Theodosia Tsatsou-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eleni Peta -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Foivos Delivorias-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Natassa Bofiliou
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Eleonora Zouganeli
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 24, 2007 18:24:41 GMT -5
DIASPORA Vicky Leandrosen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicky_LeandrosVicky Leandros (born Vassiliki Papathanasiou, 23 August 1949, now legally Vassiliki von Ruffin) is a Greek singer with a long international career. She is the daughter of singer, musician and composer Leandros Papathanasiou (known as Leo Leandros – composer pseudonym Mario Panas). She achieved worldwide fame after winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1972 with the song "Après Toi" (representing Luxembourg). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yanni (Yannis Chrysomallis).jpg) A famous Greek composer of the diaspora,Born in Kalamata, Greece,1954. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanni------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ www.greekcity.com.au/concerts/roussos/roussos.htmen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demis_Roussos
Demis RoussosArtemios (Demis) Ventouris Roussos (born June 15, 1946) is a Greek singer.He was born in Egypt to ethnic Greek parents George and Olga , and raised in Alexandria. His parents lost everything and moved to Greece after the Suez Crisis. After Aphrodite's Child disbanding, Roussos continued to record sporadically with former bandmate Vangelis. In 1970 the two released Sex Power (although the album has also been disputably credited to Aphrodite's Child), also recording the 1977 album Magic together. Their most successful collaboration was "Race to the End", a vocal adaptation of the musical theme from the Oscar winning film Chariots of Fire, and also sung in Spanish as "Tu Libertad", whilst Roussos also guested on the soundtrack to Blade Runner (1982).The song was entitled 'Tales of the Future'. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Vangelis (Vangelis Papathanasiou)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VangelisEvangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou (born March 29, 1943), is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis (a diminutive of Evangelos). He is best known for his Academy Award winning score for the film Chariots of Fire, and scores for the films Blade Runner and "1492:Conquest of Paradise". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nana Mouskouri-SEPIA.jpg) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nana_MouskouriNana Mouskouri , born as Ioanna Mouskouri on October 13, 1934, in Chania, Crete, Greece, is a singer who is confirmed to have sold over 200 million records worldwide in a career spanning over five decades, making her one of the world's best-selling female recording artists of all time.[1] She was known as Nana to her friends and family as a child. She has recorded in many different languages, including Greek, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and Welsh. www.ana.gr/towards2004en/towards54.htmOn her part, UNICEF goodwill ambassador Nana Mouscouri, a noted performer and former Greek Euro-deputy, said four million children under the age of five die every year of preventable diseases and infections. www.nana-mouskouri.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=71In 1993, Nana takes Audrey Hepburn's succession as International Goodwill Ambassador in UNICEF. It represents an important part of her life. This special UNICEF page presents the highlights of Nana's work. “The world needs her,” says Harry Belafonte simply. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Basil Poledouris en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_PoledourisBasilis "Basil" Konstantine Poledouris (August 21, 1945 - November 8, 2006) was an American music composer who concentrated on the scores for movies and television shows. Poledouris won the Emmy Award for Best Musical Score for work on part four of the TV miniseries Lonesome Dove in 1989.
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 24, 2007 18:25:06 GMT -5
REBETIKO MUSICIANS Rebetika,the blues of Greece BBC Documentary on Rebetika ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Markos Vamvakarisen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markos_VamvakarisMarkos Vamvakaris (10 May 1905 in Ano Chora in Syros – 8 February 1972) , was a rebetiko musician. He is universally referred to by rebetiko writers and fans simply by his first name, Markos. The great significance of Vamvakaris for the rembetiko is also reflected by his nick-name; the Patriarch of rembetiko.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vassilis Tsitsanisen.wikipedia.org/wiki/TsitsanisVassilis Tsitsanis (Greek: Âáóßëçò ÔóéôóÜíçò 18 January 1915 – 18 January 1984) was a Greek songwriter and bouzouki player. He became one of the leading Greek composers of his time and is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern Rebetika. Tsitsanis wrote more than 500 songs and is still remembered as an extraordinary bouzouki player.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sotiria Bellouen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sotiria_BellouSotiria Bellou (Greek: Óùôçñßá ÌðÝëëïõ; 1921 – 1997) was a famous Greek singer and performer of the Greek rebetiko type of music [1].-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grigoris Bithikotsisen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigoris_BithikotsisGrigoris Bithikotsis (December 11, 1922 - April 7, 2005) was a popular Greek folk singer/songwriter with a career spanning five decades.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Giorgos Zambetasen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgos_ZampetasGiorgos Zampetas was a well-known bouzouki musician. He was born in 25 January 1925 in Athens but his origins are from Kythnos. He died in 10 March 1992.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roza Eskenaziwww.btinternet.com/~judyin.london/rozaeskenazi/roza1.htmRoza Eskenazi, arguably the greatest and most renowned Greek Diva, was born in Constantinople and named Sarah Skinazi.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stelios Kazantzidisen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazantzidis Stelios Kazantzidis (August 29, 1931–September 14, 2001) was a prominent Greek singer. Between the 1950s and 1990s he was considered the voice of the Greek diaspora. His death was an emotional event for the Greeks; the obituaries provided a full appreciation of his life and his importance.
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Post by leandros nikon on Oct 24, 2007 18:25:41 GMT -5
  Anna Maria Kalogeropoulou aka Maria Calasen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_KallasMaria Callas was born Cecilia Sophia Anna Maria Kalogeropoulos on December 2, 1923, in New York. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spyros Samaras  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyros_Samaras Spyridon-Filiskos Samaras (17 November/29 November 1861 Corfu- 25 March/17 April 1917 Athens) was a Greek composer particularly admired for his operas who was part of the generation of composers the heralded the works of Giacomo Puccini. His compositions were praised worldwide during his lifetime and he is arguably the most internationally lauded Greek composer before Dimitri Mitropoulos. Samaras is also known for composing the Olympic Anthem, the words of which were contributed by Kostis Palamas. The Anthem was first performed during the opening ceremony of the 1896 Summer Olympics, the first modern Olympic Games. It was declared the official anthem of the Olympic movement by the International Olympic Committee in 1958 and has been used at every Olympic opening ceremony since the 1964 Summer Olympics.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolaos_Skalkottas
Nikos Skalkottas Nikos Skalkottas (21 March 1904 – 19 September 1949) was one of the most important Greek composers of 20th-century music. A member of the Second Viennese School, he drew his influences from both the classical repertoire and the Greek tradition. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leonidas Kavakos
Leonidas Kavakos (Greek: Λεωνίδας Καβάκος; born 30 October 1967) is a Greek violinist and conductor. As a violinist, he has won prizes at several international violin competitions, including the Sibelius, Paganini, and Indianapolis competitions. He has also recorded for record labels such as Sony/BMG and BIS. As a conductor, he was an artistic director of the Camerata Salzburg and has been a guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Beginnings
Born in Athens into a musical family, Kavakos first learned to play the violin when he was five and later enrolled in the Hellenic Conservatory, studying with Stelios Kafantaris.[3] An Onassis Foundation scholarship enabled him to attend master classes with Josef Gingold at Indiana University. He made his concert debut at the Athens Festival in 1984. In 1985, he won the International Sibelius Competition [4] in Helsinki and in 1986 won silver medal in the Indianapolis International Violin Competition. He also took first prizes at the Naumburg Competition in New York (1988) and the Paganini Violin Competition (1988).
Performances
America
His United States debut was in 1986, and, the following year, he gave recitals at venues across the country. Kavakos now tours North America annually and works with numerous major orchestras, including the Chicago, and Montreal Symphony Orchestras.
Europe
In Europe, following his competition win in Helsinki, Kavakos' reputation spread quickly. He now works extensively in major concert halls across the continent, working with world class orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic. He has appeared at festivals such as the Verbier Festival, Salzburg Festival, where he first appeared in 1994, the Lucerne Festival, and the Stars of White Nights Festival. In 1991, the original version of Sibelius' Violin Concerto in d minor (mostly unknown to the world at large until then), was permitted a performance and a recording by Sibelius's heirs on the BIS record label; both original and final versions were played by Leonidas Kavakos and conducted by Osmo Vänskä. He has appeared throughout the UK with numerous orchestras, starting in 1992 performing the Stravinsky concerto at the London Proms. He is currently the artist in residence at the Berlin Philharmonic.
Asia
Kavakos made a highly successful Japanese debut in 1988 including a recital at Tokyo's Casals Hall and has since toured Japan with the English Chamber Orchestra and given concerts with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and the New Japan Philharmonic.
He was called "The Violinists' Violinist" [5] by the Strad Magazine.
In 2014, he was invited to perform in the 42nd Hong Kong Arts Festival.[6]
Recordings
Having won the Sibelius contest, Kavakos went on to win another coveted distinction, once again working on Sibelius. He won the 1991 Gramophone Concerto of the Year Award for the world premiere release on the BIS label of the Sibelius Violin Concerto in both its final version and in the original 1903/04, version. He has made various other recordings for Delos and Finlandia Records with works by composers such as Debussy, Paganini, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Wieniawski and Ysaÿe. In 2006 he recorded for Sony/BMG the five violin concertos and one symphony by Mozart, as soloist and conductor of the Camerata Salzburg. For his recording as conductor and soloist of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (Op. 64) with the Camerata he was awarded with the "ECHO-Klassik 2009" prize in the category "recording of the year - concerts - 19th century - violin".[7]
Chamber music
Kavakos is also a keen chamber music performer, and presents his own chamber music festival annually in his home town of Athens as well as performing in many international festivals.
Conducting
Kavakos has also worked as a conductor. He was announced principal guest artist of the Camerata Salzburg in 2001 and performed with them as a soloist and conductor. In 2007, he was designated as the orchestra's artistic director, following Sir Roger Norrington.[8] On July 1, 2009 he announced his resignation from his position as artistic director that fall. Kavakos explained that he could not hope to perform his duties as artistic director in setting a creative direction for the ensemble in the face of ongoing turmoil in the ensemble's management (7 complete changes in 8 years), a recent motion of no confidence (in the current management) passed by the ensemble's musicians, as well as the failure of musicians and staff to inform him of that vote, suggesting communication within the organisation had completely broken down.
Instruments
As of 2017, Kavakos performs on the "Willemotte" Stradivarius of 1734, which he acquired from London and New York based dealer and expert, Florian Leonhard.[10] Kavakos had been playing the "Abergavenny" Stradivarius of 1724 since February 2010. He sold the "Falmouth" Stradivarius of 1692, and a 1782 violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (Torino). Kavakos now owns only the Willemotte and three modern violins, including one by Florian Leonhard (as of September 4, 2010).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dimitris Sgouros en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitris_SgourosHe was born in Athens and began playing the piano at the age of six, giving his first concert at the age of seven. At the age of 12, he graduated from the Athens Conservatory with diplomas as both a pianist and piano teacher, winning the first prize and a gold medal.In 1982, at the age of 12, he performed Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 at Carnegie Hall in New York, with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich. He was wildly applauded with the performance being described as one of the most impressive musical debuts of the century. "The boy is a miracle of nature, a musical phenomenon sent by God," said Rostropovich. Sgouros continued his studies at the Royal Academy of London and later at the University of Maryland, College Park in the United States. He graduated from both institutions with the highest marks. Besides his unusual musical talents, the artist is fluent in six languages and graduated with honors from Athens University's mathematics faculty. He has performed around the world, including Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, China, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain and Turkey. He has performed for the royal families of Britain and Sweden and played under the baton of names like Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Emil Tabakov, Kurt Masur, Yevgeny Svetlanov. He has recorded for various record labels, including EMI. Since March 1988, three "Sgouros Festivals" have been instituted, in Hamburg, Ljubljana and Singapore. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yanni Xenakisen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iannis_Xenakis Iannis Xenakis (May 29, 1922 – February 4, 2001) was a Greek composer, music theorist and architect. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers. Xenakis pioneered the use of mathematical models such as applications of set theory, varied use of stochastic processes, game theory, etc., in music, and was also an important influence on the development of electronic music. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Dimitris Mitropoulosen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitris_MitropoulosDimitri Mitropoulos (1 March 1896 – 2 November 1960), was a Greek conductor, pianist, and composer.Mitropoulos made his U.S. debut in 1936 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and he later settled in the country, becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1946. From 1937 to 1949, he served as the principal conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (now known as the Minnesota Orchestra). In 1949 Mitropoulos began his association with the New York Philharmonic, the peak of his orchestral career. He was initially co-conductor with Leopold Stokowski, and became the sole music director in 1951. Mitropoulos recorded extensively with the Philharmonic for Columbia Records and sought to reach new audiences through appearances on television and conducting a week of performances at the Roxy Theatre, a popular movie theatre in New York. Mitropoulos expanded the Philharmonic's repertoire, commissioning works by new composers and championing the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. In 1957 he was succeeded as the Philharmonic's conductor by a protégé, Leonard Bernstein. From 1954 until his death in 1960 was the principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marios FrangoulisA famous greek tenor.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Frangoulisprofile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=128115852-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agnes Baltsa en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_BaltsaHer most well known performance is that of Carmen by Georges Bizet, which she has sung a number of times with José Carreras. She has also sung works by Mozart (notably Così fan tutte), Rossini (Il Barbiere di Siviglia, La Cenerentola, L'italiana in Algeri), Mascagni (Cavalleria Rusticana), Verdi (Aida, La forza del destino, Il trovatore, Don Carlos), Bellini (I Capuleti e i Montecchi) and Donizetti (Il Campanello, Maria Stuarda).She also starred in the German film Duett in 1992, playing an opera singer. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Georgiadiswww.maslink.co.uk/cvs/violins/georgiadis(john).htmlConductor and Violinist1972 - present : Co-Founder and Music Director of London Virtuosi 1994 - 1996 : Music Director of the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra 1991 - 1992 : Principal Guest Conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra 1989 - 1992 : Director of Orchestral Studies at Royal Academy of Music 1987 - 1990 : lst Violin in Gabrieli Quartet 1982 - 1984 : Music Director of Bristol Sinfonia 1965 - 1979 : Leader of London Symphony Orchestra (two periods) 1962 - 1965 : Leader of City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Awarded : FRAM - 1972 : FGSM - 1976 : Hon. Doc. Essex Univ. - 1990 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Georges Arvanitasnew.music.yahoo.com/georges-arvanitas/biographyA longtime giant of the European jazz landscape, pianist Georges Arvanitas' graceful technique and effortless versatility made him a sought-after accompanist among American musicians touring France. Born June 13, 1931 in Marseilles, Arvanitas was the son of Greek immigrants hailing from Istanbul. He began classical piano studies at age four, but as a teen gravitated to jazz. At 18 he was called for military duty and stationed in Versailles. His proximity to Paris exposed Arvanitas to the city's thriving postwar jazz culture, and he moonlighted at clubs like Le Tabou and Les Trois Mailletz alongside American masters including Don Byas and Mezz Mezzrow. After completing his service, Arvanitas relocated permanently to Paris where he led the house band at the Club St. Germain before he graduated to the city's premier jazz venue, the legendary Blue Note. There he supported American stars like Dexter Gordon and Chet Baker, and as his profile grew, he also gained notoriety as a leader. He assembled bassist Doug Watkins and drummer Art Taylor to record 1963's 3 A.M., winner of the Prix Django Reinhardt and the Prix Jazz Hot. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Miltiadis Karidiswww.kalomiris.org/kalorg/Notes/BioCaridiEn.htm Caridis was born in Danzig (today Gdansk) in 1923, from a German mother and a Greek father. He was brought up and went to school in Dresden. His father was a successful merchant there, but sensing that war was imminent he moved his family to Greece, in 1938. Although the war followed the Caridis family to Greece, this was an exceptionally wise decision : by 1946 Miltiades was the only survivor from his school class in Dresden. During the war he studied music in Athens, in Kalomiris' National Conservatory with E. Pana (piano) and T.Vavayannis (theory). He concluded his studies after the War, at the Vienna Music Academy, with Professor Hans Swarowsky, where he received his degree in conducting. His career was based in central Europe but he visited Greece often. He started his career at the opera houses of Köln and Graz and conducted at the Vienna Staatsoper for seven years. Between 1960 and 1967 he was principal conductor of the Philharmonia Hungarica with which he toured and made repeated visits to Athens. He spent some years of his career freelancing conducting in total 129 different orchestras and 80 different choirs around the world as far as Japan or Argentina also participating in all the major festivals. He served as principal conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic (1969-71), Duisburg (1975-81), Tonkünstler (1979-85) and Greek Radio (1995 to his death in 1977) He was a member of the board of many international competitions. He was awarded the Bella Bartok Medal in 1981 for his contribution to the dissemination of Bartok's work and was honoured by the Athens Academy for his overall contribution to music in 1991. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alexandros Myratwww.megaron.gr/megaro/aboutkamerataeng/2.htmAlexandros Myrat was born in Volos, Greece. As a young man he lived in Paris, where he studied conducting under Igor Markevich, Nadia Boulanger and Max Deutsch. In his twenties he started his career, mainly in Europe (France, Belgium, Greece, Bulgaria, Italy). In 1976 he won an award at the 'Gino Marinoucci' competition and the same year conducted the premiere of Darius Milhaud's 'Oresteia' for Radio France. In 1977 he became a French citizen. He has conducted the best French orchestras and appeared regularly with French Radio orchestras. He has recorded with Radio Monte Carlo for EMI and for Auvidis with Piccardie Orchestra. Three of his recordings have won Academy of Records awards. Following the establishment of the Picardie Orchestra in 1984, where he was artistic director until 1989, he became known for his interpretation of the works of Mozart. At the same time he worked with orchestras such as Belgium's National Orchestra, the Liege Symphony Orchestra, the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, the London Mozart Players, the Moscow Virtuosi and the Trondheim and Aalborg Symphony Orchestras. He recorded with the Ulster Philharmonic and the Bournemouth Symphony and Sinfonietta Orchestras for the BBC, among others. He conducted the Edinburgh Youth Orchestra for three consecutive years and in 1994 won the best orchestra and best recording awards at the international Vienna competition. He recently recorded five CDs for Agora at the Athens Concert Hall with the Camerata, the Friends of Music Orchestra, where he has been artistic director and principal conductor since the orchestra was founded in 1991. In 1999 he began recording a series of CDs of the works of Mozart with the Pfozheim Chamber Orchestra, again for Agora. For EMI he has recorded two CDs of Thanos Mikroutsikos' work. His repertory includes international, French or Greek premieres of works by the composers Wychnegradsky, Obouhov, Gaussin, Bainbridge, Westbrook, Mikroutsikos, Koumendakis, Koukos, Travlos, and John Tavener's 'Agrafon', especially written for the Camerata. Since 1999 he has regularly participated in opera productions at the Athens Concert Hall, such as Mozart's Le Noce de Figaro, Clemenza di Tito, Balta's Momo (premiere), Menotti's Amahl and Mikroutsikos' 'The return of Eleni', also performed in 1999 at the Montpellier Opera and the Maggio Fiorentino festival. He has also conducted at the Ravenna, Wallonie, Edinburg, Athens and Patras festivals (where he was artistic director in 1999). The season 2000/2001 he will conduct orchestras in Germany (Reutlingen-Gottingen), Mexico, Canada, Israel, France (Montpellier, Toulouse, Mulhouse), and Italy, where he will be performing and recording with the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thodoros Kourentziswww.ekathimerini.com/4Dcgi/4Dcgi/_w_articles_civ_14088841698768_22/11/2004_49799By Iota Sykka - Kathimerini A tribute to Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas, commemorating the 100 years since his birth, will take place in a few days at the Moscow Conservatoire — what Russians consider to be Moscow’s premier music venue, and where personalities such as Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Herbert von Karajan have conducted and soloists like pianist Sviatoslav Richter have played over the years. The tribute will be held with the participation of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, the Choir of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater and seven acclaimed soloists, under the baton of 32-year-old Greek conductor Theodoros Kourentzis, who lives and works in Moscow. Kourentzis is considered one of Russia’s three most popular maestros, according not only to Russian newspapers but also Dimitris Gialamas, a professor at Lomonosov University, cultural adviser to the Greek Embassy and representative of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture in Moscow. “Tickets to his concerts are sold out weeks beforehand and the press makes lengthy tributes to the so-called Kourentzis phenomenon. A well-known music critic recently described him as ‘the most important hope on the Russian music scene’ for something new,” said Gialamas. In the Skalkottas tribute, Kourentzis (who is also a very close collaborator of famous violinist Vladimir Spivakov) will also conduct the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia in works by other composers from Skalkottas’s era, “works written in different parts of the world which place the Greek composer in the context of the international music scene of his era.” Works include Stravinsky’s “Les Noces” (The Wedding), performed in Moscow for the second time, and Dimitry Shostakovich’s opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” which celebrates the 70th anniversary of its composition. “The tragic fate of this work is that it is connected with the fate of all Soviet art, as after its premiere in 1934, the newspaper Pravda published a crushing review, on Stalin’s orders, which swept away all pioneering forms of art and imposed the monocracy of socialist realism for years,” added Gialamas. Kourentzis will present a selection of parts of the opera that had annoyed Stalin. Another aim of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture in Moscow is to promote modern Greek literature. For the first time, there will be Greek participation at the “NON/FICTION 6” book fair, including writers such as Cavafy, Andreas Embirikos, Miltos Sachtouris and others, while parallel events will present post-Soviet book production (1993-2004). An anthology of Greek surrealist writers is in the works for next year, which will feature major works by Embirikos again, Nikos Engonopoulos, Nikos Gatsos and Odysseas Elytis, translated into Russian for the first time. The next step is the translation into Greek of Costas Tachtsis’s “The Third Wedding Wreath” and the complete works of E.H. Gonatas. As of 2005, a prize for the best translation will be awarded at the “NON/FICTION” book kommersant.ru/photo/archive/search.asp?L=2&dt=1&ex=y&lang=2&lib=1&ps=25&searchbtn=search&text=%EA%F3%F0%E5%ED%F2%E7%E8%F1------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_BachauerGina BachauerGina Bachauer, (May 21, 1913 - August 22, 1976), was a Greek classical pianist who toured extensively in the United States and Europe.Gina Bachauer was born in Athens, Greece. She gave her first recital in Athens at the age of eight.[1] Her first concert with an orchestra was in 1932, when she was 19 years old. She recorded for the HMV (His Master's Voice), RCA Victor and Mercury labels. Before she died in 1976, she gave hundreds of concerts - including 630 for the Allied troops in the Middle East during World War II. Gina Bachauer was also the piano teacher of Princess Irene. Bachauer was a close friend of Maurice Abravanel, and often appeared with the Utah Symphony Orchestra. The Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition was established in 1976 in her honour. It attracts young pianists from all over the world to Salt Lake City each year. Today the house in which Bachauer lived in the Athens suburb of Halandri still stands; neighbours with fond memories of the pianist take care of the grounds. The house is visited by numerous fans from around the world, who feed the stray cats just as Bachauer did when she was alive. In 1981 the Greek Post honored Bachauer by issuing a stamp in her honour. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dionysios Grammenosca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/080510/en....rovision_greeceVIENNA (AFP) - A Greek clarinet player, Dionysios Grammenos, beat six other finalists to win the Eurovision Young Musician prize Friday in Vienna at the end of a six-day competition. The 18-year-old Grammenos, a student at the Athens conservatory, won the prize for his performance of the fourth movement of Jean Francaix's concerto for clarinet and orchestra. The runners-up included Finnish pianist Roope Grondahl and Norwegian violinist Eldbjorg Hemsing. The winners were picked Friday evening by an international jury led by British conductor Sir Roger Norrington, following performances by all seven finalists at the opening of the week-long Vienna Festival at City Hall. Sixteen young musicians from around Europe and no older than 19 originally competed for the award. This was the 14th edition of the competition, which was created in 1982 and is held every two years. |
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