A revolution of one’s own: Elizabeth Edmonds translates the Greek War of Independence

In the wake of a ‘crushing sorrow’ at the age of 50, Elizabeth Edmonds (c.1821–1907) turned to Modern Greece for a solution. After four months’ stay in Athens in 1880, she returned to London a confirmed Philhellene. Her connections in Athens saw her engaging with the emergent Athenian generation of the 1880s; Palamas, Karkavitsas, Drosinis, Xenopoulos and Vizyinos were published in English translation long before they became figures of the Greek establishment. Edmonds’s links to Oscar Wilde and the diplomat Ioannis Gennadios put her in a fine position from which to promote the Greek cause in Britain. It is widely known that the Cretan Insurrection generated a ripple effect that prompted writers to return to events of 1821. My argument is that Edmonds did so with more subtlety than most. By translating Greek poetry and writing detailed articles, as well as publishing her own fiction inspired by the earlier revolution, Edmonds began to drip-feed a Philhellenism more in keeping with her own times to a British audience. The lives of Rhigas Feraios, Theodoros Kolokotronis and Bouboulina all emerged in Edmonds’s writing, along with the warrior figure of the andreiomeni lygeri. This article traces the development of Greek independence in Edmonds’s writing, from early fiction to later translation work. Through a consideration of this material, and Edmonds’s own correspondence, the article explores how the War of Independence served belatedly to give Edmonds a sense of voice and vocation.

Proposing a Frame of Ethical Principles for Educational Evaluation in Modern Greece

In a country with a long philosophical tradition like Greece, the lack of Ethical Principles for educational evaluation is surprising. This article presents the reasons for such a gap within the general theoretical framework for educational evaluation, combined with major schools of thought on Ethics. The authors discuss the importance for educational evaluation and assessment and take a critical view of present ethical frames. They proceed to fill the gap by coming up with a list of twenty-seven Ethical Principles, the result of the varying consensus of sixteen Greek assessment experts, upon the researcher’s initial proposals. The Delphi Method, that was employed to formulate the list, is described and the first complete Ethical frame of educational evaluation for modern Greece is proposed.

An antidote to anarchy? Images of monarchy in Greece in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries

Since Roman times the representation of monarchy as an antidote to anarchy was a strong form of legitimization for the monarchical institution. In modern Greece, this formula dates back to 1821. The Greek Revolution and its republican constitutions were identified by European statesmen with anarchy and demagogy. Thus, a foreign monarch, alien to Greece's internal factions, was deemed the ideal remedy for internecine strife, and the best guarantor of internal unity as well as stability in the Near East. This image of monarchy proved its usefulness again during the First World War, when a controversy between the premier Eleftherios Venizelos and King Constantine over foreign policy and constitutional issues led to the National Schism (1915–17).

The emergence of modern Greek studies in late-nineteenth-century France and England: The yearbooks of the Association pour l’encouragement des études grecques en France (1867) and of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (1877)

Was the field of modern Greek studies perceived as an ‘exotic’ discipline in the making, or was it considered to be a branch of the already canonised Hellenic studies? This chapter examines two major associations that were established in the late nineteenth century in France and in England and dealt with the promotion of Greek studies: the Association pour l’encouragement des études grecques en France (1867) and the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (1877). Their yearbooks constitute an unexamined treasure of information illuminating the reception of modern Greece and, at the same time, the construction of the modern Greek cultural identity by French and English Hellenists, from the mid-1860s onward.

Modern Greek studies in Italy (1866–1897) : Philhellenic revival and classical tradition through the lens of the Nuova Antologia

During the long era of Italian philhellenism, interest in modern Greece was more than just political and ideological. In particular, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the philhellenism of the Risorgimento period was animated by an interest in the culture of modern Greece and by the wish to investigate the character and most significant aspects of the civilisation and literary production of modern Greece. In the context of literate and pluralistic Italian editorial opinion, the magazine Nuova Antologia exhibited a sincerity of interest in modern Greece in the years when Italy and Greece were still engaged in the process of national resolution and finding their places within the European political and cultural scene.

Medieval and modern Greece in the Academy

This chapter’s central concern is the search for the imprint of medieval and modern Greece in the high-culture British periodical press from the 1870s to the beginnings of the twentieth century through a case study of the Academy (1869–1916). Drawing on its progressive spirit and intellectual authority, the Academy displayed a serious scholarly interest in contemporary research on the language, literature and history of the Greeks beyond classical times to the present. A systematic investigation of its contents demonstrates the role exercised by a few of its contributors in the dissemination to the British educated public of such new knowledge. From this standpoint, the Academy served as a vehicle of late philhellenism: it promoted the idea of the continuum of Greek culture since ancient times while showing a considerable interest, distinct from that devoted to classical Hellas, in the study of the post-antique and contemporary Greek worlds.