“The economic difficulties of the country… acted beneficially for Culture.” This was stated by the Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, in her speech at the opening of the “House of Elytis” Museum.

In detail what the Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, said:

“Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Ladies and Gentlemen Ministers

Mr. Mayor,

ladies and gentlemen,

friends,

This building, an interesting example of Athenian urban architecture, which today is transformed into the “Elytis House – Elytis Museum”, was expropriated, like others in the same neighborhood, by the Ministry of Culture, decades ago, in order to be demolished and excavated, satisfying the state planning of the last decades of the 19th century, which provided for the unification of the Ancient Agora of Athens with the Roman Agora.

It is the only case, Mr. President, that the economic difficulties of the country… acted beneficially for Culture. Demolition and excavations were delayed due to financial hardship. Over time, established attitudes have changed. Thus, the Ministry of Culture found itself in possession of interesting properties in Plaka, which gradually declined, while some, meanwhile, turned into ruins.

From 2019, our strategic choice is to save this building stock, to acquire new uses, dedicated to letters and arts, compatible with the data of the area. Our goal is to include them in a cultural journey – highlighting the personalities and work of our youngest great creators. Odysseus Elytis here, Karolos Koun a little above, Kostis Palamas a short distance from here – in the heart of the most historic neighborhood of Athens, among the ancient remains, which were triggers for creation for them. And this as part of our policy, the fruitful osmosis of cultural heritage with the latest and modern creation, the first of which is an inexhaustible and irreplaceable source of inspiration.

Tonight, here, an idea of ​​Ioulita Iliopoulos, whose communicants we became in 2013, is scented. With the Memorandum of Cooperation, between the Ministry of Culture and the Urban Non-Profit Company “AERTON”, this house, the “House of Elytis”, is granted to the latter. . The Ministry of Culture restored the building and has undertaken to cover the annual operating costs of the House-Museum. Thus, the State assigns the Museum as a minimal token of honor to the work of one of the most emblematic representatives of modern Greek letters.

“I have been working and living in these fifty square meters for many years. I didn’t have, nor would I ever want to have more. Not that I am pretending to be an ascetic. I believe that man should not be deprived of anything. But it must also be sufficient for the essentials. Luxury, the unnecessary take you away from the essentials, they dissolve you.” With these words, in November 1975, in an interview with Kathimerini and Soula Alexandropoulou, Odysseas Elytis described the house at 23 Skoufa Street. Where he was to live until the end.

Today, here, on Dioskouroun Street 4, the “Elytis Museum” is something similar. He is content, according to his command, with the necessary, without luxuries, which take away from his, the important, the great, the essential: His work, completely intertwined with his life.

“Yes, I love my objects and live with them. When I travel, I miss them. Nothing here is expensive or precious. However, they all have a meaning for me, they are connected to my poetry, my life, my travels. The small table in the corner comes from the mansion of Dionysios Solomos. That wood carving is from a ship’s band, maybe from a tablo. The lithograph next to my bed, a gift from Matisse with a handwritten dedication.”

It is these objects that surround the Museum visitor, the student of his work, the student, who will want to learn something more than the few verses of “Axion esti” that he reads in his school textbook.

The Poet, the “guardian of the sky”, who wanted to dream “far from the pestilence of the state”, acquires, one day exactly before his birthday, his own roof, where he will be kept and protected, he will live, he will , its invaluable record for future generations. In this building is a precious treasure: The nearly 1,000 titles of his books, magazines, photographic, film and audio material, all unique references to his work. The first editions of his 52 works, the translations as well as his imaginative and valuable visual works, with memories of the endless blue of the Aegean. All fully accessible to its scholars, thanks to the unspeakable generosity of Ioulita Iliopoulou.

Mr. Prime Minister,

The “House of Elytis” looks forward to essentially serving in the dissemination of the work of the great poet to the general public. The corpus of his creations perfectly sums up and is inextricably linked to his life. Even the unique Elytis, with his unfailing appeal, with the irresistible attraction he exerts on the younger generations, needed a point of reference, a shell to house and reconstitute his work biography. The “House-Museum of Elytis”, which you are inaugurating today, has been built with this reasoning and in this form.

I am certain that it will rekindle the fertile interest in his work, that it will provide triggers for the study of its under-lit sides, that it will inspire new approaches, lead to a re-evaluation of his critical and essay work, trace the influences he received as well as those which he exercised. Waiting and looking forward to see those sides of “the true poet, who always sides with the difficult even if you know that he will never be rewarded for it”, as he himself invisibly told us in one of his interviews, the 1973.

The “House of Elytis” that welcomes you tonight, is the result of the systematic and coordinated work of many, with love for the Poet.

We are grateful to Ioulita Iliopoulou, custodian of the project and its accurate memory, for the undisturbed mutual understanding, the perfect collaboration, but above all for the love, dedication and indomitable patience and perseverance with which she surrounded the project.

Alexandros Samaras and his colleagues, for their kind gesture of offering the Ministry of Culture the restoration study of the building. The competent services of the Ministry of Culture, especially the Directorate for the Protection and Restoration of Newer Monuments, which undertook the task of restoring the building.

“Let’s go together even if they stone us / Even if they call us aerialists /

My friend, those who never felt with what/ Iron with what stones what blood what fire/

We build, we dream and we sing.”

Odysseus Elytis, “Body of summer”, from “‘Helio the first».