Facts

31 BC : The Battle of Actium takes place, between Octavian and the alliance of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Octavian emerges victorious and a little later takes over as emperor of Rome.

1822: After an agreement with Keser Ahmet Pasha, the Souliotes leave their place from the port of Splantza, to settle as refugees in the Iptane Islands. From there, despite the prohibition of the English authorities, they will later escape to the various fronts of southern Greece, to fight under their own or other chieftains.

1843: Bankrupt Greece is forced to sign the “memorandum” drawn up by the three ambassadors of the Great Powers on the state’s finances. The following day, the September 3rd Revolution will break out.

[1945: World War II officially ends, with the surrender of Japan. The official ceremony takes place on the battleship Missouri off Tokyo Bay.

1958: The Battle of Achyrona, in Liopetri of Famagusta, takes place, the deadliest since the beginning of EOKA’s action for the liberation of Cyprus. Four EOKA men (Fotis Pittas, Andreas Karios, Ilias Papakyriakou and Christos Samaras) fall heroically fighting, while several British soldiers are killed and wounded.

1966: Christos Papanikolaou wins the pole vault silver medal at the European Athletics Championships in Budapest with 5.05m behind East Germany’s Wolfgang Nordwing (5.10m), his arch-rival in all their encounters.

1997: The Speaker of the Parliament, Apostolos Kaklamanis, launches a fierce attack against the private television stations. Photographing the two biggest TV channels, he says that “one grabbed the money from the Kosmakis in Sophocles and the other was preparing to do the same”. Still, he points out that “no government dares to deal with this scam”.

Births

1878: Ion Dragoumis, Greek politician and diplomat, one of the main exponents of Greek nationalism and the “Great Idea”. (D. 31/7/1920)

1883: Rudolf Weigl, Polish physician and immunologist, who prepared the first effective vaccine against epidemic typhus – one of mankind’s oldest and most infectious diseases. (D. 11/8/1957)

1901: Andreas Empirikos, Greek surrealist poet and psychoanalyst. (D. 3/8/1975)

Deaths

1877: Konstantinos Kanaris, leading figure of the Greek Revolution, admiral and prime minister. (Born 1793)

1973: J. RR Tolkien, British author. (“The Hobbit”, “Lord of the Rings”) (Born 3/1/1892)

1984: Manos Katrakis, Greek actor. (Born 14/8/1908)

2021: The great composer, politician and writer Mikis Theodorakis passed away at the age of 96

THE Mikis Theodorakis was a great composer, politician and writer; one of the most important and most discussed personalities of modern Greece.

Michael (Mikis) Theodorakis was born in Chios on July 29, 1925, to a Cretan father and an Asia Minor mother. Due to his father’s professional status (senior civil servant) he spent his childhood moving to various cities in Greece: Mytilini (1925-1928), Syros and Athens (1929), Ioannina (1930-1932) Argostoli (1933-1936) , Patras (1937-1938), Pyrgos (1938-1939) and Tripoli (1939-1943).

The first compositions and the first poems

Before the Second World War he had discovered his love for music and wrote his first compositions, while in 1942 he published his first poems, under the pseudonym Dinos Mais. In 1943 he permanently settled in Athens and continued his musical studies, with Philoktitis Oikonomidis as his teacher. At the same time, he develops resistance action, through the ranks of EPON and KKE. He will be arrested by the Italians and in prison he will learn the work of Marx.
During the Civil War (1946-1949) he will be exiled first to Ikaria and then to Makronissos. His political persecutions do not stop his creative work. He composes works of “classical” music and on March 5, 1950, his first work, “Festival of Asi-Gonia” (1946), was presented at the “Orpheus” theater in Athens, by the State Orchestra of Athens, conducted by his teacher Philoktitis Economides.

In 1953, he married doctor Myrto Altinoglou (the couple had two children, George and Margarita) and continued his musical studies in Paris, with teachers Olivier Messiaen and Essen Bigot. He continues to compose and in 1959 he is awarded the “Copley” prize for the best European composer of the year.

The composition of the “Epitaph” by Yiannis Ritsos

One night in 1958, while waiting for his wife in the car, he reads the “Epitaph” by Yannis Ritsos and sets the first eight poems to music on the spot. In 1960 they will be recorded for the first time with the voice of Grigoris Bithikotsis. It is the time when Theodorakis moves into the field of song and “marries” folk rhythms, folk instruments, folk singers and the poetry of the leading representatives of the 30’s generation (Seferis, Elytis, Ritsos etc.).
From his works of that period, the following stand out: “Archipelago”, “State A’ and B'”, “Surface”, “Mauthausen”, “Axion Este”. He will also write music for Michalis Kakogianni’s film “Zorbas” (1964) and for two theatrical performances that marked the 60s, “Magic City” and “The Neighborhood of Angels”. In 1963, after the assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis, “Neolaia Lambrakis” was founded, of which he was elected President. At the same time, he was elected a member of the EDA.

With the imposition of the dictatorship on April 21, 1967, a new cycle of persecution and exile will begin for the composer, which will end in 1970 with the amnesty granted to him, following an international outcry and the efforts of personalities such as Dmitri Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein , Harry Belafonte, Arthur Miller and Hans Eisler. He will go abroad and give dozens of concerts against the colonels, which will make him known everywhere as a symbol of the anti-dictatorship struggle.

Symbol for fighters against totalitarian regimes

During the postcolonial period, his music will also be widely accepted, and will be heard freely again. It will become a reference point of a new period for Greece and at the same time it will remain a symbol for the fighters of many countries against totalitarian regimes. Many of the works he wrote during the seven-year period would be published in the first years of the post-colonial period (“Sun and Time”, “The Folk”, “The Songs of Andreas”, “Lianotragouda”, “Canto General”, “Surface Averof” and many others), while the recording and publication of his symphonic works will gradually begin.
Mikis Theodorakis was actively involved in politics during the Postcolonial period. He posed the famous dilemma “Karamanlis or tanks”, was elected a member of parliament (twice with the KKE and twice with New Democracy) and became a minister in the Mitsotakis government. At the same time, he started with the Turkish musician Zulfi Livaneli an effort to reach a rapprochement between the peoples of Greece and Turkey.

In his sixty-year career he wrote over 1,000 songs, many symphonic works, cantatas and oratorios, music for dozens of plays and tragedies, operas and music for the cinema.