The great Greek Historian and Byzantine scholar, Eleni Glykatzi Arveler, turns 99 this year. Speaking to Aris Portosalte and the camera of Prime Time, she narrates the “century of Greece” in her smooth and shocking speech and describes the challenges of the coming era. At the same time, she talks about the events that marked her childhood, about her “tenure” in EPON and the Resistance, about her scientific recognition in France as the “Rector of Rectors”, about May 1968, the Greek junta and her relations with the leading personalities of Greece and the world. He talks about François Mitterrand and Andreas Papandreou, Konstantinos Karamanlis, Manos Hatzidakis and Mikis Theodorakis, Iannis Xenakis and Melina Merkouris. (Watch the full episode here)

Refugee

It was August 1926 when the Glykatzis family welcomed their sixth child. Uprooted from Bursa, her parents tasted the bitter glass of the refugee, but they had already set up their home in Byron.

“Being a refugee or turcosporo as they used to say, I still have and keep a huge rusty key from the yard of my fathers house, because we hope they will one day return to their place” we hear her say.

During the years of the Occupation, Eleni Glykatzi, still a student, joined EPON, under the guidance of the late journalist Christos Pasalaris. She never hid her progressive views, nor her unquenchable passion for freedom.

“What I was looking for was to join the resistance” is narrated.

“The Germans caught me”

Asked by Aris Portosalte if she was in danger of being caught by the Germans, Ms. Glykatzi Arveler replied that she was. “And the strange thing is that they left me at the beginning of Byron. It was a bit like a hill…”

While the German Nazis were leaving Greece, humiliated by the Allies, a new wound was being opened. The civil conflict. It began on December 3, 1944 with the bloody end of the massive demonstration organized by the Communist Party of Greece in Syntagma Square, followed by the agreement of Varkiza on February 12, 1945 and the fratricide until the summer of 1949… After the December 1944, Eleni Glykatzi followed him ELAS of Athens, in his retreat from Attica and returned to Byron after the Agreement of Varkiza.

“What I experienced in the Decembrianas could never keep me in the political camp I was in, because I saw young children walking down the street and singing ‘youth wants blood.’ says Mrs. Arveler.

In the year of the agreement in Varkiza, no social proof certificate was required. Thus, Eleni began her studies at the University of Athens. History and archeology have always monopolized her scientific interest. Her refugee background and family experiences played a decisive role in this.

During her student years, Eleni – because she knew the French language perfectly – following recommendations from the university, she found herself in the circle of Queen Frederica. In fact, the queen was criticized at the time for choosing to take a girl who did not embrace the Kingdom as her servant.

What is Byzantium for Eleni Glykatzi Arveler

First of the first in France

Mrs. Arveler settled in Paris for postgraduate studies in 1953 and fourteen years later, in 1967, she was chosen as a professor at the Sorbonne University. In 1970 she was elected Vice-Chancellor and in 1976 Rector of the historic university that has been around for seven centuries. So she becomes then, the first woman to hold this office in the whole world.

Living in France, Eleni Glykatzi, as a scientist and Rector, won the respect of the French but as a woman she won the heart of Jacques Arveler. An officer of the French navy, he, the scion of a wealthy Parisian family, became her support in life and science. With him she had a daughter, Marie-Hélène who lives permanently in Paris.

“Why don’t you talk about the junta in Greece?”

The events of the French May of 1968, the occupation of the University of Nanterre and later of the Sorbonne, the large student and worker demonstrations, the general strikes and the occupation of large factories, shocked France and became a point of reference for social struggles around the world .

After a televised interview with the leaders of the rebellion, Daniel Cohn-Bedit, Alain Jesmar and Jacques Sauvazo, the then Prime Minister of France, Georges Pompidou, appears on television, characterizing the rebels as “Groups of rabid people who want to generalize the unrest, with the aim of destroying the nation and these very foundations of our liberal society”.

In the grand demonstrations of May 13, the dominant slogan of the demonstrators is: “We are all angry.”

Eleni Glykatzi lived through the events at the Sorbonne and found an opportunity to remind the revolted students of the dictatorship of the Colonels in Greece at the same time.

“Karamanlis was my friend”

Speaking about Konstantinos Karamanlis, Ms. Glykatzis said that he was a friend to her. “You know what those who were with him called him, most of them supposedly communists. They said that Karamanlis is a communist and is hiding it. Lies. We were all right-wing and were hiding it. I can’t say anything else”

Among her friends in Greece and France, there were great figures of political, artistic and economic life.

Eleni Glykatzis Arveler’s scrolls, positions and awards are numerous all over the world. As a Byzantine scholar, he became one of the most prominent university personalities in Europe. Very prolific and tireless, she gave hundreds of lectures in the most important universities of the world, about the glory and historical contribution of Byzantium.

Where is Alexander the Great buried?

In her book “Alexander the Great of the Byzantines”, Eleni Glykatzi Arveler stirred the stagnant waters of scientific history regarding the place where the Macedonian soldier was buried. She claimed that the secret hidden for centuries may be hidden in Vergina.

“The Turks should be satisfied with what they have”

Asked to comment on how she foresees the Turks developing in the future in terms of our geographical coexistence, Ms. Glykatzi said: The Turks will do well to be satisfied with what they have, because if they are not satisfied they will lose them.

Is Eleni Glykatzi Arveler still a leftist?

Responding to Aris Portosalte’s question if she is still a leftist, Ms. Glykatzi said: “I don’t think that right and left are real things. Today, I’m left-wing, if you will, because everything has to go through that, but I’m right-wing because I think everything will work out from there.”

“I am Panathinaikos”