Angelos Sikelianos’ house on Lefkada will become a museum

11 November 2014 / 18:11:16 GRReporter

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Greek poet Angelos Sikelianos’ house on Lefkada will become a museum that will adorn the fourth largest island in the Ionian Sea. This has become possible after the local government and the National Bank have agreed on the funding of the restoration of the house and the turning of it into a museum.

"The restoration works will begin in a month and finally we will save the house of not just a poet, but of a national poet, who also belongs to the whole world, judging by his work", said Mayor of Lefkada Costas Drakondaidis after signing the contract for the restoration works on the part of the National Bank of Greece.

According to the mayor of the island, the restoration of the house will be completed in due time and in the summer it will be ready to open as the Angelos Sikelianos Museum. "We will not only repair and maintain a house but will also preserve, evaluate and show the creativity of our compatriot Angelos Sikelianos", the mayor stressed. It is calculated that the restoration of the house will amount to about 800,000 euro. The municipality is unable to provide that sum and the activities will be financed by the National Bank.

Angelos Sikelianos and Eva Palmer

It should be noted that there had been such an agreement with the National Bank to finance the restoration in the past but the project was not realized. In September, when the new local government took office, the negotiations intensified and yielded a result.

The contract was signed at a meeting held on 5 November in the presence of managers from the National Bank and the contractor selected by the financial institution.

Angelos Sikelianos (15 March 1884 - 19 June 1951) is one of the most important Greek poets. His work is characterized by a pronounced lyricism and vocabulary in particular. He was born on the island of Lefkada, where he spent his childhood. He graduated from high school in 1900, and enrolled in the Law Faculty of the University of Athens the following year but did not complete his studies. His interests were clearly literary and he studied Homer, Pindar, Orphic poetry, the Pythagoreans, lyrical poets, various philosophers, Plato, Aeschylus, Scripture and foreign authors from an early age.

In the following years, the poet travelled a lot and turned to poetry and theatre. An important moment in Sikelianos’ life was his wedding in 1907 with American woman Eva Palmer, who studied Greek archaeology and choreography in Paris. They married in the USA and settled in Athens in 1908. At that time, Sikelianos established contacts with many intellectuals and ultimately, in 1909, he published his first book of poetry "The Clairvoyant" that was a sensation in the literary circles and was considered a key work in the history of modern Greek literature.

A period of intensive efforts followed that led to the publication of a book of poetry consisting of four volumes, namely "Prologue to Life," "The Consciousness of My Earth" (1915), "The Consciousness of My Race" (1915), "The Consciousness of Woman" (1916) and "The Consciousness of Faith" (1917). During the Nazi occupation, Sikelianos played a very important role in the spiritual resistance of the Greek people, the climax of this activity being the poem and the speech that he delivered at the funeral of another great Greek poet, Kostis Palamas, in 1943.