Literary Archives

ELIA holds some 200 archives of Greek writers and a smaller number of archives of critics, philologists and newspaper and periodical publishers. This compilation gives a clear image of Modern Greek literature and of the intellectual life in Greece during the last two centuries. The literary archives differ with respect to their volume, their time-span, the activities they cover, and the issues they highlight often under the selective intervention of their creator. The archives normally contain drafts, notes, diaries, correspondence or even public documents and certificates, cut-outs, photographs, postcards and drawings.

Among the archives of ELIA one can find those of Aristotle Valaoritis (part of the Valaoritis family archive), Angelos Vlachos, Costas Hatzopoulos, Demosthenes Voutiras, Alexander Palis and Peter Vlastos, the publisher and poet Chrysostomos Ganiaris (with some letters by Psycharis addressed to him), Thrassos Castanakis, Stratis Doukas, Th. Petsalis-Diomedes, Petros Haris, Nicholas Calas, Elli Pappa, Dido Sotiriou and others, as well as parts of the archives of Costis Palamas, K.P. Cavafy and Angelos Sikelianos, handwritten poems by Andreas Karkavitsas, manuscripts and typescripts by Stratis Myrivilis and much more.

These units usually contain letters, manuscripts, drafts or works of other authors somehow related to the creators of the archives. Thus we possess, for instance, handwritten notebooks with poems and a large amount of letters by Andreas Laskaratos as well as letters by Emmanuel Roïdis in the Valaoritis archive, important letters by G. Psycharis and N. Kazantzakis in the Thrassos Castanakis archive, by G. Seferis in the Timos Malanos archive, by N. Vrettakos in the Milliex archive etc. Equally important is the Aglaïa Makarov-Fakalou archive, containing letters and postcards by Ioannis Sikoutris, perhaps the greatest Modern Greek classical philologist and instructor since Adamantios Koraïs.

Of special interest are the archives of newspaper publishers, such as those of Vlassis Gavriilides (Acropolis) and Dimitrios Koromilas (Ephemeris) as well as those archives related to literary periodicals, as that of Stephen Pargas (Grammata of Alexandreia), Stathakis-Kallergis (Neoi Dromoi), Petros Haris (Nea Estia) and Abraham Papazoglou (Philologiki Protochronia of Constantinople).

Particularly informative are the archives of students and critics of literature, such as those of Gerasimos Spatalas, M.M. Papaioannou, M. Gialourakis etc.
 
 
You may visit the catalogue of E.L.I.A.'s archives in Greek, here.