Summaries
SPEECH SUMMARIES
(In alphabetical order)
Giorgos Andriomenos, Professor at the Department of Philology, University of the Peloponnese
Archival material and literary publications of modern Greek authors
The lack of literary editions of the work of several important Modern Greek writers, older and newer, through which the reader-user will be given a critically restored and reliable text, continues to be one of the major themes of modern Greek philological research — especially in the age of the Internet and the digital age. In such attempts, the role of literary archives is extremely important, mainly because they offer valuable primary material in manuscript and printed form, which contributes crucially not only to the elucidation of the author's final will or the successive writings of one of his works, but also to the illumination of the conditions in which it was formed and the peculiarities that characterize it. In this context, specific examples will be discussed and cases where the existence of archival material can contribute decisively to the formation of a reliable and critically commented literary publication will be highlighted.
Michalis K. Anthis, Dr. Philology
The "paratextual" elements as codes of meaning in the Atlantic by Nikos Engonopoulos
The Atlantic was written in 1953 and was first published in the magazine Anglo-Greek Review in the winter of 1953-54. In 1954 a typed edition was also published in 50 copies with a handwritten cover of the poet (Documents SF2.01-SF2.02). Outside the text, the poem is accompanied by an oil painting by Nikos Engonopoulos ("Jason"). Within the text, two textual excerpts are listed as frontispieces. The Archive and the corresponding Document for the Atlantic also include a color photograph of the "Globe". The in-text and extra-textual elements that accompany Engonopoulos' Atlantic according to the proposal of the French literary theorist Gérard Genette ("Palimpsestes. La littérature au second degree") and the methodological principle of "objectivity" that he formulated, are "adjacent", which as codes of meaning are in relation to the text itself.
Sofia Voulgari, Associate Professor, Department of Greek Literature, Democritus University of Thrace
Teachers, students, fellow travelers: the community of Nikos Engonopoulos
Nikos Engonopoulos opposed his work to the wickedness of the world, to the bitterness he experienced in the era of lack of recognition, the tenderness and vigor of art, to the darkness of sadness the light of the soul. He fought loneliness by building around himself and within himself a community of solidarity, a network of people (teachers, friends, comrades) who were connected by relationships of love, discipleship, mutual respect, admiration and supported each other directly or indirectly by erecting a symbolic wall of protection around them. The ethics and rhetoric of this community, as reflected in the words of Engonopoulos, his allies-companions and his (in the narrow or broad sense) of his students, both in published texts and in unpublished correspondence, whether they are "unexpected friendly letters", or communication with admirers or colleagues, in more or less difficult times, will be the subject of the announcement.
Eleonora Vratskidou, Assistant Professor, Department of Theory and History of Art, Athens School of Fine Arts
The "impressionism" of Nikos Engonopoulos
In a 1969 biographical note, which was intended for the Chamber of Arts and is kept in the Nikos Engonopoulos Archive (ASFA), in addition to his two well-known and decisive apprenticeships – at the Athens School of Fine Arts, with Konstantinos Parthenis and in the workshop of Fotis Kontoglou – Engonopoulos mentions that he studied "impressionism next to Evangelos Ioannidis". The Communication seeks to first explore the unexpected, and
Engonopoulos' connection with the little-studied E. Ioannidis (1868–1942), a painter of idealistic tendencies, who studied in Munich, whom today we would hardly associate with Impressionism and its reception in Greece, has been treasured in the bibliography. At the same time, he attempts to shed light on the importance of Impressionism in Engonopoulos' speech and theoretical production, employing an unpublished text entitled "The most important achievement of the School of Impressionism" as well as notes from his lectures at the Polytechnic. As I will show, Engonopoulos elaborates a peculiar historical narrative of European art, where Impressionism functions as a bridge between the Byzantine tradition and modern art.
Panagiotis El Gedi, PhD Candidate in Modern Greek Literature, University of Athens
Papers, smudges and wishes (or lack thereof)
The intervention aims to highlight some of the ways in which those archives that belong to non-heteronormative historical figures are compiled, but also the ways in which these archives undergo structural or other changes over the years. Can we talk about queer files or is queer our way of looking at them?
Maria Gyparaki, Publisher, director, author of the book "The Drawing or the Color" (Ikaros, 2007)
Theatrical spaces in the poetry of N. Engonopoulos
Studying the purely poetic work of Nikos Engonopoulos, one comes to the conclusion (at least as far as my own experience is concerned) that it is inextricably linked to the theater, it reverently preserves the religious medieval ethos of the genre, its sacredness, in other words, but without hiding its gargantuan appetite for knowledge, for in-depth search, as a worthy successor of a brilliant Renaissance. The intervention aims to highlight the attitude of the Artist (poet and painter) as Homo Universalis.
Giorgos Koumaridis, ELIA/MIET Thessaloniki, PhD candidate, Department of Archives, Library Science and Information Systems, University of Western Greece
Attica.
"Techni" Macedonian Artistic Society, its archive and a research project
The "Techni" Macedonian Artistic Society was founded in Thessaloniki in 1951 by a group of restless and art-loving citizens. It was associated from the beginning with important academics of the city, was immediately established and was the lever behind the cultural development of Thessaloniki after the war. It operated uninterruptedly, although in declining course in recent years, until 2020. After its closure, its archive was transferred to the ELIA/MIET of Thessaloniki. The presentation on the occasion of the classification of this large archive that is in progress will focus on issues of acquisition, liquidation, classification and description. Subsequently, reference will be made to the content of the archive and its importance for research and the main objectives of the research program "'Art' in Thessaloniki: Contribution to the cultural history of the city" will be presented.
Vicky Liakopoulou, Independent Researcher, Academic Visitor – Bodleian Libraries (University of Oxford)
From Digitization to Digital Preservation: Policy, Interoperability and Roadmap for Modern Greek Literary Archives
In recent years, large Greek archives have proceeded with successful digitization and material distribution actions. The next crucial step is systematic digital preservation: clear policies, service roadmaps, and interoperable metadata that guarantee authenticity, sustainability, and reusability. The talk presents a practical framework—aligned with international good practices (OAIS, FAIR, DPC recommendations)—for the evolution of literary and personal archives (such as the N. Engonopoulos archive) from "digitization projects" to mature digital preservation services. Will be affected: selection of description templates (TEI/RiC-CM), contextual modelling (CIDOC-CRM/RDF), authenticity policies & integrity (fixity, PREMIS events), risk prioritization & storage strategy (3-2-1, geo-replication), as well as staff training and networking (DPC, RDA, DCC). A matrix coordination model and a short/medium term roadmap for institutions and university archives in Greece are proposed.
Eleana Margariti, Art Historian, Postdoctoral Researcher
The unknown Engonopoulos: enrichment of his artistic catalogue with works found in the Archive
In this paper, the main aspects of the Nikos Engonopoulos Art Archive that were studied are presented, and the original results of this research are analyzed. Starting from the detailed catalogue "Nikos Engonopoulos, his painting world" of 2007 curated by Katerina Perpinioti-Aghazir and with the complete Archive in the hands of the research team, at the conference I will analyze the methodology followed in order to identify, classify and document – as much as possible – works that will ultimately enrich the artist's visual catalogue. In addition, as the archive includes many catalogues, as well as the rich archival material "Notebooks" of Engonopoulos, we are given the opportunity to gain a clearer picture of his exhibition activity and to complete his biography.
Evi Mitsopoulou, Archivist (EMST Artistic Archive)
The archive of Nikos Engonopoulos: The process of processing the archive from the autopsy to the digital repository
Editing a file is a time-consuming, but particularly charming process. The richer the material, in volume and content, the more complex the work becomes, which is, of course, governed by fixed principles. This paper is a tour of the processing process from the receipt of the physical material to the posting of digital copies on a digital content presentation platform.
Spyros Moschonas, PhD in Art History
Painted architecture: the publication Greek Houses (1972) through the archive of N. Engonopoulos
In 1972, shortly before retiring from the National Technical University of Athens where he taught, Nikos Engonopoulos proceeded to publish the album Greek Houses (published by the NTUA). It included 18 depictions of houses, dating from the interwar period to the late 1960s and crafted in the artist's particular style. However, they were neither paintings nor typical architectural impressions. In essence, a painted architecture that acquired mythical dimensions. This paper will explore through the material of the archive of N. Engonopoulos, which his daughter Henrietta donated to the ASTK, the painter's sources and the general reception of the publication, in the gloomy climate of the April Dictatorship.
Sofia Bora, ELIA/MIET Literary Archives
The literary archive as an open promise
Literary archives, at least paper ones, open up multiple possibilities and entrances to the understanding of the composition of the works and the artistic career of the creators. Drafts and different versions of writings, incomplete drafts, early ideas that writing led to other paths or even to dead ends, epistolary dialogues that often shed light on aspects of creation in relation to contemporaries and fellow artists, personal documents that integrate lives into historical time and space, everything that a literary archive offers to the researcher needs his own participation and knowledge, Each gaze composes its own image, multiplicity is an essential element of the archive experience. The materiality and deterioration of paper, inks, pencils, underline the limits of time, erasures, corrections, additions highlight the agony of the creators at the limits of their writing, but at the same time the archive, precisely through the various versions of formulations and experiences, seems to lift the finitude of life and writing with each subsequent reading.
Charalambos Otampasis, Dr. Modern Greek Literature, Postdoctoral Researcher, Panteion University
The case of Nikos Engonopoulos: archiving and documenting his correspondence
The correspondence of writers, and generally of people in the intellectual and artistic field, is a special and valuable source of knowledge for scholars of history, philology, art, and even anthropology. In particular, if this study focuses on a man who combines multiple qualities, as in the case of Nikos Engonopoulos where we have a painter, poet, but also an academic, then we realize that his correspondence, either with friends and associates or with admirers or opponents, reveals personal thoughts and opinions about the literature, politics and society of his time. In this paper we will have the opportunity to present some items of the archive of Nikos Engonopoulos, focusing on four files entitled "Hypothesis". Our concern is to focus on issues that escape the literature and poetics of Engonopoulos, issues that acquire historical as well as
political context.
Efstathia Politi, Historian, Archivist, Hellenic Maritime Museum
Nikos Engonopoulos (1907–1985): sketching the Polytechnic professor through evidence
The paper attempts to outline Nikos Engonopoulos (1907–1985) through his academic career at the School of Architecture of the NTUA, shedding light on a lesser-known aspect of the multifaceted creator — that of the professor. Through archival sources, minutes of meetings, letters and student testimonies, his role in the education of architects is highlighted, during a period of intense restructuring of the School (1960–1970). Particular emphasis is placed on his teaching methodology, the connection between art and architecture education, as well as the reactions caused by his election as a representative of surrealism in a technocratic environment par excellence. The study highlights Engonopoulos as an emblematic figure who developed a complete and methodical curriculum – far from "surreal ambiguities" – which covered every aspect of the artistic education of young architects, with clarity and specific teaching strategies, leaving a strong imprint on the Polytechnic and its students.
Varvara Roussou, member of the Laboratory Teaching Staff Department of THISTE ASFA
Nikos Engonopoulos in the Notebook: paths of surrealist writing in an active archive
The paper explores the presence of Nikos Engonopoulos in the short-lived magazine Tetradio, which is published in the critical post-war period of the Civil War. In particular, he focuses on his three poems in the first issue and on the tribute of the second to Picasso where Engonopoulos publishes a poem and an article about the poet Picasso and translates a poem by the Spaniard. After briefly discussing the contribution of Engonopoulos' publications to the image of the magazine as avant-garde, the announcement is organized in two axes: a) how the note on Picasso functions as a commentary on poetic and artistic creation, in relation to the dual capacity of Engonopoulos himself as a painter and poet b) how the Notebook, in the context of the Foucaucasian concept of "archival
field", is a dynamic space for discourses, aesthetic strategies and practices of literary magazines and is transformed into an active archive, activating and bringing back to the present day the discussion about dialogue or the coupling of literary/artistic trends.
Alexandra Samuel, Professor, Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, University of Cyprus
"Jeff the Great Automaton" from the Isle of Man
The announcement concerns the much-discussed in the context of Greek surrealism
poem by Nikos Engonopoulos "As soon as midnight strikes, Jef the great automaton...", which, thanks mainly to its title, refers directly to the definition of surrealist design, to the "pure mental automatism" of the First Manifesto. However, by posing automatism as a prerequisite for unfettered creativity, André Breton, contrary to what critics sometimes believe about the exclusively Freudian origin of Greek surrealism, adopts an older term that has been at the core of French medical-psychological dialogue since the middle of the 19th century, providing a charming key to a novel view of the brain. On the one hand, then, automatism, this "cerebral unconscious", which had been talked about since 1840, and the consequent therapeutic, medical hypnotism; And on the other hand, "pneumatomania", as recorded in 1891 in the Greek press, which had to do with the communication of the material world with that of spirits, and which was made possible by the often hypnotized psychics, constitute the basis for the understanding of this particular engonopoulos poem, but also of a large part of the work of the Greek poet, somehow outlining his definition of automatic writing
Maria Stamataki, PhD Candidate, Department of Communication, Media and Culture, Panteion University
Creative Writing as a Place of Active Sections: Quanta, Poetic Events and Hyperstructures of Meaning in laboratory exercises based on the archival material of Nikos Engonopoulos
Creative Writing, as an experimental and artistic practice, highlights writing not as a simple representation of a formed meaning, but as a field of embodied processes. According to Karen Barad's theory of "agential realism", every creative act of speech, especially in the context of Creative Writing workshops, is perceived as an "agential cut", an event of "intra-action" between the writer, the text and the readers, constantly reconstructing the literary field. From this perspective, archival materials can be considered as places of production of "microgenetic elements of writing" (quanta): key semantic shifts in the literary and cognitive superstructure that emerge within laboratory conditions. At the same time, the concepts of "hybridization", "nomadism", "becoming" and non-imitative creation allow the viewing of literary creation as a "line of flight" from the entrenched subjectivity and power of normative structures. In this context, this paper, reviewing the role and functions of Creative Writing exercises, proposes applications, both in the production of poetic speech and in educational practice, based on the archive of Nikos Engonopoulos, with the aim of highlighting embodied events of knowledge and meaning and the formation of new forms of subjectivity and literary writing.
Konstantina Stamatogiannaki, PhD in Theatre Studies (NKUA) | Postdoctoral Researcher in Archives (UNIWA) | Performing Arts Archives ELIA/MIET
Terms and conditions in the management of theatrical archives and collections
The paper concerns methodological issues that arise in the management of theater archives and collections. It examines the ways in which they are composed and the forms in which they are delivered to us, the types and substrates of their material, the peculiarities they present and the requirements they raise in order to organize, classify them, describe them and make them available with adequate tools in research.
Myrto Stamatopoulou, PhD Candidate, Department of Photography and Audiovisual Arts, University of West Attica
Painting, engraving, photography: eclectic affinities. The case of the Lesbian artist P. Polychronis (1854-1941)
Panagiotis Polychronis (1854–1941) was a painter, engraver and photographer, who worked in Athens and Lesvos in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He belongs to the category of artists who worked primarily as wooden-copyists, who were often described as "craftsmen". Through his work, as well as a limited number of archival documents, the professional opportunities offered to the less prominent artists of the time are highlighted, as well as the interaction between painting, engraving and photography. At the same time, the European influences that shaped the physiognomy of the Greek art scene at that time become visible. Polychronis remained faithful to the traditional style of his time; in painting he followed a naturalistic rendering, while in hagiography he adopted Western models. Printmaking, in which he was intensely active, had not yet acquired artistic autonomy, as it was mainly used to reproduce images. Similarly, photography, although considered a technical medium and not an art form, was used by Polychronis creatively, mainly for the production of portraits with artistic intent.
Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos, Professor Fine Arts and Humanities Department, University of Alberta, Augustana Campus
Out of the NYPL Archive: Pound’s ‘Caesarean Operation’ and the Making of Eliot’s The Waste Land.
In his dedication to Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot acknowledges his editor’s decisive role, borrowing Dante’s phrase for Arnaut Daniel and naming Pound il miglior fabbro (“the better craftsman”). Pound, in turn, wryly described himself in a quatrain as the midwife who “perform[ed] the caesarian Operation.” Yet the full scope of this operation became clear only with the 1971 publication of the Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Drafts, long hidden and forgotten in the New York Public Library. These drafts reveal how Pound cut the poem nearly in half, paring down Eliot’s expansive manuscript, stripping away more conventional passages, and forcing abrupt transitions that sharpened its now-canonical modernist fragmentation. Above all, Pound’s revisions transformed Eliot’s verse from an extended meditation on the English metrical tradition into a post-imagist, experimental poem--one that enacted Pound’s own aesthetic mandate: “to break the pentameter, that was the first heave” (Canto 81).
Panagiotis Felekis, PhD Candidate, Department of Communication, Media and Culture, Panteion University
The pedagogical utilization of a literary archive. Case study the unknown archive of Nikos Engonopoulos
The private archives of older artists and writers pose a new challenge to the future world of the humanities. In the modern context of archival culture and digital data, new possibilities for accessing and re-meaning collections, writings and objects of the past are emerging. The example of the unknown archive of Nikos Engonopoulos was a typical example of the transition from the private to the public sphere, offering everyone an active field of scientific research, pedagogical utilization and cultural interaction. From an archive of past aesthetics and identity, the example of Engonopoulos' unknown archive is "transformed" into an element of bridging yesterday with today and consolidating in an experiential and holistic way, both Greek and international artistic avant-garde of the 20th century. An archive that is attributed to all interested parties in terms of a democratic, museum space – whether digital or physical – that documents the collective memory and embellishes the cultural identity of a nation, while at the same time offering creative prospects for new generations of scholars.
Anna Fyta, Ph.D., Independent Scholar
Between Anthology and Palimpsest: H.D.’s Beinecke Archive Notes on
Euripides, Pausanias, and the Lyric Poets
Since the early 1980s, Modernist studies and the emerging H.D. scholarship have dramatically altered and transformed our understanding of H.D., a female, American high modernist poet and author. Drawn by the appeal of her early, largely neglected “Hellenic” writings of the first decade of her career, some scholars have succeeded to an extent in discerning the breadth and the depth of the fragmented manuscript and typescript of H.D.’s Notes from Euripides, Pausanias and the Greek Lyric Poets. My research into the archival wealth of The H.D. Papers and H.D.’s Library hosted at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, resulted in the discovery of complex, subtle interrelations between the entries in her Notes on Euripides and the greater, longer body of works of her later authorial production. Using as a case study from these Notes, the essay on the Greek Anthology, I will show how H.D.’s palimpsestic writing corroborates our suspicions that her knowledge of classical Hellenism is more profound and more multivalent than we had originally anticipated.
Maria Chatzikyriakidou, Dr. Italian Literature University of Athens
Italy by Nikos Engonopoulos
Italy is a constant source of inspiration in the work of Nikos Engonopoulos, who creatively transforms it both in his poetry and in his painting. Greek and Italian creators, forms and spaces are intertwined in surrealist compositions, composing a mosaic of syncretism where Greekness emerges not as a closed scheme, but as an open and renewing cultural identity with a universal and dynamic character.
Michalis Chrysanthopoulos, Professor Emeritus of General and Comparative Literature, Department of Philology, Faculty of Philosophy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
"Sequences": the poetry and painting of Nikos Engonopoulos, synapses according to the
period 1975-1985
Starting from the poem "Sequences", published in October 1975 in the magazine Speira (issue 3), together with the poem "Orpheus", the painting of the same title, as well as the poem "A Dream: Life", I examine the way in which the poetic production (writing and publication) and the painting production (paintings and exhibitions) of Engonopoulos are connected and converse. Important for the depiction of the dialogue between poetry and painting is the contribution of the in his "Archive" and related to this period "Notebooks", which are compiled by the poet and painter. The fall of the dictatorship in 1974, the intense cultural movement in the decade that followed, certain events with a particular emotional charge, such as the death of Andreas Embirikos in 1975, work dynamically. The publication of the material of the "Archive" certainly pushes towards the search for the synapses of painting and poetic production and favors the study of this dialogue.
