I am delighted to be in the War Museum today, so that we can all together welcome the publication of a three-volume historical book of high aesthetic quality: the work of my friend and colleague, Kostas Gioulekas.
Kostas Gioulekas managed to put together a remarkable collection of Greek and foreign newspaper articles, published during the critical years from the beginning of the Greek Revolution to the establishment of the Greek State (1821-1831).
This work is the result of many years of scientific research, a painstaking work.
The idea of approaching the Greek Revolution and national Palingenesis through the Press of the time is a pioneering approach to events. And, of course, it constitutes a historical legacy which is made available to the public.
It highlights, inter alia, the role of journalism during Hellenism’s Struggle for existence.
Its basic archival material consists of hundreds of articles and newspaper extracts accompanied by the writer's comments, a detailed timetable of the most important events, as well as extracts from the memoirs of the 1821 Fighters.
Thus, readers have the opportunity to relive, as if being there and then, the tension of the struggle and the surge of emotions of the protagonists, their desire for freedom.
And they cannot but admire the power of the Press that in fact made its own effort, fought its own battle to throw off the Ottoman yoke.
Each newspaper article contributes to the shaping of the national identity of a fighting nation: newspapers that initially were handwritten, such as “Efimerida tou Galaxidiou”, others that were printed, as, for instance, “Ellinikos Tilegraphos” which was published in Vienna since 1812, “Salpinx Elliniki” which was the first printed newspaper and was published in Kalamata since the beginning of the Struggle, “Geniki Efimeris” which was the official newspaper of the Administration, “Efimeris Ionion Nison” published by the British in Corfu, my birthplace, but also German-language newspapers, such as “Leipziger Zeitung” and “Wiener Zeitung”.
All of these are brought back to life and made available to the Greek public through these elegant volumes and provide us with the possibility to mentally visit those times, when freedom was consolidated from the blood of Greeks and was reflected in the first Constitutions.
Those were times of glory, but, as always in our history, dark times as well. They are both reflected in Kostas’ great work.
We find that the Press of that era brings to the fore the collective consciousness of the rebellious Greeks which matures as the Revolution is unfolding. It goes hand in hand with the history of the revolution.
The establishment of a Press of such quality presupposes the existence of and respect for the fourth estate in an era and under conditions that were not the most favourable for it.
In this regard, it constitutes supporting evidence, at a subconscious level, of the existence of a national and state entity and society. It also highlights the Greek language in a clear, effective, straightforward way. That was not a given in those days either. And so it establishes a cultural unity and highlights the continuity of the nation.
Ultimately, this work as it is presented, suggests an image of its author, as is the case with every human endeavour. Through this work, Kostas is emerging in his multiple qualities, that of politician, lawyer, journalist and historian.
Kostas,
I would not like to just offer my congratulations in a conventional manner. We will all do that.
I would like to praise you in the most emphatic way for the effort that you and the worthy contributors to this meaningful collector’s edition have made to deliver to our collective memory and to contemporary Greek society a work that is a proof of our historical continuity.
I would also like to wish this work every success and may it have a creative effect on contemporary and future readers, on generations to come; on the Greeks of the next generations who will seek to understand the events and to have a sense of the continuity of our nation’s course.
I would like to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that the sense of the continuity of our nation is a strange feeling.
And you will allow me to tell you that, in the course of my –not so brief anymore- career, the time I felt this feeling more intensely was the day before yesterday in a room in Odessa, where the story we are talking about today began: the Greek Revolution and the Struggle for the establishment of a modern Greek State, as depicted in this work.
Thank you so much.
April 6, 2022