The Elytis Museum in Plaka was inaugurated by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in the presence of Culture Minister Linas Mendonis. “This building, an interesting example of Athenian urban architecture, which from today is transformed into ‘Elytis House – Elytis Museum’, was expropriated, like others in the same neighborhood, by the Ministry of Culture, decades ago, in order to be demolished and excavated , satisfying the state planning of the last decades of the 19th century, which provided for the unification of the Ancient Agora of Athens with the Roman Agora”, said Culture Minister Lina Mendoni in her greeting. And he added that “it is the only case where the economic difficulties of the country… acted beneficially for Culture. Demolition and excavations were delayed due to financial hardship. Over time, established attitudes have changed. Thus, the Ministry of Culture found itself in possession of interesting properties in Plaka, which gradually declined, while some, meanwhile, turned into ruins”.
As the minister noted, among other things, “from 2019, our strategic choice is to save this building stock, to acquire new uses, dedicated to letters and the arts, compatible with the data of the region. Our goal is to include them in a cultural journey – highlighting the personalities and work of our youngest great creators. Odysseus Elytis here, Karolos Koun a little above, Kostis Palamas a short distance from here – in the heart of the most historic neighborhood of Athens, among the ancient remains, which were triggers for creation for them. And this as part of our policy, the fruitful osmosis of the cultural heritage with the latest and modern creation, the first of which is an inexhaustible and irreplaceable source of inspiration”.
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“Tonight, here, an idea of Ioulita Iliopoulou, of whom we became a communicant in 2013, comes to fruition. With the Memorandum of Cooperation, between the Ministry of Culture and the Urban Non-Profit Company “AERTON”, this house, the “Elytis House” is granted to the latter ‘. The Ministry of Culture restored the building and has undertaken to cover the annual operating costs of the House-Museum. Thus, the State pays the Museum as a small token of respect to the work of one of the most emblematic representatives of the latest Greek letters”, underlined the Minister of Culture, stressing that “the Poet, the ‘guardian of the sky’, who wanted to dream ‘far from the epidemic of the state’, acquires, one day exactly before his birthday, his own roof, where his priceless record will be kept and protected, his priceless record will live on for generations to come. In this building is a precious treasure: The nearly 1,000 titles of his books, magazines, photographic, film and audio material, all unique references to his work. The first editions of his 52 works, the translations as well as his imaginative and valuable visual works, with memories of the endless blue of the Aegean. All fully accessible to his scholars, thanks to the unspeakable generosity of Ioulita Iliopoulou”.
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The ‘House of Elytis’, according to the minister, “aspires to essentially serve in spreading the work of the great poet to the general public. The corpus of his creations perfectly sums up and is inextricably linked to his life. Even the unique Elytis, with his unfailing appeal, with the irresistible attraction he exerts on the younger generations, needed a point of reference, a shell to house and reconstitute his work biography. With this reasoning and this form, the ‘Elytis House-Museum’ has been built”, emphasized L. Mendoni, adding her certainty that the museum “will stimulate fruitful interest in his work, that it will provide triggers for the study under-enlightened sides, that it will inspire new approaches, will lead to a re-evaluation of his critical and essay work, will trace the influences he received as well as those he exerted. Waiting and looking forward to see those sides of “the true poet, who always sides with the difficult even though he knows that for that reason he will never receive any reward”, as he himself invisibly told us in one of his interviews, the 1973″.
“We are grateful to Ioulita Iliopoulou, custodian of the project and its accurate memory, for the undisturbed mutual understanding, the perfect cooperation, but above all for the love, devotion and indomitable patience and perseverance, with which she surrounded the project”, “to Alexandros Samaras and his colleagues, for their kind gesture of offering the Ministry of Culture the restoration study of the building”, as well as “to the competent services of the Ministry of Culture, especially the Directorate for the Protection and Restoration of Newer Monuments, which undertook the task of restoring the building”, concluded Lina Mendoni in her greeting.
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Source: www.zougla.gr
