Kostis Palamas

Kostis Palamas is considered one of the most important Greek poets of his generation and was nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He came from a family of intellectuals and resistance fighters against the Ottoman rule. Orphaned by age six, Palamas and his older brother grew up with his uncle’s family in Mesolongi in Western Greece. In 1875, he enrolled in the Faculty of Law in Athens, but was only interested in poetry and literature. He became a journalist and editor of the most important magazines and newspapers in 19th century Greece. In 1886, he published his first poetry collection, Songs of my country. In 1897, Palamas was appointed secretary-general of the University of Athens, a function that he kept for 30 years. When one of his children died of meningitis at age of four, he sublimated his grief in the elegy Tomb, published in 1898.

During the next decades his international reputation grew, and in 1926, several readings took place in Paris as a tribute to Kostis Palamas. In the same year, he was admitted to the Academy of Athens, becoming its president in 1930. In 1928, he was honored by the University of Athens on his retirement. In 1937, he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor by the French government. At the beginning of the German occupation in 1940, Palamas issued a famous message to the people of Greece. The last years of his life were characterized by loneliness and deteriorating health. The national funeral of Palamas gave rise to a poignant appeal to the resistance by the poet Angelos Sikelianos, by the Archbishop of Athens, and by the crowd singing the Greek national anthem.

Kostis Palamas’ main legacy are lyrical works, but he was also a novelist, playwright, and literary critic. He worked continuously for the establishment of the Dimotiki language and wrote all his works in what is now the Standard Modern Greek, in contrast to the formal Katharevousa. His most famous poem is the Olympic Hymn, set to music by the composer Spyros Samaras on the occasion of the first modern Olympic Games celebrated in Athens in 1896.