The Greek Institute of Venice

The originals of these evocative watercolors by Marianna Gabriel hang in various rooms of the Greek Institute of Venice, the Istituto Ellinico di Studi Bizantini e Postbizantini di Venezia, and  they bring back memories: the drunken campanile, recently restored; the gold and grey incense-bearing interior of the church, cool on the hottest days, peaceful when the surrounding calli are stuffed and echoing with tourists; the immaculate interiors that reflect amazingly the sounds of closing doors and the early-morning calls of the cleaning staff; the breakfast table looking out to the canal; the gate from the little campo onto the canal.  

Everything about the Istituto is bi-lingual, Greek and Italian.  Conversations with people there often slide back and forth between languages with an Italian word fitting in when you can't remember the Greek, and vice versa.  English works well there, and French, and probably half a dozen other languages, demonstrating its success in creating and maintaining a dense international network of scholars of Venetian, Greek, iconographic, and stato mar studies. 

           

You can read the essential information on its website, and the density of the history it embodies. Under the Direttrice, Professor Chryssa Maltezou, the Istituto has produced a striking number of scholarly publications and conferences in Venice and Greece. It published an annual journal, Thesauristmata. Despina Vlassis, archivist and librarian, oversees an extensive library of Venetian and Greek-Venetian materials, and the extraordinary archives of papers and records of the Greek community of Venice beginning in the 15th century.    

The museum, housed in the Scoletta di San Nicolò, the confraternity of the Greek community, occupies space that the confraternity originally operated as a hospital for poor Greeks.  It contains the finest collection of Greek and Cretan icons, from the 14th century through the fall of Crete, outside Greece, digitally reproduced on-line here.  Also available on-line are digitizations of many of the manuscripts, miniatures, and records of the community and confraternity.

The Istituto brings over young Greek scholars for extended periods of research and experience in the wider world of scholars, and offers a moderately-priced place to stay for those of us who could not otherwise do the research necessary for our work without its generosity. I have a second book, written with a colleague, coming out this year that could never have been accomplished without the facilities offered by the Istituto.      

      Now the Greek government in some kind of short-sighted attempt to save money, or make it, wants to change the Istituto from a respected center of scholarship to a "cultural center."  The thought is too dreadful -- an opening with bouzouki and baklava; the sindaco of Venice and the Prime Minister of Greece shaking hands; the entrance hall hung with plaster casts of the Parthenon frieze; a demonstration of folk dancing; an exhibition of photographs of the incorrectly-attributed "Philip II" tomb at Veria, and a seminar on the magnificent Egyptian Cavafy.      

Do not make assumptions here:  I love bouzouki.  I make the best baklava you've ever eaten. I love Cavafy. I love Zographos.  I love the Parthenon marbles. I find Philip of Macedon much more interesting than his son though I dislike the chauvinism implicit in the use of Vergina.  For too many years we have had too much of this too safe presentation of Greece.  If this is the image Greece wants, it  can be left to the National Tourist Organization.  

To change the Istituto Ellenico from a center of scholarship to a cultural center is an insult: an insult to Greece's scholars and the international community of scholars; an insult to the city of Venice; an insult to the Greek community of Venice and its history; and a denial of the magnificent tradition of Bessarion and those Greeks who through the dark years with their manuscripts and scholarship preserved, protected, and taught the glories of Greek culture.         

      [Note: 10 February] Below is a petition, with a collection of signatures.  Thanks to John Burke for providing the English.  The petition has now been sent to the Prime Minister and to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which oversees the Institute.

Athens, 19 January 2010   Statement in support of the Greek Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice.

We the undersigned wish in this letter to express our concern for the future of the Greek Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice. The Institute is the only official Greek academic foundation outside Greece. It has been in operation in Venice since the 1950s. An escalating attack against this outstanding research centre has been observed in recent weeks. Publications in the press and various rumours have created a climate of alarm and tension. For our part, we wish to underscore the deeply-held conviction among scholars world-wide that the Istituto Ellenico is one of the most significant and internationally-recognized research institutions that Greece possesses.  

For decades numerous Greek and non-Greek scholars, academics and researchers from universities and research centres in Greece and abroad have found there an hospitable spiritual home. The Institute has contributed and continues to contribute in a major way to the advancement of Greek scholarship.

More specifically, over the last few years the current Director of the Istituto Ellenico and Professor Emeritus of the University of Athens, Chryssa Maltezou, has continued the illustrious tradition of the Institute’s previous Directors Sophia Antoniades, Manoussos Manoussakas and Nicolaos Panayiotakis and has succeeded in confirming the position of  the Institute as a centre for the study of Venetian Greece. The prolific scholarly output she has generated includes, among other things, the supervision of a large number of important research studies and the organization of many successful international conferences. Her dynamic publication activities include - apart from Thesavrismata, the Institute’s international research journal -  several recognized series of significant research monographs.

In light of the above, we ask the Greek Government to act so that the Greek Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice can continue without interruption its work for the benefit of Greek scholarship. We ask the Greek Government to offer its active support for the important research, cultural and national contribution that the Institute has made and continues to make under its present Administration,

Αθήνα, 19 Ιανουαρίου 2010

ΚΕΙΜΕΝΟ ΥΠΟΣΤΗΡΙΞΗΣ ΤΟΥ ΕΡΓΟΥ

ΤΟΥ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΟΥ ΙΝΣΤΙΤΟΥΤΟΥ ΒΥΖΑΝΤΙΝΩΝ

ΚΑΙ ΜΕΤΑΒΥΖΑΝΤΙΝΩΝ ΣΠΟΥΔΩΝ ΒΕΝΕΤΙΑΣ

Οι υπογραφόμενοι με την επιστολή μας αυτή θα θέλαμε να εκφράσουμε την ανησυχία μας για την τύχη του Ελληνικού Ινστιτούτου Βυζαντινών και Μεταβυζαντινών Σπουδών Βενετίας, του μοναδικού επιστημονικού ιδρύματος της Ελλάδας στο εξωτερικό, το οποίο λειτουργεί στην πόλη της Βενετίας από τη δεκαετία του 1950.

Το τελευταίο διάστημα παρατηρείται μια κλιμακούμενη επίθεση εναντίον του εξέχοντος αυτού ερευνητικού κέντρου μέσω δημοσιευμάτων στον Τύπο αλλά και διαφόρων διαρροών που διαμορφώνουν κλίμα αναστάτωσης και έντασης. Από την πλευρά μας επιθυμούμε να υπογραμμίσουμε την εμπεδωμένη στον επιστημονικό κόσμο πεποίθηση ότι το Ελληνικό Ινστιτούτο, στο οποίο επί δεκαετίες βρίσκουν φιλόξενη πνευματική στέγη ως υπότροφοι ή απλοί ερευνητές πολυάριθμοι Έλληνες και ξένοι επιστήμονες, μέλη του διδακτικού-επιστημονικού προσωπικού Πανεπιστημίων και Ερευνητικών Κέντρων στην Ελλάδα και στο εξωτερικό, αποτελεί έναν από τους σημαντικότερους ερευνητικούς φορείς της χώρας με διεθνή απήχηση, που συνέβαλε και συμβάλλει τα μέγιστα στην προαγωγή της ελληνικής επιστήμης.

Ειδικότερα κατά τα τελευταία έτη, η νυν Διευθύντρια του Ελληνικού Ινστιτούτου Ομότιμη Καθηγήτρια του Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών Κυρία Χρύσα Μαλτέζου, συνεχίζοντας τη λαμπρή παράδοση των προγενέστερων Διευθυντών αυτού Σοφίας Αντωνιάδη, Μανούσου Μανούσακα και Νικολάου Παναγιωτάκη, έχει επιτύχει την εδραίωση του Ελληνικού Ινστιτούτου ως κέντρου σπουδών του ελληνοβενετικού κόσμου και έχει παραγάγει πλούσιο επιστημονικό έργο, στο οποίο, μεταξύ άλλων, περιλαμβάνονται η εποπτεία πλήθους αξιόλογων επιστημονικών μελετών, η διοργάνωση πολλών επιτυχημένων διεθνών συνεδρίων, η δυναμική εκδοτική δραστηριότητα, με την έκδοση, εκτός από το διεθνές επιστημονικό περιοδικό του Ιδρύματος, τα «Θησαυρίσματα», αξιόλογων επιστημονικών μονογραφιών, ενταγμένων σε αναγνωρισμένες πλέον εκδοτικές σειρές.

Κατόπιν αυτών ζητούμε από την Ελληνική Πολιτεία να συμβάλει στην απρόσκοπτη συνέχιση της επιστημονικής λειτουργίας του Ελληνικού Ινστιτούτου Βυζαντινών και Μεταβυζαντινών Σπουδών Βενετίας προς όφελος της ελληνικής επιστήμης και να προσφέρει την ενεργό υποστήριξή της στο σημαντικό ερευνητικό, πολιτισμικό και ευρύτερα εθνικό έργο που το Ίδρυμα έχει επιτελέσει και συνεχίζει να επιτελεί υπό τη σημερινή Διεύθυνση.