Blog 26 05/02/2016 Ode to Liberty: Lord Byron and Dionysios Solomos.

Posted in on 5 February, 2016 in News

Ode to Liberty: Lord Byron and Dionysios Solomos.

Benaki Museum

The Benaki Museum, Athens

In the centre of Athens, within walking distance to Syntagma Square and Parliament House, stands one of Athens’s finest museums – the Benaki Museum. In keeping with the ideals and traditions of the 19th century benefactors, its founder, Antonis Benakis (1873-1954) deployed his entire fortune in projects for the public benefit. A fervent patriot, he was a great friend of Eleftherios Venizelos (1864-1939), the pre-eminent statesman of Modern Greek history. Whenever I am in Athens, I revisit the museum. I never tire of it. Not only does it have an excellent bookshop, regular world-class exhibitions and a great roof-top coffee-shop with a stunning view of Athens towards the Acropolis, it houses one of the most important collections of memorabilia on The Greek War of Independence (1821- 32) and the events leading up to and after it. The third floor is devoted entirely to this.

Antonis Benakis

Antonis Benakis

In the first gallery are artefacts from the early years of the Struggle for Independence in Central Greece, the Peloponnese and the islands. Central to this gallery are contents dedicated to the “two towering poets who embraced the ideals of the national Insurgence”. The first is Dionysios Solomos (1798-1857), the Greek national poet who expressed the visions of the Struggle in his work, and the second is Lord Byron (1788-1857), the foremost representative of the Romantic Movement.

Lord Byron, as most of us know, gave his life at The Battle of Missolonghi. Though he died of a fever and not in battle, never-the-less, his death on the 19th April 1824, sparked international sentiment for the Greek cause, a cause that was already gathering momentum with Delacroix’s paintings depicting “The Massacre at Chios” in 1822 and which were shown to the public at the prestigious Paris Salon in 1824.

The Massacre at Chios

“The Massacre at Chios” by Eugene Delacroix

Lord Byron

Lord Byron

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (canto II LXXXVIII)

Where’ er we tread ‘tis haunted holy ground;

Ni earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould

But one vast plain of wonder spreads around,

And all the muse’s tales seem truly told,

Till the sense aches with gazing to behold

The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt on.

 

Whist Byron is a familiar figure to us, not everyone knows of Dionysios Solomos. Solomos was born in Zakynthos, the illegitimate son of Count Nikolaos Solomos and a servant girl who he later married. He was educated in Italy where he began to write poetry in Italian. On his return to Greece, he lived in Corfu where he wrote his famous “Hymn to Liberty” – or “Ode to Liberty” as it is sometimes called in 1823. In 1865, the first three stanzas were taken for the Greek national anthem and set to music by Nikolaos Mantzaros. They were later reduced to two. In 1966, the national anthem was officially adopted by the republic of Cyprus.

Dionysios Solomos

Dionysios Solomos

We knew thee of old,

O, divinely restored,

By the lights of thine eyes,

And the light of thy Sword.

From the graves of our slain,

Shall thy valour prevail,

As we greet thee again,

Hail, Liberty! Hail!

         Translated by Rudyard Kipling (1918)

Solomos is not only famous for this hymn, but also for his unfinished poem, the “The Free Besieged”, which elevated Missolonghi into one of the epic tragedies of the Struggle. There are few surviving portraits of Solomos, but one of them hangs in the gallery, taking centre stage along with a painting called “Lord Byron taking the Oath at Missolonghi” by Ludocvico Lipparini, an Italian who painted several great paintings of The War of Independence.

Missolonghi

“Lord Byron Takes the Oath at Missolonghi” by Ludovico Lipparini

Of the many artefacts in this gallery, are two of Lord Byron’s pistols which were donated by Solomos to the philhellene Governor General of the Ionian Islands, Lord Nugent, in 1834, and later acquired by the museum. Also exhibited among an array of fascinating mementos by the notorious Ali Pasha of Ioannina and a fabulous collection of highly decorated yataghans and pistols, is Lord Byron’s portable slope-desk, a bronze medallion with his bust, and a porcelain statuette of him in Souliot costume.

The other most important piece of memorabilia in this gallery is the flag of Theodoros Kolokotronis with the personification of Greece and the famous inscription Ελευθερία ή Θάνατος  – Freedom or Death. There was to be more uprisings, wars and dictatorships, long after The Greek War of Independence but between this phrase and the “Ode to Liberty”, the fire and spirit in the bellies of the Greek nation would live on. Freedom comes at a high cost.

Flag of Kolokotronis

The Flag of Kolokotronis

Buy The Embroiderer

The Embroiderer
The Embroiderer is a beautifully written novel spanning the 19th and 20th centuries, set against the backdrop of the Greek War of Independence. It was published on 5th November 2014 and is available to buy in paperback and as an ebook.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Embroiderer+