A Great Poet, A Great
Personality
SOPHIA SAHINIDOU
Dionisios
Solomos, author of the Greek national Anthem ,was a true son of the Greek
cultural inheritance. He was born in Zakinthos, which, by a quirk of history,
was at that time a British Protectorate, so Solomos actually held a British
Passport. His father, Count Salomon, was English, though his mother was Greek,
and he took the Greek form of his father's name. He lived on Zakinthos until
the age of ten and his first education was given by a great personality called
Don Salon Rossi. After his father's death he went to Italy, where he studied at
the high school of Cremona and then at the University of Padua. While there he
wrote his first poems in Italian. In 1818 he came back to Zakinthos where he
began qriting poetry in Greek, including two of his most important works,
"Xanthoula" and, in 1823, "Anthem to Liberty," which is our
National Anthem. Finally he died on Corfu at the age of 59.
Solomos
was the first and greatest poet after Greece had gained its independence. We
have to be proud of our civilization, because we have succeeded in developing
it under awful conditions. Only now, after several wars, does it seem safe. Not
only Solomos but also many other writers, professors and leaders have helped in
this development. We must maintain today our traditional inheritance and the
civilisation of our ancestors. We must not forget that "Greece was
conquered by guns, but its conquerors by its civilisation."