Greek typography and book production

Photo: Andreas Simopoulos

The printed book, since the late 15th century, was the link of the Greek-speaking population, the herald of the people’s spiritual uplift and the means of shaping national consciousness, not only by providing education and knowledge, but also by expressing revolutionary messages.

Driven by selected incunabula of the Onassis Library, we will have the chance to examine the period shortly before the Greek Revolution and to experience the typographic adventures, prohibitions, censorship, heroic sacrifices, but also the triumph and impact of the printed publications, in an era when the free Greek state transforms from a utopian idea to reality.

Through this lecture series, we will trace the production centers and circulation routes of the printed Greek books, capturing the Enlightenment scholars and merchants’ endeavor to improve the enslaved Greeks’ education and to support the fight for freedom.

Wednesday 19 February 2020

Vienna, intellectual heart of the Modern Greek Enlightenment

Speaker: Konstantinos Staikos: PhD, book historian, architect

Already from the last decade of the 15th century, Venice was the the center of the Greek printed book was Venice. This was not only a consequence of the impressive fortification of the populous Greek community after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, but also of the admirable printing activity in its laboratories during the Incunabula period. However, the greatest number of publications and re-publications of Greek books that were printed in Venice by Greek and Greek-speaking Italian typographers pertains books that were intended for the Holy Mass. The movement of the Greek Enlightenment, whose roots are traced in the first decades of the 18th century, but also the ordinance establishing the revocation of censorship and religious freedom in Austria, resulted in the transfer of the center of Greek book from Venice to Vienna. This is where, since 1750, Greek and Austrian publishers-typographers circulated booklets on the Nation’s intellectual rise, but also the Greeks’ awakening to the Revolutionary Struggle.

Wednesday 26 February 2020

Typography in the service of the Greek Revolution and of the foundation and organization of the Greek State

Speaker: Triantafyllos Sklavenitis: historian, Emeritus Research Director in the National Hellenic Research Foundation

Typography ministered to the ideological, as well as the practical needs of the Greek War of Independence. During the 1821 Revolution, six printing houses were functioning in the following places: Kalamata–Corinthus (1821–1822), Messolonghi (1823–1826), Psara (1824), Hydra (1824–1827), Athens (1825–1826), and Central Administration (1825–1827), delivering in total a known production of approx. 50 books/pamphlets, 216 one-pager, and 7 Greek and foreign language newspapers. The revolted Greeks gathered all their powers and the means they had at their disposal; the printers, typographic elements, and the rest of the equipment were provided by Greeks and philhellenes residing in Europe, whereas the expertise was seeked in all possible hubs of activity where Greeks were practicing in the Pre-Revolutionary Era: Constantinople, Kydonies (today’s Ayvalik), Chios, diasporic cities. Talented people from other fields, such as clock-makers and gunsmiths were brought on board. Daily journalists and editors, as well translators and writers, were looked for among the most experienced, but also the youngest Greeks and philhellenes. All the more, research was done on dissemination mechanisms for printed matter: subscribers, sellers, buyers, readers, libraries.The end of the Struggle and the steps that had to be taken for the state to get organized and function properly, created greater needs for printed matter, next to new educational conditions that made the evolution of typography easier. What remained from the typographic media of the revolutionary period, as well as the expertise and the professional competence of the typographers who survived, became the nucleus for the establishment of typography companies; in turn, these companies came to cover the needs of Greek society for Administration, Education, Finance, or Information, with the new printing houses that were founded in Naflpio, Aegina, Hermoupolis, and, mostly, Athens.

Wednesday 11 March 2020

The book in the heyday of Modern Greek Enlightenment: Quantities, Qualities, Ideas

Speaker: Eleni Kourmantzi: Visiting Professor of Modern Greek Literature, St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

In its long journey through the centuries of the Ottoman Empire, Greek society starts developing commercial activity, unfolding its powers, coming into contact with other cultures, and recreating its self-knowledge – a phenomenon that is attested more intensely from the 17th century onwards. Merchants, intellectuals, and insightful ministrants contibute to the creation of insitutions, foundations, and infrastructures, eventually fostering a climate where new ideas tend to trigger a more intense intellectual ferment. This ferment takes shape with the so-called Greek Enlightenment, which runs parallel to the publication of books in Greek communities abroad, and reaches its maturity in the second half of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century.

The book is the medium through which ideas are circulated and printed in newspapers, journals, or binded volumes (or even as manuscripts). Towards the end of the 15th century and throughout the 16th century, secular books are more popular that the religious ones, covering a 63,40% of the overall production (as opposed to a 36,60% respectively). During the 18th century, and especially in the period between 1761 and 1790, religious books are more popular than the secular ones, the percentages being 60,39% and 39,61%, respectively. In the period 1791–1799, this balance is overturned, and thus we have a circulation of a 36,29% of religious books and a 63,71% of secular books. Last but not least, in the period 1800–1820, we conclude to the following percentages: a 19,73% of religious books and a 80,27% of secular books. The aforementioned reverse movement, in other words the tendency towards the publication of books were secular topics are more prominent than others (also in percentage) suggests the intellectual ferment of New Hellenism.

Tuesday 24 March 2020

Holy typography, political virtue and the vision of freedom: Adamantios Korais’ preface in the Volissian edition of Homer’s "Iliad" (1811, 1817, 1818, 1820)

Speaker: Yannis Xourias: Assistant Professor of Modern Greek Literature, Department of Philology, School of Philosophy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Adamantios Korais’s publishing of the "Iliad" is one of the most emblematic writing and editorial achievements of Greek Enlightenment. Making use of an elaborately caclulated grid of fictional faces and facades, from which the renowned Papa-trechas stands out, Korais announces meticulously and playfully the foundational principles of his cultural and political vision. The cornerstone of this vision is typography, the publication of useful books, and the founding of libraries – in other words, this pertains to activities and institutions that would give birth to the free and enlightened state of New Hellenism.