So much has been written about the personality of the great Byzantium scholar Elenis Glykatzi – Arveler, who left life full of days, but also full of contribution to science and her homeland!
I feel the need to dedicate a few humble lines of respect, from this column, to this unique personality, whom I had the good fortune to meet several years ago as the person responsible on behalf of the Ministry of Education for the co-organization with the Delphi Center of a conference for the European Year of Languages, and I was impressed by her sparkling spirit, her advanced ideas, her exciting initiatives and her administrative personality.
Although I attended notable Byzantium scholars during my studies at the Kapodistrian University, it was only from Arveler’s books and lectures that I realized what Byzantium was. It is no coincidence that Christos Lambrakis, when he acquired the publishing house “Hellenic Letters”, commissioned her to write a historical book about Byzantium, accessible to the reader. Thus, Arveler’s book “Why Byzantium” became the most famous and widely read in Greece.
In an interview, years ago, and to the journalist's question "what is Byzantium," the answer was: "It is the era that made us Modern Greeks, otherwise, we would think that we are a continuation of Pericles" and added: "we are proud of ancient Greece, which Byzantium saves. Byzantium, as the empire of great Hellenism, laid the foundation of the Modern Greek language."
Eleni Glykatzi-Arveler grew up in a poor Athens and in a society where women had not yet achieved the position they deserved. However, she herself believed in her own strength, and she proved it abundantly. She studied in Paris, when the Sorbonne was the center of European intellectualism, and the greatest Byzantine scholar Paul Emile Lemerle singled her out for the libraries, the books and, above all, for the demands of this French university. Arveler made the most of it all and eventually took Lemerle's position at the Sorbonne, then was appointed to the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), and later was elected vice-rector and rector of the Sorbonne University, the first woman, internationally, to hold this position. He also continued to hold positions in scientific centers in France, such as the vice-president of the Georges Pompidou Cultural Center, under the presidency of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
As Greece recently achieved a historic goal, the establishment of the International Greek Language Day, it is worth mentioning some of Arveler's assessments of our language: "All ideas are expressed in Greek, which are the basic ideas of the culture that nourishes us today. Greek can never be considered a dead language, which is why there are no Hellenic languages, and while Latin gave rise to French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, Greek only has vernaculars, dialects, but no Hellenic languages."
Eternal memory to the centuries-old "Muse of Byzantium" Eleni Glykatzi - Arveler!
Mrs. Stella Priovolou is an emeritus professor, president of the Body of Emeritus Professors of the National University of Athens, and director of the Parnassos Philological Association Schools.
Published in VIMA
Photo From TEI Kavala, Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11749234, https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/
