Greek Team

Hi guys,
At 25th March we have national holiday and we celebrate the formation of modern Greek nation which included Peloponisos, Kyklades and Sterea Ellada. At 22 of January / 3 of February 1830 the protocol of Greek independence was signed.
So every year we have a parade and all the students involved wear blue and white clothes and the best students hold the Greek flag. And as usual these days, people at the end of the parade flooded the cafes and the seaside taverns. The fun, the drinking and the dancing continued till sunset and a lot of people went to a daylight party.
Also, last year was the anniversary of the birth of Odysseus Elytis, a very famous Nobelist poet. He came from our island, Lesvos. For that reason, our school decided to organize an event with the cooperation of Leshi (a local association which provides our traditional music and Greek poetry.)
Opening the event the President of the Club Mavraganis Xenophon, expressed his pleasure for this first collaboration with the educational community. Furthermore the director of the school Kaldeli Gregory thanked the group of students and teachers for this outstanding production which required a lot of preparation. Then the students read texts that referred to the biography, the general characteristics of his poetry, sun, light, love as well as excerpts from the works of "The Greek language gave me," "Axion Esti" and others. A memorable moment of the Event was the video where the actor Kariofyllia Karabeti recited the famous work of Elytis, MONOGRAM.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_2pyNuL0_A )


[ Odysseus Elytis was born in Heraklion, Crete, at November 1911. He was the sixth son of Maria and Panayiotis Alepoudeli, owner of factory with soap from Mytilene, who maintained very friendly ties with Eleftherios Venizelos.
In Athens, the family settled when Ulysses was 3 years old. In childhood, the death of his sister Myrsini in 1918 played a significant role, when the poet was only 7 years old ∙ one death, who shocked and maybe put him in a struggle to overcome in order to finally accept the death and defeat him.
At young age our poet was lucky to have great teachers including John Kakridis and George Apostolakis, was fortunate enough to travel too, following his love for nature, to proceed to the discovery of the islands of the Aegean and leave his soul in an unrelenting journey to the turquoise waters of the Archipelago.
At age of 13 he began to publish, using pseudonyms, collaborations in "Conformation of Children", a journal that included texts of Gregory Xenopoulos, Penelope Delta and other top of the Greek letters.
He writes "First Poems" in 1934. Then he was related with Andreas Embiricos, a poet that influenced him and with whom he will develop a deep, lifelong friendship. For the first time then, he reluctantly accepts to publish poems in "New Letters"with the nickname that would make him world famous: Elytis.
In the Loumidis cafe, a hangout which opened in 1938, the other major poetic form, Nikos Gatsos, meets him with other great people˸Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis were two of them.
At his times, in poetry there was a mentality that was known by the term "Karyotakismos" that meant for literature a climate of pain, guilt and perhaps pessimism. Against them Elytis opposes a joyful, delightful- with a crazy flow of speech- full of vivid images poetry.
As a citizen, he did not fail to be present at critical moments of the nation. He served in the Albanian front as a lieutenant (40 - '41). The experiences from the Albanian epic are combined in one project, "" Song of heroic and mourning for the lost Lieutenant of Albania ".
In France, in 1950, he began writing the "Axion Esti", which was released in 1960 and won the first National Award.In 1979, the Swedish Academy announced that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and he is the second in Greece (after poet Seferis), who is honored with the top prize at the world literature.]
A few days ago, we also learned that the third high school of Mytilene will take part in the European competition CanSat . It means that they will travel to Norway in order to make their own little satellite which will be launched with a rocket. This news is wonderful for our island!!! This school of Mytilene will be one out of fourteen schools in Europe. Channels in Greece referred that and many regional sites did so as well. It’s sure that students, who participate, will have great experience and we hope that their experiment is successful.
Kisses to all of you !!