Athanasios Christopoulos

More importantly he is the first modern Greek poet to have his works - the Lyrika - published and read across a broad section of the European continent.

All these interests developed as the Greek administrators of the province, the hospodar princes of his youth – like Alexander Ypsilantis (1725-1805) and Nicholas Mavrogenes – cultivated the delicate climate of learning and culture around him.

In 1805, Christopoulos penned a very influential work entitled “The Aeolo-Doric Grammar” and it marks a revolution in Greek linguistics and literature.

Among his many critics, one stands out: Adamantios Korais, the famous patriot and intellectual whose crusade for a purified Greek tongue led to the artificialities of the katharevousa.

Christopoulos continued the offensive by declaring that the genuine dialect of the common people and folk tradition – not that proposed by Korais – should be the national language of the Greeks.

Christopoulos, who was given the honorific title of “kaminaris” (the official who received the taxes imposed on alcohol and tobacco) accompanied his patron and was rewarded with access to his astonishing personal library.

Christopoulos also managed to spend his summers in Halki with his close friend and colleague Iakovos Rizos Neroulos, who was to become a well-known dramatist.

If it was thought that the title was purely ceremonial, the belief was proven to be incorrect: Christopoulos was called upon to draft a code of law for his new patron.

The first edition, however, remained in the record and evidenced clear influences from the French, particularly the political writings of François-Marie, marquis de Barthélemy and Baron Montesquieu.

His wife shared no interest in the great talents of her famous poet husband, and oftentimes sought escape in the company of salon society.

Christopoulos, sharing his patron’s disappointments while at the same time devastated by the state of his marriage, chose to escort the prince to Italy with his infant son and the wet nurse.

In June of that year, Christopoulos left his son and wet nurse behind in Pisa and traveled to the Ionian island of Zakynthos [also known as Zante], where he came in contact with the leading literary figures of the period.

While he passed the time in Corfu, he was also secretly corresponding with Alexander Ypsilantis, the man who was destined to proclaim the Greek War of Independence in the Danubian principalities in 1821.

While the Greeks read his treatise, Christopoulos was congratulatory towards the July Revolution of 1830 in Paris, which brought forth the constitutional monarchy of Louis-Philippe.

It so happened that at this time Christopoulos’ rival, Korais, was busily promoting a fully democratic system based on the ancient Athenian model.

He discovered that the government had put newspaper reporters and intellectuals on trial; he learned how famous warriors, like Theodoros Kolokotronis, were despised by the royal court; thieves would break into houses while police remained idle; the king’s Bavarians were exercising unchecked authority and pillaging the country; and all the young king was concerned with was his search for a queen.

Christopoulos spent the remaining years of his life serving the new hospodar Alexandru II Ghica and putting his literary affairs in order.

[1] Thomas K. Papathomas (1872-1936), a poet from Kastoria himself, published Christopoulos's "Complete Works" ("Χριστοποὐλου Ἀπαντα" in Greek) in 1931-1932 in Thessaloniki (Spyros Syros Press).