Kostis Palamas

• Name — Kostis Palamas • Born — 13 January 1859 • Birthplace — Patras, Greece • Died — 27 February 1943 • Place of death — Athens, Greece • Education — University of Athens (no degree) • Occupation — Poet

Born in Patras, in the same house as born the Italian novelist Matilde Serao, he received his primary and secondary education in Mesolonghi. In 1877 he enrolled at the School of Law, Economics and Political Sciences of the University of Athens, but he soon abandoned his studies. In the 1880s, he worked as a journalist. He published his first collection of verses, Songs of My Fatherland, in 1886. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature on 14 occasions, but never received it. He held an administrative post at the University of Athens between 1897 and 1926. Palamas died on 27 February 1943, during the Axis occupation of Greece in World War II. His funeral at the First Cemetery of Athens on the next day became a major symbolic event of the Greek resistance against the occupation. In a service spontaneously attended by several thousand people, the funerary poem composed and recited by fellow poet Angelos Sikelianos roused the mourners and culminated in a major public demonstration of defiance of the occupying powers, whose representatives, come to lay a wreath at the poet's tomb, were greeted by the crowd with the Greek national anthem and shouts of 'Long Live Freedom'.

Palamas wrote the lyrics to the Olympic Hymn, composed by Spyridon Samaras. It was first performed at the 1896 Summer Olympics, the first modern Olympic Games. The Hymn was then shelved as each host city from then until the 1960 Winter Olympics commissioned an original piece for its celebration of the Games, but the version by Samaras and Palamas was declared the official Olympic Anthem in 1958 and has been performed at each celebration of the Games since the 1960 Winter Olympics.

• Death of a Youth (novel, 1901) • Novels (1920)

• The Thrice-noble (drama, 1903)

• The King's Flute, tr. T. P. Stephanides, G. C. Katsimbalis (1982) [Greek and English texts] • The King's Flute, tr. F. Will (1967) • The Twelve Lays of the Gypsy, tr. G. Thomson (1969) • The Twelve Words of the Gypsy, tr. T. P. Stephanides, G. C. Katsimbalis (1974; repr. 1975) • A Hundred Voices, tr. T. P. Stephanides, G. C. Katsimbalis (1976) • Ruins, Grief, On The Trip You Are Taken, Rose Fragrance, tr. A. Moskios