John Mavrogordato
John Nicholas Mavrogordato (born July 19, 1882 in London , † July 24, 1970 ) was a British-Greek Byzantine and Neo-Greekist and Bywater and Sotheby Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature at Oxford University .
Life
Mavrogordato attended Elstree School , the College of Saint Peter Westminster, and Eton College . He then studied at Exeter College , Oxford , and was then Assistant Editor of the English Review . During the Balkan Wars in 1912 he was a war correspondent for the Westminster Gazette , but retired from active military service during the First World War .
From 1939 to 1947 Mavrogordato Bywater and Sotheby was Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature at Oxford University and Secretary of the Anglo-Hellenic League .
Mavrogordato was married to Christine Maud Humphries and had two sons (Nicholas John and Michael).
Services
Mavrogordato had already made a name for himself with his war coverage when he published The World in Chains during the First World War, a pacifist book in which Mavrogordato rejects war as a moral anachronism and in particular reveals the linkages of the phenomenon with economy and trade.
Mavrogordato made a name for himself in numismatics with the publication of the coins of Chios , before turning to the history and literature, especially poetry, of Byzantine and modern Greece. His editorial and translation work includes editions of Erotokritos , Konstantinos Kavafis and Digenis Akrites .
Individual evidence
Fonts
- The World in Chains: Some Aspects of War and Trade . Martin Secker, London 1917, (online) .
- A Chronological Arrangement of the Coins of Chios . F. Hall, Oxford 1918.
- The Erotokritos . Oxford University Press, London 1929.
- Modern Greece. A chronicle and a survey 1800-1931. Macmillan, London 1931.
- The Poems of CP Cavafy . Translated by John Mavrogordato. The Hogarth Press, London 1951: New edition: Chatto & Windus, London 1978. Review by EM Forster , in: The Listener, July 5, 1951, reprinted in: ders., Two Cheers for Democracy . Harcourt, Brace & World, New York 1951.
- Digenes Akrites , edited by John Mavrogordato. Oxford University Press, London 1956, reprint 1999, online (PDF; 11.0 MB)
Web links
- Peter Mackridge : Mavrogordato, John Nicolas (1882–1970) , in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, May 2010, last visited August 14, 2013
- christopherlong.co.uk: Family Group Sheet
- National Register of Archives: Storage locations of the unpublished estate
- demkoutsogiannis.tripod.com: Greek Theater: An Annotated Bibliography of Plays Translated and Essays Written from 1824 to 1994 (summaries of two essays on the drama of the Cretan Renaissance)
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Mavrogordato, John |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mavrogordato, John Nicholas (full name) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British-Greek Byzantinist and Neo-Graecist |
DATE OF BIRTH | July 19, 1882 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
DATE OF DEATH | July 24, 1970 |