Pinelopi Delta

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pinelopi Delta in 1897

Pinelopi Delta or Penelope Delta ( Greek Πηνελόπη Δέλτα , born Benaki, * 1874 in Alexandria , Egypt, † May 2, 1941 in Kifisia ) was a Greek writer.

Life

Pinelopi was the third child of the wealthy merchant Emmanouil Benaki, who traded in cotton. She spent her childhood in Alexandria, frequently visiting Greece and other countries. The family left Alexandria in 1882 and settled in Athens.

At the age of 21 she married the entrepreneur Stefanos Delta, who came from a phanariotic family.

After the Turkish-Greek war in which her husband took part, the family moved back to Alexandria. There she met Ion Dragoumis , with whom she had a passionate relationship until 1912.

In 1906 the family moved to Frankfurt am Main , where they stayed until 1912. Pinelopi Delta wrote her first novel "For the Fatherland", which was set during the Byzantine Empire . She was involved in the Greek language issue on the part of the Dimotiki supporters and corresponded with a hundred correspondence partners all over the world, such as Ioannis Psycharis and the Byzantinist Gustave Schlumberger .

In 1916 the family finally moved to Athens and settled in the elegant suburb of Kifisia . Pinelopi got caught in the maelstrom of political controversy between the supporters of Eleftherios Venizelos , whom their father served as minister and whose admirers she was, and those of the royalist People's Party. In 1916 Emmanuel Benaki was tried by the monarchists and driven into exile, in 1920 Ion Dragoumis was killed by an executive committee of Venizelos supporters.

In 1918, she took part in two missions to Eastern Macedonia aimed at returning hostages from captivity in Bulgaria. Not only did she show great patriotic commitment on the Macedonia question, she was also involved in the aftermath of the catastrophe in Asia Minor in 1922 and the Greco-Italian War in 1940, as well as against the regime of Ioannis Metaxas .

In 1925 the first symptoms of progressive paralysis appeared. On April 27, 1941, the day the German troops marched into Athens, Penelope Delta took the poison she had been carrying with her for a long time; she passed away five days later.

Her villa in Kifisia was given to the Benaki Museum founded by her brother Andonis Benakis after her death and houses the museum's historical archives.

Pinelopi Delta had three daughters, Sophia, Virginia (grandmother of Greek Prime Minister Andonis Samaras ) and Alexandra.

Works

Pinelopi Delta wrote mainly children's and youth literature. In addition to novels, historical stories and fairy tales, she wrote treatises on upbringing and educational issues. Her books can be viewed as historical novels beyond the boundaries of children's and youth literature. She put on an extensive collection of oral testimony about modern Greek history.

  • Για την Πατρίδα For the Fatherland (1909)
  • Παραμύθι Χωρίς Ονομα fairy tales without a name (1910),
  • Τον Καιρό του Βουλγαροκτόνου In the time of Bulgarians Slayer (1911)
  • Η Ζωή του Χριστού The Life of Christ (1925)
  • Τρελαντώνης Trelantonis, Mad Andonis, about her brother Andonis (1932)
  • Μάγκας Mangas (A Guy) (1935)
  • Τα Μυστικά του Βάλτου In the secrets of the moor (1937).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ International Conference on Penelope Delta in Cairo and Alexandria 2009 (English)
  2. ↑ Karen Van Dyck , The Language Question and the Diaspora, in: The making of modern Greece, Roderick Beaton, David Ricks (2009), pp. 191, 195 [1] (English)
  3. ↑ Anastasia Karakasidou, Affections of a Greek Hero, in: Balkan identities: nation and memory, Ed. Marii︠a︡ Nikolaeva Todorova, p. 211 [2] (English)
  4. ↑ Panayiotis J. Vatikiotis Popular autocracy in Greece, 1936-41, p. 141 [3] (English)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Delta, Pinelopi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Delta, Penelope; Δέλτα, Πηνελόπη (Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Alexandria
DATE OF DEATH May 2, 1941
Place of death Kifisia