Xenophon Zolotas

Xenophon Evthymiou Zolotas ( Greek Ξενοφών Ευθυμίου Ζολώτας , born March 26, 1904 ; † June 11, 2004 ) was a Greek economist and in 1989 briefly independent Prime Minister of Greece.

Life

Zolotas studied in Athens, as well as in Leipzig and Paris . From 1928 to 1968 he was Professor of Economics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens . In the late 1940s, together with Ilias Lalaounis , he took over the renowned family-owned Zolotas jewelry store . Xenophon Zolotas left the business due to political and academic commitments.

He was a board member of UNRRA and held high offices in the International Monetary Fund .

Zolotas was a director of the Bank of Greece between 1944 and 1945, 1955 and 1967, and 1974 and 1981 . He has published numerous papers on Greek and international economic issues.

When neither PASOK nor Nea Dimokratia could achieve a majority in 1989 , the then 85-year-old declared himself ready to take up the post of Prime Minister until new elections. When the New Democracy under Konstantinos Mitsotakis achieved a majority in the 1990 elections , he resigned.

Famous speeches

Two of his speeches in English, which he gave as Chairman of the Bank of Greece on the closing day of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development , attracted a lot of attention because they were written almost exclusively in words derived from Greek. At the beginning of his first speech he said: “I always wished to address this Assembly in Greek, but realized that it would have been indeed 'Greek' to all present in this room. I found out, however, that I could make my address in Greek which would still be English to everybody. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, l shall do it now, using with the exception of articles and prepositions, only Greek words. "

The speeches in full:

This article or section needs to be revised. Please help to improve it , and then remove this flag.

September 26, 1957

"Kyrie, I eulogize the archons of the Panethnic Numismatic Thesaurus and the Ecumenical Trapeza for the orthodoxy of their axioms, methods and policies, although there is an episode of cacophony of the Trapeza with Hellas. With enthusiasm we dialogue and synagonize at the synods of our didymous organizations in which polymorphous economic ideas and dogmas are analyzed and synthesized. Our critical problems such as the numismatic plethora generate some agony and melancholy. This phenomenon is characteristic of our epoch. But, to my thesis, we have the dynamism to program therapeutic practices as a prophylaxis from chaos and catastrophe. In parallel, a Panethnic unhypocritical economic synergy and harmonization in a democratic climate is basic. I apologize for my eccentric monologue. I emphasize my eucharistia to you, Kyrie, to the eugenic and generous American Ethnos and to the organizers and protagonists of his Amphictyony and the gastronomic symposia. "

October 2, 1959

"Kyrie, it is Zeus' anathema on our epoch for the dynamism of our economies and the heresy of our economic methods and policies that we should agonize the Scylla of numismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic anaemia. It is not my idiosyncrasy to be ironic or sarcastic, but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather cryptoplethorists. Although they emphatically stigmatize numismatic plethora, they energize it through their tactics and practices. Our policies have to be based more on economic and less on political criteria. Our gnomon has to be a metron between political, strategic and philanthropic scopes. Political magic has always been anti-economic. In an epoch characterized by monopolies, oligopolies, monopsonies, monopolistic antagonism and polymorphous inelasticities, our policies have to be more orthological. But this should not be metamorphosed into plethorophobia, which is endemic among academic economists. Numismatic symmetry should not hyper-antagonize economic acme. A greater harmonization between the practices of the economic and numismatic archons is basic. Parallel to this, we have to synchronize and harmonize more and more our economic and numismatic policies panethnically. These scopes are more practicable now, when the prognostics of the political and economic barometer are halcyonic. The history of our didymus organizations in this sphere has been didactic and their gnostic practices will always be a tonic to the polyonymous and idiomorphous ethnic economies. The genesis of the programmed organization will dynamize these policies. Therefore, I sympathize, although not without criticism on one or two themes, with the apostles and the hierarchy of our organs in their zeal to program orthodox economic and numismatic policies, although I have some logomachy with them. I apologize for having tyrannized you with my Hellenic phraseology. In my epilogue, I emphasize my eulogy to the philoxenous autochthons of this cosmopolitan metropolis and my encomium to you, Kyrie, and the stenographers. "

predecessor	Office	successor
Ioannis Grivas	Prime Minister of Greece 1989–1990	Konstantinos Mitsotakis