Kostis Palamas
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Kostis Palamas (Greek: Κωστής Παλαμάς; 13 January 1859 [O.S. 8 January] — 27 February, 1943 [1]) was a Greek poet.
Born in Patras, he received his primary and secondary education in Missolonghi. In the early 1880s, he worked as a journalist and literary critic. He published his first collection of verses, "The Songs of My Fatherland," in 1886. He was secretary general of the University of Athens, between 1897 and 1926. He died during the German occupation of Greece during World War II and his funeral was a major event of the Greek resistance.
Palamas wrote the words to the Olympic Hymn, composed by Spyros 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 Summer Olympics commissioned an original piece for its edition of the Games, but the version by Samaras and Palamas was declared the official Olympic Anthem in 1958 and has been performed at each edition of the Games since the 1964 Summer Olympics.
He has been called the "national" poet of Greece and was closely associated with the struggle to rid Modern Greece of the "purist" language and with political liberalism. He dominated literary life for 30 or more years and greatly influenced the entire political-intellectual climate of his time. Romain Rolland considered him the greatest poet of Europe and he was twice nominated for the Nobel prize for poetry but never received it.
His most important poem "The twelve lays (or words) of the gypsy" (1907) is a poetical-philosophical journey. His "Gypsy" is a free thinking, intellectual rebel. He is a Greek Gypsy, in a post classical, post-Byzantine Greek world. He explores work, love, art, country, history, religion and science, keenly aware of his roots and of the contradictions between his gypsy, classical and Christian heritage.
His funeral ended as a protest of a hundred thousand Greeks against Nazi occupying forces in Athens.Palamas, Kostis el:Κωστής Παλαμάς
