On Thursday 30th of November, the Hellenic Institute celebrated its 25th anniversary with a beautiful evening of music and discussion held in its main hall. Dr Evelyn Stefanaki writes:
Dr. Charalambos Dendrinos, Director of The Hellenic Institute, Royal Holloway, then took the stage. He said that The Hellenic Institute was created in order to show primarily how Ancient Greek perceived the “cosmos”. He remembered the early years of the Institute when the departments of Classics and History joined forces to create a new center at Royal Holloway for the study of Greek History, Thought and Culture across the centuries.The first five years of the Institute were formidable ones, he noted, where the foundations were laid for the establishment of the Hellenic Studies shared between History and Classics, which was then the only such degree program in a British University devoted to the diachronic and the multidisciplinary study of the Hellenism.
Dr. Bettany Hughes, an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster then discussed The Study of Hellenism with Dr. George Vassiades, the Director of the Centre of Greek Diaspora Studies, Royal Holloway. She is a Scholar at Oxford University, she has taught at Oxford and Cambridge Universities and lectured at Cornell, Bristol and UCL. She is a Tutor for Cambridge University’s Institute of Continuing Education and a Research Fellow of King’s College London. She has written and presented over 50 TV and radio documentaries and she has been given a Special Award for services to Hellenic Culture and Heritage. Dr. Vassiades asked Dr. Hughes the reason for her Hellenic studies and she replied that she had a fascination with history in the Ancient Greek way and history of a broader sense for the study of Humanity. She emphasized that stories motivate humans and that there is a critical importance of Memory in the Human Story and that the Greeks are the masters of story-telling and she included examples of Homer.