Τα δέκα χρόνια της «Ελληνικής Εταιρείας Γενικής Και Συγκριτικής Γραμματολογίας»

Abstract

The president's speech for the tenth anniversary of the «Greek General and Comparative Literature Associaton» is a brief survey dealing with the growth of comparative Literature in Greece from the 19th century to our days. Giving due respect to the forerunners of the field in our country, to people like G. Assopios (1853), Sp. Zambelios (1859), Costis Palamas and others he reaches the 1930s when the first comparative studies in the modern sense of the word appeared. It was then that I. Sikoutris, K.Th. Demaras and E. Kriaras worked for the advancement of the field and especially Demaras in the 1940s did everything in his power to open new paths for the developement of comparative literature in Greece. Nevertheless it was only in the 1970s and onwards that the discipline was introduced in the university syllabus which had as a result an increasing interest in the field. The foundation of the «Greek General and Comparative Literature Association » came to fill a gap since almost all other European countries had already formed their own association. The official foundation took place pretty late in 1987, but all preparatory work had started two years earlier by a group of eminent scholars E. Kriaras, N. Vagenas, G. Veloudis, Z.I. Siaflekis and the president himself Kostas Steryopoulos. Those people got together and put in paper the aims of the Association which were mainly the advancement of comparative studies in our country, as well as the connection of Greek compatatists with their colleagues abroad. In they effort their were joined by other fellow comparatists and thus the Association was founded. In those ten years the Association has managed to icrease the number of its members considerably, to aquire privately owned offices, to publish an annual periodical under the title Comparison for the promotion of its goals and the establishment of a dialogue among its members and their colleagues in foreign countries. Furthermore it has organised the following conferences a) «Comparative Literature: its Subject, Limits and Method» (May 14 1988), b) «The Portuguese and the Greek Post War Novel» (Dec. 5 1993), and c) the first international conference of the Association on «The Relationship of Greek Literature with Foreign Literatures» (Nov. 28-Dec. 1 1991). Finally the «Greek General and Comparative Literature Association» has organised another two small conferences which will take place shortly, one on the new tendencies and theories of Comparative literature (Oct. 18 1997), another one on Orpheus and Orphism (Jan. 16-17 1998) and finally the Second International Conference, under the title «Identity and Otherness in Literature» (Nov. 1998). The last very important goal of the Association is the creation of a Comparative Literature departments in the Greek University; to its fulfillment it is now striving.