Elli Lampridi

Elli Lampridi was born in Athens on January 22, 1898, to a father from Epirus, the lawyer and senator Ioannis Lampridis, known for his journalistic efforts for the liberation of Epirus. Her mother was from Athens, with roots in Mytilene. She studied at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Athens and at the University of Zurich, where she obtained her doctorate in 1919 with a dissertation on Aristotle's epistemological principles. She first worked at the American College for Girls in Constantinople, at the Zappeion Teaching School, and at the Central Girls' School of Constantinople. Later, she worked at the American College for Girls in Athens, where she organized the entire program of the Greek department, which was recognized as equivalent to public high schools by the government after a few years. In 1930, she was appointed deputy director of the Marasleio Teaching School and subsequently deputy director of the Teaching Schools of Lamia and Tripolis. Her educational and pedagogical career was cut short by the Metaxas regime. From then on, she dedicated herself to study and writing. Between 1937 and 1939, she conducted a series of philosophy and psychology courses at the "Askraios" Educational Association, which were highly successful and attracted numerous attendees. These courses led to the "Introduction to Philosophy," the first issue of which was published in 1956, while the second remained unpublished due to the censorship decision of April 21, 1967, and was eventually published by the Academy of Athens as a single work along with the first part in 2004. Her first original book on archaeology, "The Aegeans," gained significant popularity during the Occupation and is now completely out of print after three editions. She contributed to the writing of many entries for the major Greek Encyclopedias Eleftheroudakis and Pyrsos, translated numerous works from foreign intellectuals (Bergson, Schiller, Laforgue, Esterlich, etc.), as well as "The Psychopathology of Adolescence" by Strohmayer and "Eupalinos" by Paul Valéry with a preface by Angelos Sikelianos (1935). This important work is still available today in an excellent edition by Agra Publications (1988, 1993). She collaborated for years with "Nea Estia" and other reputable magazines ("Horizons," "Neohellenic Letters," "Epochs," "New Era," and others), mainly with philosophical and literary criticism. She translated Plato's "Meno" with an extensive introductory text (Dimitrakos Publications, 1939). Her critical work left a mark with the critical study of Kazantzakis' "Odyssey" (7 installments in "Neohellenic Letters") and a "Continuous Commentary" on Sikelianos' great poem "Mother of God" ("New Politics," 1939). In 1939, with a scholarship from the British Council, she went to England, where she worked at the Institute of Education at the University of London. The occupation of Europe by the Germans prevented her return to Greece, and Elli Lampridi then offered her services to the Ministry of Information of the exiled Greek Government in London with significant national action (interviews, informational brochures, teaching Greek to British liaison officers with the resistance organizations in Greece, etc.). Immediately after the Liberation, she returned to Athens, where she found her only daughter, Niki, dead, an innocent victim of the December events. She returned to England to sort out her pending affairs, but this temporary absence lasted a full ten years because she was involved in the "Movement for Democracy in Greece" (on the board with ten British Labour MPs), and her Greek passport was revoked until 1959. These were the most challenging years for her, as she also suffered from eye problems and had to teach children to make a living. She regained her Greek citizenship in 1959, thanks to the persistent efforts of Amalia Fleming. Upon returning to Greece, she published the book "Niki," an autobiographical work dedicated to the tragic story of her daughter, continuously paralleled with modern Greek history. She also completed her "Thucydides," a translation with an introduction and original commentary (4 volumes, Govostis editions 1962). She regularly contributed philosophical articles to "Epoches" and was preparing a work she wished to leave behind, which remains unpublished, a logical, traditional, and modern one. Her other works include: "An Imaginary Dialogue with Wittgenstein" (an excerpt was published in German in 1963 in Munich's Philosophical Review "Club Voltaire," and the full text, along with writings by contemporary specialists, was published in 2004 by the Academy of Athens in the "Philosophical Library of Elli Lambridi" series), the unfinished "Fantasia Philosophic," "Greece in Our Time" (in English), and "Late Harvest" (a novel in English). After her death, a work of hers on the Pre-Socratic Empedocles was published in America: "Empedocles. A Philosophical Investigation," Alabama, 1976. She passed away in Athens on January 28, 1970. In her will, she requested the establishment of a "Philosophical Library" with her small estate and the help of a few friends she appointed as executors of her will, because she believed that "philosophy and philosophical education are entirely neglected in Greece and because, although she worked extensively on philosophical studies, she did not fulfill the mission she considered the primary purpose of her life." Her wish was ultimately fulfilled by the Academy of Athens. (Source: Article by Yolanda Hatzi in the magazine "Emeis," 1988).