Georgios TH. Vafopoulos

GEORGE VAFOPULOS (1903-1996). George Vafopoulos was born in 1903 in Gevgelija, then part of Yugoslavia, as the second son of Thomas Vafopoulos and Roula née Demertzis. He had five siblings. He attended the Urban School of Gevgelija. After the end of the Second Balkan War, the Vafopoulos family was expatriated, and the poet lived in Edessa, Fanos, Goumenissa, and finally Thessaloniki, where he completed high school (1917-1924). He made his literary debut in 1921 with the publication of his poems in the magazines Sfera (Woman) and Noumas (Elegy for the Wrongfully Killed). In 1923, he visited Athens for the first time, enrolled in the Mathematics School of the University of Athens, and worked as a copyist for the Great Grammar of the Greek Language by G. Chatzidakis. He returned to Thessaloniki due to health issues and in 1924 took over the direction of the magazine Macedonian Letters, jointly with K. Kokkinos. It was then that he met his future wife (1931) and fellow poet Anthoula Stathopoulou (who passed away in 1935). In 1925, he was called to serve in the 1st Athens Regiment but was discharged a year later due to tuberculosis and returned to Thessaloniki. In 1927, upon the recommendation of Kostis Palamas, seven of his poems were published in Nea Estia. In 1931, he traveled to Mount Athos. In 1932, he was appointed to the Municipality of Thessaloniki. In 1938, he founded the Municipal Library of Thessaloniki (which he directed until 1963). That same year, he met Anastasia Gerakopoulou, who later (1946) became his second wife. During the German occupation, he was seconded to the Municipal Library of Athens, where he became closely associated with I.M. Panagiotopoulos, George Themelis, Galatea Kazantzakis, Caesar Emmanuel, Stelios Xefloudas, Tasos Athanasiadis, Tellos Agras, and other literary figures. In March 1951, he traveled to England at the invitation of the British Council to study the library system there. That same year, he traveled to Italy, France, and Switzerland. Many more travels followed, to the USA (1957), Austria, Romania, Bulgaria (1967), Greece (1967, 1968), Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany (1968), Italy (1969), Spain (1970), Scandinavia (1973), Cyprus (1974), and elsewhere. In 1954, his father, who had been blinded in an accident in 1939, passed away. In the summer of 1955, he briefly returned to Yugoslavia, where he visited his grandfather's grave. In the summer of 1962, his mother passed away. In 1974, he suffered a severe heart attack. In 1983, with a donation from the poet and Anastasia, the Vafopouleio Cultural Center of Thessaloniki was established. He was a member of the literary awards committee of the Municipality of Thessaloniki, the Maria Ralli competition committee, General Secretary of the State Theater of Northern Greece (1944), a board member of the State Theater of Northern Greece (1964-1967), a corresponding member of the Society of Greek Writers, a member of the Society of Writers of Thessaloniki, the Thessaloniki Film Festival committee (1966), the committee for granting pensions to writers (1973), and an honorary doctor of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1988). He was awarded the First Prize in the short story competition of Nea Estia (1927), the City of Thessaloniki Award (1963), the First State Poetry Prize (1967), and the Poetry Prize of the Kostas and Eleni Ouranis Foundation of the Academy of Athens (1972). He passed away in Thessaloniki. For more detailed biographical information on G.T. Vafopoulos, see Mitsos Lygizos, "Vafopoulos Georgios," Great Encyclopedia of Modern Greek Literature 3. Athens, Hari Patsi, n.d., Kostas Papageorgiou, "Vafopoulos Giorgos," World Biographical Dictionary 2. Athens, Ekdotiki Athinon, 1984, and Thanasis Papathanassopoulos, "Life and Works of G.T. Vafopoulos," Nea Estia 143, 1-15/4/1998, vol. OB, no. 1698-1699, pp. 446-456. (Source: Archive of Greek Authors, EKEBI).