Sofia Mayroeidi - Papadaki

Sophia Mavroeidi - Papadaki (1904-1977). Sophia Mavroeidi was born in the village of Fourni Merambellou in eastern Crete. Her family was very poor. She graduated with great difficulty from the Pedagogical Academy of Heraklion and worked in secondary education in Crete for three years. She then went on to study at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Athens (graduating in 1930) and simultaneously attended the French Institute of Athens under Professor Louis Roussel, who encouraged her literary inclination and translated one of her poems, which was published in Libre in 1928. That same year, she published poems in the magazine "Modern Greek Letters" of Heraklion. In 1930, she married the poet and Naval Officer Kostas Papadakis, and a year later, she was appointed as a teacher at the Harokopio School of Home Economics in Kallithea. From then until the last years of her life, she worked in various schools, both public and private, where she primarily taught Modern Greek Literature. During the German occupation and the civil war, she was persecuted for her political beliefs (as a member of ELAS and other political organizations, she engaged in resistance activities and published her writings in the underground press). Her first official appearance in the literary world was in 1934, when her first poetry collection, titled "Hours of Love," was released. She collaborated with literary magazines such as "Breath," "Logos," "New Estia," "Modern Greek Literature," "Philological Life," "Free Letters," and newspapers. She was also involved in children's literature, theater, literary and theatrical criticism, study, and travel writing, while her translation work was also significant. Specifically, she held the theater criticism column in Meli Nikolaidis' magazine "Spiritual Life" from 1938 to 1939, and the literary criticism column in the magazine "Modern Greek Literature" from 1939 to 1940. In "Spiritual Life," she also published an extensive study on Greek folk songs. She collaborated with children's magazines such as "Hellenopoulo," "Child's Treasure," and "The Child's Home," and the children's encyclopedia "For You Children," while she published children's stories and novels. She was awarded the National Resistance Prize for her poetry collection "Of Youth and Freedom" (1946). She died in Athens from a severe stroke. For more biographical details on Sophia Mavroeidi - Papadaki, see Alexandros Argyriou, "Mavroeidi - Papadaki Sophia," in "World Biographical Dictionary," vol. 6. Athens, Ekdotiki Athinon, 1987, Dimitris Giakos, "Sophia Mavroeidi Papadaki," magazine "New Estia" issue 102, year NA', 15/7/1977, no.1201, pp. 956-957, Dimitris Giakos, "Mavroeidi - Papadaki Sophia," in "Great Encyclopedia of Modern Greek Literature," vol. 10, Athens, Hari Patsi, n.d., and Kostas Stergiopoulos (ed.), "Sophia Mavroeidi - Papadaki," in "Greek Poetry; Anthology - Grammar," Athens, Sokolis, 1980, pp. 582-583. (Source: Archive of Greek Writers, EKEBI).