Alekos E. Florakis

Alekos E. Florakis is a PhD ethnologist-folklorist and poet. He was born in Athens in 1948. He studied political science in Athens and ethnography, ethnology, and social anthropology in Paris, with a scholarship from the Onassis Foundation. He holds a DEA from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Anthropology of Religion) and a PhD from the National Technical University of Athens (Pre-industrial Technology). He also studied journalism and public relations and worked for a time as a journalist. He has published numerous standalone books and many studies in scientific journals, conference proceedings, and collective volumes, focusing on topics such as traditional technology, marble carving, and other forms of modern Greek craftsmanship, folk religion and sacred spaces, ethnolinguistics, onomastics, and heraldry, particularly concerning Tinos. He has collaborated with various research and cultural institutions, museums, and organizations, including the "Cultural Capital of Europe, Thessaloniki 1997" for the exhibition "Treasures of Mount Athos." He also served as the first director of the "Foundation of Tinian Culture," a conference, exhibition, and research center, which he organized, and as the scientific director of the Museum of Marble Crafts of the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation in Pyrgos, Tinos. He taught "folk art and architecture" at the School of Tourist Guides in Athens and "folk art" at the Regional Training Centers of the Ministry of Education. He has presented at conferences and given numerous speeches and lectures. He wrote the texts or collaborated as a scientific advisor on 18 research documentaries for ERT and other entities. He compiled and edited the digital presentation of the relics and exhibits of the Panhellenic Holy Foundation of Evangelistria of Tinos and the Foundation of Tinian Culture online (South Aegean Region). He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Folklore Society and the Society of Cycladic Studies, a founding member of the Hellenic Ethnological Society and the Society of Tinian Studies (where he served as vice president), the Hellenic Onomastic Society, the Heraldry and Genealogy Society of Greece, among others. He has been honored with awards from the Academy of Athens, the Hellenic Society of Christian Letters, and the Linguistic Society of Athens, with honorary distinctions from the Prefecture of Tinos and the Municipality of Exomvourgo Tinos, with an honorary diploma from the Brotherhood of Tinians in Athens, and other honors. He made his literary debut at the age of 19 in "Philologiki Vradini." To date, he has published seven poetry collections and a book of essays. As one of the pioneers of the '70s poetic generation, he published in 1971, in collaboration with Stefanos K. Bekatoros, the poetry anthology "The New Generation 1965-1970" (Kedros Publications), the first to evaluate a series of then-new poets who later became known as the "Generation of the '70s." In 2001, the Municipality of Tinos published his extensive anthology "Tinians Politeia," an anthology of literature and culture. He is a member of the National Society of Greek Writers. In December 2018, he was awarded the Bronze Medal of the Order of Letters and Fine Arts of the Academy of Athens "for the entirety of his outstanding literary work, mainly of folkloric and ethnographic interest."