Dionysios A. Kokkinos

Dionysios A. Kokkinos (1884-1967). Dionysios Kokkinos, son of Antonios and Angeliki, was born in Pyrgos, Ilia. He attended the Medical School of the University of Athens and the Athens School of Fine Arts, but did not complete his studies as he was drawn early on to journalism and literature. From 1935, he worked for twenty years as the director of the National Library of Greece. He made his debut in the literary world in 1908 with the publication of a short story in D. Tagopoulos' "Noumas" and during the same period, he published the newspaper "Mellon". Concurrently, he continued to publish critical articles and chronicles in periodicals of the time (such as the newspapers "Acropolis", "Kathimerini", "Ethnos", "Proia") under various pseudonyms, mainly Maccabeus and Ariel. He participated in the Balkan Wars as a soldier and in 1914 published four volumes of his impressions. He was honored with the History Award of the Academy of Athens (for his extensive historical work "Greek Revolution") and the National Prize for Literature and Arts (1948, for his overall contribution). In 1950, he was elected a regular member of the Academy of Athens. He passed away in Athens. Dionysios Kokkinos' literary work, rich in quantity, spans the fields of novels and short stories, and he also wrote plays, among which the one-act play "The Lost" was performed in 1939 by Marika Kotopouli's troupe. For more biographical details on Dionysios Kokkinos, see Takis Doxas, "Kokkinos A. Dionysios", in "The Great Encyclopedia of Modern Greek Literature", vol. 8. Athens: Haris Patsis, n.d., Vangelis Chatzivasileiou, "Dionysios A. Kokkinos", in "Our Older Prose: From Its Beginnings to the First World War", vol. XI, 1900-1914, pp. 377-394. Athens: Sokolis, 1998, O., "Kokkinos Dionysios", in "The Great Greek Encyclopedia", vol. 14. Athens: Pyrsos, 1930 and h.s., "Kokkinos Dionysios", in "World Biographical Dictionary", vol. 4. Athens: Ekdotiki Athinon, 1985. (Source: Archive of Greek Writers, EKEBI).