«A grand and most worthy library…»

Public Historical Library of Andritsaina

Address: Andritsaina Ilias 270 61
Tel.: 2626022242
Εmail: [email protected]

www.andritsainalibrary.gr

Public Historical Library of Andritsaina

History. The history of the Public Library of Andritsaina, or Nikolopoulios Library, begins in 1838 with the donation of the book collection of Konstantinos Agathofronas Nikolopoulos (1786–1841), an important philologist and scholar of the Greek Diaspora.

The continued enrichment of his collection was a large part of Nikolopoulos’ life’s work. Especially after he settled in Paris, in 1806, it went beyond the narrow confines of an individual collection that served exclusively the interests of its collector. Nikolopoulos’ ambition was much broader and took on a national dimension. The great books, in terms of intellectual and collectible value, that he collected, were aimed at contributing to the revival of Hellenism, which, in 1838, was still struggling to acquire national, state and cultural status.

Moreover, the fact that this collection did not come from a rich man, a noble or a patron, added even more value to the already remarkable library of Nikolopoulos, both in comparison with the past and in relation to the present: on the one hand because it was one of the most important in Europe for its time, and on the other hand because it is one of the few Greek libraries of the 18th and 19th centuries that have survived in their entirety until today.

On July 1, 1838, K. A. Nikolopoulos addressed a letter to the Municipality of Andritsaina, announcing his desire to donate his personal library. As expected, the municipal authority of Andritsaina gratefully accepted the donation and in 1839, Charalambos Christopoulos, Nikolopoulos’s nephew and minister in various governments during the 1850s and 1860s, and Konstantinos Farmakis Zafeiropoulos, municipal councilor and later mayor of Andritsaina, went to Paris in order to receive the collection.

Letter written by Konstantinos Agathofron Nikolopoulos

About 5,000 books, packed in 47 boxes, were transported in 1840, first by ship to Nafplio and from there by animal-powered vehicles to Andritsaina, which was then the capital of mountainous Olympia, and they were then placed in the church of Agia Varvara, where they remained for four decades.

In 1875, the construction of the School Building (‘Didaktirio’) of Andritsaina began on a plot offered by Nikolis Babadimos, designed by Miltiadis Kanellopoulos, engineer and Professor of the Hellenic Military Academy. Α nationwide fundraiser and a donation from Angelos Giannikesis, Consul of Greece in Trieste, helped fund the construction. The building was inaugurated in 1879 and the Library was housed on the west side of the 1st floor.

In 1932, the Library was transferred to the northeast wing that was added to the building, which has been serving as an Educational Center for the region for 150 years.

In 1998, the library was transferred to a neoclassical building next to the Historical High School of Andritsaina.

Books from the collection of K. Nikolopoulos

Konstantinos Nikolopoulos Collection

In 1932, when the Library had been transferred to the new wing of the building, the librarian Agisilaos Tselalis recorded a total of 6,450 books, collected from the donations of Nikolopoulos, Babadimos, Maraslis, Koumbouris, Koutsandreas and others.

Regarding their content, Agisilaos Tselalis described the books in Nikolopoulos’ collection as “valuable” and “hard to find”. Many were published in the first years of typography (1500–1550), while there are also numerous books with handwritten notes, dedications and signatures of famous men whom Nikolopoulos met in Paris. The highly aesthetic bookbinding certainly deserves to be mentioned (paperback, leather binding, gold binding and parchment binding with micro-sculpture and micro-engraving on their cover), as well as the continuous, to a large extent, series of publications (e.g. early publications of Homer’s works, philosophical works, works of classical literature and the Bible), printed in printing centers of Italy and in important publishing centers of northern Europe.

Catalogue of K. Nikolopoulos Library. The importance and the variety of the books of the Nikolopoulos collection, combined with the lack of a recording and classifying system until then, made imperative the need for their cataloguing. Efforts to compile a detailed catalogue were made in the 1970s by Dimitris Priggouris (1928–2019), director of the Public Library of Andritsaina.

However, such a project could not have been carried out without the assistance of experts from the Institute of Neohellenic Research (INR) of the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF), headed by Alexis Politis. The collaboration was an initiative of Loukia Droulia, director of INR, which was welcomed by D. Priggouris who assisted as much as possible to the historians’ work of recording and cataloguing the Nikolopoulos collection.

The Catalogue of the Library of Konstantinos-Agathofron Nikolopoulos was published in 1987 by the INR/NHRF and contained 3,691 book titles, 3 collections of prints and 2 manuscripts.

As can be seen from the Catalogue, Nikolopoulos’ main interests revolved around classical studies (philology, theology, archeology, philosophy) and their related sciences. At the same time, he had a special interest in European affairs, while very few printed modern Greek books were added in his collection after his settlement in Paris, as well as works of non-classical (in the broadest sense of the term) literary production. The collection also includes dictionaries, rare copies of the Bible, publications in various languages (such as Hebrew and Aramaic), and music scores.

Evangelos Kallianiotis Collection. Another event that happened during the first half of the 1980s and played an important role in the development of the Library in Andritsaina, was the acquisition of the collection of Evangelos Kallianiotis.

In 1983, after a number of actions by the director of the Library, Dimitris Priggouris, the heirs of Evangelos Kallianiotis decided to donate his personal library to the Library of Andritsaina, without the deceased (who had died in 1981) having any origins or other connection with the town.

More specifically, E. Kallianiotis was born in 1888 in Stemnitsa, Arcadia, where he first studied at the local primary school and later at the school of Dimitsana. At the age of 17 he went to America and settled in Boston, where he lived until 1967. There he pursued a career out of opening food and beverage stores, while at the same time, driven by his love for literature and philosophy, he created his own private library. In 1967 he returned to Greece and settled in Athens. Three years later, he moved to his hometown of Stemnitsa, where he lived until his death, contributing financially and in various ways to the local community. Although one would expect to bequeath his library to his birthplace, Kallianiotis – perhaps because of the lack of a suitable space – decided to leave it to his descendants. They were convinced by Priggouris and so the library’s 4,341 volumes (with a significant number of rare and remarkable books) are on display today in a separate room, named after their first owner, in the Public Library of Andritsaina.

The acquisition of the Evangelos Kallianiotis collection of enriched the Library, expanding it quantitatively and thematically, and contributed in its being thought of as ‘Library of Andritsaina’ and not solely ‘Library of the Nikolopoulos collection’ anymore.

Historical Archive. The Historical Archive is the third pillar of the Library, and includes pre-revolutionary, revolutionary and post-revolutionary manuscripts.

Manuscripts of the Historical Archive of the Library

These include manuscripts from the personal archive of Nikolaos Dimitrakopoulos, handwritten letters by fighters of 1821 (of Panagiotis Anagnostopoulos, of Theodoros, Panos, Gennaios and Markos Kolokotronis, of Anagnostis and Panagiotis Kanellopoulos et al.), manuscripts of the Plapouta family, minutes of the Peloponnesian Senate, manuscripts from the personal archive of Charalambos Christopoulos etc.

The index of these manuscripts is available on the website of the Public Historical Library of Andritsaina. There, visitors can also find biographies of fighters and other important figures of the revolution, whose documents and letters are kept in the Historical Archive. Part of the Archive was published in 2010 in the joint edition of the Aristotle University and the Library of Andritsaina entitled Manuscripts of the historical archive of the Library of Andritsaina, period 1821–1866.

The books in the Library’s possession come mainly from donations, older and newer, but also from purchases of its respective directors. The total number (until 31/12/2020) amounts to 41,091 titles and 49,838 volumes. It is also worth noting that 23 plaster casts (donated by the British Museum in 1963) with scenes of the Centaur War and the Attic War from the frieze of the Temple of Apollo Epicurius on Mount Lykaion are exhibited in the Library.

Apollo Epicurius

Administration and organization. The Library used to belong to the community of Andritsaina until 1930, but was then given to the state due to the inability of the local authorities to cover its expenses. The Public Historical Library of Andritsaina is a Legal Entity of Public Law and falls under the responsibility of the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, according to law 3149/10.6.2003 (“National Library of Greece, Public Libraries and other provisions”).

The Library is managed by a five-member Board, which is appointed by a decision of the Minister of Education and Religious Affairs published in the Government Gazette. The members of the Board come from the fields of culture, education, local authorities, church, science or manufacturing and their term of office is three years.

The Library has been classified using the DEWEY system, while the books of the two collections (K. Nikolopoulos and E. Kallianiotis) have been classified with serial numbers and according to their themes. A digital recording process using the ΚΟΗΑ library software began in 2020 for the books of the K.A. Nikolopoulos collection, as well as part of the E. Kallianiotis collection.

The Library also includes a reading room, a children’s department, a lending department, and an information center and exhibition stand consisting of about 50,000 modern and older publications (available both to the general public and researchers).

In addition to state funding, the Library has received and continues to receive financial support from individuals and organizations. Prominent in this list are the Swiss Association of Friends of the Historical Library of Andritsaina, based in Fribourg, Switzerland and founded by Panagiotis Petropoulos (1938–2011), a doctor from Andritsaina, as well as the Panhellenic Association of Friends of the Library of Andritsaina. The Swiss Association of Friends of the Historical Library of Andritsaina with its Presidents P. Petropoulos (1987-2003), Martin Nicoulin (2003-2017) and Dimitrios Tselepis (2017 until today), having as primary goal the preservation and maintenance of the Nikolopoulos historical book collection, and based on the large generosity of its members, finances since 2012 the laboratory for the preservation of historical bookbindings of the Nikolopoulos collection, which operates within the Library.

In 2003, the Panhellenic Association of Friends of the Library of Andritsaina donated the display cases, bookstands and the rest of the equipment used for the “K. A. Nikolopoulos” and” E. Kallianiotis” collections.

In recent years, in collaboration with the Swiss Union, the Library has held exhibitions and events, such as: “30 years since the founding of the Swiss Association of Friends of the Historical Library of Andritsaina” (9/9/2017); “Ten years since the aid offered by Swiss citizens to the residents of the region of Andritsaina affected by the catastrophic fires in the summer of 2007“(2/6/2018), Opening of the periodic exhibition titled “Treasures of the Historical Library of Andritsaina. Greek publications from the beginnings of typography” which took place at the National Historical Museum in Athens from 20/10/2018 until 21/12/2018.

Actions – Programs. The Public Historical Library of Andritsaina in collaboration with the virtual tour company Clio Muse Tours created the first free audio tour of the history of the Library and its valuable collections, as well as a digital timeline recording the journey of the books of the historical collection of K. A. Nikolopoulos until they reached their current location. Visitors have now the opportunity to browse the Library from anywhere in the world, exploring 12 points of interest and 50 short stories, available in three languages (Greek, English and French). Using a smartphone or computer, visitors may access the tour both online through the “Tour Experience”, by clicking a single link, and offline using the Clio Muse App for Android and iOS. In the digital timeline users can browse the map looking for the European cities where 33 rare editions of the collection were published, read about the Greek publishing activity of the 16th century, and follow the collection of books on its journey from Paris to Andritsaina until its final installation at its current headquarters at the Public Historical Library; while the same time learning about the life of the great donor thanks to whose offer the library has at its disposal these publishing treasures.

In the summer of 2020, on the initiative of Petros Stergiopoulos, flutist and collaborator of the Athens Conservatoire Centre for Research and Documentation (ACCRD), and Stella Kourbana, head of the Athens Conservatoire Historical Archives, began a long-term collaboration between the Public Historical Library and the ACCRD, with the aim of highlighting the important music collection (rare books on music, as well as scores written by Nikolopoulos and other composers) kept in the library, but also the largely unknown relationship of its donor, K. Nikolopoulos, with music. In the near and distant future, the Library of Andritsaina and ACCRD, continuing the vision of Nikolopoulos for a spiritual and musical rebirth of his native town, will try to revive the “Musical world of Nikolopoulos” with artistic and educational collaborations, including concerts, speeches, and educational programs. The first event took place on Saturday, July 3, 2021, at 7.00 pm. in the Holy Church of Agioi Taxiarches in Andritsaina and included a speech by Charis Xanthoudakis, Emeritus Professor of the Ionian University and Director of the Athens Conservatoire Centre for Research and Documentation, entitled “The musician Nikolopoulos” and a concert with the mezzo-soprano Angeliki Kathariou and the pianist Dimitris Giakas. Most of the concert works were performed for the first time in recent years.

In recent years, the Public Library of Andritsaina participates in the programs of the “Summer Campaign for Reading and Creativity“, which are implemented under the auspices of the National Library of Greece and are aimed at children. Through a series of activities that take place within the unique environment of the Library, children engage with poetry, literature, storytelling, theater, music, mathematics, etc., thus having the opportunity to develop and unleash their imagination and creativity.