What did you say?
Georgi Dimitrov

“Communists who do nothing to enlighten the masses on the past of their people… voluntarily hand over to the fascist falsifiers all that is valuable in the historical past of the nation.” — 1935

- Georgi Dimitrov

Roza Imvrioti (née Ioannou) (1898-1977) was one of the foremost feminists and educational theorists in early twentieth-century Greece. She was among the founding members of the League for Women’s Rights (Σύνδεσμος για τα Δικαιώματα της Γυναίκας) (1920), for which she wrote the educational program (alongside Dimitris Glinos and Avra Theodoropoulou), and was a prominent member of the Educational Club (Εκπαιδευτικός Όμιλος), which advocated demoticism in the infamous Language Question.

She began teaching in the 1920s, and in 1924, while teaching history at Maraslio, she referenced Marxist historian Yannis Kordatos’ book, The Social Significance of the Greek Revolution of 1821 (Η κοινωνική σημασία της Ελληνικής Επαναστάσεως του 1821), published that same year. She was attacked for this as part of a general attack on demotic education, and dismissed in 1926. Upon the return of Eleftherios Venizelos as Prime Minister, she was reinstated.

A central part of her educational work was for children with special educational needs. With the agreement of dictator Ioannis Metaxas, she founded the Model Special School of Athens in Kaisariani in 1937, which was the first special needs school in Greece. This school operated up until the invasion of Greece by Italian troops in October 1940.

Imvrioti was an active member of the communist-led National Liberation Front (EAM) during the Occupation. Upon the establishment of PEEA, EAM’s government over “Free Greece”, in 1944, she put her skills as an educator to use, helping to draft the educational program and writing The Eagles (Τα Αετόπουλα), a reading book for the third and fourth grades of the PEEA primary school. This book was written in just seventeen days, due to pressure from the Party, in demotic and freely distributed to children in 100,000 copies.[1]

Years earlier, in 1926, she had written an article on “The Teaching of History” (“Η Διδασκαλία της Ιστορίας”), in which she criticised the history curriculum in schools. In this article, she stated clearly that children should not be taught the past so that they know their ‘spiritual heritage’ (πνευματική κληρονομία), but rather so that they can use the relevant parts of it as an example to serve their contemporary world.[2] It seems that this is the approach she took to all walks of history, including the ancient world, her use of which is selective according to what best advances the communist cause.

In The Eagles, there is some reference to the ancient world, although much of the book is dedicated to more recent history – 1821, in particular – or to explicitly teaching the youth how to be good members of EAM and the new state. One section, titled “The History of the Eagles” (Η Ιστορία των αετόπουλων), encourages its young readers to emulate the Spartans alongside various other (later) Greek historical examples, invoking the concept of Hellenic continuity central to both right- and left-wing rhetoric in Greece:[3]

Thousands of years ago here in Greece there were Eagles. They were children who loved their Fatherland and gave their lives for its freedom.
The Spartans did not do anything else in their lives, except wage war from their childhoods for the freedom of Sparta.
…
All the Greeks in all the ages were alive with the fiery love of the Fatherland.

The book also includes a song written by Nikos Karvounis (1880-1947), a prominent member of the KKE who was in charge of PEEA’s press office. The song was titled “Olympus is Thundering” (Βροντάει ο Ολύμπος), and was a well-known tune amongst the communist guerrillas, giving the ancient god Zeus’ implicit approval to the actions of the partisans:[4]

Olympus is thundering, and Giona flashes with lightning,
Agrafa is moaning, and Steria shakes,
to arms, to arms into the struggle
for priceless freedom herself.

Due to her participation in EAM, Imvrioti was exiled to the prison island Trikeri. While there, in 1949, she prepared a production of Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound to be performed by the women held alongside her. Despite its actual production being banned by the camp warden, the play offered an important symbol for the prisoners, who themselves could identify with Prometheus, the “leftist” Titan whose ‘appropriat[ion] for “causes”’ has been noted by Lorna Hardwick (1999), amongst others.[5] It also had the distinction, as Gonda Van Steen (2010) has noted, of teaching many women involved in the production about classical tragedy, and how to read and write.[6]

After her release from detainment, Imvrioti soon became involved again in political life. She served as a member of the United Democratic Left (Ενιαία Δημοκρτική Αριστερά) (EDA) – the strongest left-wing party, as the KKE had been banned in Greece – until 1967, with the imposition of the Regime of the Colonels. After the fall of the Regime, she rejoined the KKE and once again worked to form its educational program.

She died on 16 September 1977, and is well-remembered in Athens. The special educational needs school which she founded has now been renamed in her honour.

 

This profile was written by Anna Coopey (2026).

 

[1] Imvrioti is reported as saying in 1962 that she was called to PEEA’s headquarters by Petros Kokkalis, the Secretary of Education, and told that she had a month to write the book. Much was apparently written through the night, by light of a lamp.

[2] Imvrioti (1926), p. 63.

[3] Imvrioti (1944), p. 10.

[4] Imvrioti (1944), p. 22.

[5] See Van Steen (2010), pp. 122-123.

For more examples of Prometheus’ leftist currency, particularly in Greece, see: Kostas Varnalis’ (1922) The Burning Light (Το φως που καίει); Vasilis Rotas’ (1959) Prometheus or The Comedy of Optimism (Προμηθέας ή Η κωμωδία της αισιοδοξίας); and Nikiforos Vrettakos’ (1978) Prometheus or The Play of a Day (Προμηθέας ή Το παιχνίδι μιας μέρας). Also see Van Steen’s insightful analysis in Chapter Three of her Theatre of the Condemned: Classical Tragedy on Greek Prison Islands (Oxford University Press).

[6] Van Steen (2010), p. 128.

 

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