Glinos Foundation Pages

D. Glinos was born in Smyrna, Asia Minor in 1882, a son of a poor family originating from Korthi, Andros. He studied literature at the University of Athens. In 1908, he married Anna Chroni and with the economic support of his father-in-law, Glinos left with his spouse for postgraduate studies in Jena and Leipzig. In Germany, he was acquainted with Georgios Skliros who introduced Glinos to socialist ideology and had decisive effect on his later career. In 1911 he returned to Athens, and became active in the Educational Club (Ekpedefthikos Omilos) where inter alia he was responsible for the Club’s bulletin. He assumed a leading role in the foundation of the Assosiation of High School Teachers (February 1915). He was politically sympathised with the leftwing of the Liberal Party, headed by Eleftherios Venizelos. Glinos, in collaboration with Alexandros Delmouzos and Manolis Triandafilidis, acted from official and unofficial posts for the reformation of the Greek educational system in all grades. He was the author of the 1913 educational bills and the initiator behind the introduction of the Demotiki (vernacural) in the elementary education, in 1917. He was also the founder of the Pedagogical Academy and worked towards organazing the University of Salonica (1924-26).

In 1926, he resigned from the public service, realising that the promotion and consolidation of the educational reform he envisioned was impossible to implement by state mechanisms. The same year he started publishing the literary magazine Anagenisi (Revival), to which many important intellectuals, such as Nicos Kazantzakis, Kostas Varnalis, Yannis Kordatos, Stratis Someritis, Rosa Imvrioti a.o, contributed regularly.

In late 1920s Glinos turned ideologically to Marxism, approaching progressively the Greek Communist Party (KKE). He collaborated with the magazine Neoi Protoporoi (Young Pioneers), as well as with the official newspaper of KKE, Rizospastis (Radical). During 1934΄s summertime, he visited, along with the poet Kostas Varnalis, the Soviet Union, after an invitation from the Union of Soviet Writers. His impressions from this travel were published in the newspaper Neos Kosmos (New World). In 1936 he was elected member of parliament, but soon a dictatorship was established by General Ioannis Metaxas that lasted from 1936 to 1941, and during this period Glinos was sent to prison and exiled, but despite these difficulties, these years were, according to him, the most fertile of his life. In 1940 he translated Plato΄s Sophistes, with a monumental introduction.

During the Axis occupation years Dimitris Glinos participated in the foundation of the National Liberation Front (EAM), and he was the author of its ideological-political manifesto What is EAM and what are its purposes. He died suddenly on Christmas of 1943, while he was about to visit the areas liberated from the Axis forces and to lead the government set up by EAM.

The multifaceted work of Dimitris Glinos is of exceptional importance and enjoyed world wide recognition: UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education placed Glinos among the one hundred worldwide most important intellectuals and public figures, who had a major impact and contribution to educational affairs from early times to present.

(Dr. George D. Boubous, Secretary of the Board of Directors of Glinos Foundation)