Famagusta Gate - 29th November 1999

enue: Famagusta Gate, Nicosia, Cyprus on Monday 29th November 1999 at 19.30 hrs.

Subject: "The Naval Battle of Nafpaktos (1571):The first Paneuropean Intervention for Cyprus's Salvation"

Speaker: Mr. Yiannis Hasiotis. Professor of Modern History at the Aristotelion University of Thessaloniki. He is also a visiting Professor to numerous Universities of Cyprus, Western Europe, USA and Australia.

Download Mr. Hashiotis' Speech: "The Naval Battle of Nafpaktos" (IN GREEK)

He has published ten books, two with direct connection to Cyprus which are:

"Spanish Documents of the History of Cyprus" and "Sources of Cyprus's History extracted from the Spanish Simancas Archives".

He has been widely published (at least 130 articles) in numerous Greek and foreign Scientific periodicals. He has also supervised five collective works covering the Jewish Communities of South-eastern Europe from the Fifteenth Century to the end of World War II, the History of the Russian Greeks, etc. His latest book is currently being printed under the title "The Beginnings of the European Union from the end of the Medieval Century until the French Revolution".

Download the speech given by the Academician Mr. George Athanasiades Nova to the Athens Academy on 12/10/1971, "The Battle of Nafpaktos (Le Panto) 7/10/1571" (In Greek).

Full house at the Forum Hotel.

Venue: Forum Intercontinental Hotel, Nicosia, Cyprus on Tuesday 5th December 2000 at 19.30 hrs.

Subject: "The sculptures of the Parthenon, questions of authenticity and stewardship"
(click to download speech)

Speaker: Professor William St Clair. Senior Research Fellow at the Trinity College, University of Cambridge.

William St Clair was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and Oxford University where he studied the ancient Greek and Latin classics. During his career in the British Civil Service, in which he also served in the Admiralty and Foreign Office, he became Under Secretary at the Treasury. He is the author of a number of acclaimed historical and biographical books, mainly concerned with the nineteenth century and its literature. Mr St Clair, who is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Literature, is a senior research fellow at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, England. He is completing a book on the history of reading. In 2000 Mr St Clair was given the Thalassa Forum award for services to culture.

In Greek-speaking countries Mr St Clair is best known for his historical work Lord Elgin and the Marbles, of which a third, entirely revised edition was published by Oxford University Press in 1998, and the Greek language edition by Hellenika Grammata, Athens, in 1999. This book has attracted a great deal of attention world-wide for the care with which he has researched all aspects of the history and set out the issues and the changing arguments. The book contained the revelations that many of the Parthenon sculptures in London were scraped with metal tools and harsh abrasives in 1937 and 1938 in order to make them look more white, and that the British Museum authorities have subsequently engaged in a cover-up to prevent the main facts from becoming known. The book has altered the nature of the debate about the return of the Marbles to Greece which remains the classic case for all questions relating to restitution of cultural property.