The Anglo-Hellenic League

Dedicated to promoting Anglo-Greek understanding and friendship, through charitable and cultural work. 

Runciman Award 2018

The winners of the Runciman Award 2018 were announced at a ceremony, in the presence of our President and Chief Patron HRH Prince Michael of Kent, on Thursday 14 June 2018.

Congratulations to Matthew Simonton, author of Classical Greek Oligarchy: A Political History, and Colm Toibin, author of House of Names.

Guest speaker: Neil MacGregor, OM

Sponsored by Elias Paraskevas Attorneys

Information about the award (including list of books submitted and short-list) can be found at www.runcimanaward.org. 

Monday 18 June 2018, 6pm

A celebration of 100 years from the founding of the Koraes Chair

King's College London: Great Hall King's Building Strand Campus

TICKETS FOR THIS EVENT ARE STILL AVAILABLE (AS AT 14 JUNE). PLEASE REGISTER USING THE LINK BELOW.

The Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King's College London commemorates the ‘founding father’ of the Greek nation-state that came into existence with the Revolution of 1821. It was established during another period of turbulence that would shape the future of the entire European continent, the First World War. The Chair owes its existence to a group of far-sighted individuals, including Eleftherios Venizelos, prime minister of Greece for much of the period, his future wife Helena Schilizzi, many members of the Greek Diaspora in London and elsewhere, and the philhellene and classical scholar Ronald Burrows, Principal of King’s at the time. The Anglo-Hellenic League played a leading role. 

Since the 1970s the Chair has become the focal point and impetus for an expanding programme of teaching and research in Modern Greek and Byzantine studies at King’s College London, now a leading centre for these fields worldwide.

Thanks to generous responses from educational and philanthropic institutions and individuals in the UK, Greece and Cyprus, a new endowment has been secured, in a partnership with King’s College London that establishes a secure basis for the future of this prestigious academic position.

Distinguished experts will speak on relations between Britain and the world of Hellenism in the fields of culture, literature and history, from the time of Adamantios Koraes to the present, and prospects for the future.

The winner of the Katie Lentakis Memorial Fund Award 2018 will be announced and the prize awarded during this event. 

The programme is available at https://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/ahri/eventrecords/2017-2018/CHS/Koraes-Chair-celebration.aspx. Registration is now open. Please direct enquiries to chs@kcl.ac.uk.

Thursday 14 June 2018, 4.30pm

Annual General Meeting

The Hellenic Centre, 16–18 Paddington Street, London W1U 5AS

The Annual General Meeting for the year ending 31 December 2017 was held on Thursday 14 June 2018 at 4.30 pm, with John Kittmer in the chair. A draft report of the meeting will issue shortly.

Thursday 31 May 2018, 5.45 pm 

Private visit to "Rodin and the art of ancient Greece"  -  EVENT FULL - No further applications accepted

British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG

Under the guidance of distinguished art historian and archaeologist Ian Jenkins, a private visit by members of the League took place of "Rodin and the art of ancient Greece". The exhibition runs until 29 July.

Tuesday 17 April 2018, 7pm.

'The Macedonian Front 1915-1918: Soldiers, Nurses and Politicians at the forgotten front'

The Hellenic Centre, 16-18 Paddington Street, London W1U 5AS

The League, together with the Macedonian Society of Great Britain, presented a round table with illustrations on Macedonia in the First World War. 

Speakers were:

Sir Michael Llewellyn-Smith, Visiting Professor, King’s College London

Professor Vasilis Gounaris, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Alan Wakefield, Imperial War Museum

Professor Christine Hallett, The University of Manchester

Dr Anthony Hirst

Wednesday 21 March 2018, 8.45 a.m. 

Private visit to "Charmed lives in Greece: Ghika, Craxton, Leigh Fermor"

The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG

The private visit to the exhibition was guided by two of its Curators, Evita Arapoglou and Sir Michael Llewellyn-Smith. 

Monday 27 November 2017, 7pm

Post-crisis Greek Foreign Policy: Challenges and Prospects

Round-table discussion 

Monday 9 October 2017, 7pm  

Prof. Roderick Beaton

"Nikos Kazantzakis: a retrospect, 60 years from his death"                      

The Hellenic Centre, 16–18 Paddington Street, London W1U 5AS 

Thu 15 June 2017, 7.00pm

Runciman Award 2017

The Hellenic Centre, 16-18 Paddington St., Marylebone, London W1

Directly following the League's Annual General Meeting, the ceremony for the Runciman Award 2017 took place. The Prize is sponsored by Elias Paraskevas Attorneys.

The Prize was awarded jointly to Professor Ivan Drpić and Professor Marc Domingo Gygax.

Epigram, Art, and Devotion in Later Byzantium by Professor Ivan Drpić (CUP)

This is a gripping book with wonderful illustrations that evoke the richness and complexity of the texts and objects explored in it.

Dr Dionysios Stathakopoulos, Chairman of the Judges

Benefaction and Rewards in the Ancient Greek City: The Origins of Euergetism by Professor Marc Domingo Gygax (CUP )

 This is an entirely new way of looking at the system of the gift in ancient Greece. Focusing on benefaction of various kinds and the reciprocity it sparked the author explores the origins of the system in archaic Greece and illuminates the tensions with which it was fraught.

Dr Dionysios Stathakopoulos, Chairman of the Judges

Fri 31 March 2017, 7pm

John Kittmer

Former British Ambassador to Greece (2013-2016)

Reflection on four years in Greece: Optimism amid crisis?

The Hellenic Centre, 16-18 Paddington St., Marylebone, London W1

Tue 11 October 2016

All that glitters is gold: The Grave of the Griffin Warrior at Pylos

The Hellenic Centre, 16-18 Paddington St., Marylebone, London W1

This fund-raising lecture by the husband-and-wife team of Jack Davis and Sharon
Stocker presented for the first time in London an account of the major archaeological discovery in Greece last year, next to the Mycenaean Palace of Nestor at Pylos in the Peloponnese: the unrobbed, and unexpected, grave of a 15th century BC Mycenaean warrior-prince, buried with his weapons and in his finery with a wealth of sealstones and jewellery. The Grave of the Griffin Warrior is a spectacular find that matches contemporary graves such as those Heinrich Schliemann dug at Mycenae, while helping to explain the Cretan connections with the southwest Peloponnese and the rise of the site that later hosted the Mycenaean palace.

Sharon Stocker and Jack Davis have worked principally on Kea, in the Argolid and
Albania, and at Pylos, where the University of Cincinnati has excavated since 1939.
Dr Stocker is a Senior Research Associate at Cincinnati, and Professor Davis the Carl
W. Blegen Professor of Greek Archaeology and Head of the Classics Department at Cincinnati; he has also been Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

The Anglo-Hellenic League was honoured to present this lecture, sponsored by the A. G. Leventis Foundation.

More information on the topic at www.griffinwarrior.org

Sat 10 September 2016
The 2016 Albania – Corfu Swim

The Anglo-Hellenic League Council, in its effort to contribute to other good causes, agreed to support the organisers of the 2016 Swim from Albania to Agios Stephanos, Corfu. All funds raised were given to The Smile of the Child Home, which is situated in the north of Corfu where 22 children are currently housed and educated. The Smile of the Child also distributes clothes, food and medicines to needy families throughout the island as well as continuing to support the children when they go on to further education.

Wed 15 June 2016
Katie Lentakis Memorial Fund Award 2016
Council Room, King’s College London, Strand WC2

The Centre for Hellenic Studies is pleased to announce that the winner of this year’s award is:

Vanessa Szymanska (Classics), for a dissertaton entitled

What significance did the cult of Artemis at Brauron bear upon the lives  of young girls and their families in Classical Attica? An exploration of key scholarly debates  and a reconcilation of literary and material sources’,

supervised by Professor Hugh Bowden.

Wed 9 March 2016

Visit to the Travellers Club, London SW1
A joint event of th Anglo-Hellenic League and the Friends of British School at Athens
 
On 9 March 2016 members of the Anglo-Hellenic League held a joint gathering with the Friends of the British School at Athens in the Library of the Travellers Club. The purpose of the occasion was to view some of this Library’s rare and fascinating books relating to the earliest expeditions made by British travellers to the historic sites of ancient Greece, and to see the replica of the frieze from the temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassae. The temple was 'discovered' by a group of travellers including Charles Cockerell, one of the founding members of the Travellers Club. Its original frieze, brought back by this group, is now in the British Museum, and the replica in the Travellers Club Library is one of only two ever made. Nearly 40 members of the two organizations attended. The Librarian of the Travellers Club, Sheila Markham, and Ian Jenkins of the British Museum greatly added to the interest of the occasion with deeply learned and fascinating talks about what we were seeing. From comments received after the event it appears that all present found it a richly rewarding experience.

Wed 24 February 2016

'For the Greece We Love'
A special event to support Elliniki Etairia
(Greek Society for the Environment & Cultural Heritage www.ellet.gr)

On 24 February 2016 the Anglo-Hellenic League hosted a special event to support Elliniki Etairia, the Greek Society for the Environment and Cultural Heritage, at the Hellenic Centre in London. An audience of 140 attended the evening, which was  generously sponsored by the A. G. Leventis Foundation, and supported by the Centre.  Costa and Lydia Carras, the founders of Elliniki Etairia, spoke powerfully about the struggles and achievements of the Society over the last 40 years throughout Greece, with a stirring account of the campaigns it has fought against governments and developers, with many notable successes.

They showed the broad range of work Elliniki Etairia undertakes, to protect the built environment — buildings of national or local significance, or whole areas of a city like the Plaka in Athens — and areas of the natural environment, whether significant for their natural history or (as with protection of the coast and restoration of long-distance footpaths) for people and recreation. We heard how the Society wins supporters inside Greece and beyond, working with the Europe-wide organisation Europa Nostra.

An estimated total, including Gift Aid, of £7300 was raised to support the work of Elliniki Etairia.

Thu 18 June 2015

Runciman Award 2015

The Hellenic Centre, 16-18 Paddington Street, London W1

This year’s winner of the Runciman Award for books published in 2014 was Armand M. Leroi’s The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science (Bloomsbury Publishing)

The Award was announced at a ceremony by the Chairman of the panel of judges 
Dr Chris Burnand.

Tue 16 June 2015

Katie Lentakis Memorial Fund Award 2015

Council Room, King’s College London, Strand WC2

Winner of the prize:

Miss Rebecca McNamara (Department of Classics), for her dissertation entitled
‘The Ambiguous Home of Life and Death: the symbolic uses of the skene and the female in Aeschylus' Agamemnon’,

supervised by Dr Emmanuela Bakola.

Tue 25 November 2014
The 'Anglo-Hellenic Review' 50th Issue Celebration/Farewell Dinner

Vasis Taverna, 56 Maple Street, London W1

A celebratory supper to celebrate the final issue, and to express the League’s appreciation of the generous contribution of the Review’s editorial staff, writers and sponsors.

 Thu 19 June 2014
Runciman Award 2014

The Hellenic Centre, 16-18 Paddington Street, London W1

This year’s winner of the Runciman Award for books published in 2013 was Roderick Beaton’s Byron’s War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution (Cambridge University Press)

The Award was announced at a ceremony by the Chairman of the panel of judges Dr Angeliki Lymberopoulou. 

Tue 10 June 2014
Katie Lentakis Memorial Fund Award 2014

Council Room, King’s College London, Strand WC2

Winner of the prize:

Miss Melissa J Gardner (Department of Classics) for her dissertation entitled
'A Comparison of the Representation of Divinity in the Homeric Epics and the Epic of Gilgamesh', supervised by Professor Giambattista d’Alessio.

Tue 27 May 2014

'Crete on the Eve of Enosis', Sir Michael Llewellyn Smith KCVO

Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1

A joint Anglo-Hellenic League and Friends of the British School at Athens lecture 
chaired by Mr Gerald Cadogan.