150th Anniversary of the Death of Andreas Kalvos

Portrait of the Greek poet Andreas Kalvos (1792–1869). Running along the inner edge of the coin, the words "HELLENIC REPUBLIC" appear at lower right and the name "ANDREAS KALVOS" (in Greek script) at upper left. A palmette — the mint mark of the Greek mint — and the issue year 2019 are also visible. To the right is the monogram of coin designer George Stamatopoulos.

Andreas Kalvos is one of the most important Greek poets of the 19th century, even though his work long stood in the shadow of his contemporary Dionysios Solomos. Born in 1792 on Zakynthos, he spent most of his life in exile in Western Europe - in Florence, Geneva, London and Paris. His main lyrical work comprises two collections, the "Odes" (1824 and 1826), written at a time when the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire was raging. These poems combine an ancient Greek-inflected metre and syntax with the revolutionary pathos of Romanticism. Kalvos did not write in contemporary Modern Greek but in a deliberately archaising literary language - a stylistic choice that made his verses as unique as they were difficult to access.

After 1826, Kalvos fell completely silent as a poet. He settled in England, married, taught Greek and withdrew from literary life. Only decades after his death in 1869 in Lincolnshire was his work rediscovered and recognised as part of the Greek national canon. Today he is regarded as one of the founders of modern Greek literature; his poems are still taught in Greek schools. On Zakynthos, his native island, he was symbolically brought home in 1960, when his remains were transferred there. Greece commemorated the 150th anniversary of the poet's death with a 2-euro commemorative coin in 2019.