Dionysios A. Zakythinos or Zakythenos (; 1905 in Lixouri,

Kefalonia Kefalonia or Cephalonia (), formerly also known as Kefallinia or Kephallonia (), is the largest of the Ionian Islands in western Greece and the 6th-largest island in Greece after Crete, Euboea, Lesbos, Rhodes and Chios. It is also a separate regio ...

– 18 January 1993, in

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

) was a leading

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

Byzantinist Byzantine studies is an interdisciplinary branch of the humanities that addresses the history, culture, demography, dress, religion/theology, art, literature/epigraphy, music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination ...

Biography

Zakythinos was born in

in 1905. After graduating from the

University of Athens The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA; , ''Ethnikó kai Kapodistriakó Panepistímio Athinón''), usually referred to simply as the University of Athens (UoA), is a public university in Athens, Greece, with various campuses alo ...

in 1927, he went to the Sorbonne, which at the time was a major center of Byzantine studies with scholars like Charles Diehl and

Ferdinand Lot Ferdinand Victor Henri Lot ( Le Plessis Piquet, 20 September 1866 – Fontenay-aux-Roses, 20 July 1952) was a French historian and medievalist. His masterpiece, ''The End of the Ancient World and the Beginnings of the Middle Ages'' (1927), ...

. His first major work was a detailed study of the late Byzantine

Despotate of the Morea The Despotate of the Morea () or Despotate of Mystras () was a province of the Byzantine Empire which existed between the mid-14th and mid-15th centuries. Its territory varied in size during its existence but eventually grew to include almost a ...

, published in French (''Le despotat grec de Morée (1262–1460)'') in two volumes, one in 1932 and the other, delayed by

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, in 1953. From 1939 to 1970 he taught Byzantine and Modern Greek History in the

(among his students there were

Angeliki Laiou Angeliki E. Laiou (; Athens, 6 April 1941 – Boston, 11 December 2008) was a Greek-American Byzantinist and politician. She taught at the University of Louisiana, Harvard University, Brandeis University, and Rutgers University. She was the Dumbar ...

Nikolaos Oikonomides Nikolaos or Nikos Oikonomides (, 14 February 1934 – 31 May 2000) was a Greek Byzantinist, and one of the leading experts in the field of Byzantine administration. Biography Oikonomides was born in Athens. He studied in the University of Ath ...

and Chryssa Maltezou), while in 1937–1946 he directed the Greek State Archives. He also taught modern Greek history in the Panteion University from 1951 to 1965, served as vice-chairman of the National Research Foundation in 1958 and was the first director of the Byzantine Research Institute from its foundation in 1960 to 1975. The Academy of Athens elected him as a full member in 1966, and Zakythinos went on to serve as its president in 1974. Zakythinos was also a Foreign Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

. In 1971–76 he served as chairman of the

International Association of Byzantine Studies International Association of Byzantine Studies (, AIEB) was launched in 1948. It is an international co-ordinating body that links national Byzantine Studies member groups. Background and Activities The AIEB was established in 1948 as an outgrowt ...

(AIEB), and thereafter as its honorary president. Zakythinos also served briefly as Minister to the Prime Minister in the interim 1963–64 government of Ioannis Paraskevopoulos, while after the fall of the

Regime of the Colonels In politics, a regime (also spelled régime) is a system of government that determines access to public office, and the extent of power held by officials. The two broad categories of regimes are democratic and autocratic. A key similarity acros ...

, he was elected to the

Greek Parliament The Parliament of the Hellenes (), commonly known as the Hellenic Parliament (), is the unicameral legislature of Greece, located in the Old Royal Palace, overlooking Syntagma Square in Athens. The parliament is the supreme democratic instit ...

in the November 1974 elections, on the list of the conservative

New Democracy New Democracy, or the New Democratic Revolution, is a type of democracy in Marxism, based on Mao Zedong's Bloc of Four Social Classes theory in post-revolutionary China which argued originally that democracy in China would take a path that w ...

party, serving until 1977. He died on 18 January 1993 in Athens.

Sources

External links

List of publications
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zakythinos, Dionysios 1905 births 1993 deaths National and Kapodistrian University of Athens alumni Greek Byzantinists People from Paliki Greek MPs 1974–1977 Members of the Academy of Athens (modern) 20th-century Greek historians Academic staff of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Scholars of Byzantine history Historians of medieval Greece