Georgios A. Mavros Archive

The Amorgian philologist Georgios Mavros was born in Amorgos in 1952 and died in Athens in 2009. He was the son of Antonios Mavros, president of the municipality of Amorgos for 20 years. Georgios Mavros finished primary school in Amorgos and then enrolled in the boarding high school of Santorini. During the years of the dictatorship, he was a student at the Classics Department in the School of Philosophy in Ioannina. Later, he worked as a teacher in secondary education in Athens and the Cyclades. In Amorgos he served for 7 years. He was politically affiliated with the left and had strong involvement in union activities in the field of education. He was uncompromising as a person but, at the same time, caring and emotional. He passed away in his apartment in Athens, at the age of 57, in March 2009.
From 1974, after the restoration of democracy in Greece, he began to collect folkloric and other such material from Amorgos, preserving a very important part of the history of his island that had not been recorded anywhere else. In particular, G. Mavros, having both experiential and in-depth knowledge of the history of his land,
1) collected and preserved a wealth of authentic material – memories of people and data with references dating back to the 19th century
2) categorized this original material and began commenting upon it, starting with the Amorgian Proverbs (about 50) and the Proverbs Spoken in Amorgos (about 2,300), in which he additionally cited any parallel findings from corresponding, already published sources
 
3) recorded and delivered in electronic form riddles, dirges, rhymes, lullabies, games. mantinades, love couplets, couplets about the sea, about immigration, about marriage, about the Klidonas custom, as well as biographical data about the folk poets of Amorgos
All this original material was intended to form the basis for the composition of a long series of folklore, literary, and historical studies. In addition, G. Mavros planned to present a series of audio material with discourses in the Amorgian vernacular, collected through 35year-long recordings of his conversations with locals, many of whom had grown up with the echoes and living memories of the late 19th century. These original recordings also include valuable testimonies and data on common law, folk medicine, folk feasts, weather forecasting, dream interpretation as well as superstitions, enchantments, memories and legends related to piracy, folk songs, local idioms and more.
This multifaceted intellectual work on the heritage, traditions and local history of Amorgos, scholarly documented with references and connections to other islands and other regions of Greece, is intended to contribute to the preservation and conservation of tradition in its most authentic form and to support any effort that could be developed in this direction.
Two years after G. Mavros’ death, a hall bearing his name was inaugurated in the newly established High School of Amorgos. The main imprint of his personality and work can be summarized in the words of his student at the Amorgos High School, Eleftheria Psyhogiou:
“…Today, it is fair for a school to bear his name, because Mavros was a “school” himself for all of us. All of his students inherited something from Georgios Mavros. Something that will remain with them through the entire course of their lives…Knowing full well the weaknesses of the educational system, as well as the injustices suffered by the students of the province in Greece, he set out from there to overturn these conditions, engaging in a common struggle with his students – to help them succeed getting into the university. He spent countless hours with the children at home and at the high school in Amorgos, outside of regular class hours, to catch up with and surpass all those who benefited from private tutoring. However, Mavros was not just a good classics teacher for us. Being the personification of honesty and struggle, he conveyed to his students the concept of active citizenship. He taught us to read, to listen to music, to see beyond the facts by analyzing them. He taught us to love our land, our tradition. He taught us humanity…G. Mavros was consistent and unceasing in everything he did. He left Amorgos at some point. However, he never abandoned us or his island, leaving us to our fate. His concern was so great and his passion so boundless that no one and nothing could stop him. Even the magnificent cobbled streets of Hora would have been destroyed had it not been for G. Mavros. G. Mavros left as legacy to our homeland a huge treasure – the recording of the folklore of Amorgos. This material has been recovered, preserved, and utilized exactly as he had envisioned…”

Marilena Gypari
Athens, 11/17/2023