Russian embassy launches online series of works of Russian philhellenism

Aspects of philhellenism depicted in Russian literature are being presented online by the Russian Embassy in Greece as of February 9, Ambassador Andrey Maslov announced on Tuesday in social media. 

The announcement came on the occasion of Greece’s celebration this year of the bicentennial of its 1821 War of Independence, which Maslov called “the Greeks’ heroic liberation struggle”. 

The Russian Embassy’s first in a series of posts, published on the International Greek Language Day, is a poem by Russian philhellene Alexander Pushkin, titled “Arise, Greece, Arise”. 

“We will regularly post verses of famous Russian poets of that period, in Greek, who were overwhelmed by philhellenic sentiments and praised the uprising of Orthodox Greeks against the Ottoman rule,” the Russian Embassy wrote on Facebook. 

The series is held in the context of the Russia-Greece Year of History 2021 cultural collaboration, “under the auspices of President Vladimir Putin, and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis who took the initiative to present the literary aspect of Russian philhellenism,” Maslov wrote on Twitter.