The Athens of Volos

Foreword by Vassilis Foukas, Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Pedagogy of AUTH

In 1914 the famous Nafplion Trial takes place. It was about the adjudication of a much-lauded case, in which conservative and progressive social forces of the time clashed, on the occasion of the closing of a pioneering – in every respect – girls' school, the Girls' School of Volos, about three years earlier. Its founder, Dimitrios Saratsis, but also its active director, Alexandros Delmouzos, people who are philanthropic, supporters of urbanism and the experiential teaching method, were the two main defendants in a trial that took place after the popular rally that was organized, instigated by the Church and other conservative circles of the city, leading to the final closure of the school. The volume you hold in your hands has resulted from a thorough study of all the shorthand records of the Nafplion Trial published in 1915 in Athens. A careful gleaning and selection of those passages that make the content of the work more essential and interesting, without tiring the reader with unnecessary information, was carried out. A little more than a century after "Atheika", anyone interested is transported mentally to the courtroom of Nafplio, being able to obtain an excellent picture of the circumstances that led to the closing of the school, the arguments of one side and the other , the position and role of the organized Church in Greece at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the most important, shocking in many cases, purchases that led to the final court decision.

With the Volio school, the first attempt was made in the now free State in the school act, to free the child from another kind of slavery, which chained his soul together with all the spiritual life of the place.

Alexandros Delmouzos