Helios Zakynthos
(Zakynthos 1865 – Athens 1956)
Scholar and historian. Graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Athens. He was involved in the organisation of the historical archive of Zakynthos and the preservation of valuable publications, archives and documents. He published the magazine ‘Ai Mousai’ for 50 years and in 1982 published the political and philological newspaper ‘Epochi’. He was also curator of the Byzantine Museum of Zakynthos. He was a researcher of historical and folklore publications and primary archival documents of notaries and archives and collected numerous documents, sorted them and finally donated them to the library of Zakynthos after the earthquakes and fires of 1953. In 1898 he began to publish the Dictionary of the literature and history of Zakynthos, which he completed in 1920 in four volumes of 1280 pages. In 1899 he was appointed assistant archivist and later in 1911 he became director. From 1902 to 1911 he collaborated with the journal Ecclesiastical Truth, an official organ of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. He also wrote articles for foreign periodicals in Italy, France, Egypt, Bulgaria and Turkey. Contributor to encyclopaedias and calendars. The volume of studies and writings he left was an impressive more than 600 ! There is a concise catalogue of 1951, entitled Annotation of publications 1885 – 1951. We selectively mention : E en Zakynthos Monasteries, Statistics of Zakynthian Antiquities, E en Zakynthos Guilds.