Agapitos G. Tsopanakis

He was born in Salakos, Rhodes. He studied at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Athens. He briefly served as a teacher in the Greek community of Khartoum, Sudan. Subsequently, he attended courses in linguistics, phonetics of ancient languages, Sanskrit, Italian language and literature, as well as classical philology at the University of Pisa, where he earned his doctorate in 1932. In 1933, he began teaching at a high school in Rhodes, and in 1936, he was arrested for his patriotic activities and exiled to Italy. He returned to Greece and in 1938 was appointed to a high school in Thessaloniki. In 1944, he was elected as a lecturer in Linguistics, became an associate professor in 1950, and in 1955 was appointed as a full professor of Ancient Greek Philology at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Thessaloniki, where he taught until 1973. During 1978-1979, he taught at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Crete, contributing to its organization and staffing. His research work in the fields of Linguistics and Classical Philology focuses on the history of the Greek language from antiquity to the present. He has particularly studied the dialects and idioms of the Greek language (Cyprus, Chalki, Rhodes, Macedonia, Southern Italy, etc.), as well as the language and vocabulary of significant works and authors (Kazantzakis, Valaoritis, Korais). He served as Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy (1958-1959) and as a senator (1964-1965) of the University of Thessaloniki. He was a member (1960-1979) and president (1970-1974) of the Board of Directors of the Manolis Triantafyllidis Foundation and participated in committees of the Ministry of Education for Secondary Education. He was President of the Academy of Athens in 1998.