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Vasileos Papavasileou: The life and works of a many-talented Alonnisiot

In 1875 Stamatis Papavasileou rejoiced in the birth of his son, who would later become the most notable Alonnisiot of the 20th century. Stamatis Papavasileou was a simple villager, uncultured and occupied chiefly in viniculture. His possibilities were meagre, but in spite of his backwardness he managed to educate his sons Vasili and Yanni. The latter completed his secondary education while Vasili took first place in the sixth form, and came top in the Skopelos secondary school. At first he studied in two classes at the Volos High School, then came first in the Larissa school. Simultaneously he became interested in the secrets of music, in which his talent brought him to love good violin music, both popular and classical. His great physical stamina gave him self-confidence and he was the best of the pupils in the school gymnastic displays. At that time all his powers were revealed and, as he worked hard, he absorbed like a sponge all the possibilities of the city and the island as soon as he heard of them. His artistic talent showed itself both on canvas and in charcoal drawing.
Having completed his National Service in about 1890 he settled in Glossa as a schoolteacher, full of dreams and an appetite for work. The people of Glossa quickly learnt to respect their many-talented Alonnisiot schoolteacher, and took him to their hearts. With his great communicative abilities he laid the basis of a school which brought many of the people of Glossa to public notice. He became an energetic and respected member of the little closed community, and they married him to the daughter of the locally well-known Kokorineos family. The pair lived in great harmony and had four children. This was the happiest period of his life. He was devoted to his family and to his teaching duties. With his melancholy melodic voice he became a precentor, and at the urging of his religious wife a pastor. Gregorius, the Metropolitan of Chalkida, who respected him personally, consecrated him as pastor, and he happily settled down as the parish priest of Glossa. In his two public professions he raised the level of this large village in Skopelos. When he later returned to his place of birth, many of his pupils came to see him, or praised him in their conversation. He became completely assimilated in this closed community, and helped his wife’s fellow islanders in every way. Whoever wanted a letter or petition written ran to Papavasili. Later he took over the post office.
At this time he created various joyful works inspired by ancient Greek history and mythology, and the Christian themes of the four evangelists, which he adored. Well-known works of his were ‘The Chariot of the Sun’, ‘The Nine Muses’, and many religious works based on the lives of Jesus and his apostles. His ceaseless energy led him also to portraiture and iconography, producing rich icons inspired by his frequent visits to Mount Athos.
Unfortunately, however great his talents and personal happiness, so were his misfortunes. The first blow was the great crisis of incurable consumption that occurred at this time. In our islands there were many victims, among them his wife and one of his daughters. His sorrow was boundless and the harmony of his life was lost. He started to paint maniacally, and his unhappiness began to be expressed on canvas in great works such as ‘The Dance of Zalongos’ and ‘Sunset’. A Glossa man took three of his works to America, planning to sell them and send the money to Papavasili. He sold them, indeed at a good price, but the dollars did not come to Papavasili. Surrounded by three young children and many professional debts he was unable to carry out his household duties and took Marigo as a servant. Marigo was good; she supported him in his pain and helped him to raise his children. He was soon charmed by her help; he fell in love with her and so she was a great support. Then his feelings overcame his dignity and he tried by all means to dissolve her engagement to Konstantinos Tsoukanas, who had emigrated to America. As the besotted priest had the post office, he withheld both the letters of the fiancé and those Marigo sent to America. Thus the two forgot each other and Papavasilis could conquer the ‘abandoned’ Marigo. In the closed community of Glossa the ‘Unethical behaviour’ of the priest/schoolteacher brought much opposition. Slowly they started to hate him and treated him with disdain, for all that he offered. His eldest son Stamatis broke up with him and, unable to bear the situation, went away to Athens.
There, having inherited his father’s bodily robustness, he became an animal trainer. Papavasilis – tired, disenchanted, disdained – continued to live in Glossa until Gregorius, the Metropolitan of Chalkida, wondering at his priest, dismissed him – though without taking away his priesthood – to satisfy the opposition. The harassed Papavasilis abandoned Glossa and lived temporarily with a friend of his, a priest, in Skopelos, but, accused on all sides, he returned to his birthplace Alonnisos, where fate continued to trouble him. His daughter Nina died suddenly from meningitis. His beloved son Antonis, who had previously come first at Larissa high school and then settled as a teacher in Skiathos, also got meningitis and died in pain in an Athens hospital. At the same time other misfortunes befell his family. Consumption was the cause of the death of his son Stamatis the animal trainer. His unhappiness was indescribable. Marigo was always at his side, a help and comfort. Papavasilis, always dressed in a cassock, settled in Alonnisos as a teacher of the sixth form in the primary school, where he dedicated himself to work therapy. The primary school in the old village of Alonnisos, a gift of the Syngrou family, became again the place into which he put all his energies. Believing in the ancient Greek spirit of ‘A healthy mind in a healthy body’ he pioneered competitions in folk dancing, and urged his pupils , with discipline, to do their best. And he achieved miracles. In the morning he taught the three younger classes, and in the evening the three older. At the same time, with his spiritual learning, he gave much time to athletic education, both in the school yard and in the open space near the village known as ‘Mitsou to syracho’. Javelin and discus throwing, running, shot-putting, long- and high-jumping were pioneering activities for the isolated pre-war island of Alonnisos.
Every Saturday there was a catechism lesson; this too was pioneering. He explained to his pupils what the priest would be saying the next day in the service and required all pupils to be present at church. He managed also to teach reading, by himself, to 160 pupils, and all the present day older people who were his pupils declare themselves better taught than later generations. When inspectors visited his school they decided he was the best in the Chalkida area, to which administratively we belonged. Inspection was carried out as follows: the travelling inspector sent the teacher to one side and examined pupils from all classes for hours. He was surprised to find that they answered all his questions easily at an advanced level, and the inspector rose enthusiastically and embraced and congratulated the teacher. In his private life the community of Alonnisos forgot the disorder of his love life and accepted him as an equal. With the peace of mind that time brought, and the help of Marigoula, he managed to find his old form and overcome the blows of life. He started to paint again, chiefly views from his house in the Pernari area, and later ones from the area round the old school: ‘Dyo Aderphia’, ‘Manola’, ‘Ayios Giorgos’ (all nearby islands) and others. At the same time he painted a series of icons that can still be seen in the island’s churches, bearing the signature B.P. These are ‘Ayios Nikolas’, ‘Ayios Panteleimon’, ‘The Annunciation’ and others. It was at this time that he painted a very faithful self-portrait using a mirror.
Music was his second passion and every time he went to Volos he bought from T. Paloukas’s shop Columbia records with many musical themes. Amanedes, Nisiotika, Laika from Epirus, but also classical music and modern dances of the period. (Tangos, Waltzes.) At a time when in isolated Alonnisos no-one knew Beethoven or Strauss, Papavasilis adored them and played them on his violin. He passed endless hours of his free time playing his violin, absorbed in the miraculous world of music. He went to celebrations and weddings not as an instrumentalist but from enthusiasm, and would urge on his fellow rejoicers. His spirit always progressive, he continued with athletics and took part in the Pan-Thessaly games, and won a load of distinctions in shot-putting, discus throwing, the javelin and the high jump. Everyone was shocked to see among the athletes a priest taking part in his brown cassock, and the audience was enthusiastic when he came first. Another wrinkle of this turbulent priest was his interest in astronomy.
At night he would sit on his balcony and through the cloudy lenses of his astrolabe study the stars, provoking the curiosity of his fellow islanders who didn’t even know the word astrolabe. He was a student of Kosmas Aitolou, who, once having visited the Northern Sporades, started to make some prophecies which the people listened to with respect on their faces but disbelief in his words. Eighty years before the event he prophesied that naked people would go around in Alonnisos, and that people would travel to Volos in just a few hours: matters that have come true in our times. If he left any writings no-one knows, or they were thrown away after his death.
Byzantine music was another leaning and for many years he was a precentor with Papachristodoulo. Another unknown wrinkle of his talented nature was constant technical creativity. He arranged the paving of the central arterial road from Patitiri to the Old Village with cobbles so that the animals wouldn’t slip in the mud. Later, with the extension of the Old Village towards the shore, he built his house in Votsi, which still exists and belongs to the Laryngaki family, inherited from the Glossiotissa Marigo. The now tired old man Papavasili took his pension at the age of 76, but four years later in 1941, on his way up to the Old Village where he worked every day on his vines, he fell near Ai Lia. Tsoukanas, the Alonnisos doctor – still a student – ran to him, but it was too late. The most interesting Alonnisiot of the past century died of lung congestion. The sadness was great, the memory of him still strong in our day. His bones were collected reverently from the priest Gregorius and were laid to rest in the cemetery of Ayia Paraskevi.

Kostas Mavrikis.
Translated by Simon Darragh.