NKUA’s 36th Educational Expedition to Cyprus

The 36^th educational expedition to Cyprus organized by the ‘Committee for the Cultivation and Promotion of Relations Between the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and Cyprus’ took place from 24 to 29 March 2025 and was a resounding success.

This long-standing creative communication between our University and Cyprus seeks to highlight the island’s intellectual and, more broadly, cultural heritage, expand our ties with contemporary Cyprus, and foster global interest in the Cyprus problem.

As part of this educational expedition, which has, for nearly forty years now, evolved into a kind of programmatic pilgrimage aimed at the mutual renewal of awareness and the strengthening of a shared sense of belonging between hosts and guests, the over fifty-member delegation from NKUA got the opportunity to visit significant Cypriot landmarks, including the Imprisoned Graves, the Makedonitissa Tomb, and the Holy Monastery of the Virgin of Kykkos. They also took guided tours of the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia, the Kato Paphos Archaeological Park, and the Kourion site in Limassol District, and met with Mr Andreas Maimaridis, President of the Council of Historical Memory of the EOKA 1955-1959 Struggle (SIMAE). Finally, they visited the Camp of the Hellenic Force in Cyprus (ELDYK) and the National Guard Officers’ Club.

Heading the delegation during the first two days of the visit (25 and 26 March 2025) was the Rector of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Professor Gerasimos Siasos, who was already on the island as a guest of His Beatitude, the Archbishop of Cyprus, Mr Georgios, to deliver a panegyric on the 25^th of March 1821 at the Doxology of Thanksgiving at Panagia Faneromeni Church in Nicosia. Led by the Rector, the NKUA’s delegation was received by the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Mr Nikos Christodoulides, the President of the House of Representatives of Cyprus, Ms Annita Demetriou, the Archbishop of Cyprus, Mr Georgios, and the Ambassador of the Hellenic Republic to the Republic of Cyprus, Mr Ioannis Papameletiou.

Once again, the mixed choir of the Department of Music Studies at the NKUA’s School of Philosophy played an important role in the University of Athens’ educational expedition to Cyprus. Directed by Professor Nikolaos Maliaras, the choir gave highly successful musical performances at the Nicosia Municipal Theatre, the 1^st Lyceum of Paphos ‘Ethnarch Makarios III’, the occupied Municipality of Karavas, and the Municipality of Morphou. The choir’s repertoire drew from Cyprus’ rich traditional music, reimagined through fresh interpretations and refined aesthetics. It included sophisticated popular songs by renowned composers like Achilleas Lymbourides, stirring pieces inspired by the heroic EOKA Struggle (1955-1959), set to folk lyrics or to the verses of the martyred poet Evagoras Pallikarides, songs that stirred every Greek soul—and continue to do so, bitter denunciations of the Turkish invasion of 1974, and powerful laments for the occupied homelands of Kyrenia, Famagusta, and Morphou. Especially noteworthy was this year’s spectacular event commemorating the National Anniversaries of 25 March 1821 and 1 April 1955 under the unifying title ‘Struggles for Freedom’. The event, organized by the Cyprus Ministry of Education, Sport, and Youth under the auspices of the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Mr Nikos Christodoulides, and in the presence of the Cypriot Minister of Education, Sport, and Youth, Dr Athena Michaelidou, took place on 27 March 2025 at the Nicosia Municipal Theatre. There, the mixed choir of the Department of Music Studies of the NKUA’s School of Philosophy, the Cyprus Youth Symphony Orchestra, and members from the University of Cyprus Music Academy came together in a magnificent music programme featuring traditional songs of Cyprus, ancient Cypriot literature set to music, and tunes celebrating our national rebirth of 1821 and the anti-colonial struggle of 1955-1959.

Heading the delegation for the remainder of the visit was Professor Achilleas Chaldaeakes, Member of the NKUA’s Administration Council and Chairman of the ‘Committee for the Cultivation and Promotion of Relations Between the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and Cyprus’, as did his fellow members of the Committee, Professor Athanasia Smirniotou, Member of the NKUA’s Administration Council, Professor Grammatiki Karla, Director of the Laboratory of Cypriot Studies at the NKUA’s Department of Philology (School of Philosophy), Professor Emeritus Andreas Voskos, and Professor Nikolaos Maliaras from the NKUA’s Department of Music Studies. The delegation also included Professor Nikolaos Eriotis, Dean of the School of Economics and Political Sciences, Professor Pavlos Myrianthefs, Chair of the Department of Nursing, NKUA faculty members—Kirki Kefalea, Tzina Kalogirou, Athena Kalokairinou-Anagnostopoulou, Evmorfia Koukia, Polyxeni Mangoulia, Thomas Mavromoustakos, Giorgos Vavouranakis, Pantelis Stergiannis, Petros Galanis—as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled in programmes related to Ancient Cypriot Literature and Cypriot Archaeology.