Professor Pavlos Kalligas: Founder and First President of the Athens Club

To mark the 150^th anniversary of the Athens Club, founded in 1875, a celebratory event took place on 10 December 2025 in the Great Hall of the Archaeological Society at Athens.

The President of the Club, Colonel (ret.) Kyriakos Koukoulommatis, delivered a welcome address to over 700 attendees, including Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens, Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament Nikitas Kaklamanis, former Prime Ministers of Greece Konstantinos Karamanlis and Antonis Samaras, members of the former royal family of Greece, Members of the Greek Government, Members of the Hellenic Parliament, Members of the Academy of Athens, the Rector of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Professor Gerasimos Siasos, and former Rector and President of the Society for the Promotion of Education and Learning, Georgios Babiniotis.

The keynote address was delivered by Professor Gerasimos G. Zoras of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, who reflected on the historical legacy of the Athens Club and the prevailing cultural environment of the last quarter of the 19^th century, at the time of its creation. The speaker paid special tribute to Pavlos Kalligas (1814-1896), the first President of the Club and one of its founding members.

Prior to this role, Kalligas had been elected Professor at the School of Law, serving several times as Dean, and also as Rector of the University during the 1869-1870 academic year. Over the following decade, in the 1880s, he distinguished himself as an effective Member of Parliament; a far-sighted Minister (of Foreign Affairs, Justice, Education, and Finance); a capable Speaker of Parliament; a shrewd Governor of the National Bank of Greece; and a talented man of letters, author of the realistic social novel ‘Thanos Vlekas’, which depicts rural life and banditry in the early post-revolutionary period.