The library of historian Aikaterini Koumarianou

Aikaterini Koumarianou (1919-2012) was a historian specializing in Modern Greek studies. She completed her secondary education at the Marasleio School, where she had as teachers Rosa Imbrioti and Maria Polymehnakou, the first two female principals in Greek schools. She studied at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Athens and pursued postgraduate studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris (1969-1974). She obtained her professorship in Modern Greek Language and Literature at Sorbonne University, where she also served as Director (1978-1983) of the Institute of Modern Greek Studies. In addition to the Sorbonne, she taught as a visiting professor at the Law School of the University of Athens (Department of Political Science) and at the University of Cyprus (Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies). Her contributions to significant research fields for Greece were crucial. She studied the work of Adamantios Korais, the phenomenon of travel literature, Greek book production, and the relationship between European and Greek education. She was involved in the establishment of the Study Group for the Greek Enlightenment. Her name is particularly associated with the study of the Greek press: as early as 1971, she published a three-volume work on the “Press of the Struggle,” and in 2010, she released a new volume titled “The History of the Greek Press, 18th-19th Centuries.” Her work on the Greek press, covering the period from 1784 to the 20th century, has proven exceptionally valuable for studying the dissemination of ideas in Greece. She collaborated with the journals “O Eranistis” and “Epohes.” She was a member of many scientific societies and long served as president of the Hellenic Cartographic Society. Along with Loukia Droulia and Evro Layton, she published the important work “The Greek Book.” She also published several monographs and contributed articles and papers to numerous collective works.