Exhibition of diplomatic documents: “Latvia and Greece 1918-2018”

The Service of Diplomatic and Historical Archives of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in cooperation with the Embassy of the Republic of Latvia in Athens and with the support of the City of Athens Cultural, Sports and Lifelong Learning Organization, organizes an exhibition of diplomatic documents on the occasion of the completion of 100 years of relations between Greece and Latvia. The initiative for the exhibition, originally presented with great success in Riga last November, belongs to the Embassies of the two countries in the respective capitals, as well as to the Diplomatic Archives of the Greek and Latvian Foreign Ministries, which closely and successfully cooperate in several working groups of diplomatic archives at European and international level. The Latvian National Archives took over the scenario of the exhibition and its graphic depiction.

The exhibition is consisted of diplomatic documents from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the two countries, as well as from the Latvian National Archives. It highlights all aspects of Greek-Latvian relations as early as the first independence of Latvia in 1918. The research that was conducted by the Diplomatic Archives in order to set up this exhibition highlighted aspects of the history of the two peoples that few knew:  for example, the appointment of a Greek honorary consul in Riga in 1895, 23 years before the independence of Latvia, because of the city's importance as the “most commercial city” of the Empire after St Petersburg and Odessa, as the Greek Chargé d’Affaires in St Petersburg Alexandros Tombazis wrote to the Ministry when he proposed the creation of a consular authority there.

The exhibition will be held from 15-23 February at the “Melina” Cultural Center of the City of Athens (66 Herakleidon & Thessalonikis, Thissio, Keramikos Metro Station. Opening Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 10:00-20:00, Sunday 10:00- 14:00).

The building of the “Melina” Cultural Center, which housed the old Poulopoulos Hat Factory, is symbolically the ideal space for holding this exhibition, as Apostolos Poulopoulos (son of the founder of the factory Elias Poulopoulos and heir of the company) also served as honorary consul of Latvia in Athens in the 1930s.

The opening of the exhibition will be held on Friday 15 February, at 13:00.