The president of the 2021 Committee of the Municipality of Aegina, Mr. Manolis Kottakis, speaking today to Aegina Portal, offered a first assessment of the work and activity of the committee. He also mentioned what the committee is programming for the coming period. https://www.aeginaportal.gr/aftodioikisi/epitropes/29687-o-manolis-kottakis-kanei-ena-proto-apologismo-tis-epitropis-2021-tou-dimou-aiginas-kai-parousiazei-ton-programmatismo-tis-epomenis-periodou.html On the occasion of the celebration of the arrival and swearing-in of Ioannis Capodistrias on our island, I want to give a briefing on what the Municipality of Aegina and the local committee for 2021 has done up to now, and what we are planning, bearing in mind that everything remains unsettled because of developments with the pandemic. “The Phoenix” on the numismatic programme of the 2021 National Committee. The committee started work in July 2020 and between then and now we have succeeded in having the “Phoenix”, the Greek State’s first coin included on the official numismatic programme of the 2021 National Committee. In this way our island attracted publicity through the “Phoenix” also, in all of Greece. The Capodistrian buildings on the television channel of the Parliament We also managed through the television channel of the Parliament to have an exceptional programme screened with participation from Mrs. Theologidiou, father Emmanuel Giannoulis and Giorgos Bitros, … Continue reading →

In 2012, through Greek Presidential Decree 7/31/1/2012, 26th January was proclaimed a Public Holiday of Local Significance (for the municipality of Aegina). This is the day when, following the decision of the Third National Assembly at Troezen, Ioannis Capodistrias was sworn in at the cathedral of Aegina in 1828 as modern Greece’s first governor. This decision, taken by the fighters of the Revolution in the face of opposition from the Great Powers, enabled Capodistrias and his government to embark on the mammoth task of organizing, from Aegina, the rebirth of Greece. Quite a few people, not all of them Aeginetans, (1, 2 [particularly from minute 12]) think that this day should not only be celebrated locally but that it should be instituted as a “national day”, given that this was the first modern Greek government not imposed by “foreign powers” but emerging directly out of the seven-year-long struggle for independence and the decision of the National Assembly at Troezen in 1827. Coincidentally, 26th January is Australia’s national day, but the day’s significance is controversial because it is the day that “European colonization” of Australia commenced with the establishment of a British prison at Port Jackson (today’s Sydney) in 1788. A … Continue reading →