1. Biography

Evanthia Kairi was born in Andros in 1799. Her father was Nikolaos Kairis, her mother Asimina Kambanaki and her brother Theophilos Kairis. Her brother, in Ayvalık, taught her Ancient Greek, French and Italian, as well as philosophy and higher mathematics. At the time she corresponded regularly with Adamantios Korais, while in 1817 she met the French writer and publisher Ambrose Firmin Didot, while he was visiting Theophilos Kairis in Ayvalık. In 1821, when the Greek War of Independence broke out, she returned together with her brother, Theophilos, to Andros, where she remained until the summer of 1824; she then followed her brother Dimitrios to Syros, where he became involved in commerce. In the summer of 1839, she returned to Andros again, where she remained permanently until her death (1866), because, as she wrote in a letter, she was extremely afraid of the sea.¹ She spent the last years of her life at her parental old house along with the family of her brother, Dimitrios. She often went to Aidonia of Korthion and spent some time with Michail Bistis, her brother’s father-in-law and mayor of Korthion (1863-1866).

2. Work

In Ayvalık, one year before the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence, Evanthia, urged by Korais, translated the work of J. N. Boilly Conseils à ma fille (Advice to My Daughter), and printed it at the printing house of the School of Cydoniae in 1820. In the elaborate introduction, she says that virtue and education, the principles of the Enlightenment, are necessary for the education of the women of her time. She also translated the work of Fénelon on the upbringing of girls, which was never published though, as well as the Eloge de Marc-Aurèle (Praise of Marcus Aurelius) by the poet and orator Α. L. Thomas, a member of the French Academy. On the other hand, she wrote a History of Greece, a work including biographies of ancient Greeks, with their busts engraved on copper at the beginning of each biography. She wrote her famous letter to all Greek and Philhellene women, which she published in 1825, in French and Greek. However, her most important work is the three-act drama Nikeratus, written and published in 1826, when Missolonghi fell, which refers to the events of the fall and the sortie. This play was translated in 1841 into Italian by the Italian scholar and revolutionary Severiano Fogacci from Ancona and has been repeatedly staged at the theatre of Ermoupolis in Syros.

3. Correspondence

Evanthia corresponded regularly with Adamantios Korais when she was in Ayvalık. While she was in Syros, she often communicated with her brother, Theophilos Kairis. During the last years of her life in Andros, she corresponded with Spyridon Glafkopidis (1818-1871), close friend and student of her brother, who had been sentenced together with him to imprisonment and was living in Manchester at the time. The letters of Evanthia Kairi, apart from the picture of the daily urban life in the Aegean in the 19^th century, echo the national ideas as well as the path-breaking views of a woman scholar of the Revolution. They also reflect the intellectual and actual loneliness of an intellectual obliged to live the dismal life of the unmarried women of her island.