Apostolos Evangelou Vakalopoulos ( el, Απόστολος Ευαγγέλου Βακαλόπουλος; 11 August 1909 – 10 July 2000) was a distinguished Greek historian, specializing in the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

Ottoman Greece Most of the areas which today are within modern Greece's borders were at some point in the past part of the Ottoman Empire. This period of Ottoman rule in Greece, lasting from the mid-15th century until the successful Greek War of Independence t ...

, and in

modern Greek history The history of modern Greece covers the history of Greece from the recognition by the Great Powers — Britain, France and Russia — of its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1828 to the present day. Background The Byzantine Empire had ...

. Vakalopoulos has been described as one of the greatest Greek historians of the 20th century.

Biography

Apostolos Vakalopoulos was born on 11 August 1909, in

Volos Volos ( el, Βόλος ) is a coastal port city in Thessaly situated midway on the Greek mainland, about north of Athens and south of Thessaloniki. It is the sixth most populous city of Greece, and the capital of the Magnesia regional unit ...

, but grew up in

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...

, where his family had settled in 1914. He graduated from the newly established Philological Faculty of the

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

, and initially worked as a high school teacher in the 1930s. In 1939, Vakalopoulos completed his doctorate at the University of Thessaloniki, and began a tenure as lecturer at the university's Philological Faculty in 1943, eventually becoming a professor in 1951. Vakalopoulos continued in the same position until his retirement in 1974. Vakalopoulos was a founding member of the Society for Macedonian Studies in 1939, and a fixed presence in its board of governors. He also served as chairman of the Institute for Balkan Studies. Among numerous publications, the most well-known was his eight-volume ''History of Modern Hellenism'' series. Vakalopoulos died in Thessaloniki on 10 July 2000.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vakalopoulos, Apostolos 20th-century Greek historians 1909 births 2000 deaths Aristotle University of Thessaloniki alumni Academic staff of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Greek Byzantinists Historians of modern Greece People from Volos Writers from Volos Scholars of Byzantine history Herder Prize recipients