At 11:00 on Wednesday, 5 January 2011, Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas and Culture & Tourism Minister Pavlos Geroulanos opened an exhibition of archival material belonging to Giorgos Dolianitis on “The Battle of Marathon: Timeless Standard of Heroism, Enduring Source of Inspiration”.
The exhibition was also participated in by Mr. Dolianitis, writer and holder of one of the most important collections of rare publications in Greece, who also presented the archival material.
This exhibition marking the 2500th anniversary of the Battle of Marathon was already held successfully in many cities abroad from 15 November to the end of December 2010, under the auspices of Greek diplomatic and consular Missions in the following cities: Vienna, Warsaw, Vilnius, Tel Aviv, Pretoria, Bratislava, Belgrade, Marseilles, Odessa, Bucharest, Luxembourg, Baku, Algiers, Zagreb, Cologne, Sarajevo, Ljubljana, Alexandria, Kinshasa, Berne, Yerevan, and Stockholm.
Exhibits include pages from old books and engravings focusing both on the manner in which international ideological currents of the 18th and 19th century (poetry, literature and arts) were inspired by the Battle of Marathon, but also on the historical evolution of the Marathon Course. The aim of this exhibition is to promote the importance of the Battle for world history and its effect on the modern Western civilization and, at the same time, promote Greece’s contemporary image as an integral part of its past.
The Battle of Marathon is a historical event which has become a world symbol for the values of freedom, democracy and virtue. It triggered the creation of the Athenian Republic and the start of the Golden Age on Athens, subsequently helping to shape the European culture. The political importance of the Battle was particularly pointed out and took on further symbolism and meaning, during the French revolution, the Enlightenment and the Romantic period. The Marathon course is our heritage, the only Olympic sport based on historical foundations named after a specific area, which has been turned into a way of life, with thousands of Marathons organized around the world.