Eleftherios P. Alexakis in this paper published at the 1st International Conference of Kythera Studies (20-24 September 2000, ’Kythera: Myth and Reality«), deals with the formation of popular culture on the island of Kythera, as it is presented in the middle of our century and afterwards.
The study of folk culture in an island environment is of great interest as the geographical and ecological space presents particularities that are not found in other regions. Usually islands hold influences from the neighbouring mainland and the wider island area for a longer period of time, assimilating them perfectly into a single cultural and social system.
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Biography
Lefteris Alexakis comes from Laconia. He studied History and Archaeology with an IKY scholarship at the University of Athens (1962-1967) and Ethnology and Social Anthropology at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles (1968-1970). He received his PhD with honours from the University of Ioannina in 1980. Since 1974 he has been a permanent researcher and since June 1996 he has been research director at the Centre for the Study of Greek Folklore of the Academy of Athens. He is mainly concerned with the Greek kinship system and the Ethnology and Ethnohistory of the Balkan peoples. He has published many studies and has written the scripts of two ethnographic documentaries, which were broadcast by ERT. He is a member of several scientific societies and served as president of the Hellenic Society of Ethnology from 1992 to 1996 and from 1998 to 2000. He has taught as a visiting professor at the Department of History and Ethnology of the Democritus University of Thrace (1996-1997). He has also taught on assignment from the Department of “Introduction to Social Anthropology” to postgraduate students of Folklore at the University of Athens (1999-2000).
