Next week Melbourne will pay homage to Hellenism, with two major events direct from Greece. The Evzones return to Australia and an exclusive exhibition at Melbourne Museum, Open Horizons: Ancient Greek Journeys and Connections from the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
Greece’s granite, elite soldiers, the Presidential Guard, our Evzones, will parade across Melbourne, and attend the official opening of the exhibition.
The Greek minister of Culture Lina Mendoni will also attend the exhibition, on her first visit to Australia.
The Victorian premier Daniel Andrews announced the visit of the Evzones at a reception hosted by the Consul General of Greece for Melbourne, Victoria, Emmanuel S. Kakavelakis.
The Guard will take part in a series of commemorative events leading up to and around Anzac Day honouring those who fell in World War I, and those Anzacs who fought, and fell, in Greece during World War II.
Greeks and Australians fought shoulder to shoulder across many and bloody battles to defeat the Nazi occupiers of Greece.
Mr. Andrews recognised that former Minister for Health Jenny Mikakos initiated both programs as part of the scheduled bicentenary of the Greek Revolution of 1821 against the 400 year Ottoman colonial occupation.
However, the last two years of COVID-19, border restrictions, and no travel, cruelled the program and it is now, a year later, that Melbourne will revel in the ancient colours and pride of Greece.
On April 29, Open Horizons: Ancient Greek Journeys and Connections, an exclusive exhibition from the National Archaeological Museum of Athens in collaboration with Museum Victoria opens at the Melbourne Museum. The exhibition has objects dating back to the Mycenean world. It looks at how Hellenes traversed the known world as a Diaspora and connects our own community in Melbourne, to our ancient past.