The Greek community mourns the passing of Professor George Kanarakis, a distinguished academic who brought Greek-Australian literature and the history of the diaspora press to wider recognition through his seminal works “The Literary Presence of Greeks in Australia” and “The Greek Press in the Antipodes: Australia and New Zealand.”
Born in Piraeus in January 1936, Kanarakis studied Greek and English Philology at the University of Athens, followed by Teaching English as a Foreign Language in London, and Applied Linguistics at Indiana University in the United States as a Fulbright scholar. In 1974 he earned his PhD in Linguistics with distinction from the University of Athens.
Kanarakis moved to Australia in 1976, joining the faculty of the then Mitchell College in Bathurst, NSW, which later became Charles Sturt University. Over the following decades, he taught and researched extensively in Linguistics, Greek language, and community history. He also lectured at the University of Athens, La Verne University, Bridgewater State College in the US, among others.
His research, publications and lectures connected him with Greek communities across Australia, New Zealand, and beyond. His studies were published in Greek and English, as well as in Spanish and Polish, with his work circulating in Greece, Cyprus, Australia, the United States, Canada, Germany, Poland and Chile.
For his contributions to Greek letters in Australia and to Hellenic culture, Kanarakis was elected in 1994 to the International Academy of Rome for the Promotion of Culture. In 1999 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by Charles Sturt University. Three years later, in 2002, he received the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his services to education and the Greek-Australian community.
Through his writings and lectures, Professor Kanarakis became a reference point for the study of Hellenism in the Antipodes, documenting both the literary contributions of Greek Australians and the evolution of the community press. His work remains a cornerstone for understanding the cultural identity of the diaspora.
