author
Dionysios Solomos
1798–1857
A leading voice of modern Greek poetry, he is best known for writing the "Hymn to Liberty," whose opening stanzas became the national anthem of Greece. His work helped show the power and beauty of everyday Greek in literature.
1 Audiobook
Διονυσίου Σολωμού - Άπαντα τα Ευρισκόμενα
by Dionysios Solomos
About the author
Born on Zakynthos in 1798, Dionysios Solomos is widely regarded as Greece’s national poet. He studied in Italy and wrote some of his early poems in Italian before turning decisively to Greek, choosing the spoken language at a time when that choice carried real cultural weight.
His most famous work, Hymn to Liberty, was written in 1823 during the Greek War of Independence. The poem became deeply linked with Greek national identity, and its first two stanzas were later adopted as the national anthem of Greece; they also became the national anthem of Cyprus.
Solomos spent much of his later life in Corfu, continuing to work carefully on ambitious poems that were often left unfinished. Even so, his influence was lasting: he is remembered not only for patriotic verse, but for helping shape modern Greek literature through lyrical intensity, high artistic standards, and his faith in the expressive power of demotic Greek.