Milliex, Roger

Roger Millieux was born in 1913 in Marseille . He studied at the Faculty of Classical Philology and Philosophy at the University of Aix-en-Provence . He continued his studies at the Sorbonne . He was appointed a teacher in the city of Nogent-sur-Marne .

In 1936, Millieks arrived in Greece, appointed teacher of French language and literature at the French Institute in Athens . His acquaintance with Greek Orthodoxy was marked by a visit to Athos on Christmas Day 1937 and his friendship with the Orthodox intellectual T. Papatsonis and the Orthodox poet G. Veritis ^[1] . While working at the Institute, Millieks simultaneously published essays in Greek magazines. In 1939 he married the Greek Tatyana Gritsi , who later became a well-known journalist and writer. After the outbreak of World War II, in 1940 Millieks was mobilized by the French army and sent to Beirut . After the defeat of France, he returned to Athens . In October 1940, Greece was also involved in the war and, despite its victories over the Italians, in April 1941 was attacked by Hitler Germany and the ensuing triple, German-Italian-Bulgarian occupation. During this period, Millieks began to maintain contact with the Fighting France .

With the beginning of the occupation, Milliex often hid the Greek resistance fighters in the building of the French Institute. After a brief stay in France, in 1942 he joined the National Liberation Front of Greece - (EAM). During this period, he was friends with Rudolf Fahrner (Rudolf Fahrner), director of the German Institute in Athens ^[2] . The Greek Resistance, in addition to the People's Liberation Army of ELAS and other armed groups, was also represented by the wider Civil Liberation Front ( Greek National Liberation Front - EAM). Milliex witnessed a series of actions carried out by EAM in Athens, which had no precedent in other occupied capitals:

• from February 23, 1943, demonstrations were held throughout Greece against the intended civil mobilization and the sending of Greek workers to Germany. The culmination was the March 7 demonstration in Athens , when 300,000 Athenians took to the streets and after clashes with occupiers occupied the Ministry of Labor and burned lists. Several dozen demonstrators were killed, but civilian mobilization was foiled.
• March 25, 1943 300 thousand Athenians took to the streets on the anniversary of the War of Independence of 1821 . In clashes with the invaders killed 32 demonstrators.
• On June 25, 1943, after the next mass execution of 106 prisoners in Kurnovo, 100 thousand demonstrators occupied the center of Athens. In clashes with the invaders, 40 demonstrators were killed ^[3] .
• On July 22, up to 500 thousand people took part in the Demonstration against the expansion of the Bulgarian occupation zone . 53 demonstrators were killed but the expansion of the Bulgarian zone, in order to free German divisions to be sent to the Eastern Front, was frustrated.

Admired by the struggle of the Athenians, Millieks wrote that Athens was "the capital of European Resistance" ^[4] . In the last period of the war, Milliex, together with his wife, got to the south of France. Without forgetting about Greece, he initiated the publication of an album in honor of the struggle and victims suffered by the Greek people during the war. Andre Fougeron , Henri Matisse , Pablo Picasso , Francis Picabia and others took part in the publication of the Initiation of Greece 1940-1944 album. Milliex wrote about this album: “My mind was aimed at creating a written monument where the French express their admiration, which they silently experienced from 1940 to 1944, before the miracle that Greece was fighting. ”

In December 1945, and with the assistance of Milliex from France, the director of the French Institute, Octavius ​​Merlier, managed to get 140 scholarships from the French government to study in France, which were provided to young Greek intellectuals and scientists, among whom were Kastoriadis, Cornelius , Axelos, Costas , Svoronos, Nikos Makris, Memos , Manos Zaharias , Zenetos, Takis , Apostolidis, Margaritis , Kranaki, Mimika and others. Given the fact that after the December events of 1944 in Greece, terror was unleashed against people of political left beliefs, for many of these young people it was a saving opportunity to leave the country. For this purpose, Merlier and Millieks chartered the Italian vessel Mataroa, which left Piraeus for Taranto . Due to the leftist beliefs of many of the scholars, the reaction of the Greek official press and politicians was sharply negative ^[5] . Millieks was officially on vacation, and from August 1945 to June 1946, the Greek monarchist government denied him entry into the country. As deputy director of the institute, Millieks returned to Greece at the beginning of the Civil War , in 1946. In 1948, at the height of the war, he translated the EAM memorandum into French for submission to the UN.

The 50s of the 20th century, on the British island of Cyprus , were marked by the Greek Cypriot struggle for enosis (reunification of the island with Greece). However, as a result of British diplomacy, the island did not reunite with Greece and the Republic of Cyprus was proclaimed in 1959.

In the same 1959, Milliex was transferred to Cyprus, where after gaining independence by the island, he became a cultural attache at the French embassy and director of the French Cultural Center, which he himself created in November 1960.

At this place he remained until 1971. Meanwhile, in Greece itself in 1967 a military regime was established. An acute polemic between the Milliex couple against the dictatorship led to the fact that Tatyana Gritsi-Millieks was deprived of Greek citizenship.

Subsequently, in 2006, the children of the Milliex couple donated their parents' library to the University of Cyprus Library ^[6] .

In 1971, Roger Millieux was appointed director of the French Cultural Center in Genoa . He returned to Greece in 1975 after the fall of the dictatorship. In 1982 he became a corresponding member of the Athens Academy of Sciences , and in 1986 a member of the Academy of Marseille. Roger Mllleks died in Athens in 2006 and is buried in the First Athenian Cemetery ^[7] .

• Legion of Honor (Officer)
• Order of the Academic Palms
• Order of the Phoenix (Greece) (Grand Commander)
• Silver Medal of the Athens Academy of Sciences (1980)

• At the school of the Greek people ( A l'école du peuple grec (1940-1944). Ed. Du Beffroi, Vichy 1946).
• Franco-Greek studies. 1 Corais, Adamantios on French Culture. 2. Hugo, Victor , a true friend of Greece. ( Études franco-grecques. 1. Coray et la civilization française = Ο Κοραής για το γαλλικό πολιτισμό . 2. Victor Hugo, constant ami de la Grèce = Ο Βίκτωρ Ουγκώ, ένας φςλαθτλ français d'Athènes, 77).
• Mistral and Greece ( Mistral et la Grèce. L'Astrado, Toulon 1972).
• The Initiation of Greece ( Hommage à la Grèce 1940-1944. 1979).
• Tribute to the honor of Greece ( Φόρος τιμής στην Ελλάδα 1940-1944. 1980).
• Diary of War and Occupation in Greece and other evidence ( Ημερολόγιο πολέμου και κατοχής στην Ελλάδα και άλλες μαρτυρίες. 1982).
• Taygetos and silence (translated) (Ο Ταΰγετος και η σιωπή Μετάφραση :. Nikiforos Vrettakos, Nikiforos - Νικηφόρος Βρεττάκος Εισαγωγή Γεωργία Κακούρου-Χρόνη Δημόσια Κεντρική Βιβλιοθήκη Σπάρτης, Sparta in 1998...
• (Hrsg.) Chypre. Editions Nagel 1963. - Rez. von Charles Delvoye, L'Antiquité Classique 33, 1964, S. 277-278, (online) .
• L'Institut français d'Athènes, fils spirituel de l'École française. In: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 120, 1996, S. 69-82, (online) .
• Les universitaires et intellectuels de Grèce au service de la Résistance. Conférence de M. Roger Milliex (7 novembre 1945). Union française universitaire, Paris 1945.

• Εγκυκλοπαίδεια Πάπυρος Λαρους Μπριτάννικα, τ. 36
• Christophe Chiclet: Hommage à Roger Milliex (1913-2006). In: Confluences Méditerranée 4, 2006 (N ° 59), S. 189-190, (online) .
• Ελληνογαλλικά. Αφιέρωμα στον Roger Milliex για τα πενήντα χρόνια της Ελληνικής παρουσίας του = Mélanges offerts à Roger Milliex pour ses cinquante années de présence grecque. Εταιρεία Ελληνικoύ Λογοτεχνικoύ και Ιστορικoύ Αρχείου (Ε.Λ.IA) / = Societé des Archives Littéraires et Historiques Hélleniques (ELIA), Athen 1990.
• Δαμιανός Π. Κοκκινίδης: Βιβλιογραφία Roger Milliex 1939-1999. Ελληνικό Λογοτεχνικό και Ιστορικό Αρχείο (Ε.Λ.Ι.Α.), Athen 2000.

• Ροζέ Μιλλιέξ, ο Γάλλος λόγιος που έζησε και έδρασε σαν Ελληνας , Ιστοσελίδα Εφημερίδας Archived August 23, 2011. Circulation date 14 Απριλίου 2010.
• whoswho.fr: Roger Milliex
• Universität Zypern, Bibliothek: Τατιάνα Γκρίτση-Μιλλιέξ και Ροζιέ Μιλλιέξ (Roger Milliex)
• biblionet.gr: Milliex, Roger
• data.bnf.fr : Roger Milliex (1913-2006)
• ecclesia.gr: Εφυγε νέας σπουδαίος φιλέλλην