Artists and Cultural Life

The growth of education in the closing decades of the 19^th century now began to bear fruit. Pupils from that time grew into the artists and intellectuals of the interwar years, while the Heraklion public's interest was maintained by European intellectual developments and concerns. The publication of books, periodicals and newspapers; literary evenings; academic lectures by figures such as Stephanos Xanthoudidis, Sir Arthur Evans and Menelaos Parlamas; associations and clubs, added to which was a notable batch of emerging authors, all justify terming the town a centre of culture. Beyond any doubt, the leading figure was Nikos Kazantzakis, who had at this time already set out on the road to nationwide and international acclaim.

In 1926 Stergios Spanakis took up his position as director of the Vikelaia Municipal Library, while in 1937 Nikolaos Stavrinidis, a scholar of Asia Minor extraction, was appointed head of the Municipality of Heraklion Turkish Archive, charged with the immense task of translating the rich archival material of unique import to the history of Crete.