Artists and Cultural Life
The growth of education in the closing decades of the 19th 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.





1913  |  1915  |  1918  |  1922  |  1924  |  1925  |  1926  |  1928  |  1929  |  1931  |  1932  |  1934  |  1935  |  1936  |  1938  |  1939  |  1940
Business premises of Spyros D. Alexiou, 1937 (Xenophontas K. Limnios Digital Archive, Historical Museum of Crete, © S.C.H.S, Heraklion)
Front cover of a botany textbook used in grades 3 and 4 of primary school, 1940 (Xenophontas K. Limnios Digital Archive, Historical Museum of Crete, © S.C.H.S, Heraklion)
Textbook on the geography of Crete (Xenophontas K. Limnios Digital Archive, Historical Museum of Crete, © S.C.H.S, Heraklion)
Receipt for fees paid to the Korais Secondary School, 1939 (Xenophontas K. Limnios Digital Archive, Historical Museum of Crete, © S.C.H.S, Heraklion)
The Placide sisters with pupils at the French Convent in Heraklion, 1930 (Historical Museum of Crete, © S.C.H.S, Heraklion)
1913
1915
1918
1922
1924
1925
1925
1925
1926
1926
1928
1929
1931
1931
1932
1934
1935
1936
1936
1936
1938
1938
1939
1940