Editorial

Lyssarides Honoured
Veteran politician and Honorary President
of EDEK, Dr Vassos Lyssarides, recently
exhibited some 80 paintings at the House of
Cyprus in Athens.
The opening of the exhibition took place
under the patronage of the President of Greece,
Karolos Papoulias, and speakers included the
Cyprus Ambassador to Greece, Yiorgos Yiorghis.
An album containing all the paintings on display
and Lyssarides’ accompanying poems
has been compiled and published by the Cultural
Services of the Ministry of Education
and Culture in collaboration with the Vassos
Lyssarides Foundation.
The album, as the Minister of Education and
Culture, Mr Pefkios Georgiades, pointed out
"aspires to show another aspect of the course
of Vassos Lyssarides, his creative performance
in the fields of poetry and painting".
The poetry of Vassos Lyssarides is Doric and
elegiac, charged with "a bitter, thoroughly
bitter, bitterness" as he himself writes, and
takes us to a world of metaphysical transcendence,
where the uncompromising and
ceaseless struggle emerges as the quintessence
and precondition of the vindication of every
being.
The Cypriot landscape is the protagonist in
his paintings and sketches, either with its
modest, low-roofed houses which serve as a
reminder of the human presence, or as nature,
sometimes calm and bathed in the Mediterranean
sunlight, sometimes harsh and intractable.
During his visit to Athens for the opening of
the exhibition, Lyssarides was also awarded
an Honorary Doctorate in Medicine at a special
ceremony at the University of Athens,
conducted by the Dean of the University, Dr
G. Bambiniotis. The ceremony was well
attended and the audience included the President
of Greece and the Ambassador of Cyprus
among other dignitaries.
Vassos Lyssarides with his wife, Barbara in the
garden of their house.
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