Anna Apostolaki

Anna Apostolaki was born in 1880[1] in Margarites, in the Rethymno province, on the island of Crete, then a part of the Ottoman Empire and now of Greece.[2][3] Her father was originally from the area near Eleutherna.[3] Regional uprisings against Ottoman rule caused her family to flee to Piraeus and then to Athens.[2] She completed her primary education in the Arsakeio,[3] and then enrolled in the Normal School of Athens,[1] one of the few occupations available to women in the 19th century, graduating in 1899.[2]

Apostolaki began her career as a teacher, tutoring other students while she pursued her own educational aspirations.[2][3] In 1903, she entered the University of Athens studying in the Philosophical School.[1][2] Simultaneously, she began working at the Numismatic Museum of Athens as an assistant to Ioannis Svoronos, who mentored her education and helped her develop a dedication to scientific investigation.[2] Under Svoronos' guidance, she became the first woman admitted to the Archaeological Society of Athens in 1906.[2][4] In 1909, she became one of the first ten women to graduate from the University of Athens, and the first woman from Crete to earn a degree.[2] Headlines in women's newspapers like the Ladies' Gazette proclaimed the accomplishment of Apostolaki's completion of her doctorate.[2][5] That same year, she became the first woman to join the Greek Folklore Society, which had been founded by Nikolaos Politis and began giving lectures on folk culture.[2]

Turmoil in the first part of the 20th century and World War I, placed many historic sites in jeopardy. Apostolaki, concerned about their deterioration and preservation, joined the Christian Archaeological Society, as one of its first members. She also became one of the Board Members of the Lyceum Club of Greek Women, founded by Kalliroi Parren. While still tutoring, she took on additional tasks as an advisor to the Department of National Wardrobe. In this role, she was responsible for disseminating information on the preservation on national customs, which allowed her to develop contacts with people like poet Georgios Drossinis and archaeologist Georgios Kourouniotis, who were also interested in cultural preservation.[3] Intellectuals like these strove to boost national pride by linking contemporary cultural practices with ancient Greek culture,[2] through evaluating and comparing the archaeological record of ancient, medieval and modern artifacts.[6] Apostolaki was particularly interested in increasing the visibility of women's participation in society, and along with Angeliki Chatzimichali, Eleni Euclid, and Lucia Zygomala, among others, worked to collect women's handicrafts and exhibit them.[7]

Women's clubs in Greece at the time were organized by wealth urbanites who set up regional schools for the poor and refugee populations. A part of these schools were focused on the training of girls in handicrafts. Apostolaki was engaged in these clubs and developed an interest in the various patterns which showed a continuous use of artistic motifs from the Byzantine period to the present day.[8] She worked on projects with the Lyceum Club to focus attention on Greek contributions, rather than mirroring trends in fashion, which replaced Greek design with foreign elements.[9] Collecting woven goods and lace, she helped organize three exhibitions—1921, 1922 and 1924—for the Club.[10]

After the conclusion of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, Drossinis, a member of the Board for the Museum of Greek Handicrafts helped reorganize the museum as the National Museum of Decorative Arts and in 1923 hired Apostolaki as his assistant. Initially she began her work by hand-washing all the fabrics, removing the moths, and cataloguing the textile collection,[2] which consisted of woven fabrics from the 4th to the 7th century.[3] She then worked to acquire both contemporary and ancient archaeological artifacts, traveling to remote villages in Crete and other places by mule to collect embroidery samples, as well as costumes.[2] Apostolaki helped the Lyceum Club prepare an exhibit of Greek textiles as part of the 1925 meeting of the Little Entente of Women.[11] In 1926, she was made curator of the museum and arranged a display of Minoan apparel for the cultural festival hosted that same year by the Lyceum Club of Greek Women at the Panathenaic Stadium.[2] Arranging the exhibition for a 1927 demonstration of the Lyceum Club, Apostolaki's invitation to potential exhibitors stressed the importance of Greek themes, but announced that submissions could include beadwork, musical instruments, pottery, wooden artifacts and weavings.[12]

In 1932, Apostolaki published her catalogue of Coptic textiles, Τα κοπτικά υφάσματα του εν Αθήναις Μουσείου Κοσμητικών Τεχνών (The Coptic Fabrics of the Athenian Museum of Greek Handicrafts), evaluating the continuity of weaving techniques from ancient to modern looming processes.[2][3] The book was one of the first texts published internationally dealing with weaving and the only one at the time in the Greek language.[3] Her expertise in dying techniques, textile history and weaving led Antonis Benakis, the director of the Benaki Museum to ask her to evaluate and publish on the Benaki's textile collection.[2] Her analysis of the Benaki's collection was published in 1937 in the centenary issue of the "most important archaeological journal" in Greece, Archaiologiki Ephimeris.[13] During World War II, to prevent Nazi looting, the exhibits of the Museum of Greek Handicrafts were hidden in the National Archaeological Museum. In 1944, her home was raided and her manuscripts were confiscated. All that remained of her work was the three books and eleven articles which had been published,[2] which included analysis of Persian and Sassanid Persian folk art.[14] Having gained an international reputation, in 1950, she was induced by Thomas Whittemore, to write an essay, Κατοπριζομένη επί Υφάσματος (Mirrored in Fabric) for the Byzantine Institute of America on Coptic textiles.[2] She retired from the Museum in 1954,[4] but continued working on texts regarding Cretan embroidery until her death.[1]

Apostolaki died in the summer of 1958 and is remembered as one of the first scientists to evaluate and classify the history of Greek textiles.[1] In 2015, the Public Library of Rethymno, in conjunction with the Lyceum Club of Greek Women and the Benaki Museum, hosted a workshop on Apostolaki and her works, simultaneously exhibiting some of them. The purpose of the workshop was to increase recognition for Apostolaki and raise funds to publish her manuscript on Cretan embroideries.[3]

• Λεύκωμα της εκατονταετηρίδος της Εν Αθήναις Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας [Centennial Album of the Athens Archaeological Society 1837–1937]. Athens: Αρχαιολογική Εταιρεία. 1937. p. 76.