Αλλαγή μουσικού προγράμματος 2 Ιουνίου

The Parnassos Literary Society was founded on June the 24th, 1865, by the four sons of numismatist Pavlos Lambros: Michael, Spyridon, Konstantinos and Dionysios.
The first seat of Parnassos was their father’s house. A few years later, the Society, despite the fact that its founders were still high school pupils, acquired a great renown, which was to a great extent due to the high social status of Pavlos Lambros. It was at his suggestion that the great Greek historian Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos, then rector of the Athens University, accepted to become Honorary President of the Society.
On March the 17th, 1875, Parnassos was recognized, by royal decree, as a legal person. During that first decade of its existence, the Society had already been linked to 80 scientific associations in Greece and abroad.

In the early years of the Society, a first kernel of its famous Library had already begun to take shape, thanks to various donations. The first ones to donate books, written by them or by others, were various literary men, such as Demetrios Koromilas, Spyridon Vassiliadis, Demetrios Paparrigopoulos, Alexandros Rizos Ragavis, Demetrios Vikelas, Aristoteles Valaoritis, Kostis Palamas and Andreas Laskaratos. In the beginning, the Library was scattered in various rooms and the books were not systematically registered. It developed normally only after the transference of the School to the building at Kantakouzinou Street; then all the back rooms of the ground floor of the central building were arranged accordingly, with big wooden racks, thus constituting the hospitable space of the Parnassos Library. The Library was inaugurated in great solemnity on December the 15th, 1935, which obviously incited several members of the Society to donate non only their writings, but also entire collections of books. We mention the donations of Nikolaos Levidis, Demetrios Petridis, Hippokrates Karavias, Georgios Kyparissis and Andreas Andreadis.

From the early years of its existence, the Society decided to organize literary contests in order to contribute to the development of Modern Greek literature. The older, but also the most short-lived was the Dramatic contest, that lasted from 1874 to 1877. Actually the Society organizes two contests: the Theatrical Contest “Kalokairineios” and the Literary Contest for Prose and Poetry.