Eva Palmer Sikelianos: A Life in Ruins
Cast of Characters
Abbe, Catherine (also Catherine Amory Bennett, Catherine Palmer) (1843–1920). Eva’s mother and a social activist who supported women’s suffrage and was a founding member and president of the City History Club of New York.
Abbe, Robert, Dr. (1851–1928). Eva’s stepfather, resident surgeon at St. Luke’s Hospital, New York. He was the first in America to use radium for treating cancer.
Antoniades (Anthony), Anne Gault (d. 1982). US foreign service officer in the American embassy after 1949 who oversaw Eva’s return to Greece in 1952 and became the executor of her estate.
Archbold, Anne Mills (1873–1968). Contemporary of Eva’s and heir to an oil fortune who lent the terrace of her Bar Harbor cottage for Eva to stage Swinburne’s Atalantain 1905.
Barker, Elsa (1869–1954). American editor and author of spirit-communicated literature best known for three books of Letters from a Living Dead Man (1914, 1915, 1919). She was Eva’s friend from 1938 to the end of Eva’s life.
Barney, Albert Clifford (1848–1902). Rich industrialist from Cincinnati who moved his family to Washington. The father of Natalie Clifford Barney, he left a large inheritance in 1902, which gave Barney the means to live freely.
Barney, Alice (Laura). See Dreyfus-Barney, Laura.
Barney, Alice Pike (1857–1931). Mother of Natalie Barney married to Albert Clifford Barney and a painter, director, and performer who worked to make Washington a center for the arts. She painted a portrait of Eva.
Barney, Natalie Clifford (1876–1972). Multimillionaire writer famous for her weekly salons and openly lesbian life. She met Eva in the 1890s in Bar Harbor and was her lover and collaborator until Eva married Angelos in 1907 and was friend her for life.
Benakis, Antonis (1873–1954). Collector and founder of the Benaki Museum who encouraged Eva to produce the second Delphic Festival, offering funding from Greek benefactors. His support of Eva contributed to the decision of the Benaki Museum to collect her papers and artifacts from the Delphic Festivals including her costumes.
Bernhardt, Sarah (1844–1923). French actor, part of Barney’s circle in the early 1900s who planned to stage Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande with Eva as Mélisande in New York City in December 1905, at Eva’s expense, but cancelled the event.
Burlin, Natalie Curtis (1875–1921). American ethnomusicologist and family friend of Eva’s whose study of Native American music (producing musical transcriptions in notation and on an Edison cylinder recorder) was an inspiration to Eva.
Buschor, Ernst (1886–1961). German archaeologist who directed the German archaeological institute in Athens from 1921 to 1929. He was skeptical of the Delphic revivals when Eva asked for his support but attended the 1927 festival and enthusiastically approved of her work from an archaeological standpoint.
Calvé, Emma (1858–1942). Famous French female opera singer of the belle époque who sang regularly at the New York Metropolitan Opera House and was a friend of Eva’s family. She and Eva corresponded and were frequently together from 1904 to 1905.
Campbell, Mrs. Patrick (1865–1940). British stage actress who auditioned Eva in 1903 and offered her an opportunity to act. Eva refused her condition that she cut ties with Barney and her circle in Paris.
Christie, Trevor (d. 1969). Travel writer and official for the Marshall Plan’s Travel Development Section who advocated for Eva and Angelos Sikelianos to take over the direction of the Greek “Home-Coming Year” in 1951.
Cleyrergue, Berthe (1904–97). Housekeeper of Natalie Barney from 1927 onward who welcomed Octave Merlier in 1969 and allowed him to take to Greece over six hundred letters from Eva’s correspondence to microfilm them for an archive and museum that he was creating.
Colette (Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette) (1873–1954). French novelist, actor, and journalist who was part of the circle of Natalie Barney in Paris in the early 1900s and performed with Eva in at least two plays.
Cook, George Cram (1873–1924). Classicist who studied at Harvard, became professor of English at the University of Iowa and at Stanford, and was a founding member of the Provincetown Players. He left for Greece with his wife, Susan Glaspell, in 1922 and died in Delphi in 1924. His efforts to organize communal theater at Delphi inspired the first Delphic Festival.
Cook, Nila (1908–82). Daughter of George Cram Cook who traveled to Greece in 1923 and met the Sikelianoses. Glafkos fell in love with her and followed her to the United States. She returned to participate in the first Delphic Festival and married Nikos Proestopolous, cousin of Angelos Sikelianos, then left him to become a follower of Gandhi.
Delarue-Mardrus, Lucie (1874–1945). Prolific French writer who was part of Barney’s circle in Paris in the early 1900s and wrote love poems to her.
Donnelly, Lucy Martin (1870–1948). Fellow student with Eva at Bryn Mawr College who became a professor of English. She corresponded with Eva over the years and offered editorial advice on Upward Panic in the 1930s.
Doolittle, Hilda (H. D.) (1886–1945). American poet and writer who studied Greek at Bryn Mawr College a few years after Eva and was fascinated with Greek literature all her life. She visited Greece in 1920 and recorded her own “Delphic vision.”
Dragoumis, Ion (1878–1920). Greek diplomat, writer, and intellectual whose efforts to find common ground among nationalism, socialism, demoticism, and an anti-Western stance fed Angelos’s imagination, especially after Dragoumis was assassinated in 1920 by Venizelists.
Draper, Ann Mary Palmer. Eva’s aunt, who left her $25,000 in 1914.
Dreier, Katherine (1877–1952). American artist and patron of the arts from Stonington, Connecticut, who introduced Eva to Ted Shawn.
Dreyfus-Barney, Laura (1879–1974). Sister of Natalie Barney who participated in some of her performances and handled her and her mother’s estates and legacies.
Duncan, Isadora (1877–1927). American dancer who revolutionized dance by making its movements seem more free and natural. She was especially drawn to Greek prototypes and traveled to Greece several times. She knew Eva from Barney’s circle in Paris and remained in intermittent contact until her death.
Duncan, Menalkas (1905–69). Son of Penelope and Raymond Duncan.
Duncan, Penelope Sikelianos (1882–1917). Sister of Angelos Sikelianos, married to Raymond Duncan in 1903, who met Eva in Paris in the spring of 1906 when Menalkas was an infant and invited her to Greece that summer. She died of tuberculosis in Davos.
Duncan, Raymond (1874–1976). Brother of Isadora Duncan, married to Penelope Sikelianos, who built the first loom on which he, Penelope, and Eva learned to weave. He was a craftsman, artist, choreographer, and performer who created several schools to teach a technique of living based on Plato’s Academy.
Fuller, Loie (1862–1928). American actor, dancer, and choreographer, who created the Serpentine Dance by combining twirling movements with long skirts and multicolored lighting. Her performance in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens in 1914 brought thousands of spectators.
Glaspell, Susan (1876–1948). American playwright, founding member of the Provincetown Players who traveled with George Cram Cook to Greece in 1922. After his death in 1924, she wrote The Road to the Temple (1926) as a tribute to him but neglected to mention Eva and Angelos, with whom they had spent extended time.
Graham, Martha (1894–1991). American modern dancer and choreographer, student of Denishawn, well known for choreographing pieces based on Greek mythology and especially tragedy.
Gryparis, Ioannis (1870–1942). Greek symbolist poet whose translation of Prometheus Bound into modern Greek was used in the Delphic Festivals.
Hambidge, Jay (1867–1924). Canadian artist and designer, author of the theory of dynamic symmetry based on principles found in Greek arts, who traveled with Mary Crovatt Hambidge to Greece in the early 1920s and met Eva.
Hambidge, Mary Crovatt (1885–1973). American performer who learned to weave from Eva during her trip to Greece with Jay Hambidge in the 1920s and created the Hambidge Center craft community in Rabun Gap, Georgia in the late 1930s. She helped Eva on many occasions, giving her housing and tending to her health.
Hamilton, Edith (1867–1963). Internationally known American author, translator, popularizer of classical texts, and educator who graduated from Miss Porter’s School and Bryn Mawr College. She and Eva corresponded from 1935 to the end of Eva’s life on drama, translation, and the significance of Greece for the modern world.
Harrison, Jane Ellen (1850–1928). Cambridge-educated British classicist who taught at Newnham College. She used archaeological evidence and anthropological methods to expose the more primitive, matrilinear roots of Greek culture beneath its classical surface. Eva’s work exhibits multiple connections.
Hatzfeld, Marie de, princess of Hohenlohe, Austria, “Baby” or “Bébé (?). American woman who became a princess of Austria and was Eva’s lover from 1903 to 1905.
Hatzimihali, Angeliki (1895–1956). Greek folklorist who organized the exhibit of handiwork at the Delphic Festivals and became Eva’s close friend. Eva stayed with her when she returned to Athens in 1952.
H.D. See Doolittle, Hilda.
Kalomiris, Manolis (1883–1962). Composer from Smyrna who founded the Greek national school of music. He accepted Angelos’s invitation to compose the music for the chorus Prometheus Bound, then yielded to Eva’s choice of Psachos.
Kanellos, Vassos (ca. 1895–1985). Greek dancer and choreographer who saw Isadora Duncan dance in Greece when he was a student at the School of Fine Arts and turned to creating Greek dance-drama. He and his wife, Tanagra, staged a mime-representation of the Septeria (the battle between Apollo and Python) as the closing event of first Delphic Festival.
Katsimbalis, Kalypso (d. 1920). Sister of George Katsimbalis, who fell in love with Angelos in 1918 and committed suicide in 1920 when he did not reciprocate.
Katsimbalis, Yiorgos (1899–1978). Greek literary critic who became Henry Miller’s guide in Greece and the hero of Miller’s book The Colossus of Maroussi.
Kazantzakis, Nikos (1883–1957). Greek writer of international fame and close friend of Angelos from 1914 to 1922. They traveled together to sites of religious or spiritual significance in Greece. They cut ties in 1922 over cultural and political differences.
Lounsbery, Grace Constant (1876–1974). American playwright who crossed paths with Eva at Bryn Mawr College, graduating in 1898. She was part of Eva’s circle in the early 1900s, and the two corresponded throughout life.
Magnus, Maurice (1876–1920). An American author and traveler who was briefly Isadora Duncan’s manager and followed her to Greece in 1915. He escorted Penelope Sikelianos to a sanatorium in Davos and paid her expenses.
Merlier, Octave (1897–1976). French scholar of Greek literature and director of the French Institute in Athens from 1938 to 1960. He married ethnomusicologist Melpo Logotheti and came to know Eva through their shared musical interests. In the 1960s and 1970s he worked to create an archive and museum of the Delphic Festivals.
Miller, Henry (1891–1980). American prose writer who traveled to Greece in 1939 and wrote The Colossos of Maroussi about his time there with George Katsimbalis, George Seferis, and Lawrence Durrell. He nominated Angelos Sikelianos for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946.
Mistriotis, Georgios (1840–1916). Professor of ancient Greek at the University of Athens and founder of the Society for the Instruction of Ancient Greek Dramas, supporting the performance of Greek drama in ancient Greek. His students protested a production of the Oresteia in 1903 and inspired Isadora Duncan’s staging of the Suppliants.
Mitropoulos, Dimitris (1896–1960). Greek composer and conductor of world fame who met Eva when he was a student at the Athens conservatory. He composed music for several of Angelos’s poems while staying with the Sikelianoses in Sikya the summer of 1924.
Mumaw, Barton (1912–2001). American dancer and choreographer who joined Denishawn and later Shawn’s Men Dancers. He was leader of chorus of The Persians choreographed by Shawn and Eva and later incorporated Greek dances in his Carnegie Hall solo debut in April 1941.
Naoroji, Khorshed (b. 1893). Granddaughter of Dadabhai Naoroji from Bombay, who studied piano at the Sorbonne University in Paris. She traveled to Greece with Eva in 1924 to study Byzantine music, then, returning to India, joined Gandhi’s movement.
Nikolaidis, Nikos (Nord, Paul) (1899–1981). Greek poet, journalist, and publisher credited as the English translator of Angelos’s Akritan Songs.
O’Neill, Eugene (1888–1953). Major American playwright connected with the Provincetown Players. He was Eva’s assignment officer for the Federal Theatre Project from 1936 to 1937.
Orozco, Jose Clemente (1883–1949). Mexican muralist who painted Prometheus at Pomona College. Eva promoted his work in her Delphic Studios, a gallery she set up on Washington Square, Manhattan, in 1928 with Alma Reed. Orozco painted her portrait.
Palama, Nausika (b. 1890s). Daughter of Kostis Palamas who had an affair with Angelos from 1915 to the mid-1920s.
Palamas, Kostis (1859–1943). Major Greek poet, father of Nausika, who promoted Sikelianos’s work. International reports of his funeral during the German occupation in February 1943, at which Angelos had given a stirring eulogy, inspired Eva to publish an article in the American literary magazine Athene on Angelos’s work.
Palmer, Catherine. See Abbe, Catherine.
Palmer, Courtlandt, Jr. (1871–1951). Eva’s brother and a concert pianist and composer. He studied with Ignacy Paderewski and had a concert career.
Palmer, Courtlandt, Sr. (1843–88). Eva’s father, heir to a fortune made in the hardware business and real estate. He was trained as a lawyer but occupied himself with public matters. Progressive in his politics and a freethinker, he was the founder and president of the Nineteenth-Century Club, a debating society that met in his home in Gramercy Park.
Palmer, May Suydam (1872–1940). Sister of Eva and a painter. She lived from the early 1900s to the late 1930s with her brother Courtlandt in Europe.
Palmer, Robert (1867–1927). Eva’s oldest brother. He lived a life of leisure in France until his wife Marion had him committed for alcoholism, physical abuse, and insanity in 1910.
Pasagianni, Eleni Sikelianou. See Sikelianou, Eleni.
Pasagiannis, Kostis (1872–1933). Greek writer and travel essayist, brother of Spelios, who encountered Eva Palmer when she first arrived in Athens. His sister Falitsa was in love with Angelos around 1906.
Pasagiannis, Spelios (1874–1910). Greek writer and judge, brother of Kostis and Falitsa, who was married briefly to Eleni Sikelianou and performed in Nea Skini.
Pratsika, Koula (1899–1984). Dancer and choreographer who studied with Mary Wigman and became an influential figure in Greece. She was the leader of the chorus of Oceanides Prometheus Bound at the Delphic Festivals and “high priestess” in the first Olympic torch-lighting ceremony at ancient Olympia in 1936.
Proestopoulos, Nikos (1899–1968). Greek writer and translator who was Angelos Sikelianos’s cousin and married briefly to Nila Cook. He sought to take possession of Eva’s home in Delphi after her death.
Proestopoulou, Katina (?). Cousin of Angelos, sister of Nikos Proestopoulos who was a servant in the Sikelianos house and Angelos’s mistress for many years.
Psachos, Konstantinos (1866–1949). Professor of Byzantine music at the Athens Conservatory who became Eva’s teacher and wrote the music for the choruses of Prometheus Bound (1927) and the Suppliants (1930) performed in the Delphic Festivals. Eva supported his scholarly work and efforts to preserve and teach Byzantine music.
Raftopoulou, Bella (1902–92). Greek sculptor and artist whose copies of poses and gestures from ancient Greek art gave Eva the expressive language for her choreography of plays at Delphi.
Reed, Alma (1889–1966). American journalist who supported the Delphic Idea briefly, translating part of Angelos’s work and running with Eva a small gallery and salon in an apartment they shared in Manhattan in the late 1920s, which they called an “ashram” in honor of Mahatma Gandhi.
Robeson, Paul (1898–1976). American actor and bass-baritone singer, part of the Harlem Renaissance. As a political activist, he corresponded with Eva in the 1940s about their shared criticism of US foreign policy. She planned to stage Prometheus Bound with him as Prometheus.
Seferis, George (Yiorgos Seferiadis) (1900–1971). Greek diplomat and modernist poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963. He sent Eva a copy of Angelos’s Akritika in March 1944, asking her to translate and circulate it in a bilingual Greek-English publication.
Shawn, Ted (1891–1972). Pioneer dancer and choreographer. After the breakup of Denishawn, his school and troupe with Ruth St. Denis, he formed the Men Dancers and founded a performance center at Jacob’s Pillow. He collaborated with Eva from 1939 to 1941 with the intention to produce singing and dancing choruses following the techniques of Greek drama.
Sikelianos, Angelos (1884–1951). Greek poet and playwright whose work explored national and spiritual matters. He spearheaded the revival of the Delphic Festivals. He was married to Eva Palmer (1907) and Anna Karamanou (1940).
Sikelianos, Eleni (b. 1965). American poet and professor of creative writing at Brown University, great-granddaughter of Eva and Angelos Sikelianos and literary executor of Eva Palmer Sikelianos.
Sikelianos, Frances. See Waldman, Frances Lefevre.
Sikelianos, Glafkos (1909–ca. 1994). Son of Eva and Angelos, father of Mark (Brastias) by his first wife, Frances Lefevre, and, by his second wife, Marion Tryon, father of Chris, John, Melitsa, and Poppy, and grandfather of Eleni Sikelianos. He worked as a boat builder and designer and in the merchant marine.
Sikelianos, Ioannis (1831–1910). Father of Angelos and his siblings, Hector, Menelaos, Eleni, and Penelope. He was a high school teacher of French at the gymnasium of the town of Leukas.
Sikelianou, Anna Karamanou (1901–2006). Second wife of Angelos Sikelianos, who married him in 1940, survived him for more than half a century, and lived by managing his literary estate and weaving and selling her goods. She reportedly asked that Eva Sikelianou’s papers in the Center for Asia Minor Studies be inaccessible to the public until 2020.
Sikelianou, Eleni (Pasagianni, Eleni; also Hélène and Helen) (?). Sister of Angelos, briefly married to writer Spelios Pasagiannis. She acted in the troupe Nea Skini and in Raymond Duncan’s Electre.
Sikelianou, Harikleia Stefanitsi (1847–1926). Mother of Angelos and his siblings and wife of Ioannis. She received a good education in the Arsakeion girl’s school and encouraged education in her household. She is buried in Delphi next to Eva.
Sikelianou, Penelope. See Duncan, Penelope Sikelianos.
Strauss, Richard (1864–1949). Major German composer known especially for his operas and songs. He stayed with Eva and Angelos in their house in Delphi during his visit to Greece with his architect Michael Rosenhauer in 1926, when they were searching for a place to build an opera house.
Tagore, Rabindranath (1861–1941). Bengali writer, composer, and artist who became the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913). He knew the Sikelianoses through Khorshed Nairoji and likely met them during his trip to Greece in 1926. His ideas shaped Angelos’s vision to create a center of international scope at Delphi.
Tarn, Pauline. See Vivien, Renée.
Thomas, M. Carey (1857–1935). Scholar of English, feminist, and president of Bryn Mawr College from 1894 to 1922. She admitted Eva in 1896, suspended her in 1898, and was present when she directed the Bacchae with students in 1935.
Vanderpool, Joan Jeffrey (1910–2003). Photographer of archaeological excavations in Greece who married archaeologist Gene Vanderpool and settled permanently in Greece in the 1930s. Eva used her English translation of The Persians and corresponded with her.
Venizelos, Eleftherios (1864–1936). Liberal politician who was elected prime minister of Greece eight times and between 1910 and 1920 and 1924 and 1933, clashing with the monarchy on several occasions. He and his wife, Helena Schilizzi, a major benefactor of Greece, were friends of Eva and supported the second Delphic Festival.
Vivien, Renée (born Pauline Mary Tarn) (1877–1909). British poet who wrote decadent verse in French. She translated Sappho and wrote about lesbian desire, including her relationship with Barney. Eva introduced her to reading Greek in 1900 and was a model for at least one character in her work.
Waldman, Anne (b. 1945). American poet in the tradition of the beat poets and Walt Whitman and the daughter of Frances and John Waldman. In her early life, she knew Eva and shared memories of her on many occasions.
Waldman, Frances Lefevre (b. 1910). First wife of Glafkos and mother of Brastias (Mark), then Carl and Anne by her second husband, John Waldman. She assisted Eva with preparations for the second Delphic Festival, weaving and making masks, and remained close to her. She is the translator of Angelos’s Dithyramb of the Rose and Border Guards (a translation of the Akritika).
Yardley, Virginia Greer (1878–1971). A modernist painter from Delaware who fell in love with Eva at Bryn Mawr College and visited her in Greece in 1906. She lived and painted in Europe for nearly three decades and corresponded with Eva for several years.