Xenophon Zolotas
Ξενοφών Ζολώτας
Zolotas in 1989
Prime Minister of Greece
In office
23 November 1989 – 11 April 1990
PresidentChristos Sartzetakis
Preceded byIoannis Grivas
Succeeded byKonstantinos Mitsotakis
Governor of the Bank of Greece
In office
27 November 1974 – 29 October 1981
Preceded byPanagotis Papaligouras
Succeeded byGerasimos Arsenis
In office
5 February 1955 – 5 August 1967
Preceded byGeorgios Mantzavinos
Succeeded byDimitrios N. Galanis
In office
12 October 1944 – 8 January 1945
Preceded byTheodoros Tourkovasilis
Succeeded byKyriakos Varvaresos
Personal details
Born
Xenophon Euthymiou Zolotas

(1904-04-26)26 April 1904
Athens, Greece
Died10 June 2004(2004-06-10) (aged 100)
Athens, Greece
Political partyIndependent
SpouseLola Zolotas (1923–2016)[1][2]
Alma materUniversity of Athens
Leipzig University
University of Paris

Xenophon Euthymiou Zolotas (Greek: Ξενοφών Ζολώτας; 26 April 1904 – 10 June 2004) was a Greek economist and served as an interim non-party Prime Minister of Greece.

Life and career

Born in Athens on 26 April 1904.[3][4] He graduated from Rizarios Ecclesiastical School in Athens.[5][6] Zolotas studied Law at the University of Athens, and later studied at the Leipzig University in Germany and the University of Paris in France.[7] He came from a wealthy family of goldsmiths with roots in pre-revolutionary Russia. In 1928 he became Professor of Economics at Athens University and at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, a post he held until 1968, when he resigned in protest at the military regime which had come to power in 1967. He was a member of the Board of Directors of UNRRA in 1946 and held senior posts in the International Monetary Fund and other international organisations in 1946 and 1981.

Zolotas was director of the Bank of Greece in 1944–1945, 1955–1967 (when he resigned in protest at the regime), and 1974–1981. He published many works on Greek and international economic topics. He was a Keynesian, and was active in socialist circles with his close friend, Professor Angelos Angelopoulos. He is also famous for demonstrating the contribution of Greek language to the English vocabulary by making English speeches, as he said, "using with the exception of articles and prepositions only Greek words", to foreign audiences.

When the elections of November 1989 failed to give a majority to either the PASOK party of Andreas Papandreou or the New Democracy party of Constantine Mitsotakis, Zolotas, then aged 85, agreed to become Prime Minister at head of a non-party administration until fresh elections could be held. He stepped down after the election of April 1990 which gave Mitsotakis a narrow majority.

He was a workaholic and an avid winter swimmer, making a point of swimming every morning throughout the year even into his nineties.

His book Economic Growth and Declining Social Welfare[8] advances the idea that in modern economic growth there is an increasing output of useless and even discomforting things, such as advertising. For that reason modern economic growth cannot be at all considered as creating conditions for further human happiness, a thesis quite in agreement with ideas by authors such as Richard Easterlin or Herman Daly.

Zolotas died on 10 June 2004 at the age of 100.[9][10] He is buried in the First Cemetery of Athens.

Speeches

Two of his speeches in English at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development are considered to be historic and notable because they contained mainly terms of Greek origin.[11] Here are the texts:

1957

I always wished to address this Assembly in Greek, but realized that it would have been indeed "Greek" to all present in this room. I found out, however, that I could make my address in Greek which would still be English to everybody. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I shall do it now, using with the exception of articles and prepositions, only Greek words.

Kyrie, I eulogize the archons of the Panethnic Numismatic Thesaurus and the Ecumenical Trapeza for the orthodoxy of their axioms, methods and policies, although there is an episode of cacophony of the Trapeza with Hellas. With enthusiasm we dialogue and synagonize at the synods of our didymous organizations in which polymorphous economic ideas and dogmas are analyzed and synthesized. Our critical problems such as the numismatic plethora generate some agony and melancholy. This phenomenon is characteristic of our epoch. But, to my thesis, we have the dynamism to program therapeutic practices as a prophylaxis from chaos and catastrophe. In parallel, a Panethnic unhypocritical economic synergy and harmonization in a democratic climate is basic. I apologize for my eccentric monologue. I emphasize my euharistia to you, Kyrie to the eugenic and generous American Ethnos and to the organizers and protagonists of his Amphictyony and the gastronomic symposia.

1959

Kyrie, it is Zeus' anathema on our epoch for the dynamism of our economies and the heresy of our economic methods and policies that we should agonize the Scylla of numismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic anaemia. It is not my idiosyncrasy to be ironic or sarcastic, but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather cryptoplethorists. Although they emphatically stigmatize numismatic plethora, they energize it through their tactics and practices. Our policies have to be based more on economic and less on political criteria. Our gnomon has to be a metron between political, strategic and philanthropic scopes. Political magic has always been anti-economic. In an epoch characterized by monopolies, oligopolies, monopsonies, monopolistic antagonism and polymorphous inelasticities, our policies have to be more orthological. But this should not be metamorphosed into plethorophobia, which is endemic among academic economists. Numismatic symmetry should not hyper-antagonize economic acme. A greater harmonization between the practices of the economic and numismatic archons is basic. Parallel to this, we have to synchronize and harmonize more and more our economic and numismatic policies panethnically. These scopes are more practicable now, when the prognostics of the political and economic barometer are halcyonic. The history of our didymus organizations in this sphere has been didactic and their gnostic practices will always be a tonic to the polyonymous and idiomorphous ethnical economies. The genesis of the programmed organization will dynamize these policies. Therefore, I sympathize, although not without criticism on one or two themes, with the apostles and the hierarchy of our organs in their zeal to program orthodox economic and numismatic policies, although I have some logomachy with them. I apologize for having tyrannized you with my Hellenic phraseology. In my epilogue, I emphasize my eulogy to the philoxenous autochthons of this cosmopolitan metropolis and my encomium to you, Kyrie, and the stenographers.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kalliroi “Lola” Ritsou Zolota
  2. ↑ "Έφυγε από τη ζωή η Λόλα Ζολώτα". 17 February 2016.
  3. ↑ "Ξενοφών Ζολώτας - Ιστορικοί Περίπατοι". Istorikoiperipatoi.gr. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
  4. ↑ "Ξενοφών Ζολώτας: Ο Σπερχειαδίτης πού έφτασε στην "κορυφή" της Ελλάδας καί της Ευρώπης :: Σπερχειός OnLine-Ενημέρωση Δυτικής Φθιώτιδας". Sperchios.com. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
  5. ↑ "Συνέντευξη του προέδρου του Ριζαρείου στην εφημερίδα "Δημοκρατία" (06/08/2013)". lyk-rizar.att.sch.gr. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
  6. ↑ "Δεν υποχωρεί η Εκκλησία στο θέμα της Ριζαρείου - Αντιδρούν οι Μητροπολίτες στην παρουσία μαθητριών". Dogma (in Greek). 16 October 2013. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
  7. ↑ Lentz, Harris M. (4 February 2014). Heads of States and Governments Since 1945. Routledge. p. 337. ISBN 978-1-134-26490-2.
  8. ↑ Zolotas, Xenophon. Economic Growth and Declining Social Welfare. New York: New York University Press, 1981.
  9. ↑ "Κυβέρνηση Οικουμενική Ξενοφών Ζολώτας Νοέμβριος 1989 - Απρίλιος 1990". Archived from the original on 18 March 2017. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
  10. ↑ "Former PM Xenophon Zolotas dies, aged 100 - Kathimerini". Ekathimerini.com. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
  11. ↑ Aspden, Peter (23 April 2010). "Outside Edge: It's all Greek to the bond markets". Financial Times. ISSN 0307-1766. Retrieved 2016-03-24.
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