Modern Greek Studies Association

Tsakopoulos Hellenic Collection

California State University, Sacramento

History and Description

Comprising the holdings of the former Speros Basil Vryonis Center for the Study of Hellenism, this Collection of some 70,000 volumes was donated to Sacramento State as the Tsakopoulos Hellenic Collection in December 2002. The Vryonis Center was initially established in Los Angeles in 1985 by Dr. Speros Vryonis, Jr., a scholar of Byzantium and Ottoman Studies, in memory of his late son Speros Basil. This early collection formed the core of the Vryonis Center Collection that would in 1989 come to reside in Rancho Cordova, California. There the Collection was further enhanced under successive directors until its transfer to Sacramento State.

For more information, see "The Tsakopoulos Hellenic Collection at California State University, Sacramento: A Beacon of Hellenism in the Western United States," Journal of Modern Greek Studies 26:1 (2008) 19-27 (requires access to Project Muse to view on-line).

Strengths

An extensive collection of Byzantine and modern Greek history and literature found in only a few American universities, including signed editions.

Significant Greek and American government documents:

• Complete run of the Ephemeris tes Kyverneseos (Government Gazette) from 1833-1864 and 1885-1989 in combined print and microfilm formats
• Complete Praktika Voules (Acts of Parliament) from 1843-1983 in combined print and microfilm formats
• All available U.S. State Department files pertaining to Greece, Crete, and Cyprus on microfilm.
• The manuscript collection of Dr. Basil Vlavianos, publisher of the Greek-American newspaper Ethnikos Keryx (National Herald) from 1940-47
• The photographic archive of Costas Couvaras documenting the Greek resistance during World War II
• The complete set of Adamantios Korais' translations of Ancient Greek authors into modern intellectual Greek (katharevousa) dating between 1800 and 1820
• One of the earliest commentaries on Homer by the 12th century bishop Eustathius, published by Froben in 1559-1560; other rare books on Homer
• A variety of scarce nineteenth-century books and pamphlets published in Greece
• Most volumes of the Corpus Vasorum Graecorum
• Various editions of the Thousand and One Nights Tales
• Ottoman Turkish chronicles published in the 19th century
• Assorted seventeenth- to nineteenth-century travel accounts
• A sizable corpus of offprints