Elisavet Contaxaki

Elisavet Contaxaki (c. 1818–1879), also known as Elizabeth Contaxaki, was an ethnic Greek writer and political activist living in the Ottoman Empire. She is best known for her literary work Classical Bouquet, as well as for participating in the Cretan counter-revolutionary movement.

Biography Contaxaki was born around 1818 in the city of Chania in Crete. She and her family moved to Syros in 1824 during the war of Independence.

In the early 1850s Contaxaki produced a one-off volume containing hand painted artworks of Greek monuments and locations accompanied by historic quotations and translations of the same, along with plant specimens collected at the historic sites depicted in those illustrations. Classical Bouquet reflected Contaxaki's expertise in ancient Greek and European authors. The Smithsonian accepted the volume and in their Annual Report published in 1858 detailed the events surrounding its donation.

The political influence of Contaxaki began to fade in the late 1850s when Veley Pasha and the British Consul Ogley left Crete and Charles Spence left Greece. By the late 1870s she found herself in Constantinople living in poverty. She died in 1879 and her burial was paid for by the British Consulate.

Legacy Her volume and its impact continues to be studied. A one-day conference entitled The International Context of the Greek World in the 19th Century: Klassiki Anthodesmi, a “Classical Bouquet” was held in April 2016. Attendees studied the volume and the context around which it was created.