Kalliroi Parren

Kalliroi Parren (; 1861 – January 15, 1940) launched the feminist movement in Greece and was a journalist and writer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Early life Born in Rethymno, Crete, to a middle-class family, Kalliroi Parren attained her primary education at the nun's school in Piraeus. She was very intelligent and knew many languages including Russian, French, Italian, and English. This was a publication run entirely by women and appeared initially as an 8 pg. weekly until 1908 when it changed to a bi-monthly that ran until early 1916. She did this for tactical purposes. It was affiliated with the International Council of Women.

In 1894 Parren founded the Union for the Emancipation of Women.

In 1896, she founded the Union of Greek Women. There was active involvement by the Union in collecting funds, sewing uniforms for soldiers, and training medical staff for the, short-lived, Greco-Turkish War of 1897.

Literary salon In addition to all of those initiatives she also ran a literary salon known as "literary Saturdays." She was friends with Juliette Adam, Gavriilidis, Jules Simon, Xenopoulos and the poet Kostis Palamas. Palamas even wrote a famous poem about her. She was a good friend with both women and men in her literary circles but if she ever felt that someone threatened her feminist interests then she would attack fearsomely. One such instance happened with Roldis, the father of Greek literary criticism, who provoked the famous "querelae over women writers" in 1893. The argument fed the Athenian press for months.

Novels In addition to publishing her newspaper and running the salon she also produced some novels. They were first published in her ladies newspaper under the pen name Maia. The response to them from the female audience was very enthusiastic. Her first novels were published in three subsequent volumes: I Hirafetimeni (1900; The Emancipated Woman), I Mayissa (1901; The Enchantress) and To Neon Symvoleon (1902; The New Contract). Together these books form a trilogy called Ta Vivlia tis Avyis (The Books of Dawn) and they were about the struggle of Greek women towards self-accomplishment and emancipation. The trilogy was well received and critics Grigorios Xenopoulos and Kostis Palamas spoke of it as providing a generous contribution to the development of the Greek social novel. In 1907 this saga reached a new level of popularity when it was adapted into a play called Nea Yineka (New Woman) which starred Marika Kotopouli who was one of the most famous dramatic actresses of the 20th century. In addition to this famous trilogy Parren also published To Maramenon Krinon (The Faded Lily) and Horis Onoma (Without a Name), which unfortunately has been lost since their initial creation.

Death

Parren died in Athens on January 15, 1940.