Capodistrias Museum Podcasts

The Story behind a Portrait. A Talk by Jonathon Bond

During 2022, the Capodistrias Museum exhibited the unique facsimile copy of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s 1818 painting, John, Count Capo d’Istria (1776-1831) commissioned by the Rothschild Foundation to celebrate the bicentenary of the Greek Revolution. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s 1818 Waterloo Chamber portrait of Capodistrias captures with artistic brilliance a forgotten liberal European statesman at the height of his diplomatic powers, at exactly the moment when Russia’s Joint Foreign Minister was making his most significant contribution towards securing the post-Waterloo European political settlement. Capodistrias’ dramatic career encompassed many of the themes of national independence, European solidarity and the balance of power in Europe that are still being hotly debated two hundred years after his assassination. The Rothschild Foundation commissioned the Factum Foundation - worldwide experts in creating copies of works of art - to create a facsimile copy of this magnificent portrait to be gifted to Greece. The facsimile was first presented in 2021 at the Benaki Museum in Athens in the exhibition '1821 before & after' and then, in 2022, at the Capodistrias Museum in Corfu in the exhibition 'John, Count Capodistrias'. Jonathon Bond paints is this episode a vivid image of the artist, the sitter and the circumstances that brought them together and of the portrait's contemporary commission. About Jonathon Bond:  Oxford University, business career in Management Consultancy and Investment, with a focus on ethical investing and sustainability. Was recently chair of green cleaning specialists Ecover Method and a board member at Jupiter Fund Management, Scottish Widows and Grosvenor. Has owned an 18th century property in Corfu since 2014 when he started researching the diplomatic career of Ioannis Capodistrias.

The Greeks, the Empires, and the Greek Revolution: Three Ionian Lives, 1797-1830. A talk by Yanni Kotsonis

The Greeks, the Empires, and the Greek Revolution: Three Ionian Lives, 1797-1830 On this episode our guest-speaker Dr. Kotsonis Yiannis,Professor of History & Russian & Slavic Studies at the New York University USA, wonders who were the Greeks before the foundation of modern Greece? In this talk dr. Kotsonis explores the lives of three men, active in the Ionian Islands during the late 18th & early 19th century : Giorgio Ciolly, Nicolas Papasoglu, and Ioannis Capodistrias. These three men were children of the empires and traveled the world as Venetians, Frenchmen, Ottomans, Mamelukes, Egyptians, and Russians. Only one lived long enough to become Greek. Yanni Kotsonis is a Professor of History & Russian & Slavic Studies, NYU, USA. Raised in Athens and educated in Montreal, Copenhagen, London, and Moscow. His first position was at the University of Essex before moving to NYU where he teaches on Russia, the USSR, economic thought, and dystopianism and supervises doctoral students in a variety of subfields. He is the founding director of the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia and father to three children. Winner, Wallace K. Ferguson Prize, 2015, Canadian Historical Association for the best book in a topic outside Canadian history, for States of Obligation. Winner, Ed A. Hewett Book Prize for an outstanding monograph on the political economy of Russia, Eurasia, and/or Eastern Europe, for States of Obligation. The Capodistrias Museum mini-lectures series was commissioned by the Friends of the Capodistrias Museum Association, as part of their 2021 initiatives in support of the Capodistrias Museum, with the aim to bring together speakers who touch upon early 19th European History in ways which relate to the life and legacy of Ioannis Capodistrias and this year's bicentennial celebration of the 1821 Greek Revolution. Special thanks to all our guest-speakers, Alexander Martin, Korinna Schönhärl and Yanni Kotsonis who generously participated in the series, to the series curator, Ada Dialla and series production coordinator, Eleni Stambogli. If you want to listen to more episodes you can follow Capodistrias Museum on spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3A5AnXmHDZML350y5QEkN6] or visit our website at capodistriasmuseum.gr [https://www.capodistriasmuseum.gr/]

The Swiss banker Jean Gabriel Eynard and Greece. A talk by Korinna Schönhärl

The Swiss banker Jean Gabriel Eynard and Greece.  On this episode our guest-speaker Dr. Schönhärl Korinna, Substitute Professor at the KIT Karlsruhe, Germany focuses on the Swiss banker Jean-Gabriel Eynard who was one of the leading figures of international philhellenism from the second half of the 1820s until his death in 1863. Eynard provided Greece both with investment and with valuable ties to his international diplomatic network. Through much of his career, Eynard prioritized his beloved Greece and invested much energy and effort in mentoring the country both financially and ideologically. This close relationship to the country calls for explanation, because Eynard neither enjoyed a classical education nor had any personal ties to Greece before 1825 – with one exception: Ioannis Capodistrias, whom Eynard first met at the Congress of Vienna, in 1814, when Capodistrias was a diplomat in the service of the Russian czar. Korinna Schönhärl is a Substitute Professor at the KIT Karlsruhe. She qualified as a Professor of Modern History (University Duisburg-Essen) with her postdoctoral thesis on European investment in Greece in the 19th century (European Investment in Greece in the Nineteenth Century. A Behavioural Approach to Financial History, 2020). Schönhärl holds a PhD from Goethe-University Frankfurt (Knowledge and Visions. Politics and theory of the economists around the poet Stefan George, Akademie 2008). Further research foci are the history of economic thought, moral economics and historiographic methodology. Her current research project at Goethe University Frankfurt is entitled “International cultural history of tax morale” and compares discourses on tax paying behaviour in Western Germany, Spain and the USA after 1940. The Capodistrias Museum mini-lectures series was commissioned by the Friends of the Capodistrias Museum Association, as part of their 2021 initiatives in support of the Capodistrias Museum, with the aim to bring together speakers who touch upon early 19th European History in ways which relate to the life and legacy of Ioannis Capodistrias and this year's bicentennial celebration of the 1821 Greek Revolution. Special thanks to all our guest-speakers, Alexander Martin, Korinna Schönhärl and Yanni Kotsonis who generously participated in the series, to the series curator, Ada Dialla and series production coordinator, Eleni Stambogli. If you want to listen to more episodes you can follow Capodistrias Museum on spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3A5AnXmHDZML350y5QEkN6] or visit our website at capodistriasmuseum.gr [https://www.capodistriasmuseum.gr/]

Greece, Russia, and the West: a complex relationship. A talk by Dr Alexander Μ. Martin

Greece, Russia, and the West: a complex relationship On this episode our guest-speaker Dr. Martin Alexander, Professor of History at the University of Notre-Dame, gives us an insight into the 19th century balance of power in Europe, focusing on the invention of modern politics and the contribution of Ioannis Capodistrias as a Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire, under the advice of his principal adviser Alexander Stourdzas. In Stourtzas’s discussions with Capodistrias, we see some of the origins of the complex relationship between Greece, Russia, and the West in the modern era. Alexander Μ. Martin is a Professor of History at University of Notre Dame. His research focuses on Imperial Russia between the mid-18th and mid-19th century. His first monograph was an intellectual and political history: Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries, a study of Russian conservatism in the era of the Napoleonic Wars. His second was an urban history: Enlightened Metropolis, a book that explores the transformation of Moscow into a modern city from the perspective of social, intellectual, and urban history. He has also edited and translated Dmitrii Rostislavov’s Provincial Russia in the Age of Enlightenment, an account of a village boy’s encounter with Imperial Russia’s schools, bureaucracy, and hierarchical social order. The Capodistrias Museum mini-lectures series was commissioned by the Friends of the Capodistrias Museum Association, as part of their 2021 initiatives in support of the Capodistrias Museum, with the aim to bring together speakers who touch upon early 19th European History in ways which relate to the life and legacy of Ioannis Capodistrias and this year's bicentennial celebration of the 1821 Greek Revolution. Special thanks to all our guest-speakers, Alexander Martin, Korinna Schönhärl and Yanni Kotsonis who generously participated in the series, to the series curator, Ada Dialla and series production coordinator, Eleni Stambogli. If you want to listen to more episodes you can follow Capodistrias Museum on spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3A5AnXmHDZML350y5QEkN6] or visit our website at capodistriasmuseum.gr [https://www.capodistriasmuseum.gr/]