Tolkien wanted to create a mythology ”similar to that of the ancient Greeks'”. Was the queen of the elves, Galadriel, inspired by Kirki and Calypso? Bilbo, from Ulysses? What does Aias has in common with Boromir and the fate of Atlantis with the fall of Númenor?
Narrator: Dimitris Kolovos
Interview: Maya Filippopoulou
Podcast Creation: Charis Pagonidou
Sound Design: Dimitris Patsaros
Sound Editing: Spyros Lymperopoulos
Istorima is the largest project for recording and preserving oral histories of Greece. More than 1,000 young researchers find narrators listen, collect and preserve stories of people from all over Greece: Stories of their hometowns, stories of love, stories that changed Greece or defined it, modern or old stories. Stories that are not recorded in the history books and that could easily be lost in time.
It was created by the journalist Sofia Papaioannou and the historian Katherine Fleming and is implemented with a founding grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), as part of its initiative to Restart and Empower Youth (see more on www.snf.org). More than 20,000 stories are gradually being published in full on www.archive.istorima.org. Excerpts of the stories are published in the form of podcasts, videos, or written stories on www.istorima.org.