Georgios Zarifis: the national benefactor behind the Zarifeios Academy

Georgios Ioannou Zarifis (1807-1884) was the wealthiest Greek banker of Galata in the 19th century and one of the greatest national benefactors. The word "zarifiliki" in Constantinople came to mean nobility and generosity.

Biography - From Odessa to Galata

Son of Ioannis Zarifis, a wine merchant from the Bosphorus, and Tarsou Kaplanoglou. He was born in 1807 at Megas Revmatos on the Bosphorus (Arnavutkoy), at the Zarifis family's summer house on the island of Aloni near Proikonisos.

In 1821, aged 15, he fled with his parents to Odessa because of the persecutions in Constantinople, was placed under the Tsar's protection, and studied at the Richelieu Lyceum. In 1830 he came to Greece, and under Kapodistrias was appointed secretary of Karytaina. At 25, disillusioned by the misery of provincial life, he took his family and returned to Constantinople.

There he was employed at the house of Stefanos Zafeiropoulos. Within 2 years the firm became "Zafeiropoulos & Zarifis," with connections in Constantinople, Marseille, London, and Odessa. He married his partner's daughter, Eleni Zafeiropoulou, and kept his Greek citizenship despite the Sultan's offers of high office in exchange for becoming a "rayah."

He founded his own commercial bank, which took on Ottoman debt. Together with other Greek bankers, he was a leading figure in imposing the first International Financial Control on the Ottoman Empire in 1881, on behalf of Greek and foreign creditors. He became immensely wealthy. He was a banker and financial advisor to Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

He died on 28 March 1884 in Constantinople. His wife Eleni tried to save the Didaskaleia. His work was continued until 1922 by his son Leonidas Zarifis (1840-1923), and afterwards by his grandson Konstantinos Zarifis (1891-1979).

The great vision: teachers for Thrace

For Zarifis, education was Hellenism's weapon of survival. For 40 years he gave away huge sums:

• 1865, Bursa: He sees that no Greek there speaks Greek. He offers to build 2 schools, for boys and for girls, and promises a Gymnasium if, within 5 years, the children speak Greek.
• 1875, Plovdiv: He founds the Zarifeia Didaskaleia for boys and girls, a higher institute of learning. The goal: graduate teachers would return to the villages of Thrace and Macedonia. He funded their upkeep with 1,000 gold pounds a year. They operated until 1906.
• Others: the Great School of the Nation at Phanar (rebuilt entirely with his donation), the Constantinople Philological Society, the "Love One Another" brotherhood that sent teachers to the villages, the Filergos Society (1866-77) which gave tools to needy craftsmen, the Zarifeio wing of the Balukli Hospital, and the girls' school of Triglia.

Zarifis also funded Georgios Vizyinos from 1875 to 1884 for his studies in Gottingen, Leipzig, Berlin, Paris, and London.

From Plovdiv to Alexandroupoli

After the Zarifeia closed in 1906, and given the political developments in Bulgaria, the bequest had to continue elsewhere.

• 1923: The first Didaskaleio was founded in Alexandroupoli, because Karagats, where the original Didaskaleio of Epivates had been relocated for 11 months, remained in Turkey under the Treaty of Lausanne. Its director was the educator Theodoros Kastanos, who fought hard to complete today's neoclassical building.
• 1934: The Didaskaleio was abolished and became a two-year Pedagogical Academy, one of the first 6 in Greece. Its first director was Evangelos Papanoutsos (1934-36), and its last was Nikolaos Raptis (1976-78).
• 15 June 1936: Inauguration of the Zarifeios Pedagogical Academy, attended by Zarifis' grandson and King George II. The grandson donated a piano and funds for musical instruments and furniture.

The connection was not merely honorary. After the closure, an annual sum of 25,000 gold French francs was transferred to Alexandroupoli.

The memory today

The building is one of the most important neoclassical buildings in Alexandroupoli. Since 1983 the Academy has been the Pedagogical Department of the Democritus University of Thrace, at Nea Chili. Today it houses the 1st Experimental Primary School of Alexandroupoli - Zarifeios.

In the garden, at the National Independence Park, stands the marble bust of Zarifis, a work by Nikos Perantinos.

It is perhaps the only monument in Greece bearing the Zarifis name - a family that invested not in roads and statues, but in teachers. And this idea, from Plovdiv in 1875 to Alexandroupoli in 1934, remained the same: to create people who would pass on knowledge.