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- Ελληνικά
It is well known and universally recognised that the award-winning Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia, for almost four decades, has been a unique museum space, a modern cultural centre that preserves, documents, maintains and promotes the history of our country, and especially the history of the capital.
In this context, I feel a great pleasure and honour to participate in tonight's event to inaugurate the renewed and renovated exhibition space called the Hall of the British Empire, which presents an important, the most decisive part of the modern history of our country, the period 1878-1960. A period that greatly influenced the development and course of our country, since it led to the Republic of Cyprus.
A period that, among many other things, highlighted the aspirations, the anxieties of our people and their will for development.
True to its vision and its general mission, the Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia opens its doors to the public today, offering them the opportunity - and I am referring in particular to the new general of our country and we will have to see how we will cooperate with the Ministry of Education so that from all the provinces, not just from Nicosia, to visit the museum - to experience an important aspect of our history in a modern museum hall, friendly to visitors young and old, local and foreign.
The exhibits we will encounter tell stories and record events in an accessible and meaningful way. Usually the period of British rule focuses, and understandably so, on the heroic struggle of EOKA, the purest struggle of Cypriot Hellenism that led to what we have today, the Republic of Cyprus.
At the same time, however, and I consider this aspect particularly important, the report also refers to urban development, social life, the economy, trade, education and transport, the struggles for self-determination and freedom, as well as to important institutions that existed before Independence, such as the courts, the banks and the police, which are just some of the historical aspects that come to life to take us on a journey through the "routes" of the capital over the last 100 years or more.
I am sure that we all understand very well the importance of the renewed and renovated Anglo-Cracy Hall, which offers us an extremely interesting and historically beneficial "walk", revealing to us milestones of the social, cultural, urban planning and historical course and evolution of the Nicosia Municipality in particular. And it is important to stress that in this new hall, as in the other exhibition spaces here at the Leventio, every visitor will gain knowledge of history in the context of scientific research and objectivity and in the light of a unique museological study according to the standards of international museum exhibition spaces.
We are particularly proud to have this opportunity.
In fact, the Museum, in the context of the renovated hall that we are inaugurating tonight, provides the visitor with a series of very attractive museum activities, so that the experience of historical retrospection is made as realistic and educational as possible. It is for this reason that I have referred in particular to our students, our children.
Historical knowledge of the past is the fundamental prerequisite for deciphering our very identity. Particularly for a homeland under occupation, this year marks 50 years, where the period before Independence was so significant and decisive for its subsequent development. Knowledge of its historical course through the years is an essential ingredient in order to create and establish the future that we envision for ourselves and our children.
And the Leventis Museum, for almost half a century, has managed, through actions and not words, to lead and play a leading role in the preservation and scientific presentation to the general public of the history of our country and our people, with all the positive consequences for today through such initiatives and actions.
In conclusion, allow me to congratulate the Director of the Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia, her team, the Museum's collaborators for the important work that has been done, as well as the former Director who laid the foundations of this project. Through excellent collaborators such as the Curator of the Museum Mrs. Maria Patsalosavvi, the Historian Mrs. Antigoni Heraklidou, the architects Naya Savvidou and Karin Georgiadou and others, thanks to whom we now have a modern museum space, a model for Cypriot standards, of which we have the right to be proud.
I would be remiss if I did not express on behalf of the State my sincere thanks to the A.G. Leventis and in particular to its Director Mrs. Loukia Loizou Hadjigavriel, as well as to the Nicosia Municipality, the Mayor and the Municipal Council for their support and of course to the Ministry of Culture for supporting this initiative from the very beginning.
It is important to mention on behalf of the State, because it is part of the Museum, and all the donors who entrusted their personal and family heirlooms to the Museum and in this way made possible such a vivid and comprehensive museum experience. Thanks to the contribution of all those I have mentioned above, we now have a new cultural gem in Nicosia that rightfully makes us all proud.
(PM/EP/AF)
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