When Victoria Hislop read Boris Johnson’s recent interview with Greek newspaper Ta Nea, she became furious. The award- winning British author says it prompted her to grab her phone, send an email and join the campaign for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece. It was a move she had been contemplating for years but her mind was made up in an instant by the British Prime Minister’s words.
In his first interview with a European newspaper since becoming UK prime minister, Mr Johnson dashed Greece’s hopes of getting the Marbles back, saying that they were “legally acquired by Lord Elgin under the appropriate laws of
the time and have been legally owned by the British Museum’s Trustees since their acquisition.”
When she finished reading the interview, Hislop, 61, decided it’s high time she joined the campaign for the return of the sculptures.
She contacted the renowned academic Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Cul- ture Emeritus at the University of Cambridge, who is also vice- chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM) and the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS).
Her request to join the com- mittee was approved almost instantly.
Hislop is now a member of
the BCRPM, a historic lobby group founded in 1983 by the distinguished British architect James Cubitt and his wife Eleni, a filmmaker, following a discussion the couple had with the then Greek Culture minister Melina Mercouri and her husband Jules Dassin, a renowned film director and producer.
The author says that Johnson’s claim that the Parthenon Marbles were legally acquired by Lord Elgin is not accurate. “Where is that firman? (the Ottoman document used by Elgin as the basis of proving the supposed legality of the Marbles’ removal) Does it exist?” she asks.
“But… it’s to do with recognis- ing that what you did in the past isn’t always the right thing for the present. You can’t justify
something now with what took place 200 years ago,” she adds. Does she think that the Parthenon Sculptures will, even- tually, return to their birthplace? “I think that the Marbles will return to Greece. It’s a question of time. There’s a zeitgeist that will sweep these precious things
back to Athens.”
“I genuinely do think that
the tide will turn with another generation. It might be another 10 or 20 years. This British colonialist attitude is going to seem very, very out of date and very politically incorrect,” she says.
Hislop was awarded honorary Greek citizenship in September 2020. During the first lockdown, she wrote her new book One August Night, the sequel to her
2005 bestseller The Island. Over the past few months, including during the UK’s third national lockdown, she has been working from her Chelsea home on the television adaptation of her novels Cartes Postales from Greece and The Last Dance to
be released in October by the Greek state broadcaster ERT.
Yannis Andritsopoulos,
Author Victoria Hislop joins Parthenon Marbles campaign
