Wannabe despot, dashing diplomat or boring back-office swot? Greece’s founding father divides opinion

What happened

According to The Guardian’s source item, Wannabe despot, dashing diplomat or boring back-office swot? Greece’s founding father divides opinion, He built modern Greece from the ground up, but Ioannis Kapodistrias remains a controversial figure. A new biopic throws light on this overlooked titan of European history On a hilltop in central Corfu, a marble bust carved in the classical style gazes skyward, lean, fine-featured and composed to the point of austerity. There is no uniform, no decorations, nor symbols of office, just a name cut into the base in Greek capitals: Ι Α ΚΑΠΟΔΙΣΤΡΙΑΣ. The bust stands alone in the gardens of Koukouritsa, once the family home of Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first governor of Greece. The villa is now the only museum in the country dedicated to the man who gave up one of the most powerful diplomatic positions in Europe to return to a country that was barely a country and try to build one. Without Kapodistrias, there may have been no modern Greek state, and the map of Europe might look very different to

Context

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What to watch

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Source

Primary source: Wannabe despot, dashing diplomat or boring back-office swot? Greece’s founding father divides opinion via The Guardian. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.