I'm not a symbol, I'm a popular element: Melina Mercouri in her own words

A brave activist during the dictatorship, a insightful politician who raised the issue of the return of the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece in an universal demand, Melina Mercouri is always here.

As a politician she founded the cultural capitals and envisioned the Acropolis Museum, as a star fell in love with her art and audience, as a woman defended the power of her sex.

Maria-Amalia Mercouri (Melina, Baby) was born on October 18, 1920 in Athens, to a family of politicians. She was the daughter of military and politician Stamatis Mercouri, granddaughter of the doctor and the political and longevity of Athens Spyros Mercouri. She had her blood policy, from beginning to end.

Passionate, she was deposed and deposed, she became a symbol, a muse, a mistress, a faithful husband, a virgin in her 14th, and eternal faithful in one, her eternal fiery light.

Melina Mercouri passed to Athanasia on Sunday afternoon of March 6, '94.

Two 24 hours later, her body arrived from New York in Athens and after two days the funeral took place.

The first Greek woman to be buried with prime minister's honor, as if she had planned to throw her curtain alongside the woman's day. The woman who passionately defended, struggled to upgrade, highlight and sculpt because Melina knew that life was a female.

Once, when they asked her « what did you love most about your life? » Melina Mercouri replied: « What I was given, what I won, what I was deprived of. Only these! « 

This is the eternal Melina in her own words:

« Fatalism means submission. The destination of man is resistance, effort and struggle. « 

« I find that if you haven't fallen in love, if you haven't loved, you've lost a lot of things in the world and you can't love your fellow humans. Love needs. They are one of the most beautiful things in life. Revolution and love! « 

« I didn't pretend! The pretense for me is something vulgar. Just, I lived and talked, as I wanted! Without calculating anything and no one! At whatever cost! « 

« I'm not proud of what I did in the possession. I was bold, privately bold. I wasn't for Greece, I didn't resist and maybe it's the only remorse I have in my life. « 

« I was a tombstone, I was the last at school, I was the scandal, I was an unbearable. What a closure, what dark dramas! I didn't just pranks out, I was a petrol war, I was smoking in the classroom, the teachers begged me to drive me away, and they had driven me out of private schools, I ended up in the second gym. But from my class came the most beautiful and crazy girls in Athens. « 

« I was born a Greek woman and I will die Greek. Patakos was born a fascist and will die fascist »

« I didn't feel power as a minister. I felt her like a Broadway star. « 

« I don't think I'm a symbol. I am a popular element »

« Everywhere people talk to me on the street. And this is very important. They tell me a bunch of things: either a problem of their own or they refer to me. For example, 'don't smoke, Melina, it does you bad'. It seems to me that. They care, my child. Or tell Andrew that we can't stand it anymore, to finish with them. To do something to leave. ' Or they tell me 'you're well now, huh?' They close my eyes, as if they were told me, we got it, huh? « 

« I hope to see the marbles back in Athens before I die. But if they come later, I will be reborn. « 

« In my fourteen years I met my first love and wanted to die. There were other loves later, but I never thought about dying for a man. « 

« I am not jealous of the male. I admire it many times but I wouldn't change the right to be a woman with anything, ”she said.

« I think it was always a mirror my eyes, because they never allowed me to lie. If I were to say a lie, my eyes were denied the lie. I had this from a little girl. And so they betrayed me and I always ate them from my own. And when I was saying a well -made lie, my eyes were saying the opposite. I think my eyes were always mirroring the truth. They mirrored my soul. There you could see my boredom, boredom, knowledge, admiration, sarcasm, self -deprecation. All this sounds weird, selfish, haughty. « 

« Not to fight. A boredom. A fatigue indescribable. You always come something and you have to live your belt and move on. « 

« The miracle was when I went to the rally for Macedonia in the Pedion Areos. As I was going to leave, we fell on a large group of children. So they grabbed the car and lifted it up. We were scared because we were in. They were rhythmically shouting 'Melina-Melina, Melinaki…' then a bobby, 13-14 years old, approached, and put his face in the glass. 'What are you calling,' I tell him, 'where do you know me?' And then give me the answer: 'Come on I don't know you. Are you not Mom Greece? ' I went crazy then. They took me to tears. A 13 -year -old kid can shake you, it can shake you, it can make you feel that you are representing something, so it's worth dying, dying eight hundred times for his sake. « 

« Che (Guevara) is an example for me. I would love to have the power to pursue his own policy. « 

« We cannot even come to our own success. Either we ride a reed and we become unbearable or we are so jealous of someone else more successful than us. We are the best consolation of the funeral. The best fatalists. If you are unhappy, everyone is gathering around you. All. I have evidence to that. I've lived it. When I was sick I was loved by all of Greece … « 

« If you don't flirt, why go out in the evening? If I don't flirt, I'm bored. Well, this is the truth, that I'm bored. Flirting is the reason for getting out. « 

« I am very anarchist to have power. I have anarchist mind, I don't do things that are standard. « 

« When you live in Greece, you have to think with great sizes. You have to envision great things. You are not allowed to be a citizen of this country and not to envision the… impossible. Only then will everything be possible. The rest are statism. « 

« Racism is a slow death with closed windows. »

« I had a very difficult life, but also very easy and interesting. I believe that I am a chemical, not many in Greece. I was a woman, well known in my place, I became known abroad when the resistance took place. Then I could have a step and express myself: the theater. I believe that in these years it seemed my immense love for Greece and its people. This will not be challenged by me. « 

« I have been challenged many things, but I cannot be questioned my absolute dedication to this place. »

« It's great to be a good actor in the theater, but it's not great to be a good actor as a politician. It's not great at all to embrace some things and play it with a tear or a smile because you have a talent. « 

« I remember in my early years my rage in the whipping of my female reputation, which was struck. I had to have people here who never got me wrong. You see I don't have a courtyard, I have friends … If you want, my great luck and my great craftsmanship is that I didn't let it surround me. I love nothing more than flattery. And I have this instinct, to understand the man who comes next to me to take advantage of the position. I learned this from a young age when my grandfather was mayor. « 

« (Greece) has its people. The surviving people who can make choices after so many suffering. I have been in love with the people of Greece since I was born. I haven't laughed anymore, I have not been moved more than with the Greek people. « 

« I'm not Melina, I'm Melina. »

« You need to know how to leave at least five minutes before they give you up. »

« Many things have questioned me. It is also a Greek defect and a qualification, because it makes you not riding the reed. « 

« And I was very jealous of and I fell in love with me and I fell in love with me and I was very angry and played and played me and I was revenge and revenge. »

« My profession is not an actor. My profession is Greek. I don't know a more beautiful and honorable profession. « 

« Half humanity was enslaved to the other half because of sex, not because of some other ability. Being a woman automatically meant and still means in many areas of deprivation of rights. « 

« Much people know me. And they are very few. That is, if there is something hidden, I didn't deliberately. It's something I didn't know about his existence. « 

« The happiest moments of my life were when the junta fell, the first time I loved love and the first time I ate caramel cream. »

« Freedom is the demand but freedom is never given. Won. And the one who has to win and win her is the woman. « 

« I didn't just like it to live at night, I liked it until I met Dassen, until the devil started. »

« Because a theater lives at night, because we worked 15 hours a day and waited to break out in the evening. We went and danced to Arzentina with live orchestras and then we went dawn and ate patch. I was crazy about the night. Because I thought life is to work the day and enjoy the night. Remember that I am also a child of the Occupation. And so we had an incredible thirst for a feast with all that we had lived. « 

« Everything that has been written on my face or my body is my decays. They are the bitterness, the suffering and the bastards, but also the joys that made these wrinkles … Well, I don't care how many scratches my face will have, let me make me as long as time wants. I will look at him here, and I will always admit that it was worth the bother to make this trip. « 

« My biggest concern is that we die when we are forgotten. It's something I hate … to forget us. « 

The late Melina Mercouri was born on October 18, 1920 and died on March 6, 1994.

Photos from Facebook/MelinamercouriOficial