Declaration in Dimokratiki Amina, Sep. 1967
Dimokratiki Amina, Athens, September 1967. This specific issue appears in the documentary series Ένα Απότομο ξύπνημα (“A rude awakening”) streamed by the national streaming service ERTflix.
Δημοκρατική Άμυνα – Latinized as Dimokratiki Amina (“Democratic Defense”) – was an antidictatorial organization that formed soon after the establishment of the seven-year military dictatorship in 1967 in Greece. Its members were highly educated individuals, among others Kostas Simitis, who served as the prime minister of Greece from 1996 to 2004.
One of organization’s actions was the publication of a newspaper under the same title. Soon after the seizure of power, dictatorship enforced press censorship. Dimokratiki Amina’s newspaper was thus being printed outside Greece – specifically in London – with the financial support of Malta’s Labour Party. Subsequently, it was illegally imported to Greece and distributed by members of the organization.
The word “ΔΙΑΚΗΡΥΞΗ” (Declaration) is probably set in the Landi Echo-inspired Oρφέως, or Orfeos, created by the Paraskevopoulos type foundry also known as PAP. Established in 1953 in Larissa, a provincial Greek town, the dynamic business dominated Greek type production until 1979. Orfeos appears in Paraskevopoulos’ catalogues of the 1960s when the type foundry started experimenting with display typeface designs. The catalogue was praised by contemporary Greek trade journals for its experimentation and novelty. Nebiolo also had an official Greek version of Landi Echo. However, since the nameplate of Dimokratiki Amina additionally uses a typeface identified as Καϊρου, or Kairou – which is found in same catalogue as Orfeos – it is fair to assume that they both stem from Paraskevopoulos.
Information about both Dimokratiki Amina and Paraskevopoulos are scarce. An MSc thesis about the organization by Nikos Katsafados was greatly informative in this respect. The all-encompassing doctoral thesis by George D. Matthiopoulos about typography in Greece was very helpful. Last but not least, special thanks to Achilles Tzallas for the initial font identification, his indispensable insights, and and for providing me with the catalogue pages.
Ορφέως in the catalogue of Paraskeovopoulos Type Foundry. From the personal archive of Achilleas Tzallas.
Καϊρου in the catalogue of Paraskeovopoulos Type Foundry. From the personal archive of Achilleas Tzallas.
5 Comments on “Declaration in Dimokratiki Amina, Sep. 1967”
Very interesting! Thank you, Maria.
In 1971 and 1972, Dimokratiki Amina used a different nameplate in a bold compressed sans with larger lowered caps from a serif typeface.
Nebiolo’s Landi Echo (Greek version cut in 1939 or 1940) is slightly more condensed, and the inline letters are much better defined and differently positioned on the body, so what we have here is definitely Orfeos.
As Mastoridis suggests (Cutting and casting Greek types in the nineteenth and twentieth century, pages 46–47), 1956 is probably the year when Paraskevopoulos began casting type (he only obtained his first casting machine in 1955). One should bear in mind that type specimens are just publicity material, and claiming an earlier date of establishment could add to a new firm’s status.
Between 1959 and 1962, while frenetically building a vast type-programme from scratch, Paraskevopoulos was publishing a new extensive ring-bound catalogue every year. All of these catalogues have no title page or publication date, but the dates mentioned in the text allow a pretty precise dating. Orfeos only appears in the last one, thus it was released in 1962.
The type is clearly a knock-off of Landi Echo, but without much care for accuracy. The foundry did not give much attention to quality, either in the design or the casting process. Besides, the typefaces were produced by different type-cutting processes: Landi Echo, by electrotyping (hand-)modified sorts of Landi Nero, while Orfeos was cut directly in brass by pantograph.
The 1967 newspaper uses two more types: Metrolite (US Linotype, 1937) and Grotesque condensed upright 718 (UK Monotype, 1959).
The type in the 1971 nameplate is Letraset’s Compacta (1966). There are two letterpress versions of this type: Καπιτόλ (ca.1971) by the Victoria/Sarasitis typefoundry (1955–1999), which has different accents, and Κομπάκτα (ca.1972) by Paraskevopoulos, where the accents are not as close to the letters compared to the sample.
Florian, check your mail for a note on Landi!
Thanks a bunch Achilles! This is all great information. I had found the article by Mastoridis, but overlooked that there’s an English version. I was reading the Greek text with machine translation … oy vey.
Compacta, of course!
Metrolite sample:
bibliotheques-specialisees…
Excellent. I have added a link to the Metro page.