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Europa Nostra: An Ode to my Mentor and Friend: the legendary Costa Carras

Dearest Costa,
How to start my tribute to YOU, who has been my most generous mentor and friend for a period of three decades? I should probably start from the very beginning… My life with Europa Nostra begun in December 1991, coinciding with a very happy moment of my personal life (Winand and I had just got married on 23 November 1991!) but also with a most traumatic experience of the start of a fratricidal war marking the death of my native country Yugoslavia. Only later I have learnt and very well understood that without you, Europa Nostra would have seized to exist in the 80ies and I would have never had the privilege and the joy of working for this amazing mission-driven organisation. Indeed, we owe it to you and to your passionate and effective dedication to Europa Nostra that our organisation had managed to overcome its existential crisis in 1983 when you convened a gathering in your legendary garden and terrace under the Acropolis in Athens – and convinced its then leadership that Europa Nostra needed to pursue its work, with as much determination and conviction, for many more years to come. You also successfully convinced one of your oldest and dearest friends, Dino Leventis from Cyprus with his eminent A.G. Leventis Foundation, to get engaged and lend their precious support to Europa Nostra.

While I was experiencing the pain of losing forever my native country, I realised very quickly that I had been so fortunate to become a member of a formidable pan-European family and a citizen of a unique country called EUROPA NOSTRA. I shall always be grateful to Lydia and you, as well as to Edmée and Dino, who had extended to me a very special welcome to this family and this country and who took me under your caring wings. It was indeed not easy to be a Serb living and working in Western Europe throughout the last decade of the 20 th century, but I always felt at home in Europa Nostra, very much thanks to you and other Greek (Cypriot) members of our Europa Nostra family, in addition to the exceptional support received from the Dutch family de Koster.

During this first decade of my life with Europa Nostra, you have been my most important mentor. I have entered in Europa Nostra with a well-developed passion for the European ideals and values and a strong dedication to the process of the building of Europe combined with profound love and interest in Europe’s art, heritage and history. But I believe that it was your erudition, your leadership, your tireless energy combined with your wisdom and a great sense of humour, your eloquence and audacity, your perseverance and power of persuasion, in other words your power of example, that had exerted the biggest influence on my further professional and personal development which became entirely dedicated to Europa Nostra and to our joint engagement for a Europe based on our shared culture, history and cultural heritage. I sincerely believe that it is especially thanks to you that my working for Europa Nostra became much more than a job; it became a mission of my life.

It was highly symbolic that I was appointed as – a rather young – Secretary General of Europa Nostra in October 2000, at the Council meeting held in Paphos, on the island of Cyprus which is so close to your heart and to whose better and more peaceful future you have dedicated so much of your thoughts and efforts, always conscious of the need to use cultural heritage as a bridge between various ethnic and religious communities and as a prime vehicle to overcome divisions. This was true for Cyprus, as it was true for the Balkans and for the entire region of South-East Europe. In this context, I wish to pay tribute, also on behalf of my fellow colleagues and friends from former Yugoslavia, to your visionary work for reconciliation in the wider region through collaboration between historians and history teachers through the “South-East Europe History Project” of which you were a true master-mind, together with the Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation in South- Eastern Europe based in Thessaloniki.

As a classical historian coming from Greece who got the best possible academic education, together with your best friend Dino Leventis, at the Oxford University and subsequently also at the Harvard University, you had acquired an excellent understanding of Europe’s complex history covering West and East, South and North of Europe. No other Council member of Europa Nostra have ever had such a width and depth of historical knowledge and understanding nor will probably have it in the future. I am therefore convinced that we owe it primarily to you that Europa Nostra has embraced a truly pan-European narrative and developed a truly pan-European action, based on fundamental human rights and European values.

Today, when Europa Nostra has become the champion at European level of the vital intersection between cultural heritage and climate action, let me also recall your pioneering role in advocating the need to recognize that heritage conservation and nature conservation are two sides of the same coin: the safeguard of our living environment, our “Fragile Earth” to recall the title of the impressive Book published by Elliniki Etairia on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its tireless action. Indeed, many are today engaged with the green transformation of our life but very few – like you and Lydia – had been championing the vital link between ecological, ethical and esthetical values of our life and environment already 50 years ago! You have definitely always been ahead of your time and ahead of others!

Together with other members of the Europa Nostra Secretariat, I have always been impressed by the quality and quantity of your voluntary work for Europa Nostra. No other Vice-President or Council member was such a good orator: when Costa – with his legendary voice – takes the floor everyone listens and reflects upon his forceful words. Also, no other Vice-President or Council member has written so many documents, speeches, articles, letters, emails on so many different topics, ranging from our campaigns to save endangered heritage and our awards for heritage excellence as well as the work of our Scientific Council to policy advocacy at various levels and governance matters of our organisation. You have read carefully and commented meaningfully on every single document of Europa Nostra always remaining faithful to your pen and your legendary handwriting. For all this, our Council, Board and Secretariat owe you a huge debt of gratitude. In addition to your pro-active membership of our Council, and this during an impressive period of 48 years! – you have been a most influential member and/or adviser of all other governing or consultative bodies of Europa Nostra: from our Executive Committee, the Awards Jury, the Advisory Panel for the 7 Most Endangered Programme, the ENtopia Working group, the Working group on European Policy which resulted in the opening of our Brussels Office back in 2010, the Working
group on the revision of our Statutes as well as the Scientific Council. You have also been an impactful and highly valued Chair of our Internal Advisory Committee. In addition to these formal positions, you have become a most trusted adviser to me, during more than 20 years of my mandate as Secretary General of Europa Nostra. Whenever I needed an expert or simply wise advice on any aspect of our work, I knew that I can simply send an email or give you a call, and you would always stand readily and generously at my and Europa Nostra’s disposal. The same was true for other members of our “Dream Team” in The Hague and Brussels.

During the 30 years of my life with Europa Nostra, I have so many memories of amazing heritage gatherings and events which we have organized in various parts of Our Europe. We could write a thick book about this enriching European journey which I have had the privilege and joy of sharing with you. Let me here highlight some superb discoveries of Greece and the Aegean, during which you have been my precious host and/or guide. From the discovery of Thessaloniki in 1997 and the Northern part of Greece up until Veria and Kastoria further crossing the border to Northern Macedonia, into the native land of my paternal grand-father around the lakes of Prespa and Ohrid, to my many visits to Athens and memorable moments spent together in your unique home and garden in Plaka under the Acropolis, to which you and Lydia have given a new life and in which you generously welcomed so many colleagues and friends from all over Europe and beyond. Let me also mention the enriching discoveries of beautiful Aegean islands, each with its own soul and story: from your Father’s Island -Chios to Patmos and Spetses where you and Lydia created your own paradises in the Aegean; from the magical island of Delos, the mythical birth place of Apollo and Artemis, to Hydra, Egina, Syros, Tinos, Kea and most recently Amorgos and Sikinos. Last but not least, let me mention the very last region of Greece which I had the joy of discovering in October 2021 – the Epirus where we celebrated the renaissance of the iconic Plaka Bridge, proud winner of an European Heritage Award/Europa Nostra. Each of these places stands for immense beauty, rich history, warm hospitality, and strong mobilization of local authorities to preserve them for future generations, thanks to your enlightened leadership and the tireless and generous campaigns and projects undertaken by Elliniki Etairia with its many members, donors and friends. Let me end this non- exhaustive overview of places which we visited and campaigned for together, with your unforgettable reading of Greek classical texts at the Pnyx and at the Agora in Athens, with our emotional walk through the ghost city in the buffer-zone of Nicosia, the last divided capital city in Europe, and with the moving “March for Europe’s Cultural Heritage” which we did with a large group of young heritage professionals from all over Europe at the Marathon ending at the Marathon beach for our heritage picknick under the full moon.

To end, let me recall one memory which stands out from all others: the memory of Europa Nostra’s Golden Jubilee evening under the Acropolis in the stunning heritage setting of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, during which you received the highest distinction through which Europa Nostra recognizes the most deserving members of its family – the “Europa Nostra Medal of Honour” (though many of us believe that your 48 years of dedicated service to Europa Nostra deserve many more than one Medal of Honour!). All of us who had the privilege and the joy of attending that evening of celebration will never forget the tone of your voice and the content of your speech – we felt as if the wisdom of the ancient Greek Gods and Muses was speaking through you. Let me therefore close this Ode to YOU, dearest Costa, my mentor and great friend, by paraphrasing your own words pronounced that memorable evening in Athens. You said, among others, that “the greatest gift of Greece to Europe is Europe”. Up to us to recognise that “the greatest gift of Greece to Europa Nostra is Costa Carras”.

With immense gratitude, admiration and friendship,

Also on behalf of all other members of the Europa Nostra Secretariat (Barbara, Beppe, Elena & Audrey, Louise, Lorena, Manon, Sara, Silvie, Rubert, Vicky & Wolter)
Also on behalf of my own family (Winand, Felix, Emma & Mama Radmila)
Much Love,

Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović
Secretary General of Europa Nostra