EVANGELOS VALIANATOS

 "The Death of my Brother", by Evangelos Valianatos PhD

My brother, Panages (Pete) was eleven years older than me.  By the time I was six, he left the village of our beautiful Greek island of Cephalonia for America. I knew he was my brother but we didn't have anything in common not even childhood memories. My older sisters told me he was a troublemaker in high school.  Once he drove a motorcycle into class.

He left Greece on a merchant ship, where he worked.  Once in New York, he jumped ship and took the train for Chicago where my uncle George had a small restaurant called "Sailors' Drive-In " in Oaklawn, Illinois, a suburb right next to south Chicago.

In 1961, Pete sponsored me to go to the United States for college. It was at that time of my life, starting in 1961, that I realized I had a brother. He acted like a father, giving me a room in his apartment, paying me for working in the restaurant, teaching me how to drive a car, and helping me enroll at the University of Illinois. In 1965, he drove me from Chicago to Champaign-Urbana's main campus of the University of Illinois, where I started my graduate studies in history, zoology MA, Byzantine History at the University of Illinois Ph.D., Greek and Russian History Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin 1972.

Postgraduate studies "History of Medicine, Science and International Development" Havard University 1972-75.

1) Expanded Ph.D. theses into a book that was published by the Academy of Athens in 1987: "From Graikos to Hellene. Adamantios Koraes and the Greek Revolution", this book is about the power of Hellenic culture in the making of Adamandios Koraes (1748-1832) a Greek medical doctor and Hippocratic Scholar living in Paris into the Revolution of Greek Independence. Koraes edited the Greek classics for the enlightenment and the political freedom of the Greek people who later revolted against the Turkish tyranny and gained independence in 1820.

2) He studied agrarian issues in the Third World, the green revolution which has been affecting the environment, food security, and social and political relations in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.