1. Early Years and Education

Ioakeim Valavanis was born in 1858 at Aravani of Cappadocia. His father, Dimitrios Balaban, who was a fishmonger, migrated along with his big family to the then thriving Taurus Mine (Buğamaden), which he sold the fish he brought from a lake near Ikonio (Konya). Despite the economic distress of the family, ‘father Valavanis […] took particular care of them so that all his children would be educated, even his girls, which was very rare at the time’.¹ After young Ioakeim received his primary education,² he went to Constantinople to ‘learn a craft’ under the protection of his compatriot Ch. Kazoglou, a wholesaler of iron goods. Although the information is contradictory as regards the kind of responsibilities he had in his patron’s business,³ the sources agree about his poor performance: the trainee, always absorbed in reading a book, could not fulfil his duties. That is why ‘his boss, Ch. Kazoglou, as well as his intimate persons and his compatriots thought they had better send him to a school’.⁴ As a result, either because he was offered a scholarship by the Patriarchate in the years of Ioakeim II⁵ or through Kazoglou's help ,⁶ Valavanis managed to complete his studies at the ‘Megali tou Genous Scholi’ (Great School of the Nation, the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchal High School). He then studied at the University of Athens⁷ before he was proclaimed doctor of philosophy in 1889.

2. Educational Work

After he graduated from the University of Athens, Valavanis worked as a teacher, originally in private schools in Athens and later in Constantinople, where he permanently settled possibly shortly before 1890. It was then that he married Polyxeni Gerardou,⁸ with whom he had five children. Between 1892 and 1895, he published the Neoelliniki Kivotos (Modern Greek Ark), a three-volume annotated anthology of modern Greek prose writers and poets, who were taught in Greek schools. Other educational books by Valavanis are the Apanthismata Ellinikon Grammaton (Anthologies of Greek Literature) and the Anagnosmatarion ek tou Irodotou (Reading-book from Herodotus) , which was awarded a prize by the Greek Philological Association of Constantinople during the Karapaneion competition of 1894. In Constantinople he taught at the Zografeion Lyceum, the Greek-French Chatzichristos Lyceum and the Ioakeimeion Girls’ School, before he was offered the post of professor of Modern Greek and Composition in 1903 at the Great School of the Nation. As a teacher, he is said to have had a "brilliant character, mild spirit and teaching abilities";⁹ he struggled to encourage his students, who, like himself, came from distant regions of the empire¹⁰ and were often poor. It is said that in 1919 Valavanis tried to become a professor at the University of Athens, but Eleutherios Venizelos dissuaded him from leaving Constantinople, which ‘was going to be captured by Greece’.¹¹ As a result, Valavanis remained there until he died, in 1921.¹² He was buried at the Şişli cemetery of Constantinople; his relics were deposited to the mausoleum built at Şişli by the graduates of the Greek higher schools in memory of their professors.

3. ‘Living Monuments’ and Works

During his studies, Valavanis cooperated with several newspapers and journals, particularly Parnassos of Athens, and published studies and translations. In 1891, those writings were published in Athens under the title Mikrasiatika (Asia Minor Studies). They referred to the life of the people of his birthplace and aimed to “present as through a caleidoscope entirely Greek lands, which since ceturies belong by right to Hellenism and lay at the slopes of Mounts Taurus and Argaion, at the shores of the rivers Kydnos and Alys, by golden Paktolos and Homeric Skamandros”.¹³ This book includes popular and religious traditions, myths, anecdotes of Nasreddin Hoca, ethnographical descriptions, etc.: a wealth of information valuable for their rarity as well as their vividness. Thus, based on a short story of questionable literary quality, the author composed the Selides ek tou oikogeneiakou viou ton en Mikra Asia Ellinon (Pages from the Family Life of Asia Minor Greeks), a remarkable study on the daily life of the Cappadocians of the second half of the 19th century, mainly describing the migration of the male population. This work, as well as his unpublished manuscript Glossarion Aravaniotikon (Dictionary of the dialect of Aravanio) that was awarded a prize in 1892 during the Zografeion competition of the Greek Philological Association of Constantinople, established him, along with his contemporaries Anastasios Levidis and Georgios Pachtikos, as an important collector and student of the so-called "living monuments" of Cappadocia.