Xenophon Zolotas

Xenophon Euthymiou Zolotas (Ξενοφών Ζολώτας; 26 April 1904 – 10 June 2004) was a Greek economist and served as an interim non-party Prime Minister of Greece.

Life and career
Xenophon Zolótas was born in Athens in 1904. His father, Efthymios Zolotas, was a renowned jeweler and goldsmith in Athens. He studied law at the University of Athens for two years (1920-1922). Then, he left to study Economics in Leipzig. In May 1924 he became a Doctor of Law from the University of Athens with honors, and in 1926 he became a Doctor of Economics from the University of Leipzig, also with Honors. He then left for Paris to study French literature. In 1928, he was appointed professor at the University of Thessaloniki and then professor at the University of Athens in 1930. In 1955, he became Governor of the Bank of Greece, a position he held until 1981, at the except for the years from 1967 to 1974, during the period of the dictatorship, during which he resigned. In 1958, he married Kallirhoe Ritsou, nicknamed "Lola".

As a member of the board of directors of UNRRA in 1946, he held important positions within the International Monetary Fund and other international organizations between 1946 and 1981. He is the author of numerous works on the Greek and international economies. He was considered a moderate, a champion of fiscal conservatism and monetary stability. On November 23, 1989, when the result of the legislative elections showed no majority, neither in favor of PASOK of Andréas Papandreou, nor in favor of the New Democracy party of Konstantínos Mitsotákis, Zolótas, then aged 85, accepted the post of interim prime minister until a new election is organized. He resigned after the April 1990 elections resulted in Mitsotakis winning by a narrow margin. A true workaholic, a keen swimmer even in winter, he made it a point of honor to swim every morning, even though he was in his nineties. On October 2, 1959, at an IBRD meeting in New York, he delivered, in English, a speech that remained famous, containing almost only words of Greek etymology1.

Speeches
Two of his speeches in English at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development are considered to be historic and notable because they contained mainly terms of Greek origin. Here are the texts:

1957
''I always wished to address this Assembly in Greek, but realized that it would have been indeed "Greek" to all present in this room. I found out, however, that I could make my address in Greek which would still be English to everybody. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I shall do it now, using with the exception of articles and prepositions, only Greek words.''

''Kyrie, I eulogize the archons of the Panethnic Numismatic Thesaurus and the Ecumenical Trapeza for the orthodoxy of their axioms, methods and policies, although there is an episode of cacophony of the Trapeza with Hellas. With enthusiasm we dialogue and synagonize at the synods of our didymous organizations in which polymorphous economic ideas and dogmas are analyzed and synthesized. Our critical problems such as the numismatic plethora generate some agony and melancholy. This phenomenon is characteristic of our epoch. But, to my thesis, we have the dynamism to program therapeutic practices as a prophylaxis from chaos and catastrophe. In parallel, a Panethnic unhypocritical economic synergy and harmonization in a democratic climate is basic. I apologize for my eccentric monologue. I emphasize my euharistia to you, Kyrie to the eugenic and generous American Ethnos and to the organizers and protagonists of his Amphictyony and the gastronomic symposia.''

1959
''Kyrie, it is Zeus' anathema on our epoch for the dynamism of our economies and the heresy of our economic methods and policies that we should agonize the Scylla of numismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic anaemia. It is not my idiosyncrasy to be ironic or sarcastic, but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather cryptoplethorists. Although they emphatically stigmatize numismatic plethora, they energize it through their tactics and practices. Our policies have to be based more on economic and less on political criteria. Our gnomon has to be a metron between political, strategic and philanthropic scopes. Political magic has always been anti-economic. In an epoch characterized by monopolies, oligopolies, monopsonies, monopolistic antagonism and polymorphous inelasticities, our policies have to be more orthological. But this should not be metamorphosed into plethorophobia, which is endemic among academic economists. Numismatic symmetry should not hyper-antagonize economic acme. A greater harmonization between the practices of the economic and numismatic archons is basic. Parallel to this, we have to synchronize and harmonize more and more our economic and numismatic policies panethnically. These scopes are more practicable now, when the prognostics of the political and economic barometer are halcyonic. The history of our didymus organizations in this sphere has been didactic and their gnostic practices will always be a tonic to the polyonymous and idiomorphous ethnical economies. The genesis of the programmed organization will dynamize these policies. Therefore, I sympathize, although not without criticism on one or two themes, with the apostles and the hierarchy of our organs in their zeal to program orthodox economic and numismatic policies, although I have some logomachy with them. I apologize for having tyrannized you with my Hellenic phraseology. In my epilogue, I emphasize my eulogy to the philoxenous autochthons of this cosmopolitan metropolis and my encomium to you, Kyrie, and the stenographers.''