Xenophon Zolotas

© European Union, 2024, CC BY 4.0

Xenophon Evthymiou Zolotas (griechisch Ξενοφών Ευθυμίου Ζολώτας, * 26. März 1904; † 11. Juni 2004) war ein griechischer Volkswirt und 1989 kurzzeitig parteiloser Ministerpräsident Griechenlands.

Zolotas studierte in Athen, sowie in Leipzig und Paris. 1928 bis 1968 war er Professor für Wirtschaftswissenschaften an der Nationalen und Kapodistrias-Universität Athen. In den späten 1940er Jahren übernahm er zusammen mit Ilias Lalaounis das renommierte Juweliergeschäft Zolotas aus Familienbesitz. Aufgrund politischer und akademischer Verpflichtungen verließ Xenophon Zolotas das Geschäft wieder.

Er war Vorstandsmitglied der UNRRA und hatte hohe Ämter im Internationalen Währungsfonds inne.

Zolotas war zwischen 1944 und 1945, 1955 und 1967 sowie 1974 und 1981 Direktor der Bank von Griechenland. Er hat zahlreiche Arbeiten zu griechischen und internationalen Wirtschaftsthemen veröffentlicht.

Als im Jahre 1989 weder die PASOK noch die Nea Dimokratia eine Mehrheit erreichen konnte, erklärte sich der damals 85-jährige bereit, bis zu Neuwahlen das Amt des Ministerpräsidenten auszuüben. Als bei den Wahlen 1990 die Nea Dimokratia unter Konstantinos Mitsotakis die Mehrheit erreichte, trat er zurück.

Zwei seiner Reden im Englischen, die er als Vorsitzender der Bank von Griechenland am Abschlusstag der Internationalen Bank für Wiederaufbau und Entwicklung gab, erlangten große Aufmerksamkeit, da sie fast ausschließlich in Wörtern verfasst wurden, die aus dem Griechischen stammen. Einleitended zu seiner ersten Rede sagte er: „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, l shall do it now, using with the exception of articles and prepositions, only Greek words.“

Die Reden im Wortlaut:

„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 eucharistia to you, Kyrie, to the eugenic and generous American Ethnos and to the organizers and protagonists of his Amphictyony and the gastronomic symposia.“

„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.“