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- Rakus Family Hellenic Studies Collection at the UW Libraries
Hellenic Studies: Rakus Family Hellenic Studies Collection at the UW Libraries
The Greek collection at the University of Washington Libraries has been generously supported since 2004 by the Rakus family. The current collection of Greek books on a wide variety of topics and covering the broad span of Greek history would not exist without the Rakus family donations.
New Additions
- Adams, C. E. P. Geographers of the Ancient Greek World: Selected Texts in Translation. Cambridge University Press, 2024.
- Angelidakis, Anna. Athens Unveiled: A Portrait of Late 19th-Century Athens through Her Streets and Neighborhoods. ORO Editions, 2022.
- Baltas, Aristeidēs. Hē Aristera hōs sēmeron, hōs aurion kai hōs chtes: hena phantasma planietai... Nēsos, 2023.
- Beck, Hans, and Julia Kindt, editors. The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion. Cambridge University Press, 2023.
- Chamberlain, Brenda. Rope of Vines: Journal from a Greek Island. Parthian Books, 2023.
- Dizdaroğlu, Cihan. Turkish-Greek Relations: Foreign Policy in a Securitisation Framework. Edinburgh University Press, 2023.
- Dunn, Archibald, and Brian McLaughlin, editors. Byzantine Greece: Microcosm of Empire? Routledge, 2024.
- Frade, Sofia. Heracles and Athenian Propaganda: Politics, Imagery and Drama. Bloomsbury Academic, 2023.
- Giles, Kevin L. Warriors of the Ancient Greek World: A Visual Guide to the Panoplies of War. Pen and Sword Military, 2022.
- Heneage, James. The Shortest History of Greece: The Odyssey of a Nation from Myth to Modernity. The Experiment, LLC, 2023.
- Herman, Alexander. The Parthenon Marbles Dispute: Heritage, Law, Politics. Hart Publishing, 2023.
- Householder, April Kalogeropoulos, editor. Bouboulina and the Greek Revolution: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Heroine of 1821. Lexington Books, 2023.
- Kakalis, Christos. Place Experience of the Sacred: Silence and the Pilgrimage Topography of Mount Athos. Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.
- Kaliambou, Maria, editor. The Greek Revolution and the Greek Diaspora in the United States. Routledge, 2023.
- Kaloudis, George Stergiou. Greece (1941-1974): Years of Occupation, Years of Strife, and Years of Exclusion. Lexington Books, 2023.
- Karvounis, Antonios. City Diplomacy and the Europeanisation of Local Government: The Prospects of Networking in the Greek Municipalities. Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
- Kling, Norbert, et al., editors. Taking Action: Transforming Athens’ Urban Landscapes = Analambanontas Drasē: Metaschēmatizontas Ta Astika Topia Tēs Athēnas. Jovis Verlag GmbH, 2023.
- Laferrière, Carolyn. Divine Music in Archaic and Classical Greek Art: Seeing the Songs of the Gods. Cambridge University Press, 2023.
- Lane Fox, Robin. Homer and His Iliad. Basic Books, 2023.
- McCabe, Robert A., et al. Greece after the War: Years of Hope. Abbeville Press, 2023.
- Mēlios, Giannēs. Nationalism as a Claim to a State: The Greek Revolution of 1821 and the Formation of Modern Greece. Brill, 2023.
- Misiou, Vasiliki. The Renaissance of Women Translators in 19th-Century Greece. Routledge, 2023.
- Molho, Anthony. Courage and Compassion: A Jewish Boyhood in German-Occupied Greece. Berghahn Books, 2024.
- Nestoras, Antonios. Belonging to the West: Geopolitical Myths and Identity in Modern Greece. Brill Nijhoff, 2024.
- Orrells, Daniel. Antiquity in Print: Visualizing Greece in the Eighteenth Century. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024.
- Papacharalampous, Nafsika. The Metamorphosis of Greek Cuisine: An Ethnography of Deli Foods, Restaurant Smells and Foodways of Crisis. Routledge, 2024.
- Papadopoulos, Ioannis. The Criminalisation of Unaccompanied Migrant Minors: Voices from the Detention Processes in Greece. Bristol University Press, 2023.
- Peçe, Uğur Zekeriya. Island and Empire: How Civil War in Crete Mobilized the Ottoman World. Stanford University Press, 2024.
- Petrakis, Panagiotis E., et al. The Future of the Greek Economy: Economic Development through 2035. Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
- Petrakis, Panagiotis E., editor. Interconnections in the Greek Economy: Between Macro- and Microeconomics. Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
- Sachs, Dana. All Else Failed: The Unlikely Volunteers at the Heart of the Migrant Aid Crisis. Bellevue Literary Press, 2023.
- Smith, N. D. (Nicholas D. )., et al., editors. Bloomsbury Handbook of Socrates. Bloomsbury Academic, 2024.
- Stergiou, Andreas. Greece, Turkey, NATO and the Cyprus Issue 1973-1988: Enemies Allied. Routledge, 2024.
- Strabo. Strabo’s Geography: A Translation for the Modern World. Translated by Sarah Pothecary, Princeton University Press, 2024.
- Tsoumas, Johannis. Greek Interwar Art and Design (1922-1939): An Overview. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023.
- Turczynski, Emanuel. Social and Cultural History of Greece in the 19th Century: From the Turn towards Europe to the First Olympic Games of the Modern Era. Harrassowitz Verlag, 2022.
- Tziampiris, Aristotle. The Monroe Doctrine and the Greek Revolution. Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
- Van Steen, Gonda Aline Hector, editor. The Battle for Bodies, Hearts and Minds in Postwar Greece: Social Worker Charles Schermerhorn in Thessaloniki, 1946-1951. Routledge, 2024.
- Venizelos, Giorgos. Populism in Power: Discourse and Performativity in SYRIZA and Donald Trump. Routledge, 2023.
- Zuchtriegel, Gabriel. The Making of the Doric Temple: Architecture, Religion, and Social Change in Archaic Greece. Cambridge University Press, 2023.
The Rakus Family: From Greece to the Pacific Northwest
The Rakus Family history is like that of so many other immigrants to the Pacific Northwest. The Rakus family migrated to the Northwest to join relatives, family or friends from the same villages in the Roumeli (“heart of Greece”) region of Greece, in the early 1920’s. Many Greeks worked the railroads across the country until they ended in the Pacific Northwest. Once they settled here, most never left.
Anna’s father, Thomas, immigrated to Bellingham, WA to work in the lumber mills. He brought a young bride from the “old country”, and established several successful fruit and vegetable markets downtown Bellingham. They had 3 children, Anna, John and George, who tragically were orphaned when the family was returning from Greece in 1938, and were involved in the great train wreck washout in Montana that took 49 lives. They were raised by their uncle, and Anna married Gust Rakus of Everett, WA in 1947.
Gust came to the US when he was 12 and settled with family in Machias, Snohomish County, where they became farmers. He quickly learned English, and then challenged himself to master other foreign languages. In 1934, while attending a Greek American picnic in Everett, he was offered financial assistance to attend college, but only if he committed to his heritage and to education, which he did by becoming a teacher for 34 years. Incidentally, he was given $135, which paid for his 1st year tuition and books at the University of Washington. He swore then to give back to his heritage and to education.
He graduated from the UW in 1940, with a teaching certificate and an ability to speak and teach 6 other languages. After briefly teaching, he enlisted and served in the Navy where his foreign language skills were put to use with the Allied Force Intelligence Department. After the war, he taught high school and college foreign languages, primarily Spanish, for 28 years. He left the teaching profession to start a new successful career in real estate, but never forgot his primary passions—education and his “Dawgs”.
Gust and Anna Rakus had 3 children, Diane, Tommy and Jamee. Gust passed away in 2003, but left a legacy of more then 50 years of old photos, newspaper articles, and publications, that offer a window into the history of Greek Americans in the Northwest.
His family still lives in Seattle. In 2004 they established the Gust Rakus Hellenic Studies Collection, in his honor, purchasing more then 300 books and publications for the library.
His favorite saying in Greek, to his students, friends and family was: “Where I am, you will be, and where you are, I have been.” It is this philosophy that has committed his family to contributing to the University of Washington and its Libraries, in his memory.