Spyros Kyprianou (born 1932) was president and speaker of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Cyprus, heading an island country comprising only some 3,500 square miles and 650,000 people, but one that was split into mutually hostile Greek and Turkish sectors.

Spyros Kyprianou was born on October 28, 1932, in the port city of Limassol in Cyprus, then a British crown colony, into a large, well-to-do Greek Cypriot commercial family. After completing his elementary and secondary education in Limassol, he was sent in 1950 to complete his studies in England. He studied economics and business at the City of London College, then law at Gray's Inn, where he received a diploma in comparative law. He was admitted to the bar in 1954.

In the meantime, Kyprianou had become active as a journalist and lecturer in the enosis movement, the campaign of Greek Cypriots to end British rule over Cyprus and to unit the...