The Chania-born statesman Eleftherios Venizelos is generally considered the main architect of the modern Greek state. He was born in Mournies in 1864; his father Kyriakos Venizelos was a Cretan revolutionary who had been exiled by Crete’s Ottoman rulers to the island of Syros for 19 years, where Eleftherios joined him at the age of 2. After studying law in Athens he practised in Chania before joining the local parliament’s Liberal party and entering into politics, becoming minister of justice at the age of 35.

Instrumental in the establishment of an independent Cretan State, he became a deputy for Athens in 1910. As leader of the Liberal Party, he held office as prime minister of Greece for over 12 years, serving eight terms between 1910 and 1933. His liberal ideas often found him at odds with the monarchy and its supporters, and as a result his career was marked by frequent political conflicts, resignations and comebacks, and a number of insurrections. At one point he formed a breakaway government of Macedonia, Crete and the Aegean islands, based in Thessaloniki.

During the Balkan Wars of 1912–13, he contributed to the final expulsion of the Ottomans from the Balkan Peninsula, and under his leadership Greece doubled its territory and population with the acquisition of southern Macedonia, south Epirus, Crete and the Aegean Islands.

Venizelos was a supporter of the Megali Idea – the “Great Idea” of re-establishing the Byzantine Empire with its capital in Constantinople and the liberation of all Greek-speaking areas conquered by the Ottomans. In pursuit of this ambition he promoted the Greek Army’s incursion into Asia Minor in the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922. The conflict ended in defeat for Greece and led to the expulsion of almost all the remaining Greeks under Turkish rule through the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey.

A figure of international stature, Venizelos had promoted the “Greece of two continents and five seas”, which embodied the Megali Idea, at the Paris Peace conference which followed the end of the 1st World War in 1919, but which could not be realised. The Treaty of Sèvres (1920) awarded Eastern Thrace and Ionia (the area around Smyrna in Asia Minor) to Greece but was not ratified by Greece and was repudiated by the new Turkish nationalists under Kemal Ataturk. Venizelos was then the Greek negotiator for the Treaty of Lausanne, signed in 1923, which defined the boundaries between Greece and Turkey which subsist to this day. (The only addition to Greek territory since that date has been the acquisition of the Dodecanese, ceded by Italy in 1947.) Venizelos died in self-imposed exile in Paris on 18th March 1936.

An institution devoted to the study of Venizelos’s life and ideas, The National Research Foundation “Eleftherios K. Venizelos”, is housed in the former Venizelos residence in Halepa in Chania, which is now a museum. The graves of Eleftherios Venizelos and his son Sophocles are situated in a park in Profitis Ilias, situated high above the city with a panoramic view of the bay of Chania and the White Mountains (Lefka Ori).

Memorial service at Venizelos Graves

The annual memorial service for Eleftherios and Sophocles Venizelos was held at the Venizelos Graves on Sunday 19th March. The speeches which accompanied the laying of wreaths on the graves emphasised the basic policies of Eleftherios Venizelos and the example of his actions and thought, while special reference was made to his son Sophocles, who like his father served several terms as Prime Minister of Greece, between 1944 and 1951.

Representing the government at the memorial was the deputy minister of the Interior Stelios Petsas, who described Eleftherios Venizelos as “a reforming, liberal leader who made Greece greater and showed that in order to move forward we must be indifferent to the political cost”. Continuing, he said: “May his shining example be a beacon in today’s difficult circumstances which shows us how we may leave behind fanaticism, intolerance and division and move forwards to make our homeland that which it is worthy of.”

“Today, 87 years after his death, the career of Eleftherios Venizelos constitutes an example of service in the public and national interest,” the Regional Governor for Crete Stavros Arnautakis said in a written contribution. “Eleftherios Venizelos set the bases for the future of Greece. With his outstanding political ethic and his unmatched international prestige he stands in the golden pages of Greek history.”

The Deputy Regional Governor for Chania Nikos Kalogeris mentioned the “tremendous contribution to our homeland” of Eleftherios and Sophocles Venizelos, who constitute “shining examples for all of us”. For his part the mayor of Chania Panagiotis Simandirakis stressed that in this particularly difficult era, “the diplomacy and the path showed by Venizelos in easy and hard times alike is more timely than ever”.

The general director of the Eleftherios K Venizelos Institute, Nikolas Papadakis, had this to say: “Since 1946 when the memorials began, leading representatives of our intellectual, political and social life have passed through here. From Nikolaos Plastiras, the symbol of the Hellenism’s struggles in Asia Minor, to Konstantinos Tsatsos, the President of the Republic [1975-1980]. It is a national commemorative event which Chania, Crete and Greece should continue, honouring the memory of this great politician.”

Among those attending were Chania MPs Vasilis Digalakis (representing the President of Parliament) and Giannis Kasselakis, the Deputy Regional Governors for Lasithi and for Entrepreneurship Giannis Androulakis and Antonis Papaderakis, the mayors of Platanias (Giannis Malandrakis), Kandanos and Selino (Antonis Perrakis), Kissamos (Giorgos Mylonakis) and Sfakia (Manousos Chiotakis), the deputy mayor of Apokoronas Giorgos Gyparakis, regional and municipal councillors and others.

The ceremony was presided over by Metropolitan Amphilochios of Kissamos and Selino, with the participation of Metropolitans Andreas of Archalochori, Kastelli and Viannos, and Damaskinos of Kydonias and Apokoronas.
(Haniotika Nea, 20/03/23)