Alexandros Papanastasiou ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΟΣ ΠΑΠΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΙΟΥ
Born July 8, 1876 Died November 17, 1936
Plaza Number 39
Democracy consists of a whole system of political forces... in order to ensure freedom and egalitarianism the state must try to elevate the many - meaning the whole governing organization - in the political, economical and social and in general in all our relations with other countries.
Alexandros Papanastasiou was a politician, thinker, and, above all, an idealist. This is a quotation from a speech he delivered when he became Greece’s Prime Minister in 1924. His career spanned the years from 1907 until his death in 1936, a period of incredible turmoil in Greece. He introduced something new to Greek political life, - a school of political thought. By regarding politics as a science compatible with scientific research, he believed that sound policies could emerge. He did not believe that a monarchy could or should be the basis of the modern Greek state; he did believe that it was the proper role of government to intervene, fine tune, and improve the society it was leading as well as ensuring as friendly relations with neighbouring states as possible in order to ensure the well being of the region.
In the early 1900s there were many intractable issues facing Greece. It had declared bankruptcy in 1893, had suffered a crushing and humiliating defeat in the Greek Turkish war of 1897, and the governments in power lacked any coherent long term strategy for the betterment of citizens, especially for its poorest citizens, the workers and farmers. How to enhance the all important agricultural sector especially in the newly acquired bread-basket of Thessaly, what role the king should play in political life, and how to improve the economy were all issues in search of solutions that Papanastasiou and his followers believed were within their grasp. He published his views tirelessly in the newspapers of the day. Two articles: What Has to Happen written in 1909 at the time of the military coup at Goudi and, the Democratic Manifesto written in 1922 just before the Smyrna debacle still resonate in Greece.
His Life
Alexandros was born on July 8, 1876 in Tripoli in the Peloponnese. His father was a department head in the Ministry of Education, and a member of parliament for Mantineia. One grandfather was the mayor of Levidi in Arkadia. Public service in the family was a way of life.
With his sister Aristovouli in public school
He studied Law at the University of Athens, earned his doctorate in 1889 at the age of 23, and his licence to practice law in 1901. Still, he did not feel his education was complete. He continued his studies in Berlin and Heidelberg from 1901 to 1905 where he studied Sociology, Philology and Economics, and later studied for a time in England and France.
As a student in Germany (on the left)
The Return
At the age of 31, he returned to Greece with the aim of helping the country to modernize and develop a more solid democratic character along social democratic lines. This included his championship of demotic Greek, the language of the people. When the poet Costis Palamas was criticized for publishing his poems in demotic rather than Katharevousa, the pure language favoured by the social and political elite, Papanastasiou sprang to his defence in an article entitled Freedom of the Word, (Ελευθερία του Λόγου).
Then, In 1908, together with like-minded colleagues, (1) he founded the Sociological society (Κοινωνιολογική Εταιρεία) with the aim of creating a political party for workers and farmers, groups which were sorely under- represented in parliament. The Society produced two regular publications: a weekly Newspaper called The Future (Το Μέλλον) and The Review of Social and Law Sciences (Επιθεώρηση των Κοινωνικών και Νομικών της επιμέλειας).
On the occasion of the coup d’état at Goudi in 1909, (a coup led by a group of officers disgruntled at the interference of the Monarchy in the choice of officers, fed up with the politicians in charge, and wanting changes in the constitution) he wrote What has to Happen (Τι πρέπει να γίνει) concerning how the Greek state, its administration, and the justice system in particular, should be run – and presented it to Colonel Nikolaos Zorba, the coup leader! It was this coup that led to the election of Eleftherios Venizelos in 1910.
Coup leaders always saw themselves as saviours of the state. In this case, democracy was restored quickly
Papanastasiou’s views had not gone unnoticed by the great man himself. Venizelos was a subscriber to the Review of Social and Law Sciences and well versed in the contents of What Has to Happen. Their fundamental outlooks were similar, especially at the beginning of their careers in politics. Venizelos remarked on one occasion: You will be the steam engine which will pull ahead and open the road, and I will follow. And he once presented him to the people waiting outside of his office with these words: “Behold the Future of Greece! «Ιδού το μέλλον της Ελλάδας».
Alexandros standing shoulder to shoulder with Eleftherios Venizlos
Venizelos was very much under the influence of ‘’What Has to Happen” when he presented his party’s platform in June 5, 1910, the year he became Prime Minister of Greece for the first time.
In 1910, Papanastasiou had formed the People’s Party (Λαϊκό Κόμμα), Greece’s first socialist party, and he was elected to parliament. His faction in parliament acted as a kind of left wing for Venizelos’ Liberal Party and, from that position, constantly encouraged him to make reforms. Land reform, especially in Thessaly was very much on the mind of the People’s Party, and with good reason. After Thessaly had joined Greece in 1881, fully 75 percent of the land was in the hands of Greek land owners in the form of vast estates. The people who worked this newly acquired land were being exploited in a quasi - feudal system in which making any kind of living wage was impossible. There had been a farmers’ rebellion at Kileler in 1910 in protest.
It looks idyllic, but it was not for these Thessalian farmers.
Papanastasiou’s group wanted this land expropriated by the government and given to the workers. Agriculture constituted a large part of the Greek economy then and modernization was necessary to develop the sector’s potential. Giving farmers their own land would increase production as well as end the situation of share-cropper servitude. Although actual land distribution did not happen until the 1920s, Papanastasiou had shown the way. (2)
Papanastasiou’s People’s Party’s efforts contributed to many of the reforms made by the government of Venizelos: Sunday as a day of rest, the protection of working women and children, prohibition (except in certain cases) of children under twelve working, inspection of work environments, and efforts at social welfare and wage protection.
He did not win re-election in 1912 and that year saw him volunteering as a fighter in the First Balkan War.
In 1916, the People’s Party joined the Liberal Party of Venizelos and supported him during his break with the king over the entrance of Greece on the side of the Entente during the First World War. As a reward for his loyalty, Venizelos made him governor of the Ionian Islands. (3) Then, after 1917, Venizelos put Papanastasiou in charge of several ministries: Transportation, the Ministry of Health and the Interior Ministry. He accomplished a great deal including the rapid rebuilding of Thessaloniki after the fire of 1917.
The Committee for the renewal of Thessaloniki with the English architect Mawason, the French civil engineer Pleyberm and the architect-town planner Hebrard with Γκίνης, Ζάχος Κιτσίκης κand the mayor Αγγελάκης.
He also created three new schools at the Athens University: architecture, chemical engineering, and land surveying and ensured that the University would be become an independent Institution. Nor was culture ignored. Papanastasiou became involved with putting the holdings of the National Gallery in order and made artist and poet Zacharias Papantoniou its director.
It was all going so well.
But Greek involvement in Asia Minor with its hopes to create a larger Greece, was about to lead to disaster. Venizelos had lost the election of 1920 but the army leaders and the new leaders, backed by the monarchy recklessly decided to continue their push into Turkey although the international climate had changed, and not in Greece’s favour.
Papanastasiou and several colleagues foresaw the catastrophe and on February 12, 1922, just months before the Smyna debacle, published (in the two Greek newspapers - Πατρίδα and Ελεύθερος Τύπος) the Democratic Manifesto.
The Democratic Manifesto
Its position was bitterly anti-royalist. He blamed the king and the princes for Greece’s ills, claiming that they were treating the country like a piece of private property:
Greece is a spiritual creation of the hardship and struggle of its children. It is not a Royal preserve. It can never tolerate sacrificing even the smallest part of itself for the personal satisfaction of the Royal House.
As for the Great Powers, he pointed out that their earlier supportive policies had undergone a change and again he blamed the royal house:
They do not wish to intervene in Greece’s internal affairs but they are forced to declare publically that the restitution to the throne of Greece of a ruler whose non law-abiding attitude and behaviour towards the Allies during the war became, for them, nothing but a sanction by Greece of the hostile acts of King Constantine.
His manifesto enraged the monarchy and the Royalists in the country. Papanastasiou and the other signees were arrested and charged with high treason and insulting the king. Andreas Kavafakis the chief of the newspaper Eleftheros Typos was assassinated nine days after the Manifesto appeared. The climate was electric. Their trial took place in Lamia in June 1922. His defence was undertaken by social democrat and future Greek prime minister, GiorgiosPapandreau. They were sentenced to three years in jail.
Papanastasiou (second from the left) at his trial with the other arrested signees of the Democratic Manifesto.
Papanastasiou was sent to the island of Aigina. His dire prediction of defeat did come true in Smyrna. He was released from prison after the revolution on September 11, 1922 initiated by Nikolaos Plastiras.
On March 12, 1922, King Constantine was banished but King George was brought back to the throne on September 27, 1922 amid a great deal of anti-monarchical sentiment.
Papanastasiou, always concerned to spread his message, started a newspaper on 1923 called Demokratia.
It’s headline reads, The King Must Go
Prime Minister for 135 Days
In 1924, Papanastasiou ran for parliament as an independent with the support of the Liberal Party, and formed a government in March of that year. (4)
On March 25 he proclaimed Greece a republic. It must have been a moment of great personal satisfaction for Papanastasiou. He was finally at the head of what he believed was an ideal form of government for the country. Less than a month later the voters approved by plebiscite the abolition of the Monarchy by a margin of almost 70 percent. (The party of Panayis Tsaldaris which was royalist, found cause to refuse the results of this plebiscite – something that did not bode well for the future.)
As prime minister, Papanastasiou officially recognized the demotic form of the Greek language and founded the University of Thessaloniki. He also cancelled all medals and decorations which had previously been bestowed willy nilly and without merit.
His statue, executed by Ioannis Pappas and erected on the grounds of the University of Thessaloniki in 1976, commemorates the establishment of the university. He holds the Democratic Manifesto in his left hand.
In 1926, Papanastasiou founded another political party, The Democratic Union which was really the People’s Party under a new name. From 1926 to 1928 he was Minister of Agriculture and, in that role, was instrumental in the founding of The Agricultural Bank of Greece an organization that would provide credit to the agricultural sector and enhance rural development.
The Balkans for the People of the Balkans:
In the late twenties, he was able to concentrate on an issue dear to his heart –the improvement of relations among Balkan countries. The Balkan Wars and the Smyrna catastrophe had shown what could happen when amicable relationships did not exist. Papanastasiou was so enthusiastic about his Balkan proposals that in one speech he termed his concept the new “Big Idea” (megali idea) a reference to the old Big Idea of a Greater Greece which had died in the flames of Smyrna in 1922. He argument was sound: if nothing changed, the Balkans would remain subject to the conflicting political aims of each country’s leadership and subject to the whims and machinations of the European powers who had been interfering in the Balkans on a regular basis ever since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. He formally proposed his Balkan plan at the World Congress of Peace in Athens and Delphi in 1929.
The First Balkan Conference was held in Athens from October 5th to 12th 1930 under the aegis of the International Peace Bureau. Its express aim was to identify and eliminate any casus belli that might arise. Regular yearly meetings of each country’s foreign ministers were proposed as was the resolution of disputes by conciliation, arbitration, or reference to the court at The Hague and, lastly, the consideration of the situation of ethnic minorities in each member state was also placed on the agenda. This last was insisted upon by Bulgaria but agreed to by all.
More conferences were held, in Constantinople in 1931, in Bucharest in 1932, Thessaly in 1933, and many issues of common interest were discussed. All this led to a Balkan Pact being signed on February 8, 1934 in Athens, although only four Balkan countries actually signed: Turkey, Romania, Greece, and Yugoslavia. Two of the issues agreed upon were to respect existing borders, to respect international law, and to avoid hostile military activity. Ominously, Bulgaria and Albania abstained.
Bulgaria and Albania abstained...
Why did nothing come of it?
There were many reasons. Each Balkan State had come to the table with a different perspective on what could or should be achieved. Newly created Yugoslavia was apparently most interested in economic possibilities including a negotiated corridor to the Mediterranean via Thessaloniki, Romania was concerned with the importance of cultural ties, and Bulgaria was concerned about protecting its minorities in Romania and western Thrace – and wanted a corridor to the Aegean. Then, the resolutions made at these conferences did not bind their governments to accept them. Venizelos ever the pragmatist, was not against the conferences but, unlike Papanastasiou was cautious as to what could be achieved. He was critical of the 1934 pact and thought it might even be both dangerous and not in Greece’s interests. He preferred bi-lateral agreements with other heads of state. Papanastasiou, on the other hand, favoured agreements of a pan - Balkan character. Regardless of who was right or wrong, the Balkan Pact never really got off the ground although Romania did commemorate it with a stamp.
In the thirties, each Balkan State retreated into its own brand of political chaos. Greece became a battleground between the royalists and Venizelists which was temporarily resolved by the coup d’ état of March 1st 1935. Papanastasiou had tried to mediate but failed. His proposal had been a government of national unity to avoid a civil war similar to the civil wars that had destroyed Hellenism in ancient times. He reiterated his belief that above all the parties and any person is Greece; its future and the life of its people.
Brave words, futile in the climate of 1936, and horribly prophetic too.
The Elections which followed the revolution on Oct 10 1935 resulted in the return of the king on Nov 25 of the same year. Then on August 4, 1936, the king invited Ioannis Metaxas to be prime minister although he had won only a small percentage of the vote. The dictatorship of Metaxas began. (5)
Papanastasiou was placed under house arrest because he refused to accept the Metaxas dictatorship with these words:
The freedom that was given to us by our fathers, shedding rivers of blood, must not tolerate now Metaxas and the king who have deprived us of our freedom making us slaves and we shall sit calmly by and not fight against this tyranny? I cannot. I cannot bear it. With every ounce of strength I will not stop fighting them.
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The Metaxas Dictatorship had distinct German overtones...
Papathanasiou died of a heart attack on November 16, 1936 while still under house arrest and irony of ironies, Metaxas, wanted to have him buried with the honours of a Prime Minister and at public expense. The very people who had betrayed his ideals were prepared to bury him (and his ideas) with honours! His sister refused at first - until Metaxas threatened that if she did not accept, she would be the only person allowed at his burial.
Summary
Papanastasiou could be forgiven if he died, like Keats, believing that his name was ‘writ in water’. He did not live to see his ideal state or Balkan solidarity and it is hard to imagine what he would have made of the Greek civil war, the cold war, and the present relationships between Balkan states. Perhaps it is better that he did not know. Greece has not been kind to its political idealists. I am thinking of Giorgios Lambrakis, for example, but their courage, and liberal principles have remained a beacon for many. He never gave up and, in my opinion, died a hero, a martyr to his cause of creating a better way of life for his people.
Afterword: There is a museum
dedicated to Papanastasiou in Levidia in Arcadia. Among other exhibits, his
brain is exhibited floating in some sort of preservative. I am not sure why that
was considered a good idea, but the same fate awaited Einstein so he is in good
company. The exhibit below is more edifying than the brain...
The Map
Footnotes
(1) His colleagues were Constantinos Triantafyllopoulos, Alexandras Mylonas and Panagiotis Aravantinos.
(2) Ironically, after the land was redistributed. Many of the new owners became conservatives!
(3) The struggle between royalists and republicans was a hallmark of the era and destabilized so many efforts. It was always bubbling under the surface.
(4) He also served as prime minister for a few days in 1932. Many of his colleagues, like himself, were educated in Germany and imbued with the ideas of social democracy.
(5) It was this power of the king that had been a bone of contention throughout the monarchy – that he could choose a prime minister who had received very little public support but who could be counted on to support the monarchy.
Sources in English
For Balkan Pact: https://www.istorikathemata.com/2018/08/conferences-for-creation-of-federation.html
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