JUPITER or ZEUS
J
upiter or Zeus was the Head of Olympus Gods and the father of some
of them, such as Athena, Ares and Hephaestus, and was Hera’s hus-
band. He was bom in Ideon Andron and grew up in Dikteon Andron,
in caves in the Cretan mountains, while drinking the goat Amalthea’s
milk.He often left Olympus and visited earth, and as a result of these
visits to Earth and his relations with mortals, Demigods such as Her-
cules, Minos and others were bom.
His symbols were the thunderbolt and the eagle.
Neither the Greek people nor the Roman people
swore in his name. The athletes who competed
every four years in Olympia invoked the name of
Zeus. The guests of the Olympic Games, who trav-
eled from every corner of Greece to watch the
games (the first form of mass tourism in world his-
tory) asked for his protection.
MINOS AND THE KNOSSOS PALACE
H
e was the King of Crete, son of Zeus and Europe. With his wife
Pasiphae they had Ariadne, Androgeo, Deucalion, Phaedra and
other children. As Minos was the legislator of Crete and founder of the
naval supremacy of the island, he dominating the Aegean Sea during
his reign. According to mythology, Minos had promised Poseidon to
sacrifice in his honor a wonderful bull he had seen to be emerging
from the sea. However, he changed his mind and sacrificed another
animal instead. Poseidon became enraged and cursed his wife
Pasiphae who acquired an inclination towards bestiality. From the mat-
ing of Pasiphae and the bull a monster was bom, Minotaur. Minos or-
dered his palace’s chief engineer, Daedalus to construct a complex
system of underground corridors and galleries beneath the palace and
he entrapped Minotaur there so that no one would find out of that
terrible secret. He then kept Daedalus and his son Icarus as prisoners.
The son of Minos, Androgeo participated in
competitions organized by the King Aegeus of
Athens. As he constantly used to win in all com-
petitions, his opponents murdered him. Minos re-
acted by declaring war against the Athenians and
he only decided to make peace when they prom-
ised to send seven young men and seven young
virgins to Minos as a penalty, every nine years, in
order to feed Minotaur. When Daedalus escaped
from Crete, Minos swore to find him at all costs. He traveled from town
to town with a spiral seashell, offering a generous reward to whoever
could find a way to measure the length of the internal thread. When
he arrived in Sicily, King Kokalos pointed out to Minos that by tying
the thread to an ant he could proceed to the measurement. Minos im-
mediately understood that Daedalus was hiding in the court of King
Kokalos and requested his surrender. King Kokalos agreed and con-
vinced Minos to remain in the court and rest by taking a bath. During
the bath the daughter of Kokalos killed him with scalding hot water.
His body was sent back to Crete and placed in a special sarcophagus.
After his death, the gods made Minos a judge in Hades (the Saint
Peter of his era). Aegos judged over the Europeans, Rhadamanthus
over the Asians and Minos casted the deciding vote. On a mural of the
Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, a work by Michelangelo, Minos is de-
picted as a judge in Hades. Also, in Dante’s Inferno, Minos is described
in the entrance of Hades where he judged over the sins of the incom-
ing souls, deciding about their punishment and to which basement
of hell they would descend according to the sins they had committed.
IDOMENEAS
H
e was the grandson of Minos. The King of Crete during the Trojan
War, he participated in the campaign as the leader of the Cretans.
Homer describes him as a fearless person, as one of the most impor-
tant generals of the Greeks in the Trojan War and trusted advisor of
Agamemnon. He fought against Hector by fending off his attacks, and
he was one of those who entered into the Trojan horse along with
Odysseus, which ultimately led to the fall of Troy.
During his return from Troy, his ship faced a terrible storm and he
invoked the help of Poseidon. However, after Poseidon saved his life
he did not fulfill his oblation to Poseidon and the Gods sent the plague
to Crete, and the Cretans sent Idomeneas in exile in Calabria, Italy.In
1780 Mozart wrote his opera Idomeneas, based on the salvation of the
hero by the God of the sea and the subsequent breach of his promise
to Poseidon.
EPIMENIDES
H
e was a philosopher and poet of the 6th century BC, bom in Crete
and was considered one of the seven greatest savants of antiq-
uity. Also according to the legend, he was gifted by Zeus with the gift
of prophecy. Epimenides helped Solon reform the laws of Athens. He
was also worshiped in ancient Sparta, as he had prophesied the mili-
tary glory of the city. In fact the relics of Epimenides were being kept
as something holy in the mansion of curators in Sparta.
In his epic poem Cretan (Kritika), he describes King Minos addressing
his father Zeus. Epimenides is considered as the thinker, who first men-
tioned the vicious circle, by saying Every Cretan Lies (Pas Kris Psevdete).
But as himself was a Cretan, he also lied, so the definition was not ap-
plicable, but as it was not applicable, he was telling the truth; and that
get’s us back to the same circle.
NEARCHOS
H
e was bom in the ancient city of Crete Lato in about 360 BC. At a
very young age he emigrated to Amphipolis, Macedonia with his
family for financial reasons as King Philip of Macedonia had conquered
the city in 357 BC and provided financial incentives to new residents
to settle in the city. In Pella he entered the circle of young Alexander’s
close friends together with Ptolemy and others. Philip, who had hired
Aristotle as a teacher of his son, was not thrilled about these encoun-
ters, and finally, he exiled Nearchos. Nearchos would remain in exile
until Philip was murdered and Alexander assumed power.
After his withdrawal and the epic march of Alexander the Great, his
close, old friends were especially honored and in 333 BC Nearchos un-
dertakes to be the governor of Lycia, one of the richest provinces of
Middle Asia. In 328 BC Alexander invites him accompanied by rein-
forcements in order to take part in the imminent decisive battle of Bac-
tria. In 326 BC Nearchos is appointed admiral of the fleet which has
been constructed on the Hydaspes River of India. At this point the long
journey of the Cretan admiral begins, who went down the river to the
mouth leading to the Indian Ocean, along with the army of Alexander
the Great. After having his damaged ships repaired in the tropical wa-
ters, he passes the Persian Gulf crossing the Strait of Hormuz and be-
comes the first Greek who visits Bahrain. By this visit, the country is
rendered part of the Greek world as the residents embrace the Greek
religion; they love Zeus, while the upper class starts learning to speak
Greek. The country is called Tilos. Many objects of the Greek civilization
are nowadays displayed in the national museum of Bahrain.
He meets Alexander the Great in Carmania after he, the army com-
mander, successfully crossed the desert. He was commissioned to sail
to the Euphrates River and meets with Alexander again before enter-
ing Babylon, where he mentions a prophecy he heard, that he should
not enter the city, to his childhood friend. Alexander the Great did not
take his words seriously. The death of the great army commander is a
landmark for the ancient world. Nearchos had a place in the final plans
of Alexander the Great as the commander of the fleet for future oper-
ations in the Mediterranean Sea.
In the conflict of the epigones he would support Antigonos, and re-
tire later in order to write his story. He died in 300 BC.
POPE ALEXANDER the 5th
H
e was bom in Crete in 1339, by unknown parents. He bore the
name Petros Filargis and he was adopted by Franciscan monks.
Due to his abilities he was sent on a scholarship to study at the best uni-
versities of Oxford and Paris. During his studies in Paris, the Western
Schism occurred within the Catholic Church. He moved to Lombardy,
where thanks to the favor and support of the Duke of Milan he becomes
bishop of Piacenza in 1386 and eventually became archbishop of Milan
in 1402.Then, in 1405, he becomes Cardinal by Pope Innocent the 7th
and makes a lot of effort to reunite the disunited Catholic Church. In
recognition of these efforts, during the meeting in Pisa in 1409 the Car-
dinals elected him as Pope. During his short ten-month tenure he an-
nounced reforms which he, however, did not manage to realize.
He died on 4 May 1410 while he was in Bologna with Cardinal Cossa.
Rumor has it that he was poisoned by the Cardinal who succeeded
him as Pope John 23rd. He was buried far from his birthplace, in the
church of St. Francesco of Bologna.
MARKOS MOUSOUROS
H
e was bom in Rethymnon in 1470. At a young age he was sent to
Venice by his wealthy merchant father to continue his studies
near Ioannis Laskaris. There he received excellent education.In 1505
he becomes professor of the Greek language at the famous University
of Padua. Erasmus, (after whom the student exchange programs fi-
nanced by the EU are named), who would later
on become the famous Dutch Renaissance
thinker, attended the classes of M. Mousouros
at that university.
In 1516 Pope Leon the 10th invites him to
Rome to teach at the Vatican school. At the
same time, he establishes the first Greek print-
ing press in Rome and prints the ancient Greek
works of authors in collaboration with the fa-
mous typographer Aldus Manutius, by con-
tributing to the regeneration of the West
through the knowledge of the Greek culture.
In 1517 Marcos Mousouros was appointed Archbishop of Mai vasia
(Monemvasia) by the Pope, but he dies shortly before leaving to take
up his duties.
PETROS THE CRETAN
H
e was bom in Crete in 1485 and he was the first Greek who arrived
at the American Continent. At a young age, being a restless and
adventurous spirit, he left for Spain, became a mercenary soldier and
got specialized in firearms and artillery. Moreover, he became natural-
ized as a Spanish citizen obtaining the name Pedro da Candia (it was
common for foreigners to take the name of their place of origin) and
then by searching his fortune as a conquistador he set sail for the New
World. He participated in the conquest of Peru and the dissolution of
the Inca’s empire by Francisco Pizarro, where he is distinguished. Then,
he leads an unsuccessful mission for the discovery of the legendary
kingdom of Amabaya with its treasures, an Eldorado in the Amazon
valley. After the assassination of Pizarro in 1541, a civil war breaks out
between the Spanish conquistadors. He was killed in 1542, by Diego
d'Almagro, in the decisive battle near the old capital of the Incas, Cusco.
FRANCESCO BAROZZI
H
e was a mathematician and astronomer of the Renaissance era.He
was bom in Heraklion, in 1537 and was son of a noble Venetian
family; he studied mathematics at the University of Padua. With a high
income of 4,000 ducats, which he received from his paternal fortune
in Crete, Francesco remained in Venice where he translated many an-
cient Greek writers such as Euclid, Archimedes, Pappus of Alexandria
and others.
He was also distinguished as an astronomer. Today the crater of the
Moon Barozzius carries his name. In Bologna he published a collection
of Nostradamus’s prophecies while he gave another collection of his
studies of the Byzantine emperor Leo IV the Wise as a gift to the Gov-
ernor of Crete and later Doge, Giacomo Foscarini. A collection of his
copies of ancient texts of Crete can be found at the University of Ox-
ford. He died in 1604 in Venice.
DOMINIKOS THEOTOKOPOULOS (El Greco)
H
e was bom in the village Fodele, in Heraklion, in 1541, from a
wealthy family which, because of a rebellion, had been forced to
move from Chania to Heraklion earlier on. His father George
Theotokopoulos was a merchant and a tax collector.
In the city of Heraklion, where the post-Byzantine art of painting
flourishes, a meeting point of Eastern and Western cultures which co-
exist in harmony, he learns the art of painting images. It is noteworthy
that in Heraklion, at that time, there were about two hundred painters,
many of whom accepted orders for paintings which they then sent for
sale in Venice.
In 1567 he left for Venice where he remained
for three years and perfected his painting skills,
influenced by the Renaissance style of Tintoretto
and Tiziano. Another great painter of the era,
Clovio while visiting him in his atelier, on a sum-
mer day, finds him painting in a dark room as he
did not want the daylight to disturb the inner
light of his visions.
He left Venice and moved to Rome in 1570.
Michelangelo and Raphael had died, but their
style is being culminated and there is no space
for different approaches concerning painting. El
Greco made a proposal to Pope Pio the 5th to re-paint the Sistine
Chapel in the Vatican, with a new and more rigorous approach. El
Greco, as well as other Greeks, moving to the West at that time, em-
braced Catholicism. But he still signed his works with his full name in
Greek. Furthermore, he maintained close relationships with his birth-
place and his older brother Manousos came to visit him and spend the
last years of his life at his house in Toledo.
In Rome he opens his own workshop. But his radical perception and
criticism about the work of Michelangelo create many eternal enemies
in the town, who call him “the foolish stranger”. Thus he is forced to
immigrate to Toledo, Spain in 1577, where he will live until the end of
his life and will paint his most famous works.
At the time he arrives at Toledo, the Escorial, the great palace of
Philip II, is still under construction and Philip has a difficulty to find
great artists to decorate it with paintings. Tiziano has died; Tintoretto
and Veronese refuse to come to Spain. It is the opportunity El Greco
was waiting for. With his arrival he had already undertaken to paint the
church of Santo Domingo in Toledo and his works, the Holy Spirit and
the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, make a huge impression. The king
assigns him two important orders. But the demanding Philip is not sat-
isfied with the inspiration of El Greco to place people who are alive in
religious scenes in the works and their cooperation stops.
His workshop receives back-to-back orders from major Spanish cit-
izens, a leading country in the West at that time, as it is experiencing
the golden century of its history, with the wealth flowing from the
American colonies. In 1586 he creates his masterpiece, the Burial of
the Count of Orgaz. Centuries later, his technique will become an in-
spiration for artists such as Cezanne and Picasso. Also in the works of
his mature age he likes to play with light, as each face seems to have
its own lighting.
In Toledo he lives a comfortable life. He hires musicians to play at
dinners. He meets Jeronima de las Cuevas. He never got married to
her but he had his only child with her in 1578, to whom, in honor of
his father, he gave the name Georgios- Emmanuil (Jorge Manuel). His
son would also become a painter. In April 1614 he got seriously ill and
a week later he died. His body is buried in the church of Santo
Domingo in Toledo.
VITSENTZOS KORNAROS
H
e is the greatest Cretan poet of the Renaissance, bom in 1553 by
a rich Venetian-Cretan family in Sitia. He lived there, until in 1590
he moved to Heraklion, where he married Marietta Zeno and became
member of the Academy of Stravakanti. His monumental work, Ero-
tokritos will be the favorite song of many generations of Cretan, until
this day, and he would become a source of inspiration for poets such
as Dionysios Solomos and Kostis Palamas. In 1591 Komaros become a
health inspector, during the plague epidemic that decimated Crete
that year. He died in Heraklion in 1613 and his body is placed in the
church of St. Fragkiskos.
DASKALOGIANNIS
H
is name was Ioannis Vlachos. However he was considered an edu-
cated man (during that era), he was being called as teacher hence
the name Daskalogiannis. He was bom in a wealthy family in Anopolis
Sfakia and as a ship-owner he conducted busi-
ness in trading. In one of his travels he came in
contact with Russian officials who were in the
service of Catherine the Great and they agreed to
start the revolution in Crete shortly after the start
of the upcoming Russian-Turkish war.
In 1770 the war broke out and the revolution
was declared in the church of Saint George. The
revolution was successful in the beginning, al-
though only Sfakia participated in it. The assis-
tance from Russia never came, and the next year
40,000 Turkish soldiers invaded for the first time
in Sfakia burning down villages. Daskalogiannis,
in order to save his province from the vengeful
fury of the Turks, surrendered in Fragokastelo.
The Turks took him to Heraklion and skinned
him alive on 17 June 1771 at the central square
of the city. The revolution of Daskalogiannis was
the first revolution against the Turks, about one hundred years after
the conquest by the Turks and the beginning of a series of other rev-
olutions which would lead to the liberation of Crete. Nowadays, the
International airport of Chania is named after him.
Statue of
Daskalogiannis
in Anopolis,
Sfakia, Crete
DIMITRIS KALLERGIS
H
escending from the famous noble family of Kallergis in Rethym-
non, bom in 1803, he studied medicine in Paris, when the revo-
lution of 1821 started. He interrupts his studies immediately and goes
to Peloponnese. He fights together with Karaiskakis and during the
battle of Athens he was temporarily caught prisoner by the Turks. He
served as adjutant of the French philhellene Colonel Faviero, as he
spoke his language, and later as adjutant of Kapodistrias.
In 1832 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and in 1843 he be-
came commander of cavalry. He led the movement of 1843, which
forced Otto of Greece to remove his Bavarian advisers and to grant
Constitution to the Greek people.
He became the military commander of Athens and the adjutant of
Otto of Greece, but with the fall of the government of Mavrokordatos,
in 1845, he was forced to leave in exile in London, where he meets an-
other exile, Prince Louis Napoleon, the future emperor of France,
Napoleon III, with whom he became close friends. With the pressure
from the Great Powers, especially France, on the eve of the Crimean
War, in 1854, he returned to Greece and became the Minister for Mili-
tary in the new government of Mavrokordatos. He faced the dislike of
Otto of Greece and he was forced to resign the following year.
In 1861 he became ambassador in Paris, from where he played an
important role in the dethronement of Otto of Greece in 1862. In 1866,
with the beginning of the great Cretan Revolution, his name is being
discussed in order to take over as leader of this revolution and to per-
suade Napoleon III to change the hostile attitude of France towards
the revolution. He died the following year in 1867.
ELEFTHERIOS VENIZELOS
H
e was bom in 1864 in Moumies, an area near the city of Chania.His
father was a merchant in Chania and was forced to move to Syros
at the beginning of the revolution of 1866 in order to save his family.
Venizelos went to school in Syros and then studied Law at the Univer-
sity of Athens.
He returned in Chania in 1886 and worked as a lawyer, while also
working in journalism. In 1891 he married Maria Katelouzou and lived
in the suburb of Halepa. Maria died giving birth to their second child,
and since then Venizelos has had a beard.
In the revolution of 1897 against the Turks he plays a decisive role
as a rebel in the camp of Akrotiri, which is bombarded by the fleets of
the Great Powers. There he carries out his first diplomatic steps by ne-
gotiating with the admirals of the Great Powers.
The following year, in 1898 Crete becomes independent, com-
manded by Prince George and Venizelos became Minister of
Justice.Soon he comes into a conflict with the Prince, as he was con-
tinuisly putting pressure on him for a faster union with Greece. George
fires him. Venizelos issues his own newspaper, Kirikas, and in 1905 he
starts the revolution of Therisos, which the next year led to the resig-
nation of Prince George and his departure from Crete.
In 1910, while Crete is still an autonomous state, he is invited to
Athens and becomes the Prime Minister of Greece. He creates the Lib-
eral Party and wins the elections with a vast majority against the con-
servative rival. He applies a modernization program to the country,
distributed land to the landless, implemented measures to boost the
economy and the army - navy.
In 1912 he comes to an alliance with Serbia and Bulgaria by con-
vincing them about the necessity of a Greek fleet and they jointly de-
clare the First Balkan war against Turkey. Turkey is defeated but the
allies get in conflict as Bulgaria claims the largest part of the liberated
territories. Greece and Serbia win the Second Balkan War in 1913 and
limit Bulgaria’s claims. The result of these two victorious wars was that
Greece doubled its extent and its population by freeing and annexing
Northern Greece, Epirus, the islands and Crete. Prime Minister Venize-
los became extremely popular.
In 1915 while the First World War breaks out, he gets in a conflict
with King Constantine, the Kaiser’s brother-in-law and resigns. The rea-
son of the conflict that would lead to national disunity is Venizelos’s
will for Greece to participate on the side of the allies of the Entente op-
posed to the neutrality the King wishes for.
When Bulgaria, Germany’s ally occupies
Greek territories, Venizelos goes to Thessa-
loniki in 1916 and creates a government in-
dependent from the one in Athens. The
following year, 1917 Konstantinos was
forced into exile and Venizelos returned to
Athens. Greece enters the First World War.
By the end of the war, Venizelos partici-
pates in the winners’ meeting in Paris in
1919, and with his diplomatic skills he man-
ages to distract Eastern Thrace and the area
of Smyrna which was being claimed by the
Italians. Upon the disembarkation of the army in Smyrna in 1919,
Greece was involved in a conflict with Turkey which culminates in
1920. Despite the assassination attempt against Venizelos in Paris, im-
mediately after signing the Treaty of Sevres, he returns to Athens as a
winner. However, he loses the elections of 1920 in the same way
Churchill would lose in 1945, despite being at the peak of his fame,
and goes abroad, where in 1921 in London he got married to Elena
Skylitsi, a rich Greek- American. The king returns to Greece. The war in
Asia Minor progresses in a tragedy with disastrous errors that lead to
the Asia Minor Catastrophe in 1922. Over two million Greeks of Asia
Minor, where they had been living for more than 3000 years, came to
Greece as refugees in their attempt to escape from the vengeful fury
of the Turks who were burning Smyrna to the ground. After that dis-
aster, the king left the country for a second time to go in exile.
Venizelos returns and he is elected prime minister in 1928 and re-
mained in office until 1932, taking a series of measures for social ben-
efits, for the recovery of the economy and for the promotion of
education. At the same time he develops good neighborly relations
with Bulgaria, Italy, and Yugoslavia and restores the relations with
Kemal’s Turkey, signing a friendship pact in 1930 while visiting Ankara.
However, the international recession of the early 30s claims Venize-
los’s Government, as a victim too and he loses the elections of 1932.
The next year the second assassination attempt against him took place
in Athens. In March 1935 he is accused of being an instigator of the
failed movement and was forced to move in exile in France. Democ-
racy is repealed in October 1935 and King George II returns.
A year after his exile, deeply distressed, he suffers a stroke on 19
March 1936 and died five days later in his apartment in 22 Bouzon
Street in Paris. His body was transported from Paris with honors ap-
propriate for a Head of State. He is being transferred to Chania with a
torpedo boat, avoiding Athens in order not to cause riots against the
Metaxas regime. He was buried in Akrotiri (where his tomb still is
today), the place where he fought and from where he had started his
great career.
EMMANOUIL TSOUDEROS
H
e was bom in Rethymno in 1882; he studied economics in Athens
and abroad. When he returned to Crete, he was elected a mem-
ber of the Cretan parliament. With the inclusion of Crete to Greece in
1913, he is elected a member of the Greek parliament. He becomes a
minister in the government of El. Venizelos and later minister of finance
in the government of Themistoklis Sofoulis. In the late 1930s he be-
came governor of the Bank of Greece.
In April 1941 he becomes the Prime Minister of Greece in turbulent
times, as the Germans are at the gates of Athens and the Prime Minis-
ter Alexandras Koryzis has committed suicide. Along with King George
II he descends to Crete and organizes the defense of the island. He
leaves again during the Battle of Crete in Egypt, where he remains the
prime minister of the exiled Greek government in Cairo until 1943. Dur-
ing his premiership he will accompany George II on his trip to the USA
and to his meeting with the president Fr. Roosevelt. After the war he
serves in various government positions until his death in Italy in 1956.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS
T
he most translated modem Greek writer, was bom in Heraklion in
1883. In 1902 he starts his studies at the School of Law at the Uni-
versity of Athens and he continues in Paris in 1907 where he studies
philosophy. After his studies in Paris in 1910 he writes his first work
“the master builder”, based on a folk legend. In 1922
-24 he moved to Berlin and started writing the
Odyssey, a huge epic poem that will take years to
be completed. He became an admirer of Lenin and
in 1925 he visited the Soviet Union, where he keeps
track of the rise of Stalin to power. He became a cit-
izen of the world by traveling to Spain, Egypt,
Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, China, and Japan, and fi-
nally arrives in the French Antibes where he bought
a house near the sea.
In 1945, as the head of a small left non-commu-
nist party he enters the Greek parliament, but soon
he feels disappointed and withdraws from active politics. He devotes
himself to writing by creating masterpieces like Zorba the Greek in
1946, Christ Recrucified in 1948, Captain Michael in 1950, the Last
Temptation in 1951, the God’s Pauper (St. Francis of Assisi) in 1956 and
Report to Greco, containing autobiographical and fictional elements.
The influence of the German philosopher Nietzsche in Kazantzakis’s
work is seen through the harsh criticism towards the church, a fact that
leads many conservative parties to condemn his work and excommu-
nicate him in 1955.
In 1957 he is proposed for the literature Nobel Prize but he loses it
by one vote to Albert Camus. In the same year, 1957, while he is on his
last trip to the Far East, he suffers from leukemia and he takes the plane
back home. He is being transferred to the hospital in Freiburg, Ger-
many where he dies. His tomb is located on the southern ramparts of
the Venetian walls of Heraklion, indicating “I hope for nothing, I fear
nothing, I am free”, thus expressing his indomitable spirit.
SOFOKLIS VENIZELOS
H
e was the second son of Eleftherios Venizelos, bom in Chania in
1894 when Crete was still under Turkish (Ottoman) mle. He served
in the Greek Army as an officer in the First World War and in the first
phase of the Asia Minor campaign, where he is distinguished and pro-
moted to the grade of the Captain of artillery. In 1920 he resigned from
the army and was elected as a member of parliament for the first time.
In 1941 he became ambassador of the exiled Greek government of
Cairo in the US. Two years later, he undertakes a ministerial position
and in 1944 he becomes the Prime Minister of the exiled government.
After the liberation of Greece he becomes a minister in the first post-
war government with G. Papandreou as the Prime Minister. In 1948 he
assumes the leadership of the Liberal party founded by his father in
1910, by succeeding Themistoklis Sofoulis. During 1950- 51 he be-
comes the prime minister, succeeding Nikolaos Plastiras.
In 1961 together with George Papandreou he founded the Centre
Union which wins the elections and he takes office as the vice presi-
dent of the government, when he suddenly dies from a heart attack
on 7 February 1964. He is buried next to his father in Akrotiri, Chania.
ODYSSEUS ELYTIS
D
escending from a rich family of Lesbos; he was bom in Heraklion
in 1911. His family soon moves to Athens, where the young
Odysseus was registered at the University of Athens. In 1935 he pub-
lished his first poetry collection and in 1937 he fulfilled his military
service. The Greek- Italian war of 1940 finds him as
a lieutenant in the front line in Albania.
After the war he left for long periods to France,
Paris, in 1948-1952 and 1969-1972 (during the
junta). There he socializes with important personal-
ities of Literature and Art such as Matisse, Picasso,
Chagall, Axel, Jean Paul Sartre and others. His poetry
is internationally known and Mikis Theodorakis
melodizes his most famous work “Axion Esti”.
In 1979 he was awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature by the Swedish
Academy of Sciences and he is recognized as one of the foremost
expressers of the romantic modernism in poetry. He dies at the age of
85 in 1996.
MIKIS THEODORAKIS
H
is origin is from Crete, his father originating from the area of Cha-
nia and his mother from Asia Minor, he was bom in Chios in
1925.He studied music in Athens and then in Paris during the 1954-
1959 period, with intense artistic creation.
In 1957 he wins the gold prize at the Moscow music festival. He re-
turns to Greece and his musical works, Epitaphios, Epiphania, Small
Cyclades, Axion Esti, Mauthausen, Romiossini have their roots in the
authentic Greek music. He quickly becomes internationally known.
At the same time he is involved in the political affairs of the country
after the assassination of the member of parliament Grigoris Lam-
brakis in 1963. He founded the Lambrakis Demo-
cratic Youth to which he becomes the chairman and
in 1964 he elected as a member of parliament with
the United Democratic Left (Eniea Dimokratiki Aris-
tera).His left wing beliefs lead to his songs not being
played on radio stations.
In 1963 he writes the music for the film Zorba the
Greek. Through the film the syrtaki dance is regis-
tered as the trademark of Greek music with roots in
the traditional Cretan dances.
In 1967 during the junta in Greece, his songs were banned and he
is arrested and imprisoned for five months. He is released in 1968 and
is held in captivity along with his family in Oropos. Personalities such
as Arthur Miller, Shostakovich, Bernstein, Harry Belafonte and others,
manage to liberate him in 1970, when arrives in Paris with a chartered
plane. Melina Merkouri, Kostas Gavras, Jules Dassin welcome him but
after that he is being hospitalized as he has been infected by tubercu-
losis.
For four years he fights to overthrow the junta from abroad by giving
hundreds of concerts all over the world. He meets personalities such
as Pablo Nemda, Allende, Nasser, Tito, Arafat, Mitterrand, and Palme.
For millions of people he becomes the symbol of resistance against
dictatorship.
He returns to Greece in 1974 after the restoration of democracy and
continues his work with concerts in the country and abroad. He is
elected as a member of parliament again with the Left party and in
1990 he becomes Minister in the Mitsotakis government. Besides his
artistic talent, he is distinguished for the love for his country, human
rights, internationalism, ecology and Peace.
Edition by Chania, Rental Accommodation Union
www.chaniarooms.gr
FAMOUS CRETAN PEOPLE
Through 18 short biographies of famous Cretan
people from the antiquity up to this day, an attempt
has been made so that the visitor can have a better
understanding concerning the place and the people
who inhabit it. Emphasis is given to their specific
characteristics, the unconquered soul, love for free-
dom, justice, science, arts and literature.
The most famous Cretan is Jupiter or Zeus, the father of the
Olympian gods. He is considered to be Cretan as he was born
at the Ideon Antron on Psiloritis, Ida (2456 meters), the highest
mountain of Crete, and grew up drinking the milk of the goat
Amalthea in another cave, at the Dikteon Andron on the Las-
sithi plateau.
It is no coincidence that Zeus, except from being the leader -
president of the gods, also was the protector of travelers and
the god of hospitality, hence the well-known name Xenios
Zeus.This locution expresses the importance the ancient
Greeks gave to hospitality, a principle always abided by as invi-
olable through the centuries in Crete, where the foreigner, the
traveler, was considered a holy person, was very welcome and
always enjoyed the hospitality and protection of the locals.