Manolis Glezos

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Manolis Glezos
Μανώλης Γλέζος
Manolis Glezos giving a speech in Omonoia Square, Athens in 2015.
Member of the European Parliament for Greece
In office 1 July 2014 – 8 July 2015 (resigned)
Succeeded by	Nikolaos Chountis
In office 24 July 1984 – 25 January 1985 (resigned)
Succeeded by	Spiridon Kolokotronis
Member of the Hellenic Parliament for National list
In office 6 May 2012 – 2 May 2014 (resigned)
Member of the Hellenic Parliament for Piraeus B
In office 17 June 1985 – 31 December 1986 (resigned)
Member of the Hellenic Parliament for Athens A
In office 18 October 1981 – 7 May 1985
In office 9 September 1951 – 16 November 1952
President of United Democratic Left
In office 25 January 1985 – 1989
Preceded by	Ilias Iliou
Succeeded by	Andreas Lentakis
General Secretary of United Democratic Left
In office 1981 – 25 January 1985
Succeeded by	Theodoros Katrivanos
President of the Community of Apeiranthos
In office 1 January 1987 – 31 December 1990
Prefectural Councillor of Athens-Piraeus super-prefecture
In office 1 January 2003 – 31 December 2006
Municipal Councilor of the Municipality of Paros
In office 1 January 2011 – 6 May 2012 (resigned)
Personal details
Born	(1922-09-09)9 September 1922 Apiranthos, Naxos, Greece
Died	30 March 2020(2020-03-30) (aged 97) Athens, Greece
Resting place	First Cemetery of Athens
Political party	Popular Unity (2015–2020) Syriza (2012–2015) Synaspismos (1991–2012) PASOK (1981–1989) United Democratic Left (1974–1989) Communist Party of Greece (1941–1968)
Spouses	Anastasia Kouka ​ ​ (m. 1947; died 1980)​ Georgia Argyrou ​ (m. 1986)​
Children	2

Manolis Glezos (

In Greece, he is best remembered for taking down the Flag of Nazi Germany from the Acropolis during the Axis occupation of Greece, along with Lakis Santas. After the end of the Occupation, his left-wing political beliefs and activism led to him being sentenced to death thrice; his imprisonments and legal troubles were often the topic of international interest, until his permanent release in 1971.

Since the

Glezos was an award-winning journalist, and worked as head-editor and editor for the left-wing newspapers Rizospastis and I Avgi, which are popular to this day; he also published six books.

Early life and World War II

Born in the village of

According to popular tradition, on 27 April 1941 Konstantinos Koukidis was ordered to lower the Greek flag, and raise the Nazi swastika flag. Koukidis allegedly lowered the flag and jumped from the Acropolis holding it, rather than raise the Nazi flag.

On 30 May 1941 Glezos and

Hours later, the Nazi regime sentenced the perpetrators to death, but they were not identified until much later.[3] Glezos was arrested by the German occupation forces on 24 March 1942, imprisoned, and tortured. As a result of his treatment, he was affected by tuberculosis.^[4]

Glezos was arrested again on 21 April 1943 by the Italian occupation forces and spent three months in jail. In 1944, he was imprisoned by Greek collaborators and beaten for trying to escape.^[5]

Career and political activism

Post-war period

The end of World War II was not the end of Glezos' plight. On 3 March 1948, in the midst of the Greek Civil War, he was put to trial for his political convictions and sentenced to death multiple times by the national government.^[6] His death penalties were reduced to a life sentence in 1950. Even though he was still imprisoned, Manolis Glezos was elected member of the Hellenic Parliament in 1951, under the flag of the United Democratic Left, also known as EDA (Ενιαία Δημοκρατική Αριστερά, ΕΔΑ). Upon his election, he went on a hunger strike demanding the release of his fellow EDA MPs that were imprisoned or exiled in the Greek islands. He ended his hunger strike upon the release of 7 MPs from their exile. He was released from prison on 16 July 1954.

On 5 December 1958, he was arrested again and convicted of

Manolis Glezos' sentences, from the Second World War to the Greek Civil War and the Regime of the Colonels total 11 years and 4 months of imprisonment, and 4 years and 6 months of exile.

Since 1974

After the

In March 2010, Glezos was participating in a protest demonstration in Athens, when he was hit in the face by a police tear gas canister. He was carried away injured.[7]

In February 2012, Glezos was arrested by riot police while protesting in Athens.^[8] He was sprayed with tear gas by one of the police officers in that area.

In the June 2012 parliamentary election, Glezos was elected as MP of the

Glezos was a SYRIZA candidate for the European Parliament in the elections of 25 May 2014. He was elected to the European Parliament with over 430,000 votes, more than any other candidate in Greece. At age 91, he was also the oldest person elected to the European Parliament in the 2014 election.^[9][10]

In 2015, Glezos took a firm stance in favour of the "No" vote in the Greek bailout referendum. As an MEP he also participated in a support protest in Brussels, along with thousands of Belgians^[11] in favour of Greeks voting negatively in the referendum, a few days before the latter takes place.^[12] He resigned from his position in the European Parliament in July 2015, being succeeded by Nikolaos Chountis. The same year, he left SYRIZA before the September 2015 Greek election, where he was an MP candidate with the newly formed Popular Unity party.

In 2018, Manolis Glezos publicly voiced his opposition to the Prespa Agreement between Athens and Skopje on the resolution of the Macedonia naming dispute -despite the agreement being promoted by the SYRIZA government party which he formerly supported. In an article for the Greek daily paper Kathimerini, he insisted that the people of the neighbouring country should "define themselves in accordance with their history, language, traditions... taking out of their mind the word Macedonia".^[13][14]

Non-political career

Apart from his political work, Glezos invented a system to prevent floods, combat erosion and preserve underground water, that works by the constructions of a series of very small dams that redirect water to aquifers. For his contributions to democracy, to geological sciences, and to linguistics he was pronounced honorary Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Patras (Department of Geology) in 1996, of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Department of Civil Engineering) in 2001, of the National Technical University of Athens (School of Mining & Metallurgical Engineering) in 2003, and of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (School of Philosophy) in 2008.

Death

On 30 March 2020, Glezos died of heart failure, at the age of 97. Alexis Tsipras, former Greek prime-minister, said, "He will remain for all eternity the symbol of a fighter who knew how to sacrifice himself for the people." The Russian president Vladimir Putin sent a condolence message to the Greek government, which included, inter alia, the following words:^[15][16] "To his Excellency, PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis. May you accept [my] deep condolences for the loss of Manolis Glezos, a brilliant political and social figure of Greece and a hero of the Greek Resistance at World War II. Manolis Glezos was a true friend of our country [...] He [also] greatly contributed, in person, in the struggle against the distortion of history. [...] With honour, Vladimir Putin. Moscow Kremlin, April 1st, 2020".

Funeral

His funeral was held in the First Cemetery of Athens, in public expense on April 1, with only his family present, due to the restrictions for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Publications

Glezos wrote articles in Greek newspapers since 1942 and was the editor of the newspapers Rizospastis and I Avgi in the 1950s. He was awarded the International Award of Journalism in 1958, the Golden Medal Joliot-Curie of the World Peace Council in 1959, and the Lenin Peace Prize in 1963. He published six books in Greek:

• The History of the Book (Η ιστορία του βιβλίου, 1974)
• From Dictatorship to Democracy (Από τη Δικτατορία στη ∆ηµοκρατία, 1974)
• The Phenomenon of Alienation in the Language (Το φαινόµενο της αλλοτρίωσης στη γλώσσα, 1977)
• The Conscience of the Rocky Earth, (Η συνείδηση της πετραίας γης, 1997)
• Hydor, Aura, Nero, (Ύδωρ, Αύρα, Νερό, 2001)
• National Resistance 1940-1945, (Εθνική Αντίσταση 1940-1945, 2006)

References