page_title: Eleftherios Venizelos
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Eleftherios Venizelos / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Statue of Eleftherios Venizelos in Theriso, Crete (detail)
context_page_description: Eleftherios Kyriakou Venizelos was a Greek statesman and a prominent leader of the Greek national liberation movement. He is noted for his contribution in the expansion of Greece and promotion of liberal-democratic policies. As leader of the Liberal Party, he was elected eight times as Prime Minister of Greece, serving from 1910 to 1920 and from 1928 to 1933. Venizelos had such profound influence on the internal and external affairs of Greece that he is credited with being "the maker of modern Greece", and is still widely known as the "Ethnarch".
  His first entry into the international scene was with his significant role in the autonomy of the Cretan State and later in the union of Crete with Greece. Soon, he was invited to Greece to resolve the political deadlock and became the country's Prime Minister. Not only did he initiate constitutional and economic reforms that set the basis for the modernization of Greek society, but also reorganized both army and navy in preparation of future conflicts. Before the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, Venizelos' catalytic role helped gain Greece entrance to the Balkan League, an alliance of the Balkan states against the Ottoman Empire.
context_section_description: One of the main contributions of Venizelos to Greek political life was the creation, in 1910, of the Liberal Party, which contrasted with the Greek parties of that period. Until the early twentieth century, the Greek parties were inspired by the protecting powers (French or English Party for example) or clustered around a political personality, such as Charilaos Trikoupis. The Liberal Party was based around the ideas of Venizelos (and the military coup of Goudi), but it survived its creator. In addition, the birth of a leading party would coincide with the birth of an opposing party. The opposing party was reflected around the personality of the king, but that survived the various abolitions of the monarchy. Venizelism, from its inception, is essentially a liberal Republican movement, which opposes anti-venizelist monarchist and conservative ideologies. These two competed for power throughout the inter-war period.
  Its main ideas, adapted from its creator, were: opposition to the monarchy; the defence of the Megali Idea; formation of alliances with western democratic countries, in particular the United Kingdom and France against Germany during the First and Second World Wars, and later with the United States against the Soviet Union during the Cold War; and finally a protectionist economic policy.
  Themistoklis Sofoulis was, from the 1920s, the successor of Venizelos as leader of the Liberal Party, which survived policy failures, exile and ultimately death of the historical founder. In 1950, the son of Venizelos, Sophoklis Venizelos, succeeded as head of the Liberal Party at a time when an agreement was formed with the populists (name of the royalist party) against the communists during the civil war. The Center Union (Enosis Kendrou), founded in 1961 by Georgios Papandreou, became the ideological descendant of the Liberal Party. The Center Union eventually fade in the late 1970s and was replaced by a party further to the left, Panhellenic Socialist Movement of Andreas Papandreou.
caption: A statue in Theriso, Crete.
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