What I can see

This sculpture, dedicated to the memory of the pacifist MP, physician and marathon runner Grigoris Lambrakis, is a memorial of one of the most famous political assassinations in the country. Moreover, it is a symbol of the strife during the country’s post-Civil War era. It’s a human-like bronze sculpture with elements of socialistic realism in a supplicating position, with a dove, a symbol of peace. A work by Vassilis Doropoulos, it is entitled “Marathon runner of peace” and, as mentioned on its inscription, it was a donation by the businessman Fokas. The inscription mentions that the leftist MP had “fallen”. In 1998, leftist citizens and parliamentarians placed an additional board, which clearly states that he was assassinated by para-state thugs.

What I can't see

Grigoris Lambrakis was present at a pacifist demonstration for nuclear disarmament. Spyros Gotzamanis and Manolis Emmanouilidis, who were driving a three-wheeled vehicle, struck Lambrakis fatally on the head, as he made his way to his hotel, and while 180 police officers and the local police leadership were blocking the area. As revealed later in unofficial reports, the physical and ethical perpetrators were para-statals and ideological enemies of the leftist MP in Greece and abroad, at the peak of the Cold War. Despite the fact that the murder caused a political earthquake, only nine out of a total of 31 defendants were finally sentenced. Since Thessaloniki’s annexation by Greece, the city has been a place of political assassinations for decades, which is of historical interest. One possible explanation is that Thessaloniki lost its centrality as a city abruptly, (i.e. it adopted a more regional role), thus making it more prone to social polarization and nationalistic and ideological fanaticism, which found “fertile ground” by the end of the Cold War, thus making it a “trap” for political assassinations, which were subsequently difficult or near impossible to solve.

Info

• Address: Ermou, El. Venizelou & Spandoni St.

Bibliography