At the dawn of the twenty-first century a more or less general consensus in Greek politics acclaims Eleftherios Venizelos (1864-1936) as the most important statesman in Greek political history and the creator of contemporary Greece. Although it would be rash to dismiss this as plain mythology about the man and his political achievements, there can be at the same time little doubt that a Venizelos cult is growing in Greek political thought. Recognition extends far beyond the intellectual sphere and permeates public opinion at large, as evinced by innumerable avenues and squares named after him in Greek towns and cities. Statues and monuments are multiplying throughout the country and, in a decision of telling significance, the new major international airport, built in Athens in the 1990s, has been named the ‘El. Venizelos Airport’.

All this is a rather recent development. The general adulatory consensus concerning Venizelos emerged in the late twentieth century, in the wake of earlier strong passions and divisions about the man and his politics that had dominated political debate and public feeling in Greece for most of that century. Throughout his active political life and during several decades following his death Venizelos had been the object of the deepest admiration and devotion, as well as of the strongest contempt and hatred on the part of his respective followers and opponents. These feelings at times ran so high that they led to profound divisions in Greek politics. The divisiveness around Venizelos' personality and politics pervaded all writing about him as well.