Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration; Abbreviations
- Introduction: Perspectives on a Leader
- I Setting the Stage
- II The Drama of High Politics
- 3 Venizelos' Advent in Greek Politics, 1909–12
- 4 Protagonist in Politics, 1912–20
- 5 Venizelos' Diplomacy, 1910–23; From Balkan Alliance to Greek-Turkish Settlement
- 6 Reconstructing Greece as a European State: Venizelos' Last Premiership, 1928–32
- 7 The Last Years, 1933–6
- III The Content of Political Action
- IV Offstage
- List of Contributors
- Index
- Plate section
7 - The Last Years, 1933–6
from II - The Drama of High Politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration; Abbreviations
- Introduction: Perspectives on a Leader
- I Setting the Stage
- II The Drama of High Politics
- 3 Venizelos' Advent in Greek Politics, 1909–12
- 4 Protagonist in Politics, 1912–20
- 5 Venizelos' Diplomacy, 1910–23; From Balkan Alliance to Greek-Turkish Settlement
- 6 Reconstructing Greece as a European State: Venizelos' Last Premiership, 1928–32
- 7 The Last Years, 1933–6
- III The Content of Political Action
- IV Offstage
- List of Contributors
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
Venizelos departed from the Greek political scene as he had entered it: in the wake of a military coup. Unlike the other great statesman of twentieth-century Greece, Constantine Karamanlis, who did everything in his power to abstain from activities that called into question constitutional legality, Venizelos more than once acted under the conviction that political requirement must occasionally be allowed to prevail over legitimate government. Unlike Karamanlis also, who prepared for himself the place in history he thought appropriate for a great statesman, Venizelos did not appear to care much about how posterity would judge his actions. From the point of view of respect for established institutions, then, Venizelos belonged to a set of new men, like Camilo di Cavour and Otto von Bismarck, who believed that their nation's interest justified all means, including revolution against legitimate authority. Like Karamanlis, however, he was neither a convinced republican nor a staunch supporter of the monarchy; both were prepared to support either the monarchy or the republic as long as the hereditary or the elected head of state did not seriously question their definition of the national interest, perhaps because both had little faith in the capacity of either regime to function properly without a strong man, in a country lacking either a strong monarchical or republican tradition.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Eleftherios VenizelosThe Trials of Statesmanship, pp. 234 - 248Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2006