Alexandros Panagoulis

Alexandros Panagoulis

File:Alexandros PANAGOULIS.JPG
Title:	Member of the Greek Parliament
Terms:	1974-1976
Date of Birth:	2 July, 1939
Place of Birth:	Glyfada, Athens
Date of Death:	1 May, 1976
Place of Death:	Vouliagmenis Avenue, Athens
Profession:	Politician
Political party:	Center Union
Office:	President of E.DI.N
Term of Office:	1974-1976

Alexandros Panagoulis (Greek: Αλέξανδρος Παναγούλης) (2 July 1939 – 1 May 1976) was a Greek politician and poet. He took an active role in the fight against the Regime of the Colonels (1967–1974) in Greece. He became famous for his attempt to assassinate dictator George Papadopoulos on 13 August 1968, but also for the torture that he was subjected to during his detention. After the restoration of democracy he was elected to the Greek parliament as a member of the Center Union (E. K.).

Biography

Alexandros Panagoulis was born in the Glyfada neighbourhood of Athens. He was the second son of Vassilios Panagoulis, an officer in the Greek army, and his wife Athena, and the brother of Georgios Panagoulis, a victim of the Colonels’ regime, and Efstathios, who became a politician. His father was from Divri ( Lambia ) of Eleia (Western Peloponnesus) while his mother was from the Ionian island of Leukada. Panagoulis spent part of his childhood on this island during the Second World War, because of the occupation of Greece by the Axis forces.

He studied at the National Technical University of Athens (Metsovion Polytechnic) in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

Politics

From his teenage years, Alexandros Panagoulis was inspired by democratic values. He joined the youth organisation of the Center Union party (E. K.), known as O.N.E.K., under the leadership of Georgios Papandreou (Sr.). The organisation later became known as Hellenic Democratic Youth (E.DI.N.). After the restoration of parliamentary rule, Panagoulis became the Secretary General (President) of E.DI.N., on 3 September 1974.

Resistance to the Dictatorship

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Alexandros Panagoulis during the trial, November 1968

Alexandros Panagoulis participated actively in the fight for the restoration of democracy and against the Regime of the Colonels. He deserted from the Greek military because of his democratic convictions and founded the organisation National Resistance. He went into self-exile in Cyprus in order to develop a plan of action. He returned to Greece where, with the help of his collaborators, he organised the 13 August 1968 assassination attempt against Papadopoulos, close to Varkiza. The plot failed and Panagoulis was arrested.

In an interview held after his liberation, Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci quoted Panagoulis as saying: I didn’t want to kill a man. I’m not capable of killing a man. I wanted to kill a tyrant.^[1].

Panagoulis was put on trial by the Military Court on 3 November 1968, condemned to death with other members of National Resistance on 17 November 1968, and subsequently transported to the island of Aegina for the sentence to be carried out. As a result of political pressure from the international community, the junta refrained from executing him and instead incarcerated him at the Military Prisons of Bogiati (S. F. B.) on 25 November 1968.

Alexandros Panagoulis refused to cooperate with the junta, and was subjected to physical and psychological torture. He escaped from prison on 5 June 1969. He was soon arrested and sent temporarily to the camp of Goudi. He was eventually placed in solitary confinement at Bogiati, from which he unsuccessfully attempted to escape on several occasions.

He reportedly refused amnesty offers from the junta. In August 1973, after four and a half year in jail, he benefited from a general amnesty that the military regime granted to all political prisoners during a failed attempt by Papadopoulos to liberalize his regime. Panagoulis went into self-exile in Florence, Italy, in order to continue the resistance. There he was hosted by Oriana Fallaci, his companion who was to become his biographer.

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Alexandros Panagoulis – President of E.DI.N.

Restoration of Democracy

After the restoration of democracy, Alexandros Panagoulis was elected as Member of Parliament as a member of the Center Union - New Forces, in 1974. He made a series of allegations against mainstream politicians whom he said had openly or secretly collaborated with the junta. He eventually resigned from his party, after disputes with the leadership, but remained in the parliament as an independent deputy. He stood by his allegations, which he made openly against the Minister of National Defence, Evangelos Averof, and others. He reportedly received political pressure and threats against his life in order to persuade him to tone down his allegations.

Death

Panagoulis was killed on 1 May 1976 at the age of 36 in a car accident on Vouliagmenis Ave. in Athens. This happened only few days before files of the junta's military police (the E.S.A. file) that he was in possession of were to be made public. The files, which never materialized, reportedly included evidence of his allegations of collaboration. There was much speculation in the Greek press that the car accident was staged to silence Panagoulis and to cover up the documents in question.

Poetic work

Alexandros Panagoulis was brutally tortured on a daily basis during the junta. Many believe that he maintained his faculties thanks to his will, determination to defend his beliefs, as well as his keen sense of humour. While imprisoned at Bogiati, Panagoulis is said to have written his poetry on the walls of his cell or on small papers, often using his own blood as ink (as told in the poem 'The Paint'). Many of his poems have not survived. However, he managed to smuggle some to friends while in prison, or to recall and rewrite them later. While in prison his first collection in Italian titled Altri seguiranno: poesie e documenti dal carcere di Boyati (Others will Follow: Poetry and Documents of the Prison of Boyati) was published in Palermo in 1972 with an introduction of the Italian politician Ferruccio Parri and the Italian film director and intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini. For this collection Panagoulis was awarded the Viareggio International Prize of Poetry (Premio Viareggio Internazionnale) the following year. After his liberation he published his second collection in Milan under the title Vi scrivo da un carcere in Grecia (I write you from a prison in Greece) with an introduction by Pasolini. He had previously published several collections in Greek, including The Paint (I Bogia).

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Panagoulis receives honours in Palazzo Medici, Florence, Italy

Poems

Promise

The teardrops which you will see

flowing from our eyes

you should never believe

signs of despair.

They are only promise

promise for Fight.

(Military Prisons of Bogiati, February 1972)

Vi scrivo da un carcere in Grecia, 1974

My Address

A match as a pen

Blood on the floor as ink

The forgotten gauze cover as paper

But what should I write?

I might just manage my address

This ink is strange; it clots

I write you from a prison

in Greece

(Military Prisons of Bogiati, 5 June 1971 – After beating)

Vi scrivo da un carcere in Grecia, 1974.

The Paint

I gave life to the walls

a voice I gave them

more friendly so that would become my company

and the guards asked

to know where they could find the paint

The walls of the cell

kept the secret

and the mercenaries searched everywhere

but paint they could not find

Because they did not think for one moment

that they should search into my veins

Vi scrivo da un carcere in Grecia, 1974

Legacy

Alexandros Panagoulis on trial by the junta

To most Greeks, Alexandros Panagoulis's attempted "tyrannicide" rendered him a symbol of freedom, democracy, human rights, and civil and political freedoms. He constitutes a rare instance of an attempted assassin being elevated to the status of hero of democracy due to his political ethos.

Greece issued a postage stamp in his honour (1996) and a prepaid telephone card (1996).

Film, music, and literature

The life and work of Alexandros Panagoulis attracted the interest of a number of artists.

Renowned composer Mikis Theodorakis, also persecuted by the junta, set some of his poems to music. Panagoulis collaborated with composer Ennio Morricone on the 1974 album Non Devi Dimenticare, which featured Panagoulis' poetry and was partly narrated by him (LP RCA PL31238, 1979).

Panagoulis was the subject of Panagulis Vive (Panagoulis Lives), a 1980 220-minute, four-part Italian RAI mini-series directed and co-written by Giuseppe Ferrara (IMDB entry). He also participated in a 45-minute 1973 documentary Altri Seguiranno (Others will follow), with photography-montage by Silvano Agosti.

Panagoulis became the object of study of several researchers. One of the results was Un Uomo (A Man), by Oriana Fallaci.

Notes

1. ^ Fallaci, Oriana. (1976), Interview with History, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, p. 342.

Bibliography

• Fallaci, Oriana (1976), Intervista con la storia (Interview with History), Translated into English by John Shepley, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company.
• Fallaci, Oriana (1979), Un Uomo: Romanzo (A Man), Milan, Rizolli.
• Langlois, Denis (1969), Panagoulis, le sang de la Grèce, Paris, Maspéro.
• Mardas, Constantinos (1997), Alexandros Panagoulis – Rehearsal of Death, Athens [In Greek].
• Panagoulis, Alexandros (1974), Vi scrivo da un carcere in Grecia (I write you from a prison in Greece), Milan, Rizzoli.
• Panagoulis, Alexandros (1990), Altri seguiranno (And others will follow), Palermo, Flaccovio (Reprint).
• Panagoulis, Alexandros, The Poems, Athens, Papazisi (Undated) [In Greek].
• Panagoulis, Alexandros, 'Collected Poems', Athens, Papazissis Publishers, 2002, [In English].