Kostas Georgakis
Encyclopedia
Corfu
Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
– 19 September 1970, Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
), was a Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
student of geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
, who, in the early hours of 19 September 1970, set himself ablaze
Self-immolation
Self-immolation refers to setting oneself on fire, often as a form of protest or for the purposes of martyrdom or suicide. It has centuries-long traditions in some cultures, while in modern times it has become a type of radical political protest...
in Matteotti
Giacomo Matteotti
Giacomo Matteotti was an Italian socialist politician. On 30 May 1924, he openly spoke in the Italian Parliament alleging the Fascists committed fraud in the recently held elections, and denounced the violence they used to gain votes...
square in Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
as a protest against the dictatorial regime
Greek military junta of 1967-1974
The Greek military junta of 1967–1974, alternatively "The Regime of the Colonels" , or in Greece "The Junta", and "The Seven Years" are terms used to refer to a series of right-wing military governments that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974...
of Georgios Papadopoulos.
Early life
Georgakis grew up in Corfu in a family of five. His father was a self-employed tailorTailor
A tailor is a person who makes, repairs, or alters clothing professionally, especially suits and men's clothing.Although the term dates to the thirteenth century, tailor took on its modern sense in the late eighteenth century, and now refers to makers of men's and women's suits, coats, trousers,...
of modest means. Both his father and grandfather distinguished themselves in the major wars that Greece fought in the twentieth century. He attended the second lyceum
Lyceum
The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies between countries; usually it is a type of secondary school.-History:...
in Corfu where he excelled in his studies. In August 1967, a few months after the 21 April coup in Greece, Georgakis went to Italy to study as an engineer in Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
. He received 5,000 drachmas per month from his father and this, according to friends' testimony, made him feel guilty for the financial burden his family endured so that he could attend a university. In Italy he met Rosana, an Italian girl of the same age and they got engaged. In 1968 Georgakis became a member of the Center Union
Center Union
The Centre Union was a Greek political party, created in 1961 by George Papandreou, senior.The party was elected to power in 1963, with Papandreou as Prime Minister...
party of Georgios Papandreou
George Papandreou (senior)
Georgios Papandreou was a Greek politician, the founder of the Papandreou political dynasty. He served three terms as Prime Minister of Greece...
.
The events
On 26 July 1970, Georgakis gave an interview to a Genoan magazine anonymously, during which he revealed that the military junta's intelligence service had infiltrated the Greek student movement in Italy. In the interview he denounced the junta and its policies and stated that the intelligence service created the National League of Greek students in Italy and established offices in major university cities. A copy of the recording of the interview was obtained by the Greek consulate and the identity of Georgakis was established.Soon after he was attacked by members of the junta student movement. While in the third year of his studies and having successfully passed the exams of the second semester Georgakis found himself in the difficult position of having his military exemption rescinded by the junta as well as his monthly stipend that he received from his family. The junta retaliated for his involvement in the anti-junta resistance movement in Italy as a member of the Italian branch of PAK
Panhellenic Liberation Movement
The Panhellenic Liberation Movement , also known by its acronym PAK, was one of the many anti-dictatorial movement organisations that campaigned against the 1967-1974 military regime of Greece...
. His family in Corfu also sent him a letter describing the pressure that the regime was applying to them.
Fearing for his family in Greece, he decided that he had to make an act to raise awareness in the West about the political predicament of Greece.
Once he made the decision to sacrifice his life, Kostas Georgakis filled a canister with gasoline, wrote a letter to his father and gave his fiancée Rosana his windbreaker telling her to keep it because he wouldn't need it any longer.
Fiat 500
The Fiat 500 is a car produced by the Fiat company of Italy between 1957 and 1975, with limited production of the Fiat 500 K estate continuing until 1977. The car was designed by Dante Giacosa....
to Matteoti square. According to eyewitness accounts by street cleaners who were working around the Palazzo Ducale
Palazzo Ducale (Genoa)
The Doge's Palace is a historical building in Genoa, northern Italy.Once the home of the Doges of Genoa, it is now a museum and a centre for cultural events and arts exhibitions...
there was a sudden bright flash of light in the area at around 3.00am At first they did not realise that the flame was a burning man. Only when they approached closer they saw Georgakis burning and running while ablaze shouting "Long Live Greece", "Down with the tyrants", "Down with the fascist colonels" and "I did it for my Greece." The street cleaners added that at first Georgakis refused their help and ran away from them when they tried to extinguish the fire. They also said that the smell of burning flesh was something they would never forget and that Georgakis was one in a million.
According to an account by his father who went to Italy after the events, Georgakis's body was completely carbonised from the waist down up to a depth of at least three centimetres in his flesh. Georgakis died nine hours after the events in the square at around 12 noon the same day.
His last words were: Long Live Free Greece.
Reaction of the junta
To Vima
To Vima is a Greek daily newspaper first published in 1922 by Dimitris Lambrakis, the father of Christos Lambrakis. It is owned by Lambrakis Press Group, a group which also publishes the newspaper Ta Nea, amongst others in its fold of publications...
in the January 2009 article "The "return" of Kostas Georgakis" with the subtitle "Even the remains of the student who sacrificed himself for Democracy caused panic to the dictatorship" by Fotini Tomai supervisor of the historical and diplomatic archives of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports that throughout the crisis in Italy the Greek consulate sent confidential reports to the junta where it raised fears that the death of Georgakis would be compared to the death of Jan Palach
Jan Palach
Jan Palach was a Czech student who committed suicide by self-immolation as a political protest.- Death :...
(through express diplomatic letter of 20 September 1970 Greek: ΑΠ 67, εξ. επείγον, 20 Σεπτεμβρίου 1970) and could adversely affect Greek tourism while at the same time it raised concerns that Georgakis's grave would be used for anti-junta propaganda and "anti-nation
Glossary of the Greek military junta
The ideology of the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974 was followed by the creation and/or use of special terms that were employed by the junta as propaganda tools and to transmit its message to the Greek people as well as influence their way of thinking and attack the anti-junta...
pilgrimage" and "political exploitation".
Through diplomatic letter dated 25 August 1972 (ΑΠ 167/ΑΣ 1727, 25 Αυγούστου 1972) Greek consular authorities in Italy reported to the junta in Athens that an upcoming Italian film about Georgakis would seriously damage the junta and it was proposed that the junta take measures through silent third-party intervention to obtain the worldwide distribution rights of the film so that it would not fall into the hands of German, Scandinavian, American stations and the BBC which were reported as interested in obtaining it. The film was scheduled to appear at the "Primo Italiano" festival in Torino, at the festival of Pesaro
Pesaro
Pesaro is a town and comune in the Italian region of the Marche, capital of the Pesaro e Urbino province, on the Adriatic. According to the 2007 census, its population was 92,206....
and the Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
anti-festival under the title "Galani Hora" (Blue Country. Ital. "Ρaese azzurro"). Giani Sera was the director and the film was a coproduction by RAI
RAI
RAI — Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A. known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane, is the Italian state owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Ministry of Economic Development. Rai is the biggest television company in Italy...
and CTC at a total cost of 80 million Italian lire. The dictatorship was also afraid that the film would create the same anti-junta sentiment as the film Z
Z (film)
Z is a 1969 French language political thriller directed by Costa Gavras, with a screenplay by Gavras and Jorge Semprún, based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Vassilis Vassilikos. The film presents a thinly fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of democratic Greek...
by Costa Gavras.
The minister of Foreign Affairs of the junta Xanthopoulos-Palamas in the secret encrypted
Encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...
message ΑΠ ΓΤΛ 400-183 of 26 November 1970 (ΑΠ ΓΤΛ 400-183 απόρρητον κρυπτοτύπημα, 26 Νοεμβρίου 1970) suggests to the Greek consular authorities in Italy to take precautions so that during the loading of the remains on the ship to avoid any noise and publicity. It was clear that the junta did not want a repeat of the publicity that occurred during Georgakis's funeral procession on 22 September 1970 in Italy.
On 22 September 1970 Melina Merkouri led a demonstration of hundreds of flag and banner-waving Italian and Greek anti-junta resistance members during the funeral procession of Georgakis in Italy. Merkouri was holding a bouquet of flowers for the dead hero. According to press reports Greek secret service agents were sent from Greece for the occasion. In another diplomatic letter it is mentioned that Stathis Panagoulis, brother of Alexandros Panagoulis
Alexandros Panagoulis
Alexandros Panagoulis was a Greek politician and poet. He took an active role in the fight against the Regime of the Colonels in Greece. He became famous for his attempt to assassinate dictator Georgios Papadopoulos on 13 August 1968, but also for the torture that he was subjected to during his...
was scheduled to give the funeral address but did not attend.
According to diplomatic message ΑΠ 432 23 September 1970 (ΑΠ 432, 23 Σεπτεμβρίου 1970) from the Greek Embassy in Rome then ambassador A. Poumpouras was transmitting to the junta that hundreds of workers and anti-junta resistance members accompanied the dead body from the hospital to the mausoleum in Genoa where he was temporarily interred. In the afternoon of the same day a demonstration of about a thousand was held which was organised by leftist parties shouting "anti-Hellenic
Glossary of the Greek military junta
The ideology of the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974 was followed by the creation and/or use of special terms that were employed by the junta as propaganda tools and to transmit its message to the Greek people as well as influence their way of thinking and attack the anti-junta...
" and anti-American slogans according to the ambassador. In the press conference which followed the demonstrations Melina Merkouri was scheduled to talk but instead Ioannis Leloudas from Paris and Chistos Stremmenos attended, the latter bearing a message from Andreas Papandreou
Andreas Papandreou
Andreas G. Papandreou ; 5 February 1919 – 23 June 1996) was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics. The son of Georgios Papandreou, Andreas was a Harvard-trained academic...
. According to the ambassador's message Italian police took security precautions around the Greek consulate at the time, at the request of the Greek Embassy in Rome.
Another consular letter by consul N. Fotilas (ΑΠ 2 14 January 1971, ΑΠ 2, 14 Ιανουαρίου 1971) mentioned that on 13 January 1971 the remains of Georgakis were transferred to the ship Astypalaia owned by Vernikos-Eugenides under the Greek flag. The ship was scheduled to leave for Piraeus on the 17th of January carrying the remains of Georgakis to Greece. With this a series of obstacles, mishaps, adventures and misadventures involving the return of the remains came to an end.
On 18 January 1971 a secret operation was undertaken by the junta and his remains were finally buried in the municipal cemetery of Corfu city
Corfu (city)
Corfu is a city and a former municipality on the island of Corfu, Ionian Islands, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the municipality Corfu, of which it is a municipal unit. It is the capital of the island and of the Corfu regional unit. The city also serves as a capital...
. A single police cruiser accompanied the Georgakis family which transported to the cemetery by taxi.
Letter to his father
In his final letter to his father Georgakis wrote:Letter to a friend
In a letter to a friend Georgakis mentions:Recognition
| ...you were the bright summary of our drama...in one and the same torch, the light of the resurrection and our mourning by the gravestone... |
| Nikiforos Vrettakos Nikiforos Vrettakos -Biography:Nikephoros Vrettakos was born in the village of Kokees, near Sparta, but originated from Mani and published his first collection of poems, Under Shadows and Lights, in 1929, at the age of seventeen. That same year he moved to Athens to attend university, but left after a year to take a... in his poem I Thea tou Kosmou about Georgakis |
The Municipality
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...
of Corfu has dedicated a memorial in his honour near his home in Corfu city. His sacrifice was later recognized and honoured by the new democratic Hellenic Government
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
after metapolitefsi
Metapolitefsi
The Metapolitefsi was a period in Greek history after the fall of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 that includes the transitional period from the fall of the dictatorship to the Greek legislative elections of 1974 and the democratic period immediately after these elections.The long...
.
In his monument a plaque is inscribed with his words in Greek. The monument was created gratis by sculptor Dimitris Korres.
Poet Nikiforos Vrettakos
Nikiforos Vrettakos
-Biography:Nikephoros Vrettakos was born in the village of Kokees, near Sparta, but originated from Mani and published his first collection of poems, Under Shadows and Lights, in 1929, at the age of seventeen. That same year he moved to Athens to attend university, but left after a year to take a...
in his poem I Thea tou Kosmou (The View of the World) wrote for Georgakis: ...you were the bright summary of our drama...in one and the same torch, the light of the resurrection and our mourning by the gravestone...
Poet Yannis Koutsoheras in his poem "Kostas Georgakis self-immolating in the square of Genoa" wrote: "Living Cross Burning and a cry urbi et orbi
Urbi et Orbi
Urbi et Orbi denotes a papal address and Apostolic Blessing that is given to the City of Rome and to the entire world, on certain occasions. It was a standard opening of Ancient Roman proclamations....
transcending this world: -Freedom to Greece".
On 18 September 2000 in a special all-night event at Matteoti square, Genoa honoured the memory of Georgakis.
In Matteoti square where he died, a marble column stands with the inscription in Italian: La Grecia si ricorderà di lui per sempre (Greece will remember him forever).
Legacy
Georgakis is the only known junta opponent to have committed suicide in protest against the junta and he is considered the precursor of the later student protestStudent protest
Student protest encompasses a wide range of activities that indicate student dissatisfaction with a given political or academic issue and mobilization to communicate this dissatisfaction to the authorities and society in general and hopefully remedy the problem...
s, such as the Polytechnic uprising
Athens Polytechnic uprising
The Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973 was a massive demonstration of popular rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974. The uprising began on November 14, 1973, escalated to an open anti-junta, anti-US and anti-imperialist revolt and ended in bloodshed in the early morning of November...
. At the time his death caused a sensation in Greece and abroad as it was the first tangible manifestation of the depth of resistance against the junta. The junta delayed the arrival of his remains to Corfu for four months citing security reasons and fearing demonstrations while presenting bureaucratic obstacles through the Greek consulate and the junta government.
Kostas Georgakis is cited as an example indicating the strong relation between an individual's identity and his/her reasons to continue living. Georgakis' words were cited as an indication that his strong identification as a free individual gave him the reason to end his life.
Film
- Once Upon A Time There Were Heroes, Direction: Andreas Apostolidis, Screenplay: Stelios KouloglouStelios KouloglouStelios Kouloglou is a Greek journalist and writer. He is the creator of the news web channel "TVXS" and a board member of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation. He is, also, a columnist for the LIFO magazine....
, Cinematography: Vangelis Koulinos, Created by: Stelios KouloglouStelios KouloglouStelios Kouloglou is a Greek journalist and writer. He is the creator of the news web channel "TVXS" and a board member of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation. He is, also, a columnist for the LIFO magazine....
, Production: Lexicon & Partners, BetacamSp Colour 58 minutes. - Reportage without frontiers: documentary Title: "The Georgakis Case" Director: Kostas Kouloglou
- Ρaese Azzurro (Blue Country). Film by Giani Sera
See also
- Jan PalachJan PalachJan Palach was a Czech student who committed suicide by self-immolation as a political protest.- Death :...
- Jan ZajícJan ZajícJan Zajíc was a Czech student who committed suicide by self-immolation as a political protest...
- Evžen PlocekEvžen PlocekEvžen Plocek was a Czech man who committed suicide by self-immolation as a political protest.- Death :...
- Ryszard SiwiecRyszard SiwiecRyszard Siwiec was a Polish accountant, teacher and former Home Army soldier who was the first person to commit suicide by self-immolation in protest against the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.- Self-Immolation :...
- Romas KalantaRomas KalantaRomas Kalanta was a Lithuanian high school student known for his public self-immolation protesting Soviet regime in Lithuania. Kalanta's death provoked the largest post-war riots in Lithuania and inspired similar self-immolations...
- Oleksa HirnykOleksa HirnykOleksa Mykolajovyč Hirnyk was a Ukrainian Soviet dissident, an engineer by profession, who burned himself to death as an act of protest against Soviet suppression of the Ukrainian language, culture and history...
- Alain EscoffierAlain EscoffierAlain Escoffier was a French anti-communist activist.He was a bank clerk and he had married an East-Germany refugee...
- Liviu Cornel BabeşLiviu Cornel BabesLiviu Cornel Babeş was a Romanian electrician and painter who committed suicide by self-immolation as a political protest.- Death :...