Patrick Comerford
I have been recalling in recent weeks how I have come across a collection of photographs of modern sculptures in the streets and parks of Thessaloniki and how I realised I had written little about these sculptures over the years.
Rather than leave these photographs and memories in forgotten files on my laptop or in the cloud, I started an occasional series of blog postings on some of those modern sculptures I have rediscovered in Thessaloniki. Over these few weeks, I am inviting you to join me in a minor odyssey of recovery and discovery as my mind wanders through Thessaloniki, looking at these sculptures again.
The sculptures I have looked at in recent weeks include the monumental statues of Aristotle, Alexander the Great and Eleftherios Venizelos, the Jewish Memorial by Konstantinos Lentaris in the campus of the Aristotele University of Thessaloniki, the bust of Admiral Nikolaos Votsis in front of the White Tower, the Monument for the Jewish Holocaust on the edge of Eleftherias Square, ‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas in Fanarioton Square, and ‘The Stumbling Stones’ or ‘Stolpersteine’ by Gunter Demnig.
The bronze sculpture of the ‘Marathon Runner of Peace’ or ‘Monument of Peace’ by the painter and sculptor Vassilis Doropoulos (1942-2025) commemorates the murdered peace activist Grigoris Lambrakis (1912-1963). The work stands at the junction of Ermou street, Eleftherios Venizelou street and Spandoni street.
Dr Grigoris Lambrakis (Γρηγόρης Λαμπράκης) was a pacifist, politician, physician, academic, Olympic athlete and marathon runner. At the Berlin Olympics in 1936, he sought out and posed for a photograph with Jesse Owens, the Black athlete whose victories infuriated Hitler and defied Nazi ideology.
Lambrakis took part in peace demonstrations in Greece and across Europe in the 1960s, including the Aldermaston marches organised by CND and the Committee of 100 in 1963. His murder in 1963 is one of the most infamous political assassinations in Greece.
The sculpture honouring Lambrakis in the heart of Thessaloniki is a symbol of the strife in Greece after the Civil War and in the run-up to the colonels’ coup in 1967. It shows a pleading and frightening figure reaching for a dove of peace. The sculpture incorporates elements of socialist realism, making a powerful visual statement about the importance of peace.
Grigoris Lambrakis had been at a demonstration in Thessaloniki calling for nuclear disarmament and was returning to the Aigli Hotel when he was attacked by Spyros Gotzamanis and Manolis Emmanouilidis on the evening of 22 May 1963. They were driving a three-wheeled vehicle, struck him fatally on the head with a club, while 180 police officers and the local police leaders were blocking off the area.
Reports later showed, the attackers and the key figures in plotting the murder were linked with the state and. But, despite the fact that the murder caused a political earthquake in Greece with reverberations across Europe, only nine out of the 31 original defendants were sentenced.
As Lambrakis lay dying in hospital in Thessaloniki, hundreds of students gathered in streets along with the poet Yiannis Ritsos and the composer Mikis Theodorakis, singing the poem Epitaphios, written by Ritsos following a political murder in Thessaloniki in 1936 and set to music by Theodorakis.
Lambrakis died on 27 May 1963. His funeral in Athens on 29 May 1963 from the Metropolitan Cathedral to the First Cemetery became a massive demonstration, as more than 500,000 people protested against the right-wing government and the royal court, which was seen to support the right-wing extremists, and the Epitaphios by Theodorakis and Ritsos was sung again throughout the streets.
The murder caused a political earthquake, the Prime minister Constantinos Karamanlis, resigned in 1963 and went into exile in Paris, and there were reverberations across Europe. But only nine of the 31 defendants were sentenced.
The events inspired Vassilis Vassilikos to write his political novel Z: Fictional Documentary of a Crime. The title stands for the first letter of the slogan «Ζει» (‘He Lives!’) became a popular graffito in cities and towns throughout Greece in the 1960s.
The Greek-French film director Costa-Gavras (Κώστας Γαβράς) made the film Z in 1969, starring Yves Montand as Lambrakis, Jean-Louis Trintignant as the investigator Christos Sartzetakis, was also jailed by the colonels, and Irene Papas as the widow of Lambrakis. It was nominated for five Oscars and won two.
The score included a piece first written by Mikis Theodorakis in 1962 for Ένας όμηρος (A Hostage), a Greek performance of The Hostage by Brendan Behan. The piece Το γελαστό παιδί (The Smiling Kid), with Greek lyrics by Vasilis Rotas, was transformed into a tribute to Lambrakis in the film Z.
Some years ago, my friends Paddy Sammon, a former Irish diplomat once based in Athens, and Damian Mac Con Uladh, an Irish journalist from Ballinasloe now based in Corinth, researched the Irish background to what has become a Greek classic of resistance to oppression. As Damian Mac Con Uladh has written, every Greek knows can sing some of the song, which they learned at school commemorations.
Maria Farantouri, who went into exile after the colonels seized power in 1967, sang the song at solidarity concerts across Europe. ‘It became a hymn not only for the Irish liberation movement, but also for every liberation movement in the world, and Greek democracy,’ she told an RTÉ documentary.
When the junta sent in tanks against protesting students at the Athens Polytechnic on 17 November 1973, killing at least 24 people over a number of days, Maria Farantouri added a couple of stanzas to the song, and changed the date from August to November, deliberately linking the song to that event.
After the fall of the military dictatorship in 1974, numerous places, including a football stadium in Kallithea and streets and squares in villages, towns and cities across Greece have been named in honour of Grigoris Lambrakis. The Athens Classic Marathon is run in his memory every November.
The Greek sculptor Vassilis Doropoulos (Βασίλης Δωρόπουλος), who created the ‘Marathon Runner of Peace’, the monument to Grigoris Lambrakis in Thessaloniki, was born in Mesopotamia in Kastoria on 13 August 1942.
He moved to Paris with his mother in 1965, and there he studied painting and sculpture at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts. He took part in many solo and group exhibitions, received many awards, and produced medals and sculptures for the Paris Mint.
His best-known works include his ‘Monument to National Resistance’ in Korydallos (1986) and his ‘Memorial of National Reconciliation’ (1989), symbolising reconciliation after the Greek Civil War in 1946-1949, at Klafthmonos Square in Athens, which has since become known as National Reconciliation Square or Ethinikis Simfiliosis.
Vassilis Doropoulos died in Athens last year (21 September 2025), having lived for much of his professional life in France.
The Lambrakis sculpture was donated by Apostolos Fokas, proprietor of the Fokas department store on Ermou street. An additional board explains that Lambrakis was assassinated by para-state thugs and the sculpture is not only a tribute to Grigoris Lambrakis but a reminder of the necessity for peace and social justice.
Z is a 1969 political thriller film directed by Costa-Gavras, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jorge Semprún, adapted from the 1967 novel by Vassilis Vassilikos. Audio in French with English and French subtitles (Click on CC for subtitles)
In this series:
1, Introduction (21 September 2026)
2, Aristotle by Giorgos Georgiadis, Aristotelous Square (22 September 2026)
3, Alexander the Great by Evangelos Moustakas, Alexander’s Garden (23 September 2026)
4, Eleftherios Venizelos by Giannis Pappas, Plateia Dikastirion (24 September 2026)
5, The Jewish Monument by Konstantinos Lentaris, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (25 September 2026)
6, Admiral Nikolaos Votsis by Georgios Dimitriadis, in front of the White Tower (1 October 2026)
7, The Monument of the Jewish Holocaust by Nandor Glid, Eleftherias Square (2 October 2026)
8, ‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas, Fanarioton Square (8 October 2026)
9, ‘The Stumbling Stones’ (‘Stolpersteine’) by Gunter Demnig (9 October 2026)
10, ‘Marathon Runner of Peace’, the monument to Grigoris Lambrakis by Vasilis Doropoulos, Ermou Street (14 October 2026)
Next: Monument of Sokratis Karantinos, 30 October Avenue
