Patrick Comerford
I was recalling last week how I came across a collection of photographs of modern sculptures in the streets and parks of Thessaloniki and how I realised that I had written little about these sculptures over the years.
Rather than leave the 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 the next 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 looked at last week include the monumental statues of Aristotle, Alexander the Great and Eleftherios Venizelos, and the Jewish Memorial by Konstantinos Lentaris in the campus of the Aristotele University of Thessaloniki.
The bust of Admiral Nikolaos Votsis (1877-1934) in front of the White Tower on the waterfront is a fine example of monumental sculpture in the city. The sculpture by Georgios Dimitriadis (1880-1941) is one of the oldest in the city and it depicts Votsis as both strict and imposing.
Admiral Nikolaos Votsis (Νικόλαος Βότσης) was a senior naval officer from Hydra. The sinking of the Feth-i Bülend may not have had much military significance, but it was a great morale boost to the Greeks. It was the first of a series of naval successes in the war, and a week later, the city was surrendered to the Greek army. The mast of the Turkish ship was placed on the White Tower, and the Greek flag was flown from it.
Votsis became a national hero and has been compared with the legendary fireship captains of the Greek Revolution. While he was a student at the Naval Academy, he took part in the naval blockade of Crete in 1896-1897, in the run-up to the Greco-Turkish War in 1897.
Votsis rose to the rank of Rear Admiral, commanded two more battleships and then became Greece’s High Commissioner to the Allied mission in Constantinople (Istanbul). Later, he was captain of the battleship Limnos, which supported Greek landings in Turkey and took part in the final Greek sea-borne withdrawal in 1922. He died in exile in Paris in 1931.
The sculptor of this bust, Georgios Dimitriadis (Γεώργιος Δημητριάδης), was born in Athens. He specialised in monumental public sculpture and was one of the most productive sculptors of his time. In an eclectic way, he drew on neoclassic and academic aesthetic styles, often brightened with naturalistic and allegoric elements.
The bust of Admiral Nikolaos Votsis is on a marble pyramidal pedestal inscribed with verses in his honour written by the Greek satirical poet Giorgos Souris (1853-1919), who has been described as a ‘modern Aristophanes.’
The side of the plinth is inscribed with the names of the torpedo boat crew that Votsis commanded when he sank the Ottoman battleship Feth-i Bülend in the harbour of Thessaloniki 18 October 1912, during the First Balkan War.
The poet Giorgos Souris published celebratory and satirical verse dedicated to the liberation of Thessaloniki from Ottoman rule and the entry of the Greek army in November 1912 in his weekly verse newspaper O Romios (The Greek) on 10 November 1912. He used sharp, rhythmic, and popular rhyming verse to capture national enthusiasm, political commentary and the historic significance of the city’s liberation.
The bust of Votsis became a symbol of the liberation of Thessaloniki. During the German occupation and World War II, the sculpture became the final point of resistance rallies, when young people laid a wreath and sang the national anthem, while the Nazis pointed guns at them.
Three ships of the Hellenic Navy have borne the name Lemnos or Limnos (Λήμνος), named after the island of Lemnos and the First Balkan War Battle of Lemnos. The first was the battleship Lemnos (1914-1932), commanded by Votsis, and the name and its traditions have been held since 1982 by the Greek frigate Limnos.
I was on board the frigate Limnos 30 years ago in 1996 as part of a flotilla that took about two dozen journalists from Kalymnos to see the islets of Imia at the height of tensions that year between Greece and Turkey, and then brought us back to Rhodes.
There was a continuity between that trip in the Aegean in 1996, and the career of Votsis that began with the naval blockade of Crete 100 years earlier in 1896-1897. The frigate Limnos continues to be present in Greek-Turkish tensions in the Aegean, which have been reignited with a retired Turkish admiral threatening the Greek presence on five Greek islands: Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Kos and Kastellorizo. Recent Turkish assertion at the highest level have extended claims to several other Greek islands, including Crete, Rhodes and Lemnos.
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)
Next: The Monument of the Jewish Holocaust by Nandor Glid, Eleftherias Square (2 October 2026)
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