Subscribe to Blog via Email
Rallis by the Liston
Wasn’t expecting to find this here. Next to the Liston, not too forward, not too loud, a bust of George Rallis, prime minister in the late 1970s, and local boy (albeit born in Athens). His prime ministership was not that consequential. A few Greeks, I gathered, appreciated having one prime ministerial term without histrionics from the top, wedged as his term was between Constantine Karamanlis and Andreas Papandreou.
I see the bust was stolen in 2019. That is a hazard of any sculpture in our age, even for as John Major-like a figure as George Rallis. One presumes they have the cast handy to make up for it.
![May be an image of monument](https://scontent.fath4-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/350342293_1990005471338074_3958518351736374169_n.jpg?_nc_cat=111&cb=99be929b-3346023f&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=jxyUeIDXfO8AX8xDioB&_nc_ht=scontent.fath4-2.fna&oh=00_AfAJLKx6KqWiMnxB2mnqlE3w3cSz-IYsTflPykqWgxIk4A&oe=6489832B)
![Γεώργιος Ράλλης (1918 – 2006)](https://i0.wp.com/cdn.sansimera.gr/media/photos/main/lg/Georgios_Rallis.jpg?ssl=1)
He did have the dubious distinction of being Greek nepotism at its most metastasised: son of a PM and grandson of two other PMs: Nick Nicholas’ Answer To: From Venizelos to Papandreou, Mitsotakis and their sons, Karamanlis and now again Mitsotakis, politics in Greece seems a family business. Why?
Also the only PM I’ve ever seen, at a distance in Sitia as a kid. He was so much more human-sized than on TV, I remember.
Then again, Rallis’ legacy was that he was human-sized, unlike the outsized politicians that bookended him…
Leave a Reply