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Liberal Party Κόμμα Φιλελευθέρων | |
---|---|
Founder | Eleftherios Venizelos |
Founded | 22 August 1910[1] Founded 112 years ago |
Dissolved | 1961 |
Preceded by | New Party (1873) |
Merged into | Center Union |
Ideology | Liberalism[2] (Imperialist)[3] National liberalism Greek nationalism[4] Republicanism Centrism Venizelism[2] |
Political position | Centre[5] |
The Liberal Party (Greek: Κόμμα Φιλελευθέρων [ˈkoma filelefˈθeɾon] , literally "Party of Liberals") was a major political party in Greece during the early-to-mid 20th century. It was founded in August 1910 by Eleftherios Venizelos and went on to dominate Greek politics for a considerable number of years until its decline following the Second World War. Among its most well-known members, apart from Venizelos, were Alexandros Papanastasiou, Nikolaos Plastiras, Georgios Papandreou and Konstantinos Mitsotakis.
Since its founding, the party's emblem had been the anchor, similar to the one Venizelos had brought with him from Crete.[6]
Venizelist liberalism and imperialism not only was connected to British liberalism and liberal approaches to imperialism, but was also a product of it. Although looking East for territory, Venizelist imperialism looked to unite the "unredeemed Greeks" living in the East under an "orientalist" pre-modern system with the Europe that was (or would be) Modern Greece - western, modern and liberal.