Eleftherios Venizelos has had a profound, albeit often overlooked, role in the shaping of the modern world. On August 6, 2025, the National Research and Studies Foundation “Eleftherios K. Venizelos” hosted Venizelos to the World: The Branches of the ‘Eleftherios K. Venizelos’ Foundation in the USA and Oceania. A Tribute to Greeks of the Diaspora.
The Foundation’s annual forum, now in its seventh year in Crete, the birthplace of Venizelos, was dedicated to the Greek Diaspora. Director-general Nikolaos Papadakis welcomed delegates and emphasised the nexus between the US and Oceania branches.
“The Foundation aims to promote Venizelos’s role in international politics and celebrate Greece’s participation in the fight for global freedom,” Papadakis said.
“The work aims to raise awareness of Venizelos’s historical legacy and impact on modern international politics.”
A statesman who shaped modern Greece
Venizelos was a major force behind the establishment of modern Greece, and his actions shaped world politics. He facilitated Greece’s entry into the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire, and his diplomatic acumen brought success with both the Great Powers — Britain, France, Germany — and regional allies.
His astute leadership doubled Greece’s territory and population during the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 — bloody affairs of nation-building in which Greece took Macedonia, Epirus, and most of the Aegean islands. He is the founding father of a modern republican Greece.
Connecting the Diaspora
Historian, Professor Alexander Kitroeff from Haverford College, US, said Venizelos’s relationship with the Diaspora evolved after 1922, when he laid the groundwork for a new connection between the Greek national centre and its diaspora.
“The way the diaspora is organised and continues to integrate while maintaining its Greek identity today is based on the policies Venizelos established after the end of the ‘Megali Idea’ in 1922,” he said.
Nikolaos Kastrinakis, president of the Venizelos Foundation USA and the World Council of Cretans, and Anastasios Tamis, board member of the National Research Foundation, then spoke.
“This event has become an integral part of the visit for diaspora members in Crete… It’s a reminder of the great legacy left to us by our national leader, Eleftherios Venizelos: to work together in harmony, without division, with a shared goal of progress and a better tomorrow.
“Your presence here is a source of inspiration and strength for us. I want to assure everyone that next year, which marks 90 years since Eleftherios Venizelos’s death, the anniversary will be celebrated with great pomp across all continents,” Kastrinakis said.
Bridging continents
Tamis said the event “acts as a bridge, a link of cooperation, interaction, and collaboration” between the Foundation and the Greek Diaspora. “This focuses on the study and analysis of Venizelos’s role and contribution in shaping and fortifying Greece’s national borders,” he said. He called Venizelos a visionary reformer and statesman, who forged “Allied cooperation” with his “unbeatable communication skills.”
“Venizelos became linked to the peoples of Oceania through the Balkan Wars and the two World Wars that followed,” Tamis added.
The Foundation awarded its highest honour, the title of ‘Associate,’ to individuals who have made significant contributions to preserving Venizelos’s historical legacy and memory. The new associates are Iosif Kokolakis and Sokratis Tsourdalakis, a historical researcher and author.
A shared legacy across nations
In his acceptance speech, Kokolakis said, “What Venizelos did for Greece — his diplomacy, his ideology — is something we must protect forever… From the bottom of my heart, I want to congratulate the Foundation for its work.”
Tsourdalakis said it was “with great joy, emotion, and humility” that he accepted the “honour.” He underscored that the Australian and New Zealand Hellenic Diaspora, especially Cretans in Oceania, actively promote the work of the National Foundation ‘Eleftherios K. Venizelos.’
Venizelos was born in Crete, then under Ottoman rule.
“I believe we must do this, keeping the name and contribution of our national leader alive and passing on his message to the Greek community in Australia, the wider Australian society, and our children,” said Tsourdalakis, the Australian Cretan.
The event was also attended and addressed by Deputy Minister of Immigration and Asylum Sevi Voloudaki, MP for Chania Alexandros Markogiannakis, Deputy Regional Governor of Chania Nikos Kalogeris, and President of the Chania Bar Association Christos Pramateftakis. MP for Chania Dora Bakoyannis sent a written message.
