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The history of the Hellenic Republic constitutes three republican periods in the modern history of Greece: from 1822 until 1832; from 1924 until 1935; and from 1974 through to the present. See also the constitutional history of Greece.
The First Hellenic Republic (Greek : Αʹ Ελληνική Δημοκρατία) is a historiographic term used for a series of councils and "Provisional Governments" during the Greek War of Independence. In the first stages of the uprising, various areas elected their own regional governing councils. These were replaced by central administration at the First National Assembly of Epidaurus in early 1822, which also adopted the first Greek Constitution. A series of National Assemblies followed, while Greece was threatened with collapse due to civil war and the victories of Ibrahim Pasha.
In 1827, the Third National Assembly at Troezen selected Count Ioannis Kapodistrias, who had previously been in Russia's diplomatic service, as Governor of Greece for a term of seven years. He arrived in Greece in January 1828 and established the Hellenic State, ruling with quasi-dictatorial powers. He was assassinated by political rivals in 1831 and was succeeded by his brother, Augustinos Kapodistrias until in 1832 the Great Powers declared Greece a Kingdom and selected the Bavarian Prince Otto to be its king.
The Second Hellenic Republic (Greek : Βʹ Ελληνική Δημοκρατία) was declared on 25 March 1924, after the defeat of Greece by Turkey in the Asia Minor Disaster of 1922, the September 1922 Revolution and the subsequent exile and death of King Constantine I in 1923. The king and his chief opponent, Eleftherios Venizelos, had struggled over control of the country from 1915 to his death and the country was sorely divided (see National Schism). King Constantine was succeeded by his son, King George II, who in the wake of a failed royalist coup was asked by the parliament to leave Greece so the nation could decide what form of government it should adopt. In 1924, the Republic was proclaimed and confirmed by plebiscite.
The first President of the Hellenic Republic was Pavlos Kountouriotis, an Admiral and supporter of Venizelos who resigned after a coup d'état in 1925. He was succeeded by the coup's leader General Theodoros Pangalos, who was likewise deposed by the military 5 months later after embroiling Greece in the War of the Stray Dog. Kountouriotis was reinstated and reelected to the office in 1929, but was forced to resign for health reasons later that year. He was succeeded by Alexandros Zaimis, who served until the restoration of monarchy in 1935.
Despite a period of stability and relative prosperity under the last government of Eleftherios Venizelos in 1928–1932, the effects of the Great Depression were severely felt, and political instability returned. Although the opposition People's Party, which represented the royalist and anti-Venizelos factions of the electorate, had pledged to support the Republic, its imminent rise to power after the March 1933 elections caused fears of a return to the monarchy. A Venizelist coup was launched but quickly suppressed.
Following the outbreak of another Venizelist-inspired coup in March 1935, which was suppressed by General Georgios Kondylis, the army was purged of Venizelist and republican officers, and the return of the monarchy became inevitable. On 10 October 1935, the chiefs of the Armed Forces overthrew the government of Panagis Tsaldaris, and Kondylis declared himself Regent. He abolished the Republic and staged a plebiscite on 11 November which resulted in the return of King George II to the country.
The current Third Hellenic Republic (Greek : Γʹ Ελληνική Δημοκρατία) was declared in 1974 during the Metapolitefsi (Greek, "regime change"), after the end of the Regime of the Colonels which had controlled Greece since the coup d'état of 21 April 1967.
The Junta had already held a staged referendum to abolish the monarchy on 29 July 1973, and passed a new Constitution which established a presidential republic (with junta leader Georgios Papadopoulos as president). This short-lived attempt at controlled democratization was ended by the hardliners under Brigadier Dimitrios Ioannides, who overthrew Papadopoulos in November 1973 in the aftermath of the Athens Polytechnic uprising. The Republic was maintained, but was nothing more than a façade for the military regime until August 1974, when the Turkish invasion of Cyprus led to the collapse of the Junta.
After the fall of the regime and the return to civilian rule in August 1974 however, the legal and constitutional acts of the Junta were deemed invalid, and a new referendum was held on 8 December 1974, which finally abolished the monarchy. A new Constitution, promulgated on 11 June 1975, declared Greece a presidential parliamentary democracy (or republic – the Greek δημοκρατία can be translated both ways). This constitution, revised in 1985, 2001, 2008 and 2019, is still in force today.
The history of modern Greece covers the history of Greece from the recognition by the Great Powers — Britain, France and Russia — of its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1828 to the present day.
Ioannis Metaxas was a Greek military officer and politician who was Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941. He governed constitutionally for the first four months of his tenure, and thereafter as the strongman leader of the 4th of August Regime following his appointment by King George II.
Georgios Papandreou was a Greek politician, the founder of the Papandreou political dynasty. He served three terms as prime minister of Greece. He was also deputy prime minister from 1950 to 1952, in the governments of Nikolaos Plastiras and Sofoklis Venizelos. He served numerous times as a cabinet minister, starting in 1923, in a political career that spanned more than five decades.
The president of Greece, officially the President of the Hellenic Republic, commonly referred to in Greek as the President of the Republic, is the head of state of Greece. The president is elected by the Hellenic Parliament; the role has been mainly ceremonial since the 1986 constitutional reform. The office was formally established by the Constitution of Greece in 1975, but has antecedents in the Second Hellenic Republic of 1924–1935 and the Greek junta in 1973–1974 which predated the transition to the current Third Hellenic Republic. The incumbent, since 13 March 2020, is Katerina Sakellaropoulou.
Lieutenant General Theodoros Pangalos was a Greek general, politician and dictator. A distinguished staff officer and an ardent Venizelist and anti-royalist, Pangalos played a leading role in the September 1922 revolt that deposed King Constantine I and in the establishment of the Second Hellenic Republic. In June 1925 Pangalos staged a bloodless coup d'état, and his assumption of power was recognized by the National Assembly which named him prime minister. As a "constitutional dictator" he ruled the country until his overthrow in August 1926. From April 1926 until his deposition, he also occupied the office of President of the Republic.
Georgios Kondylis was a Greek general, politician and prime minister of Greece. He was nicknamed Keravnos, Greek for "thunder" or "thunderbolt".
Panagis Tsaldaris was a Greek politician who served as Prime Minister of Greece twice. He was a revered conservative politician and leader for many years (1922–1936) of the conservative People's Party in the period before World War II. He was the husband of Lina Tsaldari, a Greek suffragist, member of Parliament, and the Minister for Social Welfare.
The currently deposed Greek royal family was the ruling family of the Kingdom of Greece from 1863 to 1924 and again from 1935 to 1973. The family is a branch of the Danish royal family, itself a cadet branch of the House of Glücksburg. The family had replaced the House of Wittelsbach that previously ruled Greece from 1832 to 1862. The first monarch was George I of Greece, the second son of King Christian IX of Denmark. The current head of the family is Pavlos, who assumed the role on 10 January 2023 upon the death of his father, former King Constantine II.
In the modern history of Greece, starting from the Greek War of Independence, the Constitution of 1975/1986/2001 is the last in a series of democratically adopted Constitutions.
This is a timeline of modern Greek history.
The Second Hellenic Republic is a modern historiographical term used to refer to the Greek state during a period of republican governance between 1924 and 1935. To its contemporaries it was known officially as the Hellenic Republic or more commonly as Greece. It occupied virtually the coterminous territory of modern Greece and bordered Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey and the Italian Aegean Islands. The term Second Republic is used to differentiate it from the First and Third republics.
The First Hellenic Republic was the provisional Greek state during the Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Empire. From 1822 until 1827, it was known as the Provisional Administration of Greece, and between 1827 and 1832, it was known as the Hellenic State.
The attempted coup d'état of March 1935 was a Venizelist revolt against the People's Party government of Panagis Tsaldaris, which was suspected of pro-royalist tendencies.
A constitutional referendum was held in Greece on 29 July 1973. The amendments would confirm the abolition of the monarchy by the military junta and establish a republic. The proposal was approved by 78.6% of voters with a turnout of 75%.
The President of the Hellenic Parliament is the presiding officer of the Parliament of Greece. The president's term coincides with the term of the assembly,and is chosen by a vote during the opening session, after each legislative election. Following is a list of speakers of the Hellenic Parliament or other national legislative bodies such as the Greek Senate, from the time of the Greek War of Independence till present. The official order of precedence ranks the speaker of the Hellenic Parliament in the 3rd position, after the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister.
The Greek Senate was the upper chamber of the parliament in Greece, extant several times in the country's history.
The name of Greece differs in Greek compared with the names used for the country in other languages and cultures, just like the names of the Greeks. The ancient and modern name of the country is Hellas or Hellada (Greek: Ελλάς, Ελλάδα; in polytonic: Ἑλλάς, Ἑλλάδα), and its official name is the Hellenic Republic, Helliniki Dimokratia. In English, however, the country is usually called Greece, which comes from the Latin Graecia.
The Kingdom of Greece was established in 1832 and was the successor state to the First Hellenic Republic. It was internationally recognised by the Treaty of Constantinople, where Greece also secured its full independence from the Ottoman Empire after nearly four centuries.
