Draculis, Plato

Plato Draculis was born on the island of Ithaca in 1858. The island was still under British control, and his father, Eustathius Draculis, was the authorized ruler (eparch) of the island. Plato studied law first in Athens and then in Oxford . Returning to Greece, he worked as a journalist in the newspaper Vek ( Αιών ) of Timoleon Filimon and since 1885, for two years, he published the journal Radical ( Άρδην ), which had a sociological content.

In 1887, he became a teacher of Greek at Oxford University but resigned in 1899 because he refused to teach Greek with Erasmian pronunciation. After which Draculis concentrated his efforts on publishing the philosophical journal Research (Έρευνα), in Oxford (1902–1906), in London (1908–1909) and, after his return to Greece (1908), continued its publication in Athens until 1919 ^[2] .

In 1889, he traveled to France , where he attended the First Congress of the Second International .

Draculis was in constant controversy with another pioneer of the Greek socialist movement, the Cretan Stavros Kallergis . Kallergis considered Draculis a moderate reformer and Fabian ^[1] .

However, together with Kallergis, Draculis managed to introduce the May 1 celebration in Greece, starting in 1893 ^[3] .

In May 1890, Draculis created the Central Socialist Society.

In 1895, Draculis was a candidate for parliament from the "Socialist Brotherhood" in Athens and the city of Patras ^[4] .

In 1910, Draculis created the "Union of the Working Classes of Greece" (Greek Socialist Party) ^[5] .

In the same 1910, Draculis became one of the 10 socialists elected to the Greek parliament ^[6]

Draculis is also at the origins of the workers' union movement in Greece.

With the outbreak of World War I , Draculis supported the efforts of Prime Minister Eleftheri Venizelos to enter Greece into the war on the side of the Entente. Draculis believed that joining the war ensures national interests, because, as the modern Greek economist and political analyst P. Karusos writes, “not a single 19th-century Greek man could forget the Holy Alliance and Metternich ’s strategy about the inviolability of the Ottoman Empire ”. Karusos believes that in this matter, Draculis, as well as Venizelos, were the successors of the policy of Kapodistrias . Draculis himself wrote: “Socialism is international, but not anti-national. A necessary prerequisite for the brotherhood of nations is the existence of free self-governing ethnic groups ”and also“ The victory of the Entente gives hope for the fall of these monstrous organisms, which are called the Great Powers ”.

In his work “Hellas in Danger,” Draculis writes: “The third stage of the struggle, which began in 1821 , continued in 1912 and is intended to be completed participation in the World War” ^[7] .

Draculis refused to attend the first (constituent) congress of the Socialist Workers Party of Greece (since 1924 the Communist Party of Greece ). At the congress, with regret, it was noted that "all representatives of the socialist fermentation of previous years, except Draculis," take part (Kallergis left politics as early as 1902). In the absence of Draculis, the Party Central Committee was elected (A. Arvanitis, D. Ligdopoulos, S. Kokkinos, M. Sideriz, N. Dimitratos) and the revision committee (G. Pispinis, S Komiotis, A. Benaroya ) ^[8] .

In the conditions when a new leadership was formed in the Greek socialist movement, Draculis moved to England.

Given the fact that he spent his entire fortune on the development of the socialist movement in Greece, Draculis lived in England on the verge of poverty. He wrote to his friends: “Nothing pleases me here. I want to return to my beloved Ithaca. I have many relics that I want to devote to my Fatherland - especially icons. ”

Draculis died in a car accident in London in 1942.

According to the Great Lodge of Greece, Plato Draculis was a Freemason ^[9] , along with the “early socialist” Roccos Hoydas .

• Study of the French Revolution ( Μελέτη περί της Γαλλικής Επαναστάσεως 1890)
• Handbook of the worker or the foundations of socialism ( Εγχειρίδιον του εργάτου, ήτοι οι βάσεις του σοσιαλισμού 1893)
• Light from within ( Φως εκ των ένδον 1894)
• Greek Language and Philology ( Ελληνική γλώσσα και φιλολογία 1897)
• “The Importance and Vitality of Hellenism, The Importance of Christianity” (Η αξία και η ζωτικότης του Ελληνισμού, Η αξία του χριστιανισμού 1907)
• Emancipation of a Woman ( Αποκατάστασις της γυναικός 1912)
• Elements of Bionomy ( Στοιχεία Βιονομίας )

• Ε / Ιστορικά , ένθετο εφημερίδας Ελευθεροτυπία με θέμα: "Η ίδρυση του ΚΚΕ", 20 Νοεμβρίου 2003
• Εγκυκλοπαίδεια Πάπυρος Λαρούς Μπριτάννικα , τ. 18