Alexander  (Alekos) Papanastasi

Vissionary statesman anf Prminister of Greece

Alexander Papanastasi called Alekos in Levidi was a former Prime Minister of Greece and a distinguished and eminent Levidioti. His father was Panagiotis J Papanastasi a deputee in Parliament and later president of the the Public Servants' Fund. He married Maria Constantine Rogari Apostolopoulou daughter of the mayor of Levidi. They had two children Alexander and Aristouli.

Alekos studied law at the university of Athens and later studied abroad economics, sociology, and philosophy at the universities of Paris, Heidelburg, and Berlin

His contribution to politics in Greece was enormous, his economic and political thinking was profound. He is recognised as the founder and father of Democarcy in Modern Greece. His achievements and ideas have served as an inspiration to his fellow countrymen. He was determined to improve the lives of his people and as a statesman he is considered fifty years ahead of his time. He died in 1936 at the age of 58.In 1935 he visited America to meet the Levidiotico Brotherhood which greated him great admiration pride, and  joy. At a dinner given in his honour there were 1200 guests.

 

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By special invitation he visited the White House to talk to President Franklin D. Rooservelt this was meant to be a ten minute affair as Rooservelt recognised this was special statesman  the conversation went on for many hours

In  September1932 he wrote to the "Acradian " newspaper about the Levidiotes and their village

" When I stayed in Levidi in the summertime, I saw my relatives-- almost all the Levidiotes are  my relatives-- tortured and suffering incredible hardship from dawn to dusk while cultivating their hard and almost barren soil and while bringing in their meager harvest from along distance and at other times carrying jugs or barrels of water or firewood from the mountain.I saw that they were black from the fiery heat of the sun, sweating and sinewy or immersed in mud, soaked to the bone...lean and emanciated for the lack of sufficient nourishment, overworking without, on the other hand, any reward or enjoyment for their labours,except the church service on Sunday where their religious disposition is satisfied and some esthetic enjoyment is offered my the ecclesiastical music, by the previling order in the village church, by its artistic decor and by some rare local holiday, celebrations and festivals or family festivities such as weddings."

".......I am not only rejuvinated when I go to my fatherland ( and when I say renewed and rejuvinated I mean physically and spiritually), but many of my political thoughts and ideas were acquired in Arcadia by observing the life in the village and talking with both literate or just simple farmers....."

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