Gladstonos Street is located in the center of Athens and, specifically, in Omonia near Kaningos Square. It became more widely known after the murder of Jacques Kostopoulos on this particular street on September 21, 2018, while in recent days and, in particular, after the memorial march for Jacques, which took place on Saturday, a large and intense discussion has opened about the renaming of the street .
Notably, after the march in his memory, activists a blue sign that read "Zackie Oh Street" in the name of the street, right below the sign that read "Gladston Street". A few days later, the head of the SYRIZA faction in the municipality of Athens, Nasos Iliopoulos, proposed through his post on Facebook that the street be officially renamed and take the name of Zak Kostopoulos, in fact causing reactions and receiving threats against his life from extreme right.
On the occasion of the debate that has started about renaming the street, we remember where the street got its name from and who William Gladstone or William Gladstone was.
According to Wikipedia, William Gladstone (in ancient Greek literature we meet him as William Gladstone) was born on December 29, 1809 and lived until May 19, 1898. He was an eminent English politician of the Liberal Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, while he was distinguished for his rhetorical skill and his philhellenism. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.
In 1834 he became Second Lord Treasurer and in 1835 Under-Secretary-General for the Colonies, at which time he repeatedly advocated the abolition of slavery in the colonies. In 1862, as Finance Minister in the Palmerston Government, he voted in favor of the union of the Ionian Islands with Greece. In 1867 he succeeded Lord Russell as the leader of the Liberal party and in 1868 he formed the first government under his presidency, at which time he managed to pass a law for the separation of church and state.
He resigned in 1873 following the rejection of one of his bills and did not cease to follow political events, strongly attacking Benjamin Disraeli's pro-Turkish policy. During the 1880 election, he won the election with a majority and became prime minister for the second time. Thus he succeeded in being sent to Berlin for the conference which would eventually give Thessaly to Greece in 1881.
In 1886 he formed his third government with a program of granting full autonomy to Ireland. Because Parliament voted against the relevant bill, elections were held in 1892, which brought him for the fourth time to the position of prime minister. His bill was passed by the Commons, but rejected by the House of Lords. Finally, Gladstone resigned from politics for good in 1893, at which time he engaged in the translation of Horace's Odes and other authors.
Gladston and Greece
In modern Greek history, William Gladstone associated his name both with the union of the Ionian Islands with Greece and with the Cyprus issue. In particular on the latter one year before he died (1897) he made the following confession:
"I reflect - he wrote - what satisfaction I would feel if I had the good fortune before the end of my short life to see the population of this Greek Island (Cyprus) incorporated after a friendly settlement with his brothers, the King of Greece".
His decision to continue the Greek schools of Cyprus to teach in the Greek language is important, contrary to a suggestion made to him when he was Minister of Colonies, saying that it is not worth doing to the Greeks what ,what we did to other peoples, that is to impose our language on them.
Gladstone was one of the first major British politicians to adopt the political view that Britain could intervene to protect the Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire and even prosecute those responsible for the persecutions . This policy was based on international treaties such as the Treaty of Paris of 1856 which ended the Crimean War. He admired the Eastern Orthodox Church as a unifying national and religious body and was inspired by the Revolution of 1821. After the massacre of thousands of Bulgarian Christians by the Turks in May 1876, Gladstone called on the British government to take an active role as protector and judge. His positions were made known through a pamphlet entitled "Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East". Gladston's campaign for the Turkish Orthodox caused great interest in British circles, including the Anglican Churches, and various organizations were formed to support the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Orthodox in Turkey.
As a sign of gratitude to the great Philhellenic, a pan-Hellenic fundraiser erected his statue at the entrance of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, while his name was given to the aforementioned street in the center of Athens, as well as on the streets of other cities in Greece, as well as in Cyprus.