THE Unknown Soldier is one of the most emblematic monuments of Greece, place of memory and public debate about sacrifice, identity and the relationship between past and present. The monument symbolizes the missing dead or those sacrificed in war operations without identifying their bodies.

It was built in the 1930s and it is a cenotaph in honor of the fallen in the wars. The first monument to the Unknown Soldier of the 1821 struggle was erected on January 16, 1858, by decision of the municipality of Ermoupolis Syros.

The decision to erect a monument to the Unknown Soldier was taken by his dictatorship Theodoros Pagalos. By decision of the same, as Minister of Military Affairs, on March 3, 1926, an artistic competition was announced in the Espera newspaper “for the submission of a study for the construction of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Old Palace Square, suitable for this purpose”. On October 9, 1926, the “Military Ministry” approved and awarded the study by the architect Emmanuel Lazaridis by a majority.

The concept of the Unknown Soldier comes from an international and European tradition that reached Greece in different time phases. In Greece, the institution acquired its own concrete form through the complex of ceremonies, monuments and public practices associated with the great wars of the 20th century and the formation of common memory. The monument we know today as the Monument to the Unknown Soldier is located in front of the Hellenic Parliament and “overlooks” Syntagma Square.

The location of the Monument was indicated by the architect Emmanuel Lazaridis himself at the site of the Old Palaces (today’s Parliament of the Hellenes) and at the suggestion of Pangalos, who wanted the Ministry of Military to be housed in the Old Palaces building. However, after intense reactions and continuous meetings, in 1929 at the 7th session of the Parliament, Eleftherios Venizelos, then Prime Minister, setting aside his disagreement with Theodoros Pagalos, decided that the best place was the original one in Palace Square (Constitution), considering that the monument should be in the center of the city, like the equivalent in France.

The building committee had given all the construction responsibility to the architect Manolis Lazaridis. He had initially collaborated with the sculptor Thomas Thomopoulos, who had proposed as a central sculpture the representation of a battle of giants where an angelic figure, symbolizing Greece, would lovingly receive the dead soldier. Despite the initial agreement with Thomopoulos, Lazaridis, as supervisor of all works, sidelined him from the project due to a financial discrepancy. In 1930 he replaced him with the sculptor Phokionas Rock by unanimous decision of the building committee, which then approved a new proposal for the work, with a hoplite “extensive text” (lying on the ground). He described the proposal as suitable, because it gives calmness and simplicity.

The monument is an urban composition with principles of French urban planning tradition and classicism, combined with the modern spirit of Art Deco and with symbolic references to Greek antiquity. The central theme was the unity of the monument with Syntagma Square, its harmonization with the neoclassical Palaces and the contribution to the regeneration of Syntagma Square with Ermou Street as its main axis. For its construction, a large-scale excavation was carried out and the hilly landscape in front of the square was flattened.

Phrases from the work of Thucydides have been engraved on the left and right of the performance: AN EMPTY BED IS SUPPOSED TO BE LAYED BY THE APHANES from the description of the burial ceremony before the delivery of the Epitaph of Pericles (2.34) to the left and to the right MEN OF THE EPIPHANES PASA GI TAFOS from the epitaph (2.43). In the middle of the cenotaph, the phrase: YOU ARE AN INVISIBLE SOLDIER was engraved in smaller letters.

The wall is surrounded on both sides by chiseled porolits where the names of places where the Greek army fought deadly battles in modern history are engraved, in sections. To the left of the composition are the battles of the First Balkan War. In the center of the monument, on the stones on the stairs, are included battles of the Second Balkan War and the Asia Minor Campaign. On the right of the composition conflicts of the First World War and operations of the Greek Army in Russia. After the liberation in 1944, the battlefields of the Second World War and later the operations in Korea were added to the cenotaph. In 1994, by decision of the Hellenic Parliament, the name “Cyprus” was added. In 2015, following a proposal by the General Staff of the Navy and a relevant decision by the Council of Chiefs of General Staff and the Ministry of Culture, Education and Religion, the words “Aegean”, “Ionian”, “Mediterranean” and “Atlantic” were added to the Monument as a sign of gratitude to the unknown Greek sailor who fell during the war. The words “Aegean”, “Ionian” and “Mediterranean” are fields of great naval battles and important naval operations during the national liberation struggles of the Greeks, while the word “Atlantic” was added in recognition of the sacrifices of the crews of the Merchant Navy in World War II in the effort to supply Europe from America.

The rest of the artistic elements of the monument were completed by the sculpture professor Konstantinos Dimitriadis. With the creation of the sculpture, the entire area of ​​the square in front of the Parliament was shaped, thus giving the project a monumental character throughout the area of ​​the square that was constructed. The project, however, experienced many delays due to the earthworks and due to the altitude difference and also due to the difficulty of processing the poristone. Special craftsmen came from France which raised the cost of the construction creating many negative comments.

The origin of the concept of the Unknown Soldier is linked to the wider European context where most states adopted corresponding forms of commemoration to honor the dead, unknown or missing. In Greece, the struggle to identify bodies, the search for testimonies and the management of historical records have been linked to the perennial need for public teaching about war, sacrifice and the rule of law. Within this context, the Unknown Soldier is a symbolic link that connects the events of the past with the collective memory of the present.

The unveiling of the monument took place on March 25, 1932 by the Deputy Prime Minister, Andreas Michalakopoulos with great formality and the participation of many foreign delegations. Then followed a parade of the guard of the monument. Then a light was brought from the monastery of Agia Lavra to touch the dormant candle which is in the middle of the cenotaph.

The honorary guarding of the monument was undertaken by a special military company of the Guard of the President of the Republic, which was renamed the Guard of the Monument of the Unknown Soldier. In 1935, with the return of George II, the company was named the Royal Guard, while from 1973 it was officially named the Presidential Guard and has the responsibility of guarding the Monument twenty-four hours a day.