Editorial: To Vima celebrates its centennial

Yesterday was our birthday. On 6 February, 1992, exactly 100 years ago, the newspaper then called Elefthero Vima first hit the stands.

That four-page newspaper was destined to last, and it bore the signature of founder Demetrios Lambrakis - a distinctive Cretan rebel who took part in the Macedonian struggle at the beginning of the 20th century, was an educator , and was from the start a close associate of Greek statesman Eleftherios Venizelos.

The newspaper was from the beginning supporting Venizelos' Liberal Party (Fileleftheron), as was evident from the first issue's editorial, entitled "What we shall pursue".

It stressed that the paper was guided by the principles of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1909. It was evident that it was directly linked to the management of the Asia Minor catastrophe and its harsh impact on the nation and the country.

Since then, it has continually been in circulation, recording step-by-step and day-by day all the enthralling events of our tumultuous century, full of great national and global disasters, but also unique achievements that affected our lives.

All the major domestic and international divs of the 20th and 21st centuries were reported on by the paper, which expressed the most modern and progressive ideas, from the wave of the demotic language (spoken Greek) and liberal bourgeois democracy to the most modern currents in the arts and culture.

To Vima from the start was linked to distinctive divs - intellectuals and individuals from the realm of the arts and sciences - and was an uplifting and creative beacon.

Beyond central domestic and international divs in the world of politics and economics - Eleftherios Venizelos, Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Adenauer, Robert Schuman,...