The head of the Central Socialist Association in 1893, Stavros Kallergis, was the first to take the initiative 131 years ago and thus Labour Day was commemorated for the first time in Greece.

Among the demands of the demonstrators were the establishment of the 8-hour working day and Sunday as a public holiday, as well as the awarding of a pension to the victims of industrial accidents. But even then, that first celebration was marked by riots. Kallergis delivered a resolution to the Parliament, but the obstruction of the Speaker of the House to read it caused him to protest strongly and, after the soldiers of the Guard hit him with their sticks, he was arrested for disturbing the session and imprisoned for ten days in the Old Barracks prison.

But this event did not deter the labour movement in the following years, as Labour Day was celebrated almost every year in the years that followed.

May Day “painted in blood”

The reference point was 1936, when twelve people died in the tobacco workers’ demonstrations in Thessaloniki as a result of the intervention of the forces of order. A mother’s lament for her dead son, 25-year-old Tasos Toussis, at the intersection of Venizelos and Egnatia streets, inspired Yannis Ritsos to write his poetic work ‘The Epitaph’.

The executions in Laconia

Eight years later, May Day would be associated with one of the greatest crimes of Nazi atrocity. On 27 April 1944, ELAS guerrillas would ambush the road from Molai to Sparta, in Laconia, and kill the German military commander of the Peloponnese, General Franz Krech, and three men in his entourage. In retaliation, the Nazis decided “to execute 200 Communists, and to execute all men arrested between Molaa and Sparta”.

Despite the efforts of the guerrillas, and of Archbishop Damaskinos, the 200 would be executed at the shooting range in Kaisariani on 1 May 1944, while the number of those executed in Laconia exceeded one hundred.

The first open gathering after the war

In the turbulent post-war years, the first open assembly will take place at the Panathinaiko Stadium. In post-civil war Greece, May Day events are held mainly indoors due to the restrictions imposed on public gatherings.

May Day in the junta

On May Day 1967 no events are held as a few days earlier, on 21 April, the junta of the colonels is imposed. From the following year, the dictatorial regime establishes May Day as a public holiday.

The Metapolition

The first May Day rally of the post-independence period, in 1975, takes place in Kotzias Square and is characterized by mass participation. From the following year onwards, the May Day gathering will be hosted at the Areos Field in front of the GSEE building.