Artist: Fedonas Potamitis
Location: Georgios Grivas Digenis Avenue, Limassol. Limassol district
Category: 1974 Coup
Photography: Evangelia Matthopoulou
A proposal for a memorial dedicated to the Limassol partisans had been started in 2002. Subsequently this initiative was taken up by the Pan Cypriot Association of Democratic Partisans. The costs were covered by various Ministries and Government divisions and the unveiling took place on July 12th 2004.
The two sculpted figures were added to the initial plans in 2003. An androgynous female figure crowned with a laurel wreath, presumably motherland, holds a dead fighter. The only element that indicates her femininity–apart of the renowned pieta pattern she replicates–is the archaic, long chiton and her headdress. Her muscular arms, strong hands, angular face, strong chin and cheekbones, and her voluminous body bear strong references to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Sibyls and create a sharp antithesis with the vulnerable naked dead body.
Selected sources:
~ Χαραυγή (Haravgi), July 13, 2004, p. 13.
~ Αρχείο Δήμου Λεμεσού (Limassol Municipality Archive), 15.3.01, documents July 8, 2002; April 22, 2002; March 24, 2004.
~ Αρχείο Συμβουλευτικής Επιτροπής Μνημείων Υπουργείου Παιδείας & Πολιτισμού (Advisory Monuments’ Committee) 14.3.01/2, document January 23, 2002.
~ Αρχείο Συμβουλευτικής Επιτροπής Μνημείων Υπουργείου Παιδείας & Πολιτισμού (Advisory Monuments’ Committee) 14.3.01/5, document June 19, 2003.
~ Αρχείο Συμβουλευτικής Επιτροπής Μνημείων Υπουργείου Παιδείας & Πολιτισμού (Advisory Monuments’ Committee) 14.3.01/6, documents March 7, 2002; October 8, 2003.
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