Georgios Athanasiadis-Novas

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Georgios Athanasiadis-Novas (Greek: Γεώργιος Αθανασιάδης-Νόβας) (1893-1986) Prime Minister of Greece in 1965.

A lawyer by trade, Athanasiadis-Novas was a conservative who had once held office during the Ioannis Metaxas regime. In 1961, however, he was one of many conservatives who joined the Center Union Party (EK), in opposition to the corruption of right-wing governments at the time. In 1964, after EK came into power, he became President of the Parliament.

On July 15, 1965 he was appointed Prime Minister of Greece by king Constantine, after the later dismissed George Papandreou, Sr., a move that is known as Apostasia of 1965. He was followed by many EK conservatives and (with support from conservative ERE MPs) tried to form a government, but failed to get past a vote of confidence in parliament. He was replaced on August 20 of the same year.

In July 1974 he was one of the politicians who brokered the end of the Regime of the Colonels and the appointment of Constantine Caramanlis as Prime Minister.

Athanasiadis-Novas also wrote some poetry and prose. Literary critics found very little in the way of value in his works, but he found some popularity among his detractors, who used them to ridicule his less-than-distinguished political career. The stanza:

Itan ta stithia sou

aspra san galata

kai mou 'leges:

gargala ta

Your breasts were

White as milk

And you urged me

"Tickle them!"

gained him the comical nickname "The Gargalatas", i.e. Mr. Tickler. Only after 40 years has it been proven that the fact that he wrote this stanza was an urban legend. It all started from an article of Costas Stamatiou at the newspaper Ta Nea, with the intention to ridicule him. Lefteris Papadopoulos cleared the situation with an article at the same newspaper in 2004.