Museum – Headquarters in Therisso
Therisso is a small, semi-mountainous village 15 km south of the city of Ηania. The village, which is located in an inaccessible green valley at the entrance to the homonymous gorge, has historical ties to a critical turning point for the island: the Revolution of 1905. The headquarters of the Revolution was a simple, single-story building offered to the rebels by the Bulakas family. In subsequent years, a second floor was raised and ownership also changed. The latest owner, Aikaterini Strongylaki, sold the property to the Greek State in 1985. After a necessary restoration in 1986, it was inaugurated as the Historical and Ethnological Museum of Therisso. Since 2000, the National Research Foundation “Eleftherios K. Venizelos” has cared for the property, carrying out small-scale maintenance projects alongside the Municipality of Hania. In 2018, the building was granted by ETAD SA to the National Research Foundation “Eleftherios K. Venizelos” and the Museum – Headquarters of the Revolution of Therisso 1905 was restored and renovated and functions, since July 2019, as a modern museum under the Foundation’s administration. In October 2019 the Museum was inaugurated by the Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni.
The exhibition extends across two floors and includes authentic artifacts and archival documents. The original flag-banner of the Revolution with the inscription “Therisso 1905” is presented on the ground floor, alongside the manual flat press used by the Revolutionaries. In addition to the authentic documents and photographs of the era, a Cretan Gendarmerie uniform is displayed, while the supervisory material presents the history of the building and a brief history of the Revolution of Therisso.
On the first floor it is displayed an authentic 19th-century Cretan attire and two pistols used during the 1905 revolution; a) an Ottoman army rifle by the American company Peabody Martini of 1871 embossed with the Sultans’ coat of arms, a spoil of war with the Ottomans and b) a 1877 French-made Fusil Gras rifle, which was the weapon used by the Greek army for over 70 years. The history of the Cretan State until its second phase (1898-1908), with emphasis on the events of the Revolution of Therisso 1905, is also presented on the first floor through the supervisory material from the Foundation’s archive of photographs, newspapers and postcards.
MAIN SPONSORS: COSMOTE, JOHN S. LATSIS PUBLIC BENEFIT FOUNDATION and ERIETTA LATSIS.
SPONSORS: ΑΝΕΚ LINES, SYNKA SUPER MARKETS, ET.AN.AP. A.E.– SAMARIA, HELECTOR, FINOBETON – PAVLOS CHANIOTAKIS, HANIA LAW ASSOSIATION, HANIA HOTELS ASS OCIATION, KONSTANTINOS GYPARIS, PETROS PAPAKYRIAKOU PETROS, HANIA ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION, TECHNICAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF GREECE – WEST CRETE DIVISION.
