Evagoras Pallikarides, A symbol of the struggle

EVAGORAS PALLIKARIDES (1938-1957) Evagoras Pallikarides was born on 27 February 1938 in his mother’s village of Tsada in the district of Paphos. His father was from the village of Larnaka tis Lapithou in the Kyrenia district. Pallikarides was the fourth of five children, and had two brothers and two sisters. He went to the village primary school and later attended Ktima Primary School (1944-1950). From early childhood he began to display the characteristics that would accompany him for the rest of his brief life: dynamism, leadership, creativity, a love for his country and a flair for literature. He spoke little, and was studious, contemplative and generous spirited. He continued his schooling at The Greek Gymnasium at Paphos between 1950 and 1955 and as a final year student in the first term of 1955-56. At the end of the third year of high school, on 1 June 1953, the eve of the Coronation of the new British Sovereign Queen Elizabeth II, at the age of fifteen, he was a leading part of the vigorously anti-British demonstrations. He lowered the Union Jack from its flagpole at the stadium, an act that triggered the first dynamic confrontation between the Greeks of Cyprus and the British colonial powers, since the revolt of 1931. This was his first revolutionary act, and laid the foundations for his subsequent course in the struggle. In April 1955 he joined EOKA and was at the forefront of demonstrations, the distribution of declarations, the writing of revolutionary slogans and the blowing up of British targets. On 17 November 1955, during a student protest, he attacked two British soldiers who were beating a fellow pupil and managed to release him from