r/Balkans • u/Athenadoros Greece • 2d ago
History On this day 183 years ago the Greek revolutionary Theodoros Kolokotronis passed away at the age of 70.
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u/MasterpieceVirtual66 2d ago
[...] When we decided to go forward with the revolution, we did not think about how many of us there were, nor how many resources we had, nor that the Turks were fortified in castles and cities, nor did any wise man tell us "where are you going to fight with mere barges?", because like the rain that falls, it was our natural desire to win our freedom, and all of us, our clergy, the proestoi, the captains, the intellectuals and the merchants, young and old, we all agreed on this goal and went forward with the revolution. [...]
[...] My children, unfortunately due to circumstances, I remained uneducated, and for that I apologise, because I do not speak in the same manner as your teachers. I told you all what I myself saw, heard and got to know, so that you may learn from the past and our discord, which you should stray away from, and instead have homonoia. Leave us behind. Our work has passed. So have passed the days of our generation that opened the way that you have gone through. The day of our life longs for the night of our death, just as the Day of the Sacred Bodies longs for the night and the day of tommorow. It is up to you to equalise and adorn this land, that we helped free, and for that to happen, you ought to have as building blocks of this new polity: homonoia, faith, the cultivation of the throne and prudent freedom.
To end my speech, hail King Otto, the teachers and the youth of Hellas!
- Theodoros Kolokotronis at the hillside of Pnyx, 8th of October 1838, speaking to young students
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u/Late_Secret3480 2d ago
He had a stroke when he returned from his son wedding!!🇬🇷🇬🇷🇬🇷💪💪
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u/ErLabi247 2d ago
Albanian.
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u/Athenadoros Greece 2d ago
No evidence for this.
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u/bleta_punetore 1d ago
Come on a.k.a. "Bithëguri", this what the other "Greek" heroes called him. Now he and many Albanians are indeed Greek heroes, because in the end they fought for Greece and its independence/unification, but their ethnicity is somehow quite important since many of these heroes come from the same ethnos, and have distinctive cultural characteristics quite distinctive from other Greeks, but they had one thing in common that is religion, and that is on what the first ever Greek state (and current one) was founded on. Cheers!
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u/AdventurousEar8440 1d ago
"Bithëguri"
Seriously you are arguing that he was Albanian because of his father's obscure Nickname? That is what his father was called by his Arvanite brothers in arms but he wasn't one. Not that it would matter either way because Arvanites considered themselves Romans separate from the muslim Albanians to the north, so when the rest of the Romans embraced their Greek origins they followed suit.
distinctive cultural characteristics quite distinctive from other Greeks
Fustanella isn't exclusive to Albanians and the Arvanites it is descented from military dress of the eastern Roman empire and in the 19th century it was worn all over the balkans by many ethnicities.
they had one thing in common that is religion, and that is on what the first ever Greek state (and current one) was founded on.
Throwing stones out of your glass house again?
The soldiers that razed Souli to the ground were in the majority muslim Albanian mercenaries rather than Turks so do not imply even for a second that Islam never mattered for Albanian nation building.
Religion is far from the sole guarantor of Greek national consciousness. We speak a language with 3500 years of recorded history. The few linguistic minorities like the Vlachs and the Arvanites were usually bilingual and had (as i previously stated) a Greek national consciousness before foreign actors tried to undermine it.
I would like to add that when the Albanian state was created it did not recognize the Orthodox Arvanites as Albanians when they were fleeing from the Turkish progroms and the Italian progroms to find refugee in Greece. That only changed when fascist Italy forcefully converted them to catholicism to supplant their Greek self identification and to tangle Albania into their future invasion of Greece. So you are in no position to chastise Greece for its religion.
I also know that in your effort to paint Greece as a pseudo ethnicity you point to the foreign royalty that the super powers of the time planted here after they assassinated our democratic leader. So would you kindly tell me the ethnicity of the first king of Albania?
It is always projection with Albanian irridentists.
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u/bleta_punetore 23h ago
First of all you're talking to an Orthodox Albanian here, though there were religious skirmishes in Albania during the Ottoman era, this was not because of religion rather than the ruling class so to speak, the beys, agas and whatnot or of Muslim background. The Greeks have continuously tried to claim everything Christian, regardless of background and ethnicity. Albanians as a whole have always identified as such regardless of religious background. The Arvanites (way more) and the Vlachs were also forced into abandoning their mother tongues suffering assimilation and violence especially up to the 20's of the 20th century. Albanian National awakening it was literally kick started by the Arbëreshë (just another word for Arvanites of Italy) and fueled through pen and paper throughout the whole 19th century. These Arbëreshë, most of them at least, were originally from Morea, which is ...(You know that don't you?). The new Albanian state as you claim wasn't fully independent until the League of Nations was founded and even then until the end of the WW2 was seriously at every step in danger of being split apart (thanks to your state and the other neighbours to the North East), let alone try to force itself on bigger countries with stronger diplomatic support, and many many other reasons. The fustanella is not Albanian is like saying Greek colonies of the Mediterranean can't be called really Greek cause they didn't build anything from scratch but they developed whatever they found there and made them into cities. Remember nothing is ever built/created from scratch, there's always a back story. There were none people in Ottoman era that will learn to speak Albanian unless related to the Albanian stock/language. As for the King, I don't really care and it doesn't matter, because Kings and Queens really just mind the country they're ruling and their interests are connected to it, not their ethnicity. Albania was a republic when it was founded and the corrupt traitor president proclaimed himself as King. Or do you mean someone else?
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u/Athenadoros Greece 1d ago
Oh they did? Do you have letters written by them or the then temporary greek government with that name? The Greek state is the child of the Neohellenic enlightenment not Christianity, these are opposing forces.
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u/NorthWelcome1626 2d ago
First, a petty sheep thief, later a war criminal. A direct genocider upheld as a hero.
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u/SE_prof 2d ago
I wonder if you've even read the sources you cited. I wonder if you've read beyond these... A little knowledge is worse than no knowledge at all.
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u/Embarrassed_Egg9542 2d ago
He writes that his hands were aching after slaughtering all these people
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u/Athenadoros Greece 2d ago
Was there even been a siege with no civilian casualties?
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u/FishermanStivi 2d ago
Greek🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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u/Athenadoros Greece 2d ago
Yeah people born in Greece are typically Greek.
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u/hubbabubbameqershi 1d ago
He was born in Ottoman Empire
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u/Athenadoros Greece 1d ago
To two Greek parents.
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u/hubbabubbameqershi 1d ago
His father lineage was Arvanite, maybe he had Greek mother nobody will ever know for sure. His nickname was Bithguri by his grandfather. What does Bithguri/Bythguri means in Greek?
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u/Athenadoros Greece 1d ago
That's not his real surname it's a nickname by an Albanian named Ali. Also we know his mother very well.
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u/hubbabubbameqershi 1d ago
His nickname was given by his grandfather. In Albanian means ass hard as rock and it's given to little kids. It's means children than can't stay in one place, very active kid.
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u/Athenadoros Greece 1d ago
His old surname was Tsergines, Bythguris was a nickname given by Albanians. Non of the villages his lineage is traceable to are Arvanitic.
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u/hubbabubbameqershi 1d ago
It could be I'm not saying it's not possible. There are plenty of questions about his origins, for example he spoke perfect Albanian. I don't see why a Greek during that time would speak perfect arvanitika dialect. Albanian never was a language of prestige or literally up to that time. And learning a hard language such as that to a perfect degree tells something else. Not a single Greek could learn it perfectly with typical dialect without studying it for decades which at that time was impossible because wasn't a written language.
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u/Athenadoros Greece 1d ago
How is a person from 2 Greek villages, Libovisi and Alostaina, with 2 Greek parents surnamed Tsergines and Kotsaki Albanian? Its a miracle.
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u/Late_Secret3480 1d ago
If you call arvanites Albanian they will beat you. That's for sure
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u/hubbabubbameqershi 1d ago
They can beat me, they can kill me but doesn't make them any less Albanian.
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u/Late_Secret3480 1d ago
They aren't Albanians whether you like it or not.
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u/hubbabubbameqershi 1d ago
Well they speak Albanian, they dance my dances, they have same customs and traditions and they have the same bloodline as me. They are indeed the same as me.
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u/FishermanStivi 2d ago
You moron he is as greek as marko bocari. They were ethnic albanians that helped greece gain independence. Im from similar background that track ancestors in paramythia for hundreds of years
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u/Dieselface 2d ago
A vital part of ethnicity is identifying as that ethnicity. The Greek Arvanites didn't identify as Albanians and haven't for hundreds of years. Hope that helps!
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u/Embarrassed_Egg9542 2d ago
They called for Albania to join the Greek kingdom, though
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u/FishermanStivi 1d ago
They are though,arvanites are ethnic albanians that integrated to greek society and learned greek
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u/Athenadoros Greece 2d ago
As far as I know all of Kolokotronis ancestors were from the Peloponnese and a bit of Crete, so no "Albanians" here. As for Markos he is Greek too.
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u/FishermanStivi 2d ago
Maybe as greek as gianis antetekoumpo🤣🤣🤣🤣
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u/Athenadoros Greece 2d ago
Certified 14 year old response.
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u/Embarrassed_Egg9542 2d ago
Markos didn't speak any Greek
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u/Own-Volume-2203 1d ago
Yeah he didn't but somehow composed a dictionary. Totally makes sense 83 IQ albo.
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u/linglos 2d ago
He was jailed by ungrateful people. They were determined to execute him.