Georgios Karaiskakis

ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ

Georgios Karaiskakis, one of the most heroic and poetically tragic figures of the Greek War of Independence of 1821, was born in 1782 in a landscape filled with the fragrance of incense and silence – in the monastery of the "Dormition of the Virgin Mary," nestled among the mountain shadows, near the borders of the village Skoulikaria in the region of Valtos.

He was a child of the wild Greek landscape and of his mother's prayers – a woman of legend who worked as a maid at the monastery. She gave her child a lineage shrouded in mystery and sorrow, and for this reason, he remained known as "the son of the nun."

His fate was forged in fire. Orphaned by his mother at the age of eight, he grew up surrounded by silence and battles. A child of the Tzoumerka and Agrafa mountains, of stone and wind—blasphemous, unruly, and stubborn—he sought refuge in the gaze of the mountains and the sounds of the herds.

Yet Karaiskakis was not made for silence. He joined the ranks of the armatoloi (Greek irregular fighters) at a young age and quickly distinguished himself for his courage and intelligence. Fate led him first to Ali Pasha, and later to Antonis Katsantonis, until, following his own star, he became a captain himself. At one point, he was accused of being friendly with Ali Pasha; he was tried, expressed remorse, but deep in his heart, only love for his homeland burned.

His soul, aflame with desire for freedom, also knew how to love. In 1812, he united his life with Egolpia (Golfo) Psarogianni from Patiopoulo of Valtos, and together they had four children: Dimitrios, Penelope, Eleni, and Spyridon—who later also became a general, heir to his father’s fire. His daughters were born in Golfo’s ancestral home—a house where love for her husband and for Greece was kept warm by the flame of the vigil lamp.

And when the end came, on the morning of his name day, April 23rd, 1827 (Saint George’s Day), dawn found him gravely wounded at Palaio Faliro. His bloodied body was carried to the small church of Saint Nicholas in Keratsini. There, in the sacred half-light, he passed away like a war angel. His body was laid to rest at the church of Saint Demetrios on Salamis Island, but his soul dissolved into the shadows of history—free and proud, as if it had never known bondage.

Karaiskakis was not merely a general. He was a legend born of stone’s harshness and the tenderness of an unknown prayer—a man who ignited History with the same strength with which he loved his wife, his children, and Greece.

Greek War of Independence, 1821

Karaiskakis’s military action truly began in 1820, when, alongside the Katsantonians, he fought the Turks in Ioannina. Shortly after, following Ali Pasha’s death, he declared the revolution at Makrynoros and proclaimed the uprising of 1821 in Epirus, specifically at the village of Voulgareli in Arta, on May 15, 1821, at the Holy Monastery of Saint George. This is confirmed by the plaque that still stands at the monastery. With his uncle Gogo Bakolas, his fellow villager and armatolos of Tzoumerka, Giannakis Koutelidas, and 200 comrades from Epirus, Aetolia-Acarnania, and the Ionian Islands, they began their fight.

He participated in the first two battles of the uprising at Kompoti, where on June 8, 1821, he was wounded in the region of his genitals. He was taken to the military hospital in Loutraki, where he is said to have uttered the now-famous phrase: “When I return, I’ll fuck them.” After recovering, he liberated Arta—the second largest city in what is now Greece—in November 1821. Alongside Markos Botsaris and Ioannis Makrygiannis, he took part in five victorious battles in the Arta region and in Agios Vlasios of Aetolia-Acarnania.

In times of frequent illness, he would turn to the grace of the Virgin Mary of Proussos. At that monastery, in 1823, his words revealed the depths of his soul. After the battle of Kefalovryso, the hero Markos Botsaris was brought dead to the monastery. Karaiskakis, though ill and bedridden there, rose, kissed the hero’s body and said:

“May it be, my hero Markos, that I too die such a death. Markos was great. He had more intelligence than anyone. A lion’s heart and judgment as just as Christ’s. We’re not even worthy to touch his finger.”

After the fall of Messolonghi, he moved south to continue the fight. After the battle of Peta, he experienced a period of neutrality, trying to appear favorable to Hursit Pasha in order to retain the lucrative armatoliki (military leadership) of Agrafa. He later became more actively involved in the revolution, and the government of Alexandros Zaimis appointed him commander-in-chief in Eastern Greece.

In 1826, when Kioutachis conquered Athens and laid siege to the Acropolis with 20,000 troops, Karaiskakis went to Eleusis to organize the Greek camp with Favier. However, they disagreed on military strategy, and Favier withdrew. Left alone and facing an overwhelming enemy force, Karaiskakis resolved to cut off their supply and communication lines from Thessaly, turning the besiegers of the Acropolis into the besieged of Attica.

Action in Central Greece

With this plan, he struck the Turkish fortifications at Helicon and Domvrena, but achieved nothing and departed for Arachova, which was held by Mustafabey and his Turco-Albanians. In the ensuing battle, the Turco-Albanians were decimated and scattered, and Mustafabey was killed. Passing by the Monasteries of the Boeotian Saints—St. Seraphim of Domvos and St. Loukas—he not only organized their defense but also drew strength himself, fervently invoking their help. He fortified himself in Distomo, from where the Turks were unable to dislodge him. His feats encouraged the Greeks and rekindled the revolution in Central Greece, which was in danger of fizzling out. The Greek government then ordered him to liberate Athens by all possible means. With this command, he moved and encamped in Keratsini, outside Piraeus, where he began devising his military strategy. At the crucial moment, military figures Cochrane and Church intervened, insisting on a frontal attack, while he preferred a blockade strategy to force the Turks to surrender. Their opinion ultimately prevailed.

His End

On April 23, the eve of the assault, Karaiskakis, gravely ill, was mortally wounded by a stray bullet during a skirmish among his own soldiers. The attack against Kioutachis took place on April 24, following the plan of Cochrane and Church, but it ended in disastrous failure, and the Greek camp was dismantled. With his death, the Greek Revolution lost one of its greatest and most heroic generals. In his written will, Karaiskakis entrusted the guardianship of his children and the management of the funds he left them to Mitros Skylodimos, his nephew from Patiopoulo of Valtos, and to Mitros Agrafiotis, his aide from the time of his leadership in Agrafa. His underage orphaned children, who lived in Patiopoulo both before and after their father’s death, were cared for and raised by the Syntekniotes, including his close friend and neighbor Antonis Zaralis, Sotiris Syntekniotis-Athanasakis (also known as Koufos), the families of his father-in-law Psarogiannis, the Skylodimos family, and his first cousin Giannakis Dimiskis from Skoulikaria. His wife, Egkolpia Psarogianni-Skylodimou, who died in 1826, was buried at the "Kastromonastiro" in Kalamos.

In Memory of Georgios Karaiskakis

The remains of Karaiskakis were initially buried in the Church of Saint Demetrios on the island of Salamis. In 1927, a committee formed by the Ministry of the Interior to resolve the issue of his birthplace officially declared Mavrommati in Karditsa as the birthplace of Karaiskakis. In 1838, at the initiative of King Otto, the hero’s bones were transferred and buried at the battlefield of Faliro, in the area of Neo Faliro, in a site located in front of what would later become the Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium. In 1968, during renovation and redevelopment works by the Olympic Games Committee, which owned the Karaiskakis Stadium, his remains were lost—possibly discarded by those in charge of the project—along with the bones of 28 of his fellow fighters.

In 1996, the ecclesiastical council of the Church of Saint Demetrios in Salamis and the parish priest, Father Anargyros Evdemon, reopened and excavated Karaiskakis’ grave, which by then was located within the expanded church. Inside a reliquary, eight bones from his body were found, which the priest had kept when King Otto had his remains exhumed. Two of these bones were officially transferred, with the permission of local authorities and the Metropolis of Megara, to the Municipality of "Georgios Karaiskakis," and in 2002 they were placed in the Karaiskakis monument in the square of Skoulikaria. The remaining bones were reburied in a specially constructed tomb in the Church of Saint Demetrios.

In 2005, the Greek state officially recognized Skoulikaria in the prefecture of Arta as the birthplace of General Karaiskakis, and thus gave the local municipality the name "Municipality of Georgios Karaiskakis."

On May 6, 2019, an exhumation took place at the First Cemetery of Athens, and the remains of members of General Georgios Karaiskakis' family were transferred to Mavrommati, in the Municipality of Mouzaki, Karditsa. They were interred in a special monument in the courtyard of Saint Nicholas. These remains likely belonged to his descendants—his son Spyridon and his wife Maria Komninou-Varvaki, their children Georgios and Elisavet Sp. Karaiskakis, and his great-grandchildren Spyridon, Ioannis, and Ioulia. After a special memorial service and a brief historical recounting by his descendants, the remains were placed in the monument and a trisagion (memorial prayer) was performed by Metropolitan Timotheos of Thessaliotis and Fanariofarsala.