Tag: Kolokotronis

In 1942, during the Occupation of the Germans and the Italians, a 13-year-old boy in Tripolis saved the bones of Theodoros Kolokotronis, the revolutionary leader of 1821 against the Ottomans, putting his life at immense risk. After 77 years, this man tells us this breathtaking story.

"The songs about Kolokotronis touched my soul without me noticing it. Everyone used to sing in my village and in my home too. My mother used to say: In the evening we'll go visit your uncle and you can sing for us. I’ll pay you five cents for your performance. If my silence and embarrassment didn't go away she would tell me again: You better sing, otherwise I will have to give you ten cents".

"On the 29th of August we go to Limpovissi, for the celebration of St. Ioannis church outside the house of the Greek hero Theodoros Kolokotronis. At six o' clock in the morning we are very proud to put on our costumes and go to the church and have our arms blessed by the priest. Then we bring around the icon and have a memorial service at Kolokotronis's house. And then what? We begin to sing about Kolokotronis and the echo of the gorges gets really creepy".

Tricorpha is a range of mountains in the east section of Maenalus, where the rebellious Greeks used to entrench themselves. The rebels' barricades are saved until today at the tops of two mounds and thrill all the visitors. It takes more than half an hour of uphill trek on a really rugged terrain to go to each one of them.

Theodore Kolokotronis died in Athens on February 3rd, 1843. His remains were laid out in a church in Athens, so the public could pay its respects. While the great general was on his deathbed, an unknown artist casted his face. This way, the facial characteristics of Kolokotronis, also known in Greece as the “Old Man of the Morea*”, were salvaged. This historical and valuable cast is kept at the Historical and Ethnological Museum of Athens.

Into the deep fir forest of Maenalus, which looks like a jungle, there's the small village called Elati. One of the ten residents left in the village, is Leonidas Zafeiropoulos, the man who has raised a flag portraying Theodoros Kolokotronis at the entrance of his shop.