Alcibiades Diamandi

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Alcibiades Diamandi (also: Alkiviadis Diamandi , Alcibiade Diamandi , Diamanti , Diamandis , Diamantis Greek Αλκιβιάδης Διαμάντης ; * August 13, 1893 in Samarina, Greece ; † July 9, 1948 in Bucharest , Romania ) was an Aromanian (Vlachischer) fascist activist in Greece who was particularly active during the First and Second World Wars together with the Italian occupation forces.

From Samarina to Rome via Bucharest

Diamandi was born in Samarina in 1893 (the highest village in Greece at over 1,600 meters above sea level on the eastern spur of the Smolikas ). His family were wealthy Aromanian traders. After attending the Romanian primary school in Samarina, he continued his school career at the Greek Lyceum in Thessaloniki . At that time, Thessaloniki was still part of the Ottoman Empire . On the eve of the Balkan Wars (1912), Diamandi went - like many other Vlachs in Greece - to Romania , where he enrolled at the Academia Comercială in Bucharest and graduated there. When Romania entered World War I in 1916, Diamandi volunteered and served as an officer for a short time.

It is not certain whether he was released from the Romanian army or rather was transferred to Albania , where he co-founded the short-lived republic of Korça (aromun .: Curceaua) under Italian and French supervision (see also: Rilindja ). Under the transitional name of the Republic of Pindus, it was the first autonomous state of the Vlachs in Epirus . In Albania, Diamandi made friends with the Albanian politician Fan S. Noli , whose ideals he shared.

After the Italians withdrew, Diamandi sought refuge for a while in Sarandë in Albania and then fled to Rome , where he took part in Benito Mussolini's fascist movement. He turned to the Romanian Legation (embassy) and received a Romanian passport with which he could re-enter Greece. According to the Greek writer Stavros Anthemidis, Diamandi was given amnesty in 1927 after he was persecuted for resisting the Greek authorities.

Athenian years

Shortly after the time the amnesty may have occurred, Diamandi arrived in Athens as Vice President of the National Petroleum Company of Romania . He imported oil and wood from Romania and other goods. He rented an apartment in Kolonaki district and often went to bars and cafes in Piraeus . On one of these excursions he got involved in a dispute with a Greek naval captain and left a scar that was later used to identify him when he was on the run.

Diamandi made frequent trips to Rhodes (then an Italian possession) and attracted the attention of the Greek secret service. It is believed that the Greek government was informed that Diamandi was a Romanian agent with the mandate to induce the Aromanian people to rebel against the Greek state. During the regime of Ioannis Metaxas , Diamandi was sentenced to expulsion, but managed to stay and continue his activities.

The autonomous state of "Pindus"

→ Main article : Principality of Pindus

At the end of October 1940, when the Greco-Italian War broke out, Diamandi was already in Konitsa on the Albanian-Greek border. The invading Italians awarded him the rank of Commandatore and he served as translator and assistant to the Italian Colonel General Alfredo Guzzoni. After Italy's initial defeat, Diamandi was forced to go into hiding in Tirana , where the Italians ruled at the time. He returned to Greece five months later in the spring of 1941 with the Italian troops and founded the "Vlachian Legion" (Λεγεώνα των Βλάχων / Βλάχικη Λεγεώνα / Ρωμαϊκή Λεγεώνα). This time he went through the so-called Autonomous State of Pindus (Αυτόνομον Κράτος της Πίνδου; or Autonomous Vlachian State - Αυτόνομον Βλαχικόν Κράτος) in the area of ​​the Epirus and parts of Macedonia to found "Vlachian people, intended as an institution. He began to call himself Principe and sketched a principality of Pindos (gr. Πριγκιπάτο της Πίνδου; aromun. Printsipat di la Pind) for the Vlachian populated region. Diamandi's deputy and right-hand man was the lawyer from Larisa Nicola Matushi . The third in the hierarchy of the emerging state was Rapoutikas Vassilis . The model for the Vlachian state was the Swiss cantons , in this case united under a confederation , the principality.

In June 1941 Diamandi was in Grevena , from where he went on to Metsovo , where he founded the party of the Koutso-Vlachian Koinotitas (Κόμμα Κοινότητας Κουτσοβλάχων). This was part of the "Union of Romanian Communities" (Ένωσις Ρουμανικών Κοινοτήτων). A Vlachian parliament was convened in Trikala , but no laws were passed because the parliament was only pretend. The Italians cared little about sharing their power in the region. What Parliament did, however, were a number of local restrictions on the use of Greek in favor of Aromanian . Parliament also took into account Diamandi's request that the city and village signs in Greek be replaced by new signs in Aromanian and Italian. Accordingly, Metsovo became Aminciu (Aromun.) Or Mincio (Ital.), Nympheon became Nevesca and Nevesa , Samarina became Santa Maria etc.

A Vlachian manifesto in occupied Greece

On March 1, 1942, Diamandi published an extensive manifesto which appeared in the local press and was republished in 1997 by Stavros Anthemides ( Vlachs of Greece ; see the bibliography). The manifesto was signed by Aromanian intellectuals.

In Romania, it was signed by George Murnu , a professor at the University of Bucharest who was from Veria . Diamandi traveled to Bucharest shortly after he met Murnu and together they attended a meeting with the then leader ( Conducător ) of Romania, Marshal Ion Antonescu and Foreign Minister Mihai Antonescu . The status of the Principality of Pindus and Macedonia was discussed.

One option that Diamandi favored was to put the principality under the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Romania as an associated "free state". Diamandi, as a prince, would thereby get the right to participate in the Consilii de Coroană (Crown Councils). Another option was to join the principality to the ruling house of Italy, the House of Savoy , but none of these options were realized.

Exile in Romania

During the second year of Italian occupation, strong guerrillas developed in the area. The Greek resistance , supported by the Allies, fought bitterly the Italo-German occupiers. The chaos that followed caused Diamandi to return to Romania. (He may also have been ordered back.) On February 21, 1948, he was arrested by the Romanian police and died a few months later in the Bucharest Police Prefecture.

After Diamandi's disappearance, the noble Hungaro-Aromune Gyula Cseszneky was proclaimed Prince of Pindus as Julius I. However, neither Julius nor his brother Michael ever set foot on their territory. There were only a few Aromanian leaders who acted on their behalf.

Diamandi's helper Matoussi was able to flee to Romania via Athens, while Rapoutikas was shot by one of the Greek guerrilla units near Larissa (the Greeks tied his body on a donkey and sent him on display through the Vlachian villages of Pindus).

Uncertain sources

There are many loopholes in Diamandi's biography and he is rarely mentioned in the few books that deal with the subject. According to the Slavist Thede Kahl, Diamandi was temporarily the consul of the Kingdom of Romania in the Albanian port city of Vlorë . The Greek historians completely avoid mentioning him, while other scholars who give vague information about him, such as Lena Divani or Mark Mazower, describe him as extremist without being able to provide concrete data and information. Alkiviadis Diamandi is characterized in the book The Unwiritten Places by the British writer Tim Salmon from 1995 as follows:

“A pro-fascist teacher by the name of Dhiamantis, who returned to Samarina during the occupation and tried to establish the fascist Vlachian state“ Principality of Pindus ”. It is possible that the idea of ​​autonomy struck a chord in some nationalistic Vlachian breasts, but they were never collaborators to the extent that he accused them of it. "

Disambiguation

The Legion the Diamandi had put under his leadership, stressed the historical reference to the Legio V Macedonica of Octavian . This also referred to the view that the legions were the founders of the modern Romance languages and Romance-speaking Europe . The name also emphasized the connection with Romania, as the V Legion was based in Macedonia as well as in Dacia - the name may also flatter Italian fascists and their claim to imperial dominance.

literature

• Evangelos Averof-Tositsas: Η πολιτική πλευρά του κουτσοβλαχικού ζητήματος ["The political aspects of the Aromanian question"], Trikala reprint 1992 (1st edition Athens 1948), p. 94.
• Stauros A. Papagiannis: Τα παιδιά της λύκαινας. Οι 'επίγονοι' της 5ης Ρωμαϊκής Λεγεώνας κατά την διάρκεια της Κατοχής 1941-1944 ["Wolf children. The 'descendants' of the 5th Roman Legion during the occupation 1941-1944] Athens 1998-1944.
• Axilleas Anthemidis: The Vlachs of Greece . Thessaloniki: Malliaris 1998 (Greek).
• Tim Salmon: Unwritten Places , Athens - Lycabettus Press, 1995, pp. 149 & 215.
• TJ Winnifrith, The Vlachs: The History of a Balkan People , Palgrave Macmillan, 1987.
• Thede Kahl: Ethnicity and spatial distribution of the Aromanians in Southeast Europe , Münstersche geographical works , 43, Münster 1999. pp. 55–56. ISBN 3-9803935-7-7
• John Koliopoulos: Greece: The Modern Sequel , Hurst 2001.
• Antonio Munoz: Herakles & the Swastika: Greek Volunteers in the German Police, Army and & SS 1943-1945. New York 2000.

Remarks

1. ^ A pro-Mussolini teacher called Dhiamantis who returned to Samarina during the Occupation and tried to set up a fascist Vlach state the Principality of Pindus. It is possible that the idea of ​​autonomy struck a chord in some nationalistic Vlach breasts but they certainly were not the collaborators he accused them of being.