Laskarina Bouboulina
Laskarina Bouboulina ( Greek Λασκαρίνα Μπουμπουλίνα ; Albanian Dhaskarina Pinoçi , born May 11, 1771 in Constantinople ; † May 22, 1825 in Spetses ) was a heroine of the Greek War of Liberation .
Early years
Bouboulina came from an Arvanite family on the island of Hydra . She was the daughter of the captain Stavrianos Pinotsis (Albanian Stavro Pinoçi ) and his wife Skevo. She was born in the prison of Constantinople when her mother visited her dying husband, who was held there by the Ottomans because of his involvement in the uprisings of 1769/70 in the Peloponnese , the so-called Orlov Revolt . After her father's death, she lived with her mother on Hydra for almost four years. After her mother remarried to the captain Dimitrios Lazarou-Orlof, she grew up with eight half-siblings on Spetses .
Bouboulina married at the age of seventeen Dimitrios Giannouzas and later with thirty years Dimitrios Bouboulis . Her two men died as captains in battles with pirates who raided their ships. Her husband Bouboulis was ambushed by two Algerian pirate ships, which he managed to destroy and, when the battle was already won, was hit by a bullet.
In 1811 Bouboulina was widowed twice and the mother of seven children, but at the same time she was very rich thanks to the fortune inherited from her husbands. She was involved in several Spetsiot ships and built three of her own over time. Among these was the famous Agamemnon .
In 1816 the Ottoman rulers tried to confiscate Bouboulina's property because her second husband had supported the Russian fleet with his ships in the Russo-Turkish war . In fact, Bouboulis had been given honorary citizenship by the Russians as captain of the Russian Navy because of his services . In order to save her fortune, Bouboulina sailed with her ship "Koriezos" to Constantinople, where she asked the Russian ambassador Count Stroganov , a well-known Philhellenic , for support, referring to her husband's services for Russia. Their ships were placed under the Russian flag and were thus protected by a trade treaty between Russia and Turkey. To protect her and to save her from imminent arrest by the Turks, Stroganoff sent her to Ukraine, where Tsar Alexander I made an estate available to her.
Before leaving for Russia, she had an audience with the sultan's mother, the Valide Sultana, who was impressed by Bouboulina's personality and her request for help. Bouboulina stayed in Russia for about three months, waiting for the situation to calm down until the sultana persuaded her son Sultan Mahmud II to issue a decree that would leave Bouboulina with her property. Bouboulina immediately returned to Spetses.
Participation in the struggle for freedom
Preparations
During her stay in Constantinople, or perhaps on a later trip there in 1818, Bouboulina became a member of the Filiki Eteria secret society, the only woman permitted to join , which had been preparing the Greeks for the revolution against Ottoman rule for several years.
After returning to Spetses, she began preparing for the coming revolution. She bought weapons and ammunition illegally, brought them in secret with her ships to Spetses from foreign ports and hid them in her house or in other parts of the island. In 1820 the construction of the Agamemnon , her flagship , was completed at a shipyard on Spetses . It was a 33-meter corvette , armed with 18 cannons. The construction of the warship was brought to the Turks by some Spetsiots. Since there were restrictions on the size and armament of the ships in Greek hands, Bouboulina was accused of secretly building a warship. However, by bribing the Turkish official who inspected the ship, she succeeded not only in completing the construction, but also in driving her accusers off the island.
In 1819 Bouboulina sailed again for Constantinople, possibly in defense of allegations made against her about building the Agamemnon . There she met the Orthodox Patriarch Gregory V and discussed with him the timing of the uprising.
The liberation struggles
On March 13, 1821, twelve days before the official start of the War of Independence, Bouboulina hoisted the first revolutionary flag on the main mast of the Agamemnon in front of the port of Spetses and greeted it with cannon shots. Bouboulina's flag showed an eagle with an anchor in one foot and a phoenix rising from the flames in the other. On April 3, Spetses rose - the first sea power to join the uprising. A few days later, the naval forces of the islands of Hydra and Psara joined that of Spetses. The three islands had three hundred ships and played a leading role in the war. Without a strong navy, Greece could hardly have achieved independence.
During the revolution, Bouboulina had her own small private army of Spetsiots, which she herself armed, fed and paid for, as did the crews on her ships. These expenses lasted for a number of years and also included large sums of money for food and ammunition to aid Greek troops around the Turkish fortresses of Nafplion and Tripoli . In this way Bouboulina spent all her sizable fortune during the first two years of the war.
After the uprising of Spetses, Bouboulina sailed to Nafplion as the commander of a fleet of eight ships - five of which were her own - and began to block it from sea. With its three forts - Bourtzi, Akronafplia and Palamidi - and armed with three hundred cannons, Nafplion was considered impregnable. Bouboulina landed with her troops in the nearby Myli , where, with fiery speeches and great enthusiasm, she encouraged the Greek land forces to hold out with the siege of Nafplion. Her attacks on the fortifications on the coast of Nafplion, during which she cheered on her officers and men under heavy fire, are described as heroic. Nafplion was conquered by the Greeks on November 30th, 1822 after a siege of almost two years.
Bouboulina also took part in the sea blockade and subsequent conquest of Monemvasia . Their ships also blocked Pylos and brought assistance to the coastal town of Galaxidi in the Corinthian Gulf. The captains of the ships were their sons and half-brothers. Their people also fought on land with the Greek land forces. In the battle of Argos a few dozen Spetsiots under Bouboulina's firstborn son Giannis Giannouzas fought against more than two thousand Turks under the command of Veli-Bey. The fight was unequal, Giannouzas fought on foot against Turkish horsemen and Veli-Bey, who was protected by his soldiers. He brought the Turk off his horse and mortally wounded him with his sword. A bullet hit Giannouza in the forehead and killed him.
A few days before the fall of Tripoli, the capital of the Peloponnese and the seat of the Ottoman rulers over the region, Bouboulina reached the Greek camp outside the city on a white horse, accompanied by her Spetsiot warriors. She was received with loud cheers. In the field, she met General Theodoros Kolokotronis , the leading figure in the War of Independence. Mutual respect and friendship developed between the two to such an extent that they later forged family ties through the marriage of their children Eleni Boubouli and Panos Kolokotronis. Bouboulina participated on an equal footing with the other generals in their council of war and decision-making. They began to address her as Kapetanissa (captainess) and Megali Kyra (great lady).
On September 11, 1821, Tripoli fell to the besieging Greek forces. The fall of the city was followed by a massacre that lasted three days and nights and killed thirty thousand people. During this massacre, Bouboulina saved the harem of the Hoursit Pasha, the ruler of the city. She did so at the risk of her own life after the pasha's wife asked her to save the lives of the harem women and their children. In doing so, Bouboulina kept her promise that she had given the sultan's mother in Constantinople in 1816 (when she intervened to save Bouboulina's fortune) that if a Turkish woman ever asked for help, she would not refuse it, but rather do their best.
After independence
After the conquest of Nafplion, Bouboulina stayed there in a house given to her by the state as a reward for her services to the nation. At the end of 1824 the country was ravaged by a second civil war in which the political parties fought for leadership despite the ever-present Turkish threat. Panos Kolokotronis, Bouboulina's son-in-law, was murdered and his father, the general, arrested and held captive by his political opponents in a monastery on Hydra.
Bouboulina had resolutely refused to imprison Kolokotronis. She was therefore considered dangerous by the government and arrested twice. Eventually she was driven back to Spetses, where she remained until her death, without fortune and bitter about the politicians and the outcome of the struggle for freedom. Suddenly the nation was in great danger again. On February 12, the Egyptian general Ibrahim landed almost undisturbed with 4400 Egyptian troops in the south of the Peloponnese. This landing was the vanguard of the following major invasion, in the course of which the Turks largely recaptured the Peloponnese. After Ibrahim's landing, the politicians released Kolokotronis and again offered him the leadership of the army.
Bouboulina was preparing to take part in the new fighting when she died unexpectedly: she was shot in an argument with members of the Koutsis family from Spetses. The reason for the dispute was the kidnapping of a daughter of the Koutsis by Bouboulina's son Giorgios Giannouzas.
Post fame
After her death, the Russian Navy awarded her the honorary title of admiral.
Numerous streets in Greece are named after Bouboulina. It was depicted on the 50 drachma notes issued in 1978 and on the Greek 1 drachma coins from 1988 to 2001.
Numerous ships - from a frigate of the Greek Navy to a tanker to countless fishing boats - are named after Bouboulina.
Bouboulina's flagship Agamemnon had a tragic end. After Bouboulina's death, the ship was sold to the Greek state by her descendants. It was renamed Spetses . The Agamemnon / Spetses was burned by the Greek admiral Andreas Miaoulis during the fighting in the civil war in 1831 at the naval base of Poros.
Michael of Greece wrote the historical novel "Bouboulina, heroine of Hellas".
In Nikos Kazantzakis ' famous novel, the main character Alexis Sorbas calls his lover by the nickname Bouboulina.
literature
- Gerhard Grimm : Bubulina, Laskarina . In: Mathias Bernath , Karl Nehring (Hrsg.): Biographisches Lexikon zur Geschichte Südosteuropas. Volume 1: A – F (= Southeast European Works. 75, 1). Oldenbourg, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-486-47871-0 , p. 264 f.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Robert Elsie (Ed.): A Biographical Dictionary of Albanian History. Tauris, London et al. 2013, ISBN 978-1-78076-431-3 , p. 48, ( online at google books ).
- ↑ Michael of Greece : Bouboulina - heroine of Hellas. Translated from the French by Karl Schieck and Martine Gernay. Droemer Knaur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-426-63061-3 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bouboulina, Laskarina |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bouboulis, Laskarina |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Greek independence fighter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 11, 1771 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Constantinople |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 22, 1825 |
| Place of death | on Spetses |