Peloponnesian Senate
The Peloponnesian Senate ( Greek Πελοποννησιακή Γερουσία , Peloponnisiakí Gerousia ) or senate of the whole people of the provinces of the Peloponnese ( Greek Γερουσία όλου του Δήμου των επαρχιών της Πελοποννήσου , Gerousia Olou tou Dimou ton Eparchión tis Peloponnisou ) was a committee that at the beginning of the Greek War of Independence provisionally took over government power in the Peloponnese .
history
On March 25, 1821, a few days after the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence, the insurgents of the southern Peloponnese, led by the Maniots , gathered near Kalamata and appointed the Messenian Senate as the first government organ . As the uprising spread in Greece, the leader of the Messenian Senate, Petros Mavromichalis, usually called "Petrobey", invited 34 notables representing the whole of the Peloponnese to a meeting in the Kaltetza monastery. There the "Senate of the whole people of the provinces of the Peloponnese", commonly known as the "Peloponnesian Senate" or the "Senate of Kaltetza" (Γερουσία των Καλτετζών), was constituted as the provisional government of the revolutionaries of the Peloponnese.
Its members were not elected representatives, but notables and some church leaders and the military.
Theodoritos II, Bishop of Vresthena, was elected as chairman. Theodoritos, born in 1787 in Nemnitsa (today Methydrio) in Arcadia , had been Bishop of Vresthena since 1813; he was previously active as a supporter of the Filiki Eteria for the cause of Greek independence. Rigas Palamidis, who later was one of the most important politicians of the Greek state, acted as secretary of the Senate.
The Peloponnesian Senate acted as both a legislative and an executive body. On May 27, 1821, the Senate moved its seat to the Chrysopigi Monastery in Stemnitsa .
However, competition quickly arose between the Senate and Dimitrios Ypsilantis , who, as the representative of his brother Alexander Ypsilantis in Greece, claimed the leadership role and questioned the legitimacy of the notables represented in the Senate. The Senate initially only reluctantly accepted Dimitrios Ypsilantis as Commander-in-Chief. The disputes over Ypsilantis' claim to leadership, who found support mainly from simple farmers and relied on the military associations of the Armatoles , were bitter and prevented the establishment of a civil administration.
After the capture of Tripolitsa , the capital of the Peloponnese, in September, the term of office of the Senate was to come to an end, as was agreed upon by Ypsilantis, while the Peloponnesian notables sought an extension. In an assembly in Argos , which met parallel to the first national assembly at Epidavros in December 1821, the constituent charter of the Senate was drawn up on December 15, 1821, which contained elements of a constitution. Ypsilantis had lost its influence, especially since news of the defeat of Alexander Ypsilantis had spread in the Danube principalities. The National Assembly accepted the Senate as a regional administration subordinate to the central government. The command of the military units in the Peloponnese passed to Theodoros Kolokotronis .
The Peloponnesian Senate was established in Tripolitsa in February 1822. The Senate continued its existence (with Palamidis as president from February 1822) continued until it was dissolved by the Second National Assembly at Astros in April 1823 as well as the incumbent in western Greece Senate of the western mainland Greece and the Arios Pagos , which in Salona his Had its seat and administered the eastern Greek mainland.
Individual evidence
- ^ Gunnar Hering , The Political Parties in Greece 1821-1936, Munich 1992, p. 63 [1]
- ↑ Giannis Koliopoulos, Thanos Veremis: Greece: The Modern Sequel: from 1831 to the Present, London 2002, p. 15 [2]
- ^ William Miller, Ottoman Empire and Its Successors 1801-1927: With an Appendix, 1927-1936 p. 76
- ↑ Gunnar Hering, The Political Parties in Greece 1821-1936, Munich 1992, pp. 65 ff. [3]
- ↑ Giannis Koliopoulos, Thanos Veremis: Greece: The Modern Sequel: from 1831 to the Present, London 2002, p. 18 [4]