Its theme is the life, action and work of the fiery heroine of Paros and the Cyclades, Mantos Mavrogenos. This particular editorial stood out among other regional-local media from all over Greece and was the contribution of psts.gr to the connection of the collective historical memory of Paros and its people with the great historical image of the Greek Revolution, through a unique, of a great historical figure of the place: Mantos Mavrogenos.
Manto Mavrogenos was a prominent figure of the Greek Revolution of 1821, one of the rare historical figures who dedicated themselves entirely to the ideals and rights of the nation’s Freedom, making with her life and her contribution to the Struggle an act of selfless and unlimited love of country
The ancestors of the fiery heroine were born and lived in Paros. Her great-grandfather named Ioannis Mavrogenis settled in Marmara, Paros. It gave birth to Nikolaos Mavrogenis, Ruler of Moldovlachia, who built the three marble fountains located on the main street of Parikia. John’s other son, Dimitrios, gave birth to Petros Mavrogenis, father of Mantos.
At the age of 16, Petros left Paros, settled in Trieste and developed into a great merchant. In Trieste, Manto, his stern child, was born in 1796, to Zacharati Hatzi Bati, originally from Mykonos. Manto, from a wealthy, aristocratic family, was an educated, beautiful cosmopolitan, tall and imposing, who spoke French, Italian and Turkish, and was influenced by the values and ideas of the Enlightenment.
She visited Greece at the age of 19 and her restless young soul was introduced to Tinos by her uncle Papa Nikolaos Mavro, an ardent patriot and Philiko. Somehow she made the decision to dedicate herself to the Struggle by offering her entire fortune on the altar of the righteous of the nation.
With ships equipped at her own expense she pursued Algerians ravaging the Cyclades, equipped two manned ships with which she pursued pirates who attacked Mykonos and other islands of the Cyclades. In October 1822, the Mykonians repelled the Turks under her leadership. He also armed and supplied 150 men to campaign in the Peloponnese and sent forces and financial support to Samos when the island was threatened by the Turks. He sent a body of 50 men to the Peloponnese who participated in the capture of Tripolitsa by the Greeks.
He spent money for the relief of the soldiers and their families and also for the preparation of a campaign in Northern Greece with the support of many Philhellenes. He created a fleet of six ships and infantry consisting of 16 companies of fifty men each and took part in operations at Karystos in 1822. He financed the Chios campaign, but failed to prevent the Chios massacre. He reinforced Nikitaras with 50 men in the battle of Dervenakia. When the Ottoman fleet appeared in the Cyclades, he financed the supply and equipment of the 200 men who fought the enemy and treated two thousand people who had survived the first siege of Messolonghi. Her men participated in many other battles such as those of Pelion, Fthiotida, Livadia.
However, beyond her generous financial support of the Struggle, Manto was the tireless patriot who encouraged the warriors with all her might. It is very likely that she herself never raised her sword against the enemy, but she knew the smell of gunpowder well since she was many times beside the lads of hers and other captains giving life to their weapons and filling their hearts with courage. By her inspiring and direct speech, by her example, her determination and her bravery, she convinced the warriors of the necessity of self-sacrifice in the sacred cause of Liberty.
Wherever he was, he spoke nationally, conciliatoryly, staying out of the quarrels of captains and politicians. Knowing that the Greeks alone would hardly be able to carry out their Struggle victoriously, she uses her education and public relations to influence the Europeans. It offers them material to write articles in newspapers and publish books about the just Struggle of the Greeks. She herself writes two historic, touching letters to English and French ladies, attempting to confront them with their cultural and historical responsibilities.
According to the French Philhellenic soldier and writer Maxime Rimbaud (1760 – 1842) Manto was endowed with a sweet nature but “when she talks about the freedom of her country, she burns, the conversation comes alive and her words flow with a natural eloquence that you they hold their breath.” Her name became legendary in philhellenic circles abroad and her portrait was printed and circulated in 1827 throughout Europe.
Whatever she had and didn’t have, movable and immovable assets, money, jewelry, her endowments, Manto Mavrogenous offered everything to the National Liberation Struggle. It is estimated that 700,000 grosci, a dizzying amount for the time, was spent by her in favor of the motherland. In 1825, and while her resources were exhausted, she was forced to sell her family’s properties in the Cyclades islands.
However, the blows that the great heroine experienced in her life were not few. In the furnace of the Struggle, she met the soldier and fighter Dimitrios Ypsilantis (1783 – 1832), entering into an engagement with him. However, this engagement was opposed by powerful politicians of the time who saw the unification of their two powerful families as a threat to themselves. At the head of this enmity and the reason for its dissolution was Ioannis Kolettis by whose order Manto was exiled from Nafplio where she resided. Manto, who tasted on a personal level the bitterness of Ypsilanti’s breach of marriage, hostile arrows from Greeks led by Kolettis, exile but also poverty, found herself in dire straits at the very moment when the newly formed Greek state was taking shape.
Ioannis Kapodistrias, first governor of the newly established Greece, recognizing her achievements and her sacrifices to the nation, awarded her, an honor unique to a woman, the position of honorary lieutenant general, granting her a small pension. Legend has it that she herself gave Kapodistrias a sword, a relic from the time of M. Constantine with the inscription “Judge, O Lord, those who wrong me, those who fight me, reign over the Kings”.
Manto Mavrogenous Square 2018
After the murder of Kapodistrias (1831), the problems of survival intensified for the heroine while relations with her family worsened, who accused her of squandering the large family fortune. She is then forced to write a letter to King Otto and explain her situation to him. He never received a reply.
She tasted in all its “magnificence” the ingratitude of the homeland as when she applied for a fighter’s pension in front of a government employee, he asked her: “And what did you do for the homeland?” And Manto, proud to the end, answered: “Nothing…”
She spent the last years of her life impoverished, forgotten and impoverished. In a state of poverty, she lived in Paros where some of her relatives lived. In July 1840, she contracted typhoid fever and died forgotten by everyone on Paros, the island of her ancestors in 1848. Her body passed through the central alleys of Parikia and ended up in I.N. Panagia Ekatontapyliani where the funeral service was held.
This was Manto Mavrogenous, a woman of courage and self-sacrifice, far ahead of her time, who glorified Greece and Paros and devoted herself and her life to the ideals of the liberation of the Nation.
Today the central square of Parikia bears her name and her bust stands there. In Paros it exists to remind the great heroine and the house in which she lived in Parikia in the last years of her life and breathed her last. In the main street of the traditional settlement of Parikia, the three Parian marble fountains with the engraved inscription Mavrogenis exist to remind the younger generation of the donation of her uncle Nikolaos Mavrogenis to his birthplace, Paros.
The three marble fountains