Theodoros Kolokotronis

Theodoros Kolokotronis was a Greek general and the pre-eminent leader of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) against the Ottoman Empire. He was born in Ramavouni, a mountain village in Messenia, to a family of klephts, who fought the Ottomans during the Orlov revolt. He joined the Imperial Russian Navy at the age of 15 and fought in the Russo-Turkish War (1806–12). He later served in the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars, where he became influenced by the revolutionary ideas of the era. He returned to Greece in 1810 and became a member of the secret society Philiki Etaireia, which planned to overthrow the Ottoman rule. He organized a band of Moreot klephts and captured Tripolitsa, the capital of the Morea, in late 1821. He achieved his greatest success at the Battle of Dervenakia in 1822, where he routed the Ottoman forces under the command of Mahmud Dramali Pasha. He also participated in the sieges of Acrocorinth, Nauplia, and Patras, and defended the Morea against the Egyptian intervention led by Ibrahim Pasha. He was involved in the Greek civil wars and was briefly imprisoned in Hydra for his defiance of the central government. He was released in 1825 and appointed commander-in-chief of the Greek forces in the Peloponnese. He supported the president, Count Ioannis Kapodistrias, and became one of the leaders of the pro-Russian party. After Kapodistrias's assassination in 1831, he backed Prince Otto of Bavaria for the Greek throne. He later turned against Otto's regency, for which he was charged with treason and sentenced to death, but was pardoned in 1835. He died in 1843 in Athens from apoplexy and was buried in the First Cemetery of Athens. He is regarded as a national hero and a symbol of the Greek struggle for independence.