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Rigas Feraios | |
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| Born | 1757 |
| Died | 24 June 1798(1798-06-24) (aged 40–41) |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | Age of Enlightenment |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Modern Greek Enlightenment |
| Main interests | Popular sovereignty,civil liberties,constitutional state,freedom of religion,civic nationalism |
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Rigas Feraios (Greek:Ρήγας Φεραίοςpronounced[ˈriɣasfɛˈrɛɔs], sometimesRhegas Pheraeos;Aromanian:Riga Fereu[1]) orVelestinlis (Βελεστινλήςpronounced[vɛlɛstinˈlis], also transliteratedVelestinles; 1757 – 24 June 1798), born asAntonios Rigas Velestinlis (Greek:Αντώνιος Ρήγας Βελεστινλής),[2] was a Greek writer, political thinker and revolutionary, active in theModern Greek Enlightenment. A victim of the Balkan uprising against theOttoman Empire and a pioneer of theGreek War of Independence, Rigas Feraios is today remembered as a national hero inGreece.
Rigas Feraios was born in 1757 as Antonios Rigas Velestinlis[2] into a wealthy family in the village ofVelestino in theSanjak of Tirhala,Ottoman Empire (modernThessaly,Greece). His father's name is believed to have been originally Georgios Kyratzis or Kyriazis.[3][4] He later was at some point nicknamedPheraeos orFeraios, by scholars, after the nearby ancient Greek city ofPherae, but he does not seem ever to have used this name himself; he is also sometimes known asKonstantinos orConstantine Rhigas (Greek:Κωνσταντίνος Ρήγας). He is often described as being ofAromanian ancestry,[5][6][7][8] with his native village of Velestino being predominantly Aromanian.[9][10][11] Although his family usually overwintered in Velestino,[12] it had its roots inPerivoli,[13] another Aromanian-inhabited village.[14] Rigas' grandfather Konstantinos Kyriazis or Kyratzis relocated with his family to Velestino which had been transformed into a Perivoli parish.[15] Some historians state that Rigas was aGreek,[16] as Leandros Vranoussis, who assumes that his Greek family was long-time residing in Velestino.[17]
According to his compatriotChristoforos Perraivos, Rigas was educated at the school ofAmpelakia, Larissa. Perhaps Rigas took lower education there, because it is historically documented that Rigas was educated at the upper school "Ellinomouseion" in thevillage of Zagora on the mountainPelion, where it still exists the old building of this school and it is widely known in the region as the "School of Riga". Later he became a teacher in the near to Zagora village ofKissos, and he fought the local Ottoman presence. At the age of twenty he killed an important Ottoman figure, and fled to the uplands ofMount Olympus, where he enlisted in a band of soldiers led bySpiros Zeras.
He later went to the monastic community ofMount Athos, where he was received by Cosmas,hegumen of theVatopedi monastery; from there toConstantinople (Istanbul), where he became a secretary to thePhanarioteAlexander Ypsilantis (1725–1805).
Arriving inBucharest, the capital ofWallachia, Rigas returned to school, learned several languages and eventually became a clerk for the WallachianPrinceNicholas Mavrogenes. When theRusso-Turkish War (1787–1792) broke out, he was charged with the inspection of the troops in the city ofCraiova.
Here he entered into friendly relations with an Ottoman officer namedOsman Pazvantoğlu, afterwards the rebelliousPasha ofVidin, whose life he saved from the vengeance of Mavrogenes.[18] He learned about theFrench Revolution, and came to believe something similar could occur in theBalkans, resulting inself-determination for the Christian subjects of the Ottomans; he developed support for an uprising by meeting Greek Orthodoxbishops andguerrilla leaders.
After the death of his patron Rigas returned to Bucharest to serve for some time asdragoman at theFrenchconsulate. At this time he wrote his famousGreek version ofLa Marseillaise, the anthem ofFrench revolutionaries, a version familiar throughLord Byron's paraphrase as "sons of the Greeks, arise".[18]
Around 1793, Rigas went toVienna, the capital of theHoly Roman Empire and home to a large Greek community, as part of an effort to ask the French generalNapoleon Bonaparte for assistance and support. While in the city, he edited a Greek-language newspaper,Efimeris (i.e.Daily), and published a proposed political map ofGreat Greece which included Constantinople and many other places, including a large number of places where Greeks were minority.
He printed pamphlets based on the principles of the French Revolution, includingDeclaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen andNew PoliticalConstitution of the Inhabitants ofRumeli,Asia Minor, the Islands of theAegean, and theprincipalities of Moldavia and Wallachia—these he intended to distribute in an effort to stimulate aPan-Balkan uprising against the Ottomans.[18]
He also published Greek translations of three stories by Retif de la Bretonne, and many other foreign works, and he collected his poems in amanuscript (posthumously printed inIaşi, 1814).
He entered into communication with general Napoleon Bonaparte, to whom he sent asnuff-box made of the root of aBay Laurel taken from a ruined temple ofApollo, and eventually he set out with a view to meeting the general of theArmy of Italy inVenice. While traveling there, he was betrayed byDemetrios Oikonomos Kozanites, a Greek businessman, had his papers confiscated, and was arrested atTrieste by the Austrian authorities (an ally of the Ottoman Empire, Austria was concerned the French Revolution might provoke similar upheavals in its realm and later formed theHoly Alliance).
He was handed over with his accomplices to the Ottoman governor ofBelgrade, where he was imprisoned and tortured. From Belgrade, he was to be sent to Constantinople to be sentenced bySultanSelim III. While in transit, he and his five collaborators were strangled to prevent their being rescued by Rigas's friendOsman Pazvantoğlu. Their bodies were thrown into theDanube River.
Hislast words are reported as being: "I have sown a rich seed; the hour is coming when my country will reap its glorious fruits".
Rigas, using demotikì (Demotic Greek) rather than puristic (Katharevousa) Greek, aroused the patriotic fervor of his Greek contemporaries. His republicanism was given an aura of heroism by his martyrdom, and set liberation of Greece in a context of political reform. As social contradictions inOttoman Empire grew sharper in the tumultuousNapoleonic era the most important theoretical monument of Greek republicanism, the anonymousHellenic Nomarchy, was written, its author dedicating the work to Rigas Ferraios,who had been sacrificed for the salvation of Hellas.[19]
His grievances against the Ottoman occupation of Greece regarded its cruelty, the drafting of children between the ages of five and fifteen into military service (Devshirmeh orPaedomazoma), the administrative chaos and systematic oppression (including prohibitions on teaching Greek history or language, or even riding on horseback), the confiscation of churches and their conversion tomosques.
Rigas wrote enthusiastic poems and books about Greek history and many became popular. One of the most famous (which he often sang in public) was theThourios or battle-hymn (1797), in which he wrote, "It's finer to live one hour as a free man than forty years as a slave and prisoner" («Καλύτερα μίας ώρας ελεύθερη ζωή παρά σαράντα χρόνια σκλαβιά και φυλακή»).
In "Thourios" he urged the Greeks (Romioi) and other Orthodox Christian peoples living at the time in the area of Greece (Arvanites/Albanians,Bulgarians, etc.[20][21]) and generally in the Balkans, to leave the Ottoman-occupied towns for the mountains, where they could find freedom, organize and fight against the Ottoman tyranny. His call included also the Muslims of the empire, who disagreed and reacted against the Sultan's governance.
It is noteworthy that the word "Greek" or "Hellene" is not mentioned in "Thourios"; instead, Greek populations are still referred to as "Romioi" (i.e. Romans, citizens of the Christian or Eastern Roman Empire), which is the name that they proudly used for themselves at that time.[22]
Statues of Rigas Feraios stand at the entrance to theUniversity of Athens and inBelgrade at the beginning of the street that bears his name (Ulica Rige od Fere). The street named after Rigas Feraios in Belgrade was the only street in Belgrade named after a non-Serb untilWorld War I.[23]
Rigas Feraios was also the name taken by the youth wing of theCommunist Party of Greece (Interior), and a split of this youth wing wasRigas Feraios - Second Panhellenic.
His political vision was influenced by theFrench Constitution (i.e. democratic liberalism)[24][25][26]
Feraios' portrait was printed on theobverse of the Greek₯200 banknote of 1996–2001.[27] A ₯50 commemorative coin was issued in 1998 for the 200th anniversary of his death.[28] His portrait appears on the Greek10 lepta (cent) euro coin.
Nikos Xydakis and Manolis Rasoulis wrote a song calledEtsi pou les, Riga Feraio (Έτσι που λες, Ρήγα Φεραίο; "That's how it is, Rigas Feraios"), which was sung by Rasoulis himself. Also, composer Christos Leontis wrote music based upon the lyrics of"Thourio" andCretanNikos Xylouris performed the song in the 1970s.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Rhigas, Constantine".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.; In turn, it cites as references:
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