 | This article has multiple issues. Please helpimprove it or discuss these issues on thetalk page.(Learn how and when to remove these messages) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
|
Ion Dragoumis | |
|---|---|
| Ίων Δραγούμης | |
 Ion Dragoumis, early 20th century. | |
| Born | 14 September 1878 (1878-09-14) |
| Died | 31 July 1920 (1920-08-01) (aged 41) Athens, Kingdom of Greece |
| Cause of death | Assassination |
| Occupation(s) | Soldier Diplomat Philosopher Writer Revolutionary |
| Partner(s) | Penelope Delta Marika Kotopouli |
| Relatives | Nikolaos Dragoumis (grandfather) Markos Dragoumis (great-grandfather) |
| Family | Stephanos Dragoumis (father) Elisavet Kontogiannaki (mother) Philippos Dragoumis (brother) Natalia Dragoumi (sister) Nikolaos Dragoumis (brother) Alexandros Dragoumis (brother) Alexandra Dragoumi (sister) Marika Dragoumi (sister) |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | University of Athens |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Continental philosophy Romanticism |
| Main interests | History, politics, religion |
| Notable ideas | Greek nationalism Romantic nationalism Eastern Party Greek tradition Demoticism Communitarianism Panhellenism Pacifism under aPax Hellenica in theMiddle East Role of theGreek Orthodox tradition (despite hisagnostic thought) |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  Kingdom of Greece |
| Branch | |
| Battles / wars | Greco-Turkish War (1897) Macedonian Struggle |
| Part ofa series on |
| Conservatism in Greece |
|---|
 |
Ideologies |
Organisations |
Ion Dragoumis (Greek:Ίων Δραγούμης; 14 September 1878 – 31 July 1920) was aGreek diplomat, philosopher, writer and revolutionary.
Born inAthens, Dragoumis was the son ofStephanos Dragoumis who wasforeign minister underCharilaos Trikoupis. TheDragoumis family was a prominent Greek family,[1] which originated fromVogatsiko inKastoria regional unit. Ion's great-grandfather, Markos Dragoumis (1770–1854), was a member of theFiliki Eteria revolutionary organisation.
Ion Dragoumis studied law atAthens University and, in 1899, entered the diplomatic branch of the Greek Foreign Ministry. In 1897, he enlisted in theHellenic Army and fought in theGreco-Turkish War of 1897.
In 1902, Dragoumis was made deputy consul in the Greek consulate at Monastir (present-dayBitola). In 1903, he became head of the consulate atSerres and later went on to serve inPlovdiv,Burgas,Alexandria andAlexandroupolis. In 1907, he was assigned to the embassy inConstantinople.
In 1905, during his time as the Vice-Consul of Greece in Alexandria, Dragoumis met and started a love affair with the writerPenelope Delta, who was married to the businessman Stephanos Delta. Out of respect for her husband and children, Dragoumis and Delta eventually decided to separate, but continued to correspond passionately until 1912, when Dragoumis started a relationship with the famous stage actressMarika Kotopouli.
Dragoumis became instrumental in theMacedonian Struggle. In Macedonia, a new Filiki Eteria was founded, under the leadership ofAnastasios Pichion fromOhrid, whilst in Athens, theMacedonian Committee was formed in 1904 by Dragoumis' father, Stephanos Dragoumis.
In 1907, he published the bookMartyron kai Iroon Aima (Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Blood), which presented his views on the situation in Macedonia and on what the Greek government should do to more properly defend the Greek element there. During this period, he also toyed with the idea of a Greek-Ottoman Empire, believing that Greeks, already having control of commerce and finance, would also gain political power in such an arrangement.
In 1909, theGoudi Revolt broke out and his father, Stephanos Dragoumis became Prime Minister of Greece. However, the Military League decided later to inviteEleftherios Venizelos to become prime minister.
In 1910, he founded, collaborating with philologists and writers (Vlasis Gavriilidis,Nikos Kazantzakis,Alexandros Delmouzos,Alexandros Papanastasiou,Manolis Triantafyllidis,Lorentzos Mavilis), the Educational Club (Εκπαιδευτικός Όμιλος), an organization for the promotion of Demotic Greek language, while he was writing also articles in the philological magazine "Noumas" (with the nicknameIdas).
When theFirst Balkan War broke out, Dragoumis travelled toThessaloniki as an attaché to Crown Prince (later King)Constantine.
In 1914, he is accredited Ambassador of Greece to Russia.
In 1915, he resigned from the diplomatic corps; having entered Greek politics as an independent, he was elected to the Greek Parliament forFlorina Prefecture.
With the outbreak of theFirst World War, he was in favour of Greece joining theEntente, but gradually and during theNational Schism he disagreed with Venizelos' policy and became hostile towardsVenizelists. In 1917, he was exiled to Corsica by the French and Venizelists, from where he returned in 1919.
On 30 July 1920, an attempt was made by two royalists to assassinate Venizelos at theGare de Lyon railway station in Paris. The next day, 31 July, Dragoumis was stopped by a Venizelist Democratic Security Battalion (Δημοκρατικά Τάγματα Ασφαλείας) in Athens and was executed as a form of payback.
Though her relationship with him ended many years before,Penelope Delta (herself a supporter of Venizelos) deeply mourned Dragoumis, and after he was killed wore nothing but black until her own death two decades later. In the late 1930s she received Dragoumis' diaries and archives, entrusted to her by his brother Philippos. She managed to dictate 1,000 pages of manuscripted comments on Dragoumis' work, before deciding to take her own life in 1941.[2]
Dragoumis's thought was a mix ofcommunitarianism andRomantic nationalism. He considered that the nation is superior than the state, which must serve the nation. He was a supporter of Greek irredentism, to include as many Greek lands and population as possible in the Greek state, but did not embrace theMegali Idea, with the capture of Constantinople, which he regarded as an anachronistic concept.
He believed thatHellenism was a power of civilization in the East and so would predominate. He supported preserving the Greek communities inAsia Minor and theMiddle East.
Dragoumis is now honoured for his patriotism and significant contribution during theMacedonian Struggle. However, during theNational Schism, he disagreed with the Venizelist policy and later did not believe in the success of theAsia Minor Campaign.
In 1986, the journalistFreddy Germanos (1934–1999) wrote the novelI Ektelesi (The Execution) about his murder. A stele with an epigram ofKostis Palamas stands on the site of his murder, while theIon Dragoumis municipality was named after him.
Quotations related toIon Dragoumis at Wikiquote
GreekWikisource has original text related to this article:Ίων Δραγούμης
