Army Officer Occupation: Cavalry Officer Dates: Unknown Mirziewski was among the select officers who accompanied the exiled former emperor Napoleon to the island of Elbe. Napoleon’s Guard included only the best military officers, and this Polish cavalry officer had proven his fighting skills. Che Guevara of the Revolution The Italian colonel Dania had written about […]
Countess Occupation: Philanthropist 1846-1941 Louise Riencourt ( 1846-1941) was a French philanthropist. She admired the greek culture and she visited Athens to learn about it. After returning to France, her philhellenic feelings led her back to Greece where she lived until her death. A French woman with a greek heart Louise Riencourt was born in […]
Financial supporter of the Greek War of Independence Occupation: Banker 1775-1863 Eynard was moved by the sale of Greeks in slave markets in the Mediterranean. After the Missolonghi sacrifice, he was convinced that more effective action was needed. So, he sent 51,000 francs to ransom the enslaved women and children. The financial supporter of Greeks […]
Abolitionist Occupation: Surgeon 1801-1876 Samuel Gridley Howe was one of the most iconic figures in American history in the emancipation of the colored in the United States. Born in 1801 in Boston, he studied medicine at Brown University and later at Harvard. The “Lafayette of the Greek Revolution” Samuel Gridley Howe was born on Pearl […]
Commander of the Greek forces Occupation: Military officer 1784-1873 He visited Greece for the first time as a 16-year-old ensign in 1800 and wrote home: ‘The Greeks, who are slaves to the Turks and are Christians, are … a brave, honest, open generous people, continually making us presents of fruit’ More Greek than the Greeks […]
Officer Occupation: Naval Officer 1794-1828 Frank Abney Hastings was a British naval officer who fought in the War of Greek Independence and was the first commander to use a ship with auxiliary steam power in naval action. The leader of the Mediterranean Frank Abney Hastings was born on February 14, 1794 in Leicestershire and died […]
The first journalist in Greece Occupation: Doctor, Publisher 1798-1826 The Swiss philhellene, John Jacob Meyer (December 30, 1798 – April 4, 1826), was a great patriot of Greece and internationally recognised as the pioneer of Greek journalism and publisher of the newspaper “Greek Chronicles”, the first printed newspaper of the greek freedom movement against the […]
Hero of the battle of Peta Occupation: Officer 1781 – 1822 Pietro Tarella was one of the first organizers of a regular army in Greece and a hero of the battle of Peta, which took place on July 4, 1822 in Peta village, 5km out of Arta. A fighter until the last minute Pietro Tarella […]
Representative of French Romanticism Occupation: Writer 1802-1885 Poet, novelist, and dramatist, Victor Hugo is considered the most important of the French Romantic writers. Though regarded in France as one of its greatest poets, he is better known abroad for his novels such as Notre-Dame de Paris and Les Misérables. «The world is the expanding Greece […]
Colonel Lieutenant general 1788-1841 Although Gordon’s activity in the Greek Revolution was short, he was the first English philhellene to join the Greek forces. He chartered and equipped at his own expense a ship in Marseilles, with which he transported fighters to Greece. A disappointed lieutenant general Gordon took part in the fall of Tripolitsa […]