- Vasos Mavrovouniotis
Vasos Mavrovouniotis (Greek: "Βασος Μαυροβουνιωτης", literally translated "Vaso Montenegrin"; born Vaso Brajović
Serbian Cyrillic : Васо Брајовић ; 1790-1847) was a soldier fromMontenegro , who played a significant role in theGreek revolution against theOttoman Empire in 1821.He was born in
Bjelopavlići in modern dayMontenegro , 1790. Since his early youth he joined the Montenegrin and other rebel forces and regularly commanded raids across theBalkans . In 1821 he directed a force of 120 men of mixed Serbian, Montenegrin and Greek nationality and joined the early stages of the Greek revolution. His first stop was in central Greece where he met withNikos Kriezotis , an old time Greek fellow warrior with whom he was a “Vlami”, meaning spiritual brother. This term comes from the ages-old practice in the Balkans where people could become like brothers by performing a specific ritual. In 1822 he participated in the fight against the Turks inAthens where he showed bravery and was widely accepted as one of the best fighters of its period.In 1824 a Greek civil war erupted and Mavrovouniotis joined forces with the government mainly composed by Greeks he knew since the early stages of the revolution. For his commitment to the side that finally won the domestic conflict he was assigned the rank of the
General and was given a force of 1,500men; a considerable army at that period. In the period between 1826-27 he was one of the few guerilla fighters not to be defeated by theEgypt ian forces led byImbrahim Pasha , that nearly destroyed the Greek forces. In the newly established Greek state in 1830’s he became a member of the elite that surrounded the first GreekKing Otto fromBavaria . He died on9 June 1847 [ [http://www.montenegrina.net/pages/pages1/istorija/cg_u_xix_vijeku/vaso_brajovic_grcki_junak.htm Montenegrina: Vaso Brajović - Grčki junak i heroj] and was widely admired by the Greek people as one of the leaders of the Cause and as one of the leading figures of the independent state.Whitcombe, T. D. "Campaign of the Falieri and Piraeus in 1827" (edited by C. W. J. Eliot) Town House Press Inc., Pittsboro, North Carolina, 1992]Mavrovouniotis married
Helena Pangalou from a very well known Greek family in 1826, and she followed him throughout the harsh campaigns in the Greek mountains against the Turks. She died in 1891 and they had a son called Timotheos Vassos-Mavrovounitis. He also became a general and was decorated in numerous occasions for his duties and success as a serviceman in the second half of the 19th century.References
External links
* A. Chrysologi, Biography of Vasos Mavrovouniotis, 1876, Athens, Greece, retrieved November 5, 2006 from Michaletos Blog [http://serbianna.com/blogs/michaletos/]
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