Philiki Etairia

[Greece4Ever]

Philiki Eteria

In September 1814 three expatriate Greeks in the Russian Black Sea port of Odessa set up a secret society whose aim was both simple and visionary, the liberation of Greece. The names of the three founders were Skouphas, Tsakalov and Xanthos, and the society was given the bland name of Philiki Eteria or Friendly Association. All had been born in Greece but had left to seek fortunes in the Greek trading communities abroad. Rigas was said to have founded an Eteria of this sort in Vienna in the 1790's but it has never proven. In 1809 Greeks in Paris set up a mutual help group for Greeks in France, and its members were rich enough for the badge of membership to be a gold ring engraved with the society's symbol. Tasakalov one of the co founders of the Philiki Eteria, joined this association while briefly in Paris as a student.

Nikolaos Skouphas, regarded as first among equals of the trio, was born in 1779 in a village near Arta, and had worked at various times as an apothecary, a commercial secretary and a hatter. Emmanuel Xanthos, the eldest of the three, was born in 1772 in Patmos, and by 1810, at the age of 38, had risen no higher than clerk to a merchant in Odessa. Two years later set up in Constantinople, with three merchants from Iannina, a company to trade in olive oil but the company failed. While visiting Levkas, Xanthos had been initiated into the Freemasons, as a result of which, he say in his memoirs, he immediately lighted upon the idea that it would be possible to found a secret society on the lines of that of the Freemasons, having as a basis the union of all the kapetnaioi of the armatoloi, and other leaders of all classes of Greeks, whether in Greece or in other parts , with the object of bringing about, in time, the liberation of the fatherland (patrida). Athanasios Tsakalov, born in Iannina in 1788, was the youngest and perhaps best educated of the three, and brought to the society his knowledge of the Paris group.

The first aim of the Philiki Eteria had to be survival, and the betrayal and death of Rigas made it clear that this meant keeping the society a secret. They developed a number of secret codes for each other for communication. To develop their society the founders need two things, members and money. The key to how they accomplished that was a mystery. The only general objective was for one day to liberate their country, and since they were not that big they had to pose bigger than what they were. Initiations to the organization varied upon the given title to the individual, and each had to swear loyalty and secrecy to the organization, failure to do so usually resulted in death as an example Nikolaos Galatis, a young man from Ithaca who was to cause the society a great deal of trouble until he was erased from the scene. By 1816 after two years of operation, the three founders had enrolled no more than twenty members, and in 1817 their numbers reached only forty two. But eventually all that would change.

The basic reason for such a low membership was for the fact that the founders could not break into Greek society on Greek soil since they were themselves expatriates, and could not break into Greek society abroad since they were of a lower class than the prosperous Greek merchants of the Diaspora. Those limited members who joined were the same like the three founders, part of the most recent wave of financially insecure émigrés. In the established Greek communities abroad, the society was able to recruit only a handful of members in Italy, one in Vienna, and none at all in London, Paris, Marseilles or Amsterdam. When Skouphas attempted to enroll Greeks in Russia they laughed at him and send him on his way. Skouphas and Tsakalov in September of 1814 within a month of arriving in Moscow they had enrolled Georgios Sekeris, whose rich brother Panayiotis was later to become a major contributor of money to the society. Skouphas, back in Odessa in 1816 met four Greek military captains from the Peloponnesus who had served in the Russian army during Russia's occupation of the Ionian islands and were on their way to St Petersburg to try to secure their arrears of pay through Kapodistrias. Skouphas initiated them into the society, and the ex soldiers vigorously promoted it, no doubt using the recruiting sergeant's methods of persuasion. One of these captains, Anagnostaras, became the society's most successful recruiter, with forty nine new members to his credit by the time the revolution began. However , it was Skouphas who made not so good moves by initiating Nikolaos Galatis.

By the end of 1817 Eteria was in a desperate state, far too few members, and far too little money. During the winter and spring of 1817-18 in Constantinople the three founders discussed what to do next. Tsakalov was at first in favor of giving up the plan and disabling the Eteria, but by the end of their discussions the leaders had worked out a program that was a good deal more realistic and practical than any they had devised before. First they established headquarters which was Xanthos house in Constantinople. Skouphas was entrusted in fundraising , and in May 1818 Panayiotis Skeris, elder brother of the very first initiate Gerogios Sekeris, contributed 10,000 piastres, more that double the whole amount raised by the society since its creation, and he was awarded membership of the Surpreme Council. By August he donated another 25,000 piastres with promises of more. Others followed Skeris lead and finally the Council decided that they could no longer pretend that some unnamed great man, and behind him great power, was at the head of the society. The time had come to make a formal and explicit offer of the leadership to a Greek of distinction who had the backing of a major nation.

The obvious candidate for leadership to the society was the Tsar's foreign minister Iannis Kapodistrias. Kapodistrias was a Greek born in Corfu 1n 1776, into a distinguished family whose forebears had come to the Ionian islands from Italy in the fourteenth century. As a young man Kapodistrias was prominent in politics of Ionian islands, and won the respect of the Russians during their occupation. In 1808 he was invited to St Petersburg to become one of the many non Russians in the Tsar's foreign ministry, and rose rapidly. In 1815 the Tsar appointed Kapodistrias as foreign minister jointly with the German Count Nesselrode. Xanthos mission was not in fact to offer the leadership of the Eteria to Kapodistrias. Some two year earlier in 1816 the maverick Galatis had been enrolled into the society by Skouphas, who was impressed by his claims to be a count and a relation to Kapodistrias. When Galatis offered Kapodistrias this position in the Philiki Eteria he was immediately dismissed. Another mission to Kapodistrias immediately preceded Xanthos visit. A member by the name of Petrobey Mavromixalis the Maniot leader arrived in St Petersburg in late 1819 with letters from Petrobey asking, innocently enough, for funds to support a school in the Mani, but also with an oral message in which it was clearly assumed that Kapodistrias was the leader of the Eteria. Kapodistrias wrote a long and careful letter to Petrobey disabusing him of this assumption. Kamarinos was shocked to learn the truth, and on his return to Constantinople caused so much trouble by revealing what he knew that he too, like Galatis, was killed.

Xanthos now tried to persuade Kapodistrias to take leadership of the Eteria. Skouphas had died in July 1818, and Xanthos was the elder of the Eteria now. Xanthos arrived in the Russian capital in January 1820. His mission was delicate. Kapodistrias answer was again no. For a second time Xanthos visited Kapodistrias again and he explained to him that it was impossible for the Greeks to remain under tyranny, that the revolution was inevitable, and that because they had need of a leader it was not right for him, as a Greek held in high esteem by them and many others, to remain indifferent, and so on. But the latter repeated that he could not become involved for the above reasons and that if the axiom knew of other means to carry out their object, let them use them. The final sentence about other means, even if vague, was what Xanthos had been angling for. At last he had go it.

The obvious alternative candidate was Alexandros Ypsilantes , a gallant soldier who had lost an arm in Russian service, who was an aide-decamp of the Tsar and whose two brothers were already members of the Eteria. At a first meeting with Xanthos spoke about the conditions for the Greeks and Ypsilantes response was " If I knew that my compatriots had need of me, and thought that I could contribute to their well-being, I say to you honestly that I would gladly make any sacrifice, even of my wealth and of myself for them. At a second meeting the next day Xanthos made offer to Ypsilantes , and Ypsilantes enthusiastically agreed. His position was confirmed in a document that he and Xanthos signed on April 24 1820.


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[O Tizimis]

Hellenic Life.com is a great site just visited. Very educational I must admit.

[enicko]

Isnt it good when Ellines stick together....