In response to the remark that Cyprus' contribution to the Greek Revolution has so far remained largely unknown[/B], Papapolyviou replied that there are many reasons, which differ from one historical period to another. First of all, for many decades the emphasis was placed on preserving the memory of the victims of the 1821 Julian massacres, he said, adding that the participation of Cypriot fighters in the Greek Revolution of 1821 was taken for granted and therefore downplayed.
Furthermore, he noted that the vast majority of Cypriot revolutionaries remained in liberated Greece after independence and did not return to Ottoman-occupied Cyprus, with the result that most of them were forgotten over time. Finally, the first two systematic researchers of the Greek archives on the Cypriot contribution to 1821, Rodion Georgiadis and Loizos Philippou, passed away before they could publish the results of their research, Papapolyviou stressed. Papapolyviu said that he has singled out what he has discovered about great figures of Cypriot fighters, such as Charalambos Malis or Cyprian Theseus, scholars such as the Lefkosian Hilarion Paschalides, archimandrite in Amsterdam after 1821 and confessor of the Russian Queen of the Netherlands, or Ioannikio of Vatopaedin, from Pedoulas, but also about the personal and family dramas of people like Solomon Nicolaides, an Islamist for a few years (Suleiman Noori) or other fugitives from the Julian massacres.
The historian referred to new documents, which confirm that the leading group of Cypriot fighters never ceased, despite frustrations and adversity, to strive for the liberation of Cyprus in the context of the Revolution. He also noted that, according to the new data, the total number of previously unknown Cypriot fighters reached 294.
Regarding the reception of the Greek Revolution by the Cypriots, Mr. Papapolyviou told CNA that the revolutionary ideas and the proclamations of the Society of Friends had spread in Cyprus, which caused the reaction of the Ottomans, since in May 1821 4,000 additional soldiers of the Sultan were recalled, and in July the massacres that shook the island took place.
Apart from these, however, there are three documents published in Papapolyviou's book. These are the two appeals of Cyprian Thiseos to the precritics of Hydra, in July and October 1821, to offer financial assistance in his plans to organize a campaign for the liberation of Cyprus, and the so-called "Declaration of December 1821", by a group of Cypriot fugitives who declare that "in agreement with the rest of our Greek brothers, they want to strive for the Freedom () of the Island of Cyprus". The book publishes for the first time an unknown version of the 'declaration', preserved in the Sylvia Ioannou Foundation in Athens, signed by 18 people. Two of them are priests from Lefkoniko, Papapolyviou added.
Answering the question about the contribution of the Greek Revolution in shaping the Cypriots' demand for union with Greece, Mr. Papapolyviou said. Papapolyviou explained that the demand for the union of Cyprus with Greece was born with the outbreak of the Greek Revolution, since it was officially declared in August 1828, when Archbishop Panaretos, the metropolitans and the primates of Cyprus asked Governor Ioannis Kapodistrias "to give medicine to their wounds". It was impossible to include Cyprus within the boundaries of the first Greek state in 1830, but its inclusion, by Kapodistrias in October 1827, within the "boundaries of Greece" and the parts of the "Greek nation" was, at the same time, the starting point of Cypriot irredentism, he concluded.
Source: KYPE
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Times
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Times
Source
