Ειδήσεις για αιχμαλώτους της επαρχίας Καλαβρύτων : με βάση ανέκδοτο κατάλογο του 1828 και μεταγενέστερα έγγραφα
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Abstract
This study publishes an unpublished list of 1828, which is in the General
State Archives (Capodistrian Archive, General Secretariat) and contains 202
names, mostly of women and children who were taken prisoner in the mountainous
region of Kalavryta (northern Peloponnese) during the Greek War of
Independence. It was sent to President John Capodistria in response to a special directive connected with efforts to liberate the Greek captives, who either
were with the Egyptian army in the Peloponnese or had been taken as
prisoners of war to Egypt and other parts of the Ottoman Empire.
Later, likewise unpublished, documents from the Archives of the Greek
Foreign Ministry reveal that all the efforts to liberate the prisoners between
1828 and 1831, as also after 1837, bore little fruit. The captives were shifted
about from place to place; their captors either concealed their whereabouts
when they were sought or refused to release them, on the pretext that they
had already embraced the Moslem faith; their captors usually demanded
exorbitant sums of money; in some cases the prisoners themselves did not
wish to return home after so many years in captivity; some of them had indeed
converted to Islam. All these reasons, and many more, made it exceptionally
difficult to liberate them. In the end most of the captives from Kalavryta
never did return to Greece.
State Archives (Capodistrian Archive, General Secretariat) and contains 202
names, mostly of women and children who were taken prisoner in the mountainous
region of Kalavryta (northern Peloponnese) during the Greek War of
Independence. It was sent to President John Capodistria in response to a special directive connected with efforts to liberate the Greek captives, who either
were with the Egyptian army in the Peloponnese or had been taken as
prisoners of war to Egypt and other parts of the Ottoman Empire.
Later, likewise unpublished, documents from the Archives of the Greek
Foreign Ministry reveal that all the efforts to liberate the prisoners between
1828 and 1831, as also after 1837, bore little fruit. The captives were shifted
about from place to place; their captors either concealed their whereabouts
when they were sought or refused to release them, on the pretext that they
had already embraced the Moslem faith; their captors usually demanded
exorbitant sums of money; in some cases the prisoners themselves did not
wish to return home after so many years in captivity; some of them had indeed
converted to Islam. All these reasons, and many more, made it exceptionally
difficult to liberate them. In the end most of the captives from Kalavryta
never did return to Greece.
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