The main reason I am in Corfu right now is to give a paper on the Suliots in Corfu at an important seminar on the History and Culture of the Ionian Islands, and to listen to noted researchers and academics like Peter Mackridge, Anthony Hirst, Robert Holland, Eleni Calligas, Kostas Kardamis, Athanasios Gekas, Mark Davies and many others.
One section of my own paper deals with the mystery surrounding the death, in Corfu, of the Suliot warrior and hero Fotos Tzavellas (Foto or Photo Tzavella).
Did he die in 1809, as it states on his tomb in Platytera Monastery, or in 1813, as it states on the memorial plaque attached to the Black Cat cafe in Spilia? Die he die from natural causes, or was he murdered by "Turko-Albanian" assassins, or perhaps by members of a rival Suliot clan?
UPDATE, October, 2014: now published as a chapter in this book.
On Markos Botsaris, anemourion blog
Albanian assassins? Maybe warriors, just like their Christian brethren, the Suliots? True, Albanians do not have historians because they were lonely warriors without many allies through centuries, but God aka known as history did not leave them with nothing, in centuries, Byron, Dante, poets, travellers, diplomats wrote how not a single person did not speak Greek but only Albanian in Spetzai, Hydra, about the dictionary of Marko Bocari, how they fiercely played down religion, their songs, their fights etc. Check the inhabitants even nowadays in Spetzai, Hydra....observe them well my friend.... Are they real Greek? Blood, habit and nature does not disappear that easily.
ReplyDelete