Vlahavas, Evtimios

Born around 1760 in the village of Smoliani (now the village of Vlahava ^[1] ), located near the rocks and monasteries of Meteora , 17 km from the town of Kalambaka .

His father Athanasios Vlahavas was a famous armatol , under whose control was the Hasia massif, located at the junction of Thessaly and Western Macedonia . Evtimiy was ordained to the priesthood, but when his father died, he inherited his reinforcement . He managed to unite all the armators of Central Greece, while receiving help from the Ionian Islands from the Russians, under whose control the islands were in that period.

In the mountains, he was visited by Cosma Aetoli . The meeting made an indelible impression on Vlahavas (he later died with the name of St. Cosmas on his lips) ^[2] . In the mountains, Vlachavas was also visited by a French diplomat and writer Francois Pukwil , who in the future was destined to witness the execution of Vlachavas.

Worried about events and the union of reinforcers and suliots, Ali Pasha Tepelensky managed to expel suliots from Suli by 1803 and in 1805 planned to do away with the fixtures. Vlahavas spoke at a gathering of the reinforcers near the town of Karpenisi , proposing both organized resistance to Ali Pasha and the liberation of Greece. In 1806, with the outbreak of the Russian-Turkish war , Vlachavas intensified its activities against the Turks.

Ali Pasha with large forces pursued Vlahavas, who was forced to follow Nikotsaras and Statas on the island of Skiathos , where in 1807 they created a pirate squadron of 70 ships. The hulls and sails of the squadron ships were painted black, which made it known as the Black Squadron . Squadron commander Yannis Statas . The squadron raided Ottoman ships in the northern Aegean Sea and raids on the coast of Macedonia, Thessaly and Evia Island ^[2] .

In 1808, when the Russian-Turkish war was still continuing, with the encouragement of the Russians and coordinating their actions with the leader of the Serbian revolution, Karageorge , Vlahavas called a meeting of the leaders of the armatol and was elected their leader there. A plan was prepared for the uprising of continental Greece and the assistance of the Turks of Larissa and Trikala , angered by the oppression of the Albanians of Ali Pasha, was requested.

The uprising was scheduled for May 29, 1808, but already at the preparatory stage it was betrayed by the armatol from Metsovo by Deliyannis. Vlahavas located Deliyannis and Eutymia Sturnarisa in the gorge of Metsovo and Callarit to block the road for the Albanians and fortified the monasteries in Meteora. Ali sent his son, Mukhtar, who passed through Deliyannis's position without any problems, attacked the Vlachavas brothers - Theodore and Dimitri - in Kastraki, near Meteora, and on the Bab Bridge. When Vlahavas approached the battlefield with 500 fighters, his brother Theodoros and all his people were killed. After that Vlahavas selected 200 fighters and moved to Olympus . From Olympus, he moved to the island of Skopelos and re-organized the pirate fleet ^[2] .

In order to calm the region at last, the sultan granted a general amnesty to all the rebels, the armatures who returned to the regions assigned to them.

But Ali was not satisfied with the development of events. He forged a letter to the armator of the Lazos family, who invited Vlachavas to his tribal tower. Vlahavas was captured on the way to Lazos and taken to Ioannina . Ali ordered Vlahavas to kill the bones and quarter. Four parts of Vlachavas' body were hung in four points of the city to intimidate the Greek population. Witness for the death of Vlachavas was his old acquaintance Pukkvil: “He was tied to a stake, in the courtyard of Ali Pasha. I saw him. Yes, it was Efthimy Vlahavas whom when I met at Pinda with his fine fellows ... Abundant sweat was flowing from his thick beard. He knew what fate awaited him. He calmly looked at me with his full world eyes. It was as if he considered me a witness of his triumph over his executioner ” ^[3] .

Together with Vlahavas, the monk Dmitrii from Samarina, later subsequently canonized by the Greek Church, was killed (walled up alive in the wall). His death is also described by Pouquille ^[4] .