Vaticioti, Dmitry Pavlovich

Dmitry Vaticioti came from a large clan of the Vaticiotis, originating from the Vatica in Laconia ^[1] . After the unsuccessful Peloponnesian uprising of 1770, the Vaticikiotis, like many of its other participants, found refuge on the nearby islands of Poros , Idra and Spetses . Many members of the Vaticikiotis clan became famous on land and at sea during the years of the Greek Liberation War (1821-1829) ^{[1] [1]} . Another branch of the Vaticikiotis, like thousands of other Greeks who participated in the uprising and the Russo-Turkish war (1768-1774) , found refuge in Russia, where Greek communities were formed in the new territories of the south of the Russian Empire ^[2] .

There is no reliable data on where and when Dmitry Vatikioti was born, but unofficial Russian-language sources claim that he was born in 1786 in the Gagauz village of Tabaki Budzhaka (Southern Bessarabia), the current Bolgradsky district of Odessa region ^[3] .

During the Russo-Turkish War (1806-1812), Dmitry Vatikioti, leading a detachment of Bulgarians and Gagauzians, distinguished himself in the battle for the fortress of Silistra in 1811, for which he was awarded Kutuzov memorable weapons ^[4] . Probably because of this, M. M. Frolova mentions Vaticioti as a Bulgarian, although she herself makes a reservation that “it is probably necessary to speak with great caution about the Bulgarian armed forces in the first years of the Russo-Turkish war of 1806-1812, since the Arnaut “The units were multinational, often made up of vagabonds, poorly trained and not disciplined. Only mass relocations of the Bulgarians created the basis for the emergence of truly Bulgarian armed units, partly included in the Bulgarian Zemstvo army ” ^[5] .

Meanwhile, 200 years later, the very controversial Bulgarian historian Hristo Manchev (Krusto Manchev) writes: “Dimitar Vatikioti, Greek, officer of the Russian service, commander of Bulgarian volunteers in the Russian army during the war of 1806-1812”, ^[6] member of the Commission to collect information about the Transdanubian immigrants of Bessarabia, the trustee of the Transdanubian immigrants. ^[7]

During the Patriotic War of 1812, Dmitry Vaticioti acted in the rear of Napoleon’s troops, after which he took part in operations in Germany and France, as part of the Lithuanian regiment. According to Greek sources, Dmitry Vaticioti led the “Bulgarian colony” in Reni in 1815 ^[8] . In 1818, Dmitry Vaticioti was mentioned as the captain of the Russian army, the commander of the Bulgarian Zemstvo army and the trustee of the Trans-Danish immigrants. His brother, Vaticioti Ivan Pavlovich, (in Greek historiography Ιωάννης Βατικιώτης), is mentioned by the centurion of the Bulgarian Zemstvo army and foreman over the Transdanubian migrants of Grechansky tsinit. ^[7]

In September 1814, the secret Greek revolutionary organization Filiki Eteria was created in Odessa, which aimed to free the Greek lands from Turkish rule. Among the first members of the Society and in one row are 5 immigrants from Vatica at once. As a consecration to Etheria: 24th Dmitry Vaticiotis, 25th his brother John Vaticiotis, 26th Dimitris Haramis, 27th Petros Haramis, 28th Ioannis Haramis. Athanasius Sekeris Vaticikioti , who dedicated him to the Society of Afanasii, assured that with the outbreak of hostilities “14 thousand Bulgarians” would follow. , Georgakis Olympios , who participated in the First Serbian Uprising and married to the widow of his Serbian (in some Bulgarian sources, Bulgarian by mother) ^{[9] [10] [11]} twin brother, Serbian commander Velko Petrov (Pe trovich), Stana , continued contacts with the Serbs and after the assassination of the commander of Karageorgii, the initiate of the Society, initiated by his opponent, Obrenovich in 1817 ^[1] .

The Greco-Serbian brotherhood in arms did not have a similar counterpart in the case of the Bulgarians, but the promises of the Vaticioti were considered by the heterists as another opportunity to give their rebellion a larger scale. Before his death, one of the three founders of Eteria, Nikolaos Skoufas , appointed his Twelve Apostles to different Greek lands and the diaspora. The task of two of them, Olympios (the first on the list) and Vaticioti (the second on the list) was to provoke an uprising in Serbia and northern Bulgaria. However, Dmitry Vaticioti died in 1819 (in Greek sources at the age of 27), during his trip to Moscow.

Historians can only imagine how much his promises were true and how much his death negatively affected the implementation of the heterists' plans. A year after the death of Vaticioti, the military commander Savva Kaminaris , who served under the Wallachian rulers and whose detachment included, among others, the Bulgarians, presented to the head of Eteria Alexander Ipsilanti a plan of uprisings in Serbia and Bulgaria. Kaminaris’s plan for the involvement of the Bulgarians was never implemented, since the heterists were primarily interested in the performance of the Serbs, but which ultimately did not take place either ^[12] . It remains a fact that neither the Serbs nor the Bulgarians rebelled. Olympios managed to bring to the uprising of Tudor Vladimirirescu ^[1] and his pandurs, but after the defeat of the heterists in the Danube principalities, the war became only Greek. In the last battles of the heterists on the territory of the principalities, the brother of Dmitry Vatikioti, John, with his Bulgarians and, probably, the Gagauz took part.

Marked by the Greek historiography of the War of Independence ^[13] , Dmitry Vaticioti is also of interest today in Moldova and among the Gagauz. Christos Kozaridis, a Greek scholar of Gagauzian origin, claims that the villages of Dimitrovka in Gagauzia and Dimitriky near Adrianople in European Turkey are named after Dmitry Vaticioti. Kozaridis, as a link between Comrat , Chisinau and Vatica, is busy today in Laconia with the study of archives, the Vaticioti family tree and hopes to find a portrait of Dmitry Vaticioti ^[14] .

• Vaticiotis, Konstantinos