Georgios Kountouriotis Explained

Georgios Kountouriotis
Native Name:	^[1]
Office2:	President of the Provisional Administration of Greece
Term Start2:	18 January 1824
Term End2:	29 April 1826
Predecessor2:	Petros Mavromichalis
Term Start3:	27 March 1832
Term End3:	25 January 1833
Predecessor3:	Augustinos Kapodistrias
Successor3:	Otto of Greece (as King of Greece) Spyridon Trikoupis (as Prime Minister of Greece)
Birth Date:	c. 1782
Birth Place:	Hydra, Ottoman Empire (now Greece)
Death Date:	13 March 1858 (aged 76)
Death Place:	Athens, Kingdom of Greece
Party:	French Party
Relations:	Lazaros Kountouriotis (brother) Pavlos Kountouriotis (grandson) Nikolaos Votsis (great-grandson)
Occupation:	Ship-owner Revolutionary Politician
Signature:	Georgios Kountouriotis signature.svg
Battles:	Greek War of Independence
Allegiance:	First Hellenic Republic
Nationality:	Greek
Office1:	Prime Minister of Greece
Termstart1:	4 March 1848
Termend1:	15 October 1848
Monarch1:	Otto
Successor1:	Konstantinos Kanaris
Predecessor1:	Kitsos Tzavelas

Georgios Kountouriotis (el|Γεώργιος Κουντουριώτης) (1782 – 13 March 1858) was a Greek ship-owner and politician who served as prime minister from March to October 1848.

Life

He was born in 1782 on the Saronic island of Hydra to an Arvanite family.^[2] The family, apparently the richest in independent Greece, stemmed from the younger son of an Albanian peasant. He settled the island as a boatman after the Venetians left the Peloponnese (1715) but before the island received its permanent colony.^[3] The Koundouriotis family used extensively their native Albanian dialect of Hydra. The dialect has been documented in two letters of Georgios' private correspondence with Ioannis Orlandos, written in the Greek alphabet,^[4] in accordance with the practice of the writers of Arvanitika during the Greek War of Independence.^[5] Georgios spoke Greek only with difficulty.^[6] He was the brother of Lazaros Kountouriotis, another shipowner of the Greek War of Independence.

When the War of Independence broke out, Georgios, along with the rest of the Kountouriotis family, supported the effort with generous donations as well as with their ships. He was often at odds with other Hydriot sea captains but ultimately was the wealthiest. Georgios Kountouriotis became a member of the executive committee of the Greek Revolution and served as its president from 1823 to 1826 during the crucial time of the siege of Missolonghi.

After independence, he became a member of the cabinet of Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first governor of Greece. He was a semi-independent adherent of the French Party mostly due to his antipathy to the Russian Party and his fellow Hydriots of the English Party. During the period of French Party ascendancy in the reign of King Otto, he served as prime minister.

Death

He died in 1858.

Descendants

He was the grandfather of Pavlos Kountouriotis who fought in the First Balkan War and later served as the first (1924-1926) President of the Second Hellenic Republic.

Notes and References

Transcription in the modern Albanian alphabet: Jorgh Kundurioti. See Jochalas . Titos . Lettere di contenuto velenoso inviate da Londra al Primo Ministro greco scritte nel dialetto albanese di Idra (1824) . Shejzat . 2020 . 3-4 . 70–1, 77, 78. .
Peter Trudgill Sociolinguistic variation and change, Published by Edinburgh University Press, 2002,
Book: Petropulos, J.A. . Politics and Statecraft in the Kingdom of Greece, 1833-1843 . Princeton University Press . 2015 . 70.
Jochalas . Titos . Lettere di contenuto velenoso inviate da Londra al Primo Ministro greco scritte nel dialetto albanese di Idra (1824) . Shejzat . 2020 . 3-4 . 69 . The two letters published here are written in the Albanian dialect of Hydra in London (20 Sept. and 16 Mar. 1824) by Hydriot Ioannis Orlandos, and sent to another Hydriot Gheorgios Cunduriotis, his father-in-law as well as Prime Minister of the Greek Government. In an attempt to get rid of Zaimis who currently was in London, Orlandos sent this bitter letter whose content should not be disclosed to Cunduriotis. In fact, he wrote in the Arvanit language of Hydra, a language that the recipient undoubtedly understood. In his second letter, Orlandos overstepped every mark of courtesy displaying insolence and maliciousness. He did not deem sufficient to simply write una letterra di raccomandazione imbued with venom and bitterness on behalf of youngster Stavros Parthenopulos but he also had the courage to hand it over personally to the young man in order to personally deliver it then to Gheorgios Cunduriotis, Prime Minister of the country. In case Parthenopulos would open and read the letter, Orlandos wrote the section relating to the deliverer in the Arvanit language of Hydra, so as to avoid any personal involvement in the question. The text in Albanian in both letters is written in the Greek alphabet and reverberates the peculiar Albanian dialect of Hydra otherwise known as Arvanitica. .
Sasse. Hans-Jürgen. Hans-Jürgen Sasse. International Journal of the Sociology of Language. Arvanitika: The Long Hellenic Centuries of an Albanian Variety. 1998. 134 . 134. 49. 10.1515/ijsl.1998.134.39. Arvanitika had begun to evolve into a written language even by the time of the War of Independence, probably because it was more suitable for secret messages than Greek. The writers used the Greek alphabet, to which they occasionally added the Latin vowel e in order to express the schwa (e). In Hydra, local politicians sporadically corresponded in Arvanitika..
Book: Woodhouse, C.M. . A Short History of Modern Greece . Praeger . 1968 . 139 . Koundouriotis was descended from the Albanian invaders of Greece in the 14th century, and spoke Greek only with difficulty..