Markos Botsaris

Early life

Botsaris was born into one of the leading clans of the Souliotes, in the region of Souli, Epirus. He was the second son of captain Kitsos Botsaris, who was murdered in Arta in 1809 under the orders of Ali Pasha. The Botsaris clan came from the village of Dragani (today Ambelia), near Paramythia.

French Army and repatriation to Souli

In 1803, after the capture of Souli by Ali Pasha, Botsaris and the remnants of the Souliotes crossed over to the Ionian Islands, where he served in the Souliot regiment of the French army for 11 years and became one the regiment's officers.

In 1814, he joined the Greek patriotic society known as the Filiki Eteria. In 1820, with other Souliots, he came back to Epirus and fought against Ali Pasha in the Ottoman army at the Siege of Ioannina, but soon the Souliotes changed side and fought the Ottoman army with the troops of Ali Pasha, in exchange of their former region, the Souli.

Greek War of Independence

In 1821, Botsaris took part in the revolution against the Ottoman Empire. He and other Souliot captains, including Kitsos Tzavelas, Notis Botsaris, Lampros Veikos, and Giotis Danglis only enlisted fellow Souliot kin into their bands. At the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence, he distinguished himself by his courage, tenacity and skill as a partisan leader in the fighting in western Greece, and was conspicuous in the defence of Missolonghi during the first siege of the city (1822–1823).

On the night of 21 August 1823 he led the celebrated attack on Karpenisi by 350 Souliots, against around 3,000 Ottoman Albanian troops who formed the vanguard of the army with which Mustafa Pasha, the Pasha of Shkoder (modern northern Albania) and advanced to reinforce the besiegers. Botsaris' men ambushed the enemy camp and inflicted serious causalties, but Botsaris was shot in the head and killed.

Botsaris was buried with full honors in Missolonghi. After the Ottomans captured the city, in 1826, his grave was desecrated by Ottoman Albanian groups.

Family and companions

Many of his family members became key figures of the Greek political establishment. Markos' brother Kostas (Constantine) Botsaris, who also fought at Karpenisi and completed the victory, lived on to become a respected Greek general and parliamentarian in the Greek kingdom. He died in Athens on 13 November 1853. Markos's son, Dimitrios Botsaris, born in 1813, was three times minister of war during the reigns of Otto of Greece and George I of Greece. He died in Athens on 17 August 1870. His daughter, Katerina "Rosa" Botsari, was in the service of Queen Amalia of Greece.

Markos' son, Dimitrios Botsaris became three times Minister of War of Greece, under Kings Otto and George I.

Evangelis Zappas, the renowned benefactor and founder of the modern Olympic Games, was the aide-de-camp and close friend of Markos Botsaris.

Legacy

Many Philhellenes visiting Greece had admired Botsaris' courage and numerous poets wrote poems about him. American poet Fitz-Greene Halleck wrote a poem entitled Marco Bozzaris, Juste Olivier also wrote an award-winning poem for him, in 1825. The national poet of Greece, Dionysios Solomos, composed a poem titled "On Markos Botsaris", in which he likens the mourning over Botsaris' body to the lamentation of Hector, as described in the last book of the Iliad. His memory is still celebrated in popular ballads in Greece.

Botsaris is also widely considered to be the author of a Greek–Albanian lexicon written in Corfu in 1809, at the insistence of François Pouqueville, Napoleon Bonaparte's general consul at the court of Ali Pasha in Ioannina. The dictionary is of importance for the knowledge of the extinct Souliot dialect. However, although the book is known as the Botsaris dictionary, scholar Xhevat Lloshi has argued in several works that Botsaris couldn't have possibly written that dictionary by himself, both because of his young age, and because of a note of Pouqueville that clearly says that the dictionary was drafted under the dictation of Marko's father, uncle, and future father-in-law.

In Greek music, the Zakynthian composer Pavlos Carrer composed in 1858 the opera “Marco Bozzari” to his honour. In 1858 excerpts from the opera were performed in Athens in the presence of King Otto. Also, there are several folk songs dedicated to Botsaris, like a Tsamiko from Central Greece, named Song of Markos Botsaris (Greek: του Μάρκου Μπότσαρη), and from the Greek minority of southern Albania (Northern Epirus) (Καημένε Μάρκο Μπότσαρη). Popular dramas and school plays were written soon after his death.

Botsaris was depicted on the reverse of the Greek 50 lepta coin of 1976–2001. He often adorns posters in Greek classrooms, government offices, and military barracks, as a member of the Greek pantheon of national heroes.

The Greek–Arbanitic dictionary

The original manuscript of the dictionary is at the National Library in Paris (Supplément Grec 251). Botsaris titled his dictionary “Lexicon of the simple Romaic and Arbanitic language” (Λεξικόν της Ρωμαϊκοις και Αρβανητηκής Απλής (sic)). The Greek terms are in columns on the left of the pages, not in alphabetical order, and the Albanian words on the right, written in Greek letters. Apart from single words, the dictionary includes complexes of words or short phrases. The Greek entries are in total 1701 and the Albanian 1494.
On the first page there is a hand-written notice by Pouqueville: “Ce lexique est écrit de la main de Marc Botzari à Corfou 1809 devant moi.” This manuscript, which includes also a kind of Greek–Albanian self-teaching method with dialogues written by Ioannes Vilaras and a French-Albanian glossary by Pouqueville, was donated by the latter to the Library in 1819. The dictionary was dictated to the young M. Botsaris by his father Kitsos (1754–1813), his uncle Notis (1759–1841) and his father-in-law Christakis Kalogerou from Preveza. Titos Yochalas, a Greek historian who studied and edited the manuscript, noticing that some Greek words are translated into Albanian in more than one way, believes that M. Botsaris was writing the Greek words and the elders were translating into Albanian. As many of the entries seem unlikely to be useful either for the Suliots or the Albanians of that time and circumstances, Yochalas believes that the dictionary was composed after Pouqueville’s initiative, possibly as a source for a future French-Albanian dictionary. He also observes that the Albanian phrases are syntaxed as if were Greek, concluding that either the mother tongue of the authors was the Greek or the Greek language had a very strong influence on the Albanian, if the latter was possibly spoken in Souli (Yochalas, p. 53). The Albanian idiom of the dictionary belongs to the Tosk dialect of south Albanian and retains many archaic elements, found also in the dialect spoken by the Greco-Albanian communities of South Italy and Sicily. In the Albanian entries there are many loans from Greek (approx. 510), as well as from Turkish (approx. 190) and Italian (21).