The first head of state of Greece, Ioannis Kapodistrias, saw the border in the north of Greece at mount Olymp. In other words, he did not see Macedonia within the natural limits of Greece. Even in ancient times, this was the border between Greece and its neighbors. Today, you hear other stories and interpretations from Athens…
Who was Ioannis Kapodistrias?
Count Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias (born January 31 in Corfu; died September 27 in Nafplion) was the first head of state of Greece after the War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire.
Kapodistrias (named after Capo d’Istria, today’s Koper in Slovenia, from which his family probably immigrated to Corfu in the 14th century) studied philosophy and medicine in Padua and Venice. After returning to his homeland, where the Illyrian provinces had come under French sovereignty in 1797, he embarked on a diplomatic career.
In April 1827 he was elected the first President (Cybernetes) of Greece for seven years by the Greek National Assembly in Trizina. Since he was considered an outsider, the quarreling clans and parties regarded him as harmless to their interests. His attempts to rule the devastated land quickly brought him into conflict with traditional forces. His regulatory measures and a very rapid reorganization of the country overwhelmed many modern Greeks.
The independence of Greece was mainly guaranteed by Great Britain. The interests of Great Britain, however, were partially opposed to its pro-Russia policy. Increasingly, he acquired the reputation of a “Russian prefect”. He was severely attacked by the English party.
Ioannis Kapodistrias opposed this resistance with an increasingly taut autocratic regiment completely unknown to the Greeks. He was also accused of favoring his compatriots from the western islands and of practicing nepotism.
He was also suspected of deliberately causing Prince Leopold of Coburg to reject the Greek crown in order to be able to become king himself. Riots broke out on Hydra and in the Mani. When he then had the prince of Mani, Petros Mavromichalis, arrested, he was murdered by the arrested man’s brother, Konstantinos, and the arrested man’s son, Georgios, on September 27 in Nafplion on the way to the church of St. Spyridon.
Since 1830 he was an honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.
The first Greek head of state did not see Macedonia in Greece
In Giannes Koliopoulos’ work “Looted Loyalty: The Macedonian Question in the Years of Occupation and Civil War in Western Macedonia, 1941-1949” we read that Kapodistria’s geographic formation corresponded to that of a typical Greek of the time.
Kapodsitrias in the book is quoted with a statement made in 1828. To the question of the “Three Protector Powers” where “fortification bastions for the protection of the new state” were to be built in the newly created state of Greece, the first head of state of Greece answered: “the line from the river Aous – Metsovo – Mount Olympus”.
These borders already separated Greece from the northern neighboring countries in ancient times.
This was the “natural demarcation line” of Greece in ancient times, was his reason.
You should also read our following article: In Salonika, Pella or Edessa it is still said that Macedonia was never part of Greece
