Laskarina Bouboulina

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Laskarina Bouboulina bigraphy, stories - Admirals

Laskarina Bouboulina : biography

11 May 1771 – 22 May 1825

Laskarina Bouboulina ( ), 11 May 1771 – 22 May 1825) was a GreekJennifer S. Uglow,Maggy Hendry. . UPNE, 1999 ISBN 978-1-55553-421-9, p. 81: "Greek freedom fighter."Kirstin Olsen. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994 ISBN 978-0-313-28803-6, p. 110.David E. Jones. . Brassey’s, 2000 ISBN 978-1-57488-206-3, p. 131: "the Greek woman warrior tradition continued into the 18th century with Laskarina Bouboulina. Born in 1783, she developed into a Greek naval commander"Bernard A. Cook. . ABC-CLIO, 2006 ISBN 978-1-85109-770-8, p. 225: "…of the 1,500 Greek combatants in the crucial battle 1,000 were women. Nevertheless, Laskarina Bouboulina and Manto Mavrogenous, the most famous women fighters of the Greek Revolution were not from mountain villages but islands." naval commander, heroine of the Greek War of Independence in 1821, and an Admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy.

Legacy

In 1823 Emperor Alexander I of Russia granted Bouboulina the rank of Admiral of the Russian Navy and awarded her with Mongolian swordgreek.ru Her descendants sold the ship Agamemnon to the Greek state, which renamed it Spetsai. It was burned by Andreas Miaoulis along with the frigate Hellas and the corvette Hydra in the naval base of Poros, during the next Greek civil war in 1831. On the island of Spetses the "Bouboulina Museum" is housed in the 300 year-old mansion of Bouboulina’s second husband Bouboulis, where her descendants still live. Her statue stands in the harbor in Spetses. Various streets all over Greece and Cyprus are named in her honor, notably Bouboulina Street near the National Technical University of Athens (the Polytechnion) and the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, in central Athens, and also in Piraeus and in Nicosia.

Bouboulina was depicted on the reverse of both the Greek 50 drachmae banknote of 1978 and the Greek 1 drachma coin of 1988-2001.. Drachma Banknotes & Coins: . – Retrieved on 27 March 2009.

Early life

Bouboulina was born in a prison in Constantinople; she originated from the island of Hydra.Telos. By State University of New York at Buffalo. Graduate Philosophy Association. Published by Teresa & Patrick Nielsen Hayden, 1989. Item notes: nos. 78-81. Original from the University of California. Digitized Jul 13, 2007Byzantine and modern Greek studies. By IngentaConnect (Online service). Published by B. Blackwell., 1985. Item notes: v. 9-11. Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized Jun 24, 2008 She was the daughter of Stavrianos Pinotsis, a captain from Hydra island, and his wife Skevo. The Ottomans had imprisoned Pinotsis for his part in the failed Orlof Revolution of 1769–1770 against the Ottoman rule. Her father died soon afterward and the mother and child returned to Hydra. They moved to the island of Spetses four years later when her mother married Dimitrios Lazarou-Orlof. Bouboulina had eight half-siblings.

She married twice, first Dimitrios Yiannouzas and later the wealthy shipowner and captain Dimitrios Bouboulis, taking his surname. Bouboulis was killed in battle against Algerian pirates in 1811. Now 40 years old, Bouboulina took over his fortune and his trading business and had four more ships built at her own expense, including the large warship Agamemnon.

In 1816, the Ottomans tried to confiscate Bouboulina’s property because her second husband had fought for the Russians against the Turks in the Turko-Russian wars. She sailed to Constantinople to meet Russian ambassador Count Pavel Strogonov and seek his protection. In recognition of Bouboulis’s service to the Russians, Strogonov sent her to safety in Crimea. She also met with the mother of Mahmud II, who afterward reportedly convinced her son to leave Bouboulina’s property alone. After three months of exile in the Crimea, Bouboulina returned to Spetses.

After independence

When the opposing factions erupted into civil war in 1824, the Greek government arrested Bouboulina for her family connection with now-imprisoned Kolokotronis; the government also killed her son-in-law. Eventually she was exiled back to Spetses. She had exhausted her fortune for the war of independence.