10 Facts About Giorgakis Olympios

Giorgakis Olympios was an armatole and military commander during the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire.

Giorgakis Olympios was born in the village of Livadi, near Larissa, on Mount Olympus, in Ottoman-ruled Greece.

Giorgakis Olympios became a supporter of the ideas diffused by Rigas Feraios for a common Balkan revolution against the Ottoman rule, and moved to Wallachia.

Emperor Alexander I included him in the Russian military escort during the Congress of Vienna, where Giorgakis Olympios met with Alexander Ypsilantis, a Filiki Eteria leader.

Giorgakis Olympios entered Filiki Eteria in 1817, taking the high rank of Shepherd.

Giorgakis Olympios initiated many others in the Eteria, and established contacts with the Wallachian Pandur Tudor Vladimirescu, who led the parallel uprising of 1821.

Giorgakis Olympios married Cucuk Stana, the widow of Hajduk Veljko, who had arrived from Serbia to participate in the Greek War of Independence as a fighter, alongside his own men.

At the beginning of the Greek War of Independence, when the Eteria began its expedition in Moldavia and Wallachia, Giorgakis Olympios was appointed leader of the Greek forces in Bucharest by Alexander Ypsilantis, at first cooperating with Tudor Vladimirescu, who led the parallel Wallachian uprising.

Giorgakis Olympios took part in the Battle of Sculeni on 29 June 1821, when Ottoman forces chased him to the Secu Monastery in the Neamt County, where the Greeks made their last stand.

Giorgakis Olympios died during the Ottoman attack to the monastery, when he blew up the gunpowder storage to not surrender himself.