Tzanetos Grigorakis

The tower in Cranae of family branch Tzannetakides

Grigorakis was born in 1742 at Skoutari of Gytheio, Laconia, and was a member of a famous Maniot family, Grigorakides, which was a warrior family of local Capetaneoi.[note 3] His father, Demetrios "Kapetanakis" Grigorakis, gave him the name Tzanetos or Tzannis, as the name Ioannis (Ιωάννης, John) is pronounced in Maniot dialect. Tzanetos was the father of Pierros (Πιέρρος, Peter) and Tzortzis (Τζωρτζής, George), or Tzortzakis Grigorakis, who later became the ancestor of the Tzortzakides branch.[note 4] His grandson, and son of Tzortzis, Tzannetakis Grigorakis, later became the ancestor of the Tzannetakides branch.
[1]

Grigorakis started the military service within his clan, like everybody else in Mani. Later, in Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, he appeared in the Ionian Islands, together with Anagnostaras and Christoforos Perraivos, to serve with the rank of major in the Imperial Russian Army forces under the commands of the Greek-Russian general Emmanouil Papadopoulos.[3]

Capture of Passavas

Castle of Passava by Coronelli Vincenzo

Hassan Ghazi, the ruler of Tripoli, asked the family of Grigorakides to accept that Tzanetos Grigorakis will take over the duties of bey and use the power of their clan to achieve peace in Mani and their neighboring areas. However, when the Grigorakides family rejected his proposal, he proposed Tzanetos Koutifaris as bey of Mani.[4] Hassan Ghazi sent an envoy to the Grigorakides family leader, Exarchos Grigorakis, saying that he wanted to negotiate. The men met in Tripoli, but once Exarchos arrived, Hasan Ghazi had him seized and hanged.[5]

When this fact was learned in Skoutari, Tzanetos Grigorakis took over the hegemony as general. To get revenge, he gathered about 3,000 Maniots, campaigning against the Ottomans in the castle of Passavas, and captured and slaughtered the 700 families living in and around of it- men, women, children, no one was left. After the massacre, he increased the Mani borders at position of Kakoskali, a new border line that the Ottomans never managed to regain.
[6]

In 1780, in the aftermath of the Orlov Revolt and just before the Siege of Kastania, Tzanetos Grigorakis received a message with an envoy from his son-in-law Panagiotaros Venetsanakis and Konstantinos Kolokotronis to send a relief force and avoid the siege, but Grigorakis having a personal rivalry with Panagiotaros, resigned to the fact that they would have to fight alone.[7][8] The refusal of support and assistance to the Kastanian chiefs[note 5] in 1780, objectively served the plans of Kapudan Pasha Hassan, so the Ottoman military leader did not forget it and, in 1782, Tzanetos Grigorakis became the Bey of Mani.[7]

At first, Grigorakis refused to become a bey, but then the Dragoman of the Fleet of the Ottomans, Nikolaos Mavrogenis, the great-uncle of Manto Mavrogenous and later Prince of Wallachia, came to Gytheio[note 6] and kidnapped him, and he also sent as hostages to the Sultan Abdul Hamid I the two sons of Grigorakis and took him as prisoner to Spetses, where Grigorakis was forced to accept the proposal of the Ottomans.[2][5]

Relationships with the French

Marathonesi from the "Voyage de Dimo et Nicolo Stephanopoli en Grece" (1800)

In 1798, after the departure of the Russians, Grigorakis decided to turn to the French, sending a letter to Napoleon Bonaparte with Demetrio Stefanopoli, writing to him that he would allow the mooring and supply of French ships in Mani.[10] Bonaparte sent a reply letter with Stefanopoli, in which he accepted the agreement.[16][17] Grigorakis sent to Bonaparte his son Pierros Grigorakis, major of the Imperial Russian Army. Pierros fought in Italy, where he distinguished himself and was wounded, but won Bonaparte's regard, who gave secret instructions to Demetrio Stefanopoli to meet all the representatives of the Greek areas, but Grigorakis suggested that Demetrio stay in Mani and safely meet everyone from there. Indeed, he did, and later, in 1801, Grigorakis was supplied with gunpowder by Bonaparte.[16][18]

The Ottomans soon realized that something was wrong and they decided to attack Grigorakis, sending three ships to the port to disembark strong army forces, while at the same time attacking, encircling Mani with their armies from Mystras and Vardounia. Grigorakis convened a war council, were Demetrio also participated, and decided to resist with a direct counterattack from many points with small army units.[19] Although he had only 1,000 men at his disposal, the Ottomans suffered heavy casualties and retreated to Mystras and their ships, so the counterattack had a successful result.[20] After this fact, in 1798, the Ottomans had Grigorakis replaced as bey with Panagiotis Koumoundouros.[5]

Demetrio Stefanopoli was thrilled with Grigorakis' strategic skills and the way Maniot people fought, informing Bonaparte for all these, who agreed to launch a French-Turkish war in the region, but the new bey Koumoundouros did not agree with Grigorakis and the war never happened.[20]

In 1803, the 2nd Ottoman invasion of Mani was launched, with the Melissi castle almost destroyed by cannonballs from the Ottoman fleet, because Grigorakis was supplied again with gunpowder by Bonaparte,[15] although the supplies were for Zacharias Barbitsiotis.[20] Grigorakis resisted in the castle of Cranae, which the Ottomans could not demolish, despite the 2,000 cannonballs thrown at there, but before the Ottomans retreat, Georgios Voulgaris from Hydra gave them a plan of political victory, after he managed to take by his side the cousin of Tzanetos, Antonis Grigorakis, with the promise to appoint him as the new bey of Mani.[21]

Right away, the Ottomans accused Koumoundouros of tolerating piracy and suspicious foreign agreements, so they replaced him with Antonis Grigorakis, now Antonbey, whom they asked to arrest Tzanetos and Pierros Grigorakis. The Ottoman troops in the area were numerous and the local Capetaneoi preferred not to take the risk to attack Antonbey, so Tzanetos fled to Zakynthos to retaliate later. However, the situation worsened when Patriarch Callinicus V and all the dignitaries turned against the clan of Grigorakis, even Antonbey, confiscating the towers and all their property. Pierros came from Paris to Zakynthos with the permission of Emmanouil Papadopoulos to gather an army under the Russian flag and campaign to Mani. As soon as the Ottomans found out this, they forgave them both and, in 1806, Tzanetos and Pierros successfully returned to Mani.
[20][21]

In 1813, Tzanetos Grigorakis died in his castle at Mavrovouni village.[1][10]

• "Grigorakis, Tzanetos". A Dictionary of Universal Biography (in Greek). Vol. 3. Athens: Ekdotike Athenon. 1983. ISBN 960-213-115-2. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
• "Grēgorakēs". The History of the Greek People (in Greek). Vol. 11. Athens: Ekdotike Athenon. 1975. pp. 94–95, 408–410, 423. ISBN 978-960-213-100-8. OCLC 636806977. OL 18546042M.
• "Grēgorakēs 2.". Great Soviet Encyclopedia (in Greek). Vol. 8 (3rd: Greek ed.). Athens: Academos. 1978. p. 382. OCLC 5831425.
• Greenhalgh, P. A. L.; Eliopoulos, Edward (1985). Deep into Mani: Journey to the Southern Tip of Greece. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-13524-2.
• Karampinis, F. & Vafas, K. (1989) [1858]. "Tzanetmpeus Kapetanakēs Grēgorakēs". Historikai alētheiai symvantōn tinōn tēs Manēs (in Greek). New York: Library of Congress. Retrieved 9 May 2020.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Roumeliotis, Ioannis (2002). Ηρωίδες της Λακωνίας και της Μάνης Όλης 1453–1944 (in Greek). Areopolis: Adouloti Mani. ISBN 978-960-87030-1-8.
• "Biography of Tzanetos Grigorakis" (in Greek). Mani Org. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
• "Kastanitza-Klefturia" (in Greek). Mani Org. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
• "Goulades castle". Kastra EU. Retrieved 8 May 2020.