We boldly borrowed the excellent text from a friend.
On April 25, 1821, Kehagiabeis of Khurshid Pasha has completed his destructive work in Patras, Vostitsa, Corinth and is outside Argos, ready to level the Greek revolutionaries.
At the hearing of Kehagiabei alone, most Greeks scatter. Few remain to defend Argos and make tambourines in the bed of Haradros or Xeria, a dry river outside the city. Among the defenders is Giannos Giannouzas and his people from Spetses, the brave eldest son of Bouboulina, who together with his mother besieged neighboring Nafplio.
The few and ignorant in the land war, however, defenders of Argos are disbanded by the select and bloodthirsty Turkalban horsemen of Kehayabei. Last is Giannos Giannouzas with his Spetsiotes, who give an epic fight fighting hand to hand. Giannouzas rushes on foot on horseback to Bali Bey, the arrogant and famous Turkalvan, and throws him home. Giannouzas stands up, grabs the kneeling Bali Bey from the sariki and is ready to take his throat, but a Turkalban shoots him in the back and throws him dead. Bali Bey gets up and beheads the dead Giannos Giannouza. The Turkalvans are chanting…
Bouboulina learns the news and after the battle she goes with her bodyguard to look for Giannos. Walking among the dead and wounded, she recognizes her child’s headless body. She takes off the scarf she was wearing in her hair, covers her headless body, hugs it and kisses it. He tries not to bend. She is carried away by the groans of a nearby wounded Turkalvan, who begs for some water. Bouboulina gets up, pulls arrogantly the pistol she always had in her belt and executes the Turkalvan on the spot…
She orders her soldiers to load her child’s lifeless body on the horse. And returning to her grammar, she orders him to write a letter to the political authorities of Spetses with the simple message: “My son is dead, but Argos is in our hands”…
Text: George Th. Prachalias
- Paintings:
Bouboulina and the historical map of Argos with the Gorge (Xeria)
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