Rigas Feraios

{{Short description|Greek writer, political thinker and revolutionary (1757–1798)}} {{about|Greek writer and revolutionary}} {{More citations needed|date=August 2021}} {{Infobox philosopher | region = Western philosophy | era = Age of Enlightenment | image = Rigas Feraios 01.jpg | caption = Portrait by Andreas Kriezis (Benaki Museum, Athens) | name = Rigas Feraios | birth_date = 1757 | birth_place = Velestino, Ottoman Empire<br> {{small|(now Greece)}} | death_date = {{death date and age|1798|6|24|df=y|1757}} | death_place = Belgrade, Sanjak of Smederevo, Ottoman Empire<br>{{small|(now Serbia)}} | school_tradition = Modern Greek Enlightenment | main_interests = Popular sovereignty, civil liberties, constitutional state, freedom of religion, civic nationalism | notable_ideas = | signature = Rigas-feraios-signature.svg }}

'''Rigas Feraios''' ({{langx|el|Ρήγας Φεραίος}} {{IPA|el|ˈriɣas fɛˈrɛɔs|pron}}, sometimes ''Rhegas Pheraeos''; {{langx|rup|Riga Fereu}}<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.yumpu.com/it/document/read/8263324/farsharotu-30-tv-radio-makedonia|title=Di iu, di cându, di cari?|first=Nicolas|last=Caracota|magazine=Fârshârotu|volume=6|issue=30|date=October–December 2009|page=3|language=rup}}</ref>) or '''Velestinlis''' (Βελεστινλής {{IPA|el|vɛlɛstinˈlis|pron}}, also transliterated ''Velestinles''; 1757&nbsp;– 24 June 1798), born as '''Antonios Rigas Velestinlis''' ({{langx|el|Αντώνιος Ρήγας Βελεστινλής}}),<ref name="a">[https://www.protothema.gr/stories/article/879877/rigas-velestinlis-feraios-o-prodromos-tis-ellinikis-anexartisias/ Ρήγας Βελεστινλής]</ref> was a Greek writer, political thinker and revolutionary, active in the Modern Greek Enlightenment. A victim of the Balkan uprising against the Ottoman Empire and a pioneer of the Greek War of Independence, Rigas Feraios is today remembered as a national hero in Greece.

==Early life== Rigas Feraios was born in 1757 as Antonios Rigas Velestinlis<ref name="a" /> into a wealthy family in the village of Velestino in the Sanjak of Tirhala, Ottoman Empire (modern Thessaly, Greece). His father's name is believed to have been originally Georgios Kyratzis or Kyriazis.<ref name="karab">[http://www.karaberopoulos.gr/karaberopoulos/rhigas/27.asp Ρήγας Βελεστινλής: Περιπέτειες ενός ονόματος] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100715231432/http://www.karaberopoulos.gr/karaberopoulos/rhigas/27.asp |date=2010-07-15 }}, Δημ. Καραμπερόπουλος, Πρακτικά Διεθνούς Συνεδρίου: Ο Ρήγας Φεραίος Βελεστινλής και οι Βαλκάνιοι λαοί, (Belgrade, 7–9 May 1998)</ref><ref name="Tsonis1">Σταύρος Π. Τσώνης, «[https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-bKdQg7uS19eG5lOVp4dWV3SDg/edit Γριζόκαμπος: Ένα παράξενο χωριό]{{Dead link|date=February 2024}}. (Ιστορία - Κοινωνικός βίος - ήθη - μνημεία - γειτονικά χωριά - γριζοκαμπίτικα διηγήματα - γενεαλογικό δένδρο)», (pdf), Athens 2010, pp. 86-90.</ref> He later was at some point nicknamed ''Pheraeos'' or ''Feraios'', by scholars, after the nearby ancient Greek city of Pherae, but he does not seem ever to have used this name himself; he is also sometimes known as ''Konstantinos'' or ''Constantine Rhigas'' ({{langx|el|Κωνσταντίνος Ρήγας}}). He is often described as being of Aromanian ancestry,<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Detrez |first1=Raymond |title=Europe and the Historical Legacies in the Balkans |last2=Segaert |first2=Barbara |last3=Lang |first3=Peter |year=2008 |isbn=978-9052013749 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=htMUx8qlWCMC&pg=PA43& 43] |publisher=Peter Lang }}</ref><ref name="Clogg28">{{Cite book |last=Clogg |first=Richard |title=A Concise History of Greece |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-1107032897 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=-YELAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA28 28]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Daskalov |first1=Roumen |title=Entangled Histories of the Balkans |last2=Marinov |first2=Tchavdar |publisher=Brill |year=2013 |isbn=978-9004250765 |volume=1 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=FGmJqMflYgoC&pg=PA159 159]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Leontis |first=Artemis |title=Culture and Customs of Greece |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0313342967 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=XBAMAQAAMAAJ&q=Rigas+Feraios+was+of+Vlach+origin 13]}}</ref> with his native village of Velestino being predominantly Aromanian.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Bowman |first1=John S. |last2=Smith |first2=Catherine Delano |last3=Clogg |first3=Richard Ralph Mowbray |last4=Danforth |first4=Loring |last5=Haldon |first5=John Frederick |title=Greece |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Greece/The-intellectual-revival#ref26413 |access-date=4 November 2025 |website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref><ref name="Vangelis44">{{Cite book |last=Calotychos |first=Vangelis |title=Modern Greece: A Cultural Poetics |publisher=Berg |year=2003 |isbn=1859737161 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=bfCtDaKic7gC&pg=PA44 44]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Hüning |first1=Matthias |title=Standard Languages and Multilingualism in European History |last2=Vogl |first2=Ulrike |last3=Moliner |first3=Olivier |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |year=2012 |isbn=978-9027200556 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=HZqBCTDxqcgC&pg=PA158 158]}}</ref> Although his family usually overwintered in Velestino,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kukudēs |first=Asterios I. |title=The Vlachs: Metropolis and Diaspora, Studies on the Vlachs |publisher=Zitros |year=2003 |isbn=9607760867 |location=Thessaloniki |page=250}}</ref> it had its roots in Perivoli,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.valiakalda.gr/istoria.html |title=Περιβόλι Γρεβενών, Η ιστορία |accessdate=2024-02-04 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120503012021/http://www.valiakalda.gr/istoria.html |archivedate=2012-05-03 |url-status=dead |language=Greek }}</ref> another Aromanian-inhabited village.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McNeill |first=J. R. |title=The Mountains of the Mediterranean World: An Environmental History |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2003 |isbn=0521522889 |series=Studies in Environment and History |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=S6wnDwGiERcC&pg=PA55 55]}}</ref> Rigas' grandfather Konstantinos Kyriazis or Kyratzis relocated with his family to Velestino which had been transformed into a Perivoli parish.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.valiakalda.gr/istoria.html |title=Περιβόλι Γρεβενών, Η ιστορία |language=Greek |accessdate=2024-07-20 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120503012021/http://www.valiakalda.gr/istoria.html |archivedate=2012-05-03 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Some historians state that Rigas was a Greek,<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Mackridge |first=Peter |title=Language and National Identity in Greece, 1766–1976 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0199599059 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=mHMqYgP7f0oC&pg=PA57 57] |quote=Rigas came from an area in Thessaly inhabited by mixed Greek- and Aromanian-speaking populations...While it has been claimed...that Rigas was of Aromanian origin...there is no sure evidence to support it and many...scholars today reject it.}}</ref> as Leandros Vranoussis, who assumes that his Greek family was long-time residing in Velestino.<ref name="Vangelis44"/>

According to his compatriot Christoforos Perraivos, Rigas was educated at the school of Ampelakia, Larissa. Perhaps Rigas took lower education there, because it is historically documented that Rigas was educated at the upper school "Ellinomouseion" in the village of Zagora on the mountain Pelion, where the old building of this school still exists and is widely known in the region as the "School of Riga". Later he became a teacher in the village of Kissos, near to Zamora, and he fought the local Ottoman presence. At the age of twenty he killed an important Ottoman figure, and fled to the uplands of Mount Olympus, where he enlisted in a band of soldiers led by Spiros Zeras.

thumb|right|Flag proposed by Rigas for his envisioned pan-Balkan Federation [[File:Rigas Feraios by Hess.jpg|thumb|''Rigas kindling the Greeks' love of freedom'', by Peter von Hess]]

He later went to the monastic community of Mount Athos, where he was received by Cosmas, hegumen of the Vatopedi monastery; from there to Constantinople (Istanbul), where he became a secretary to the Phanariote Alexander Ypsilantis (1725–1805).

Arriving in Bucharest, the capital of Wallachia, Rigas returned to school, learned several languages and eventually became a clerk for the Wallachian Prince Nicholas Mavrogenes. When the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792) broke out, he was charged with the inspection of the troops in the city of Craiova.

Here he entered into friendly relations with an Ottoman officer named Osman Pazvantoğlu, afterwards the rebellious Pasha of Vidin, whose life he saved from the vengeance of Mavrogenes.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} He learned about the French Revolution, and came to believe something similar could occur in the Balkans, resulting in self-determination for the Christian subjects of the Ottomans; he developed support for an uprising by meeting Greek Orthodox bishops and guerrilla leaders.

After the death of his patron Rigas returned to Bucharest to serve for some time as ''dragoman'' at the French consulate. At this time he wrote his famous Greek version of ''La Marseillaise'', the anthem of French revolutionaries, a version familiar through Lord Byron's paraphrase as "sons of the Greeks, arise".{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

==In Vienna== [[File:Alexander Portrait.png|thumb|left|Portrait of Alexander the Great, published by Rigas in his ''Pamphlet'' (1797)]]

Around 1793, Rigas went to Vienna, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire and home to a large Greek community, as part of an effort to ask the French general Napoleon Bonaparte for assistance and support. While in the city, he edited a Greek-language newspaper, ''Efimeris'' (i.e. ''Daily''), and published a proposed political map of ''Great Greece'' which included Constantinople and many other places, including a large number of places where Greeks were minority.

He printed pamphlets based on the principles of the French Revolution, including ''Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen'' and ''New Political Constitution of the Inhabitants of Rumeli, Asia Minor, the Islands of the Aegean, and the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia''&mdash;these he intended to distribute in an effort to stimulate a Pan-Balkan uprising against the Ottomans.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

He also published Greek translations of three stories by Retif de la Bretonne, and many other foreign works, and he collected his poems in a manuscript (posthumously printed in Iaşi, 1814).

==Death== [[File:Калемеград, Кула Небојша, Мај 2011.JPG|thumb|left|The Nebojša Tower, where Rigas was executed]] [[File:Kalemegdan, Ploča Rige od Fere, kula Nebojša, 03.jpg|thumb|Memorial plaque in front of Nebojša Tower in Belgrade, where Rigas Feraios was strangled]]

He entered into communication with general Napoleon Bonaparte, to whom he sent a snuff-box made of the root of a Bay Laurel taken from a ruined temple of Apollo, and eventually he set out with a view to meeting the general of the Army of Italy in Venice. While traveling there, he was betrayed by Demetrios Oikonomos Kozanites, a Greek businessman, had his papers confiscated, and was arrested at Trieste by the Austrian authorities (an ally of the Ottoman Empire, Austria was concerned the French Revolution might provoke similar upheavals in its realm and later formed the Holy Alliance).

He was handed over with his accomplices to the Ottoman governor of Belgrade, where he was imprisoned and tortured. From Belgrade, he was to be sent to Constantinople to be sentenced by Sultan Selim III. While in transit, he and his five collaborators were strangled to prevent their being rescued by Rigas's friend Osman Pazvantoğlu. Their bodies were thrown into the Danube River.

His last words are reported as being: "I have sown a rich seed; the hour is coming when my country will reap its glorious fruits".

==Ideas and legacy== Rigas, using demotikì (Demotic Greek) rather than puristic (Katharevousa) Greek, aroused the patriotic fervor of his Greek contemporaries. His republicanism was given an aura of heroism by his martyrdom, and set liberation of Greece in a context of political reform. As social contradictions in Ottoman Empire grew sharper in the tumultuous Napoleonic era the most important theoretical monument of Greek republicanism, the anonymous ''Hellenic Nomarchy'', was written, its author dedicating the work to Rigas Ferraios, ''who had been sacrificed for the salvation of Hellas''.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Paschalis M. |last=Kitromilides |journal=European Journal of Political Theory |volume=5 |issue= 1| title=From Republican Patriotism to National Sentiment: A Reading of Hellenic Nomarchy |year=2011 |pages=50–60 |issn=1474-8851 |doi=10.1177/1474885106059064|s2cid=55444918 }}</ref>

His grievances against the Ottoman occupation of Greece regarded its cruelty, the drafting of children between the ages of five and fifteen into military service (''Devshirmeh'' or ''Paedomazoma''), the administrative chaos and systematic oppression (including prohibitions on teaching Greek history or language, or even riding on horseback), the confiscation of churches and their conversion to mosques.

Rigas wrote enthusiastic poems and books about Greek history and many became popular. One of the most famous (which he often sang in public) was the ''Thourios'' or battle-hymn (1797), in which he wrote, "It's finer to live one hour as a free man than forty years as a slave and prisoner" («Καλύτερα μίας ώρας ελεύθερη ζωή παρά σαράντα χρόνια σκλαβιά και φυλακή»).

In "Thourios" he urged the Greeks (Romioi) and other Orthodox Christian peoples living at the time in the area of Greece (Arvanites/Albanians, Bulgarians, etc.<ref>[http://www.karaberopoulos.gr/karaberopoulos/b_r1eg.asp] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140316123133/http://www.karaberopoulos.gr/karaberopoulos/b_r1eg.asp|date=2014-03-16}} Thourios Translation to English</ref><ref>[http://fotios.org/node/2180] Article on Thourios and the modern Greek ethnicity</ref>) and generally in the Balkans, to leave the Ottoman-occupied towns for the mountains, where they could find freedom, organize and fight against the Ottoman tyranny. His call included also the Muslims of the empire, who disagreed and reacted against the Sultan's governance.

It is noteworthy that the word "Greek" or "Hellene" is not mentioned in "Thourios"; instead, Greek populations are still referred to as "Romioi" (i.e. Romans, citizens of the Christian or Eastern Roman Empire), which is the name that they proudly used for themselves at that time.<ref>Greeks#Modern</ref>{{Circular reference|date=November 2025}}

Statues of Rigas Feraios stand at the entrance to the University of Athens and in Belgrade at the beginning of the street that bears his name (''Ulica Rige od Fere''). The street named after Rigas Feraios in Belgrade was the only street in Belgrade named after a non-Serb until World War I.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stojanović |first1=Dubravka |title=Kaldrma i asfalt: urbanizacija i evropeizacija Beograda 1890-1914 |date=2017 |publisher=Udruženje za društvenu istoriju |edition=4 |location=Beograd |page=79 |language=sr}}</ref>

''Rigas Feraios'' was also the name taken by the youth wing of the Communist Party of Greece (Interior), and a split of this youth wing was ''Rigas Feraios - Second Panhellenic''.

His political vision was influenced by the French Constitution (i.e. democratic liberalism) <ref>[http://wiki.phantis.com/index.php/Rigas_Fereos] Rigas Feraios</ref><ref name="Clogg28"/><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/NewLiteratur/RigasFeraios.html |title=Rigas Feraios |access-date=2010-04-13 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100530154932/http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/NewLiteratur/RigasFeraios.html |archive-date=2010-05-30 }} Another Rigas Feraios bio</ref>

Feraios' portrait was printed on the obverse of the Greek ₯200 banknote of 1996–2001.<ref>[http://www.bankofgreece.gr/en Bank of Greece] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090328051044/http://www.bankofgreece.gr/en |date=March 28, 2009 }}. Drachma Banknotes & Coins: [http://www.bankofgreece.gr/en/Banknotes/banknote_selection.asp?Value=200 200 drachmas] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071005003410/http://www.bankofgreece.gr/en/banknotes/banknote_selection.asp?Value=200 |date=2007-10-05 }}. – Retrieved on 27 March 2009.</ref> A ₯50 commemorative coin was issued in 1998 for the 200th anniversary of his death.<ref>[http://www.bankofgreece.gr/en Bank of Greece] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090328051044/http://www.bankofgreece.gr/en |date=March 28, 2009 }}. Drachma Banknotes & Coins: [http://www.bankofgreece.gr/en/Banknotes/coin_selection.asp?Value=50 50 drachmas] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090101144109/http://www.bankofgreece.gr/en/Banknotes/coin_selection.asp?Value=50 |date=January 1, 2009 }}. – Retrieved on 27 March 2009.</ref> His portrait appears on the Greek 10 lepta (cent) euro coin.

== In popular culture == Nikos Xydakis and Manolis Rasoulis wrote a song called ''Etsi pou les, Riga Feraio'' (Έτσι που λες, Ρήγα Φεραίο; "That's how it is, Rigas Feraios"), which was sung by Rasoulis himself. Also, composer Christos Leontis wrote music based upon the lyrics of ''"Thourio"'' and Cretan Nikos Xylouris performed the song in the 1970s.

==Works== * ''Anthology of Physics'' (Vienna, 1790) * ''School for Delicate Lovers'' (Vienna, 1790; repr. 1971) * ''Pamphlet'', ''New Map of Wallachia'' and ''General Map of Moldavia'' (Vienna, 1797) * ''A Map of Greece'' (Vienna, 1797) * ''New Political Constitution of the Inhabitants of Roumeli, Asia Minor, the Islands of the Aegean and the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia'', Vienna, 1797, included: ** ''Thourios'' or ''Patriotic hymn'' (poem) ** ''Man's Rights'' (35 articles) ** ''Revolutionary Declaration for Laws and Fatherland'' ** ''Constitution of Hellenic Republic'' (124 articles) * ''New Anacharsis'', Vienna, 1797

==Gallery== <gallery class="center" mode="packed" heights="150"> File:Χάρτα του Ρήγα, Κύρια παράσταση και τίτλος, 1797.jpg|Frontispiece of Rigas's Map of Greece (Charta of Rigas) File:Θούριος-Ρήγας Φεραίος-1797.JPG|"Thourios" print File:Ρήγας.jpg|''Rigas'' by Peter von Hess (National Historical Museum, Athens) File:Ο Ρήγας Βελεστινλής και ο Αδαμάντιος Κοραής υποβαστάζουν την Ελλάδα - Θεόφιλος - 19ος αιώνας.jpg|Rigas and Adamantios Korais helping Greece to stand up. Work by Theophilos Hatzimihail (19th century) File:Rigas Velestinlis memorial (12007921173).jpg|Commemorative plaque for Rigas in Vienna File:Rigas Feraios Belgrade.jpg|Statue of Rigas Feraios, Belgrade Image:Ρήγας Φεραίος, Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών 6627.jpg|Statue of Rigas outside the University of Athens (by Ioannis Kossos) </gallery>

==Notes== {{reflist}}

==References== * {{EB1911 |wstitle=Rhigas, Constantine |volume=23}} * {{Cite book |last=Papadrianou |first=Gianni A. |title=O Rēgas Velestinlēs kai oi valkanikoi laoi |publisher=Philosophikē Scholē Panepistēmiou Veligradiou |year=2003 |location=Belgrade |language=el |script-title=el:Ο Ρήγας Βελεστινλής και οι βαλκανικοί λαοί |trans-title=''Rigas Velestinlis and the Balkan peoples''}} * {{cite book |author=Woodhouse, C. M. |title=Rhigas Velestinlis: The Proto-Martyr of the Greek Revolution |publisher=Denise Harvey |year=1995 |isbn=960-7120-09-4}}

==External links== {{Wikisourcelang|el|Ρήγας Φεραίος|Original works of Rigas Feraios}} *[https://www.hellenicparliament.gr/UserFiles/f3c70a23-7696-49db-9148-f24dce6a27c8/syn01.pdf Scanned original draft of the ''New Political Constitution''] from the collection of the Hellenic Parliament *[http://www.e-perimetron.org/Vol_3_3/Vol3_3.htm Collection of papers dedicated to Rigas Charta, ''e-Perimetron'', Vol. 3, No. 3, 2008] *[http://www.mpa.gr/article.html?doc_id=493291 ''Nebojša Tower will become a historical monument''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041117082834/http://www.mpa.gr/article.html?doc_id=493291 |date=2004-11-17 }} *[https://web.archive.org/web/20071128144504/http://tovima.dolnet.gr/data/D2005/D0123/1neb37b.gif Chalcography] of Alexander the Great by Rigas Feraios, Vienna 1797 * [https://books.google.com/books?id=p3GHlQL9mbAC&pg=PA168&dq=rigas++alexander+great+portrait&sig=KM-hVWWYTEv3xGgCZUY5ZwyyMFQ History of Modern Greek Literature by C. T. Dimaras]

{{Age of Enlightenment}} {{Rigas Feraios}} {{Modern Greek Enlightenment}} {{Greek War of Independence|state=collapsed}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Feraios, Rigas}} Category:Rigas Feraios Category:1757 births Category:1798 deaths Category:Journalists from the Ottoman Empire Category:People from Feres Category:Dragomans

Category:Greek cartographers Category:Greek translators Category:Modern Greek poets Category:18th-century Greek philosophers Category:Greek nationalists Category:Greek political writers

Category:Aromanians from the Ottoman Empire Category:Aromanian writers Category:Aromanian people of the Greek War of Independence Category:Eastern Orthodox Christians from Greece Category:People of the Modern Greek Enlightenment Category:Greek revolutionaries Category:Balkan federalists Category:18th-century executions by the Ottoman Empire

Category:18th-century Greek educators Category:18th-century Greek poets Category:18th-century Greek writers Category:18th-century male writers Category:Assassinated revolutionaries Category:Greek independence activists Category:Greek male poets Category:Greek people imprisoned in the Ottoman Empire Category:Greek republicans Category:Greek torture victims Category:Greeks from the Ottoman Empire Category:People assassinated in the 18th century Category:Stateless nationalists in Europe