Location information

Captain Telos Agras

GARGALIANI (Small town) MESSINIA
  In the more recent history of Gargaliani and of the whole nation, the young second lieutenant and Macedonian warrior-leader Captain Telos Agras (Sarantis Agapinos) stuck out. He was born in 1880 in Nafplio where his father, Andreas was working as a judge of a court of the first instance, who immediately registered his son in the municipal rolls of the Platamodas municipality with registration number 103/ 1880 as a citizen of his birth town and his ancestors.
  His mother was the sister of the general Ioannis Papatsonis. He was a second infantry lieutenant having studied at Army cadet. His patriotic soul could not stand the national decline, which followed after the loss in 1897 and he decided to take part in the Macedonian War enthusiastically as a chieftain of Vermio, with the nick name Captain Agras, where he tried with all his strength for the opposition to the Vulgarisation of the Greek citizens in Macedonia, something which the Bulgarian committee was doing systematically using all kinds of terrorism. In the end he died fighting for this important and sacred cause. He suffered hard for two years from privations, deprivation, dangers and malaria in the thick and untrodden reed thickets of the lake of Giannitsa, an endless disease-breeding swamp living in wet reed huts from where he was forced to leave for a while in order to recover. He became the fear of the Bulgarian guerrillas of the Lake and the protector of the Greek villages, a legend in the whole of Macedonia for his heroic achievements. Unfortunately, he attempted a friendly negotiation with the Bulgarian leaders Kasapsef and Slatan, to whom he showed trust and went unarmed, accompanied with just one companion, to a pre-arranged meeting to Vladovo. He got arrested cowardly my their men following their orders and was held up to public ridicule for a week in the Bulgarian villages of Edessa and Karatzova and he was finally hanged with his companion on a walnut tree on the road between Techovo and Vladovo. His grave is in the graveyard of Vladovo and a cenotaph on Egnatia Road in the entrance of Vladovo. He was sacrificed on the 3rd of June 1907 at the very young age of 27. Penelope Delta talks about his activities in detail in her wonderful book "The secrets of the Marsh". His such unmanly and brutal murder strengthened the anti-Bulgarian Macedonian War and caused unquenchable hatred against the Bulgarians to the whole Greek nation and he also made his name Captain Agras known throughout Greece. This national hero has been extolled with poems by the famous poet Zacharias Papantoniou and Marika Pipiza from Constantinople (Trifillian Diary 1908, pg 111).
  The village Techovo had its name changed to Karidia in memory to him and Vladovo, where he was buried is now called Agras.

This text is cited Oct 2003 from the Municipality of Gargaliani URL below

• http://www.gargaliani.gr/english/6en.htm