Ioannis Filimon ( el, Ιωάννης Φιλήμων; 1798/99–1874) was a 19th-century Greek historian, militant journalist and publisher of the newspaper ''Aion'' for more than fifteen years, from 1838 up to 1854. He also participated actively in the

Greek Revolution The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829. The Greeks were later assisted b ...

of 1821. His work entitled "Essay on the history of Filiki Eteria" was first published in 1834, a fact that makes Filimon one of the first historians of modern Greece. For the first time in 1834, Filimon, intending to write a general history of the Greek Revolution, will try to unfold the history of this secret revolutionary organization, in order to emphasize its leading role in the conception and dissemination of the idea of freedom and to restore its forgotten relationship with the Revolution of 1821. Although he had managed to gather several sources, he stated that they were not enough to write a true story of Filiki Eteria. Τhe above mentioned authorial writing of Filimon is a reference work on the history of Filiki Eteria and has been a very important source of information for the memoirists and historians of the Greek Revolution.

Biography

Ioannis Filimon was born in Constantinople in 1798 or 1799. His father came from Thrace and practiced in Constantinople the profession of painter, while elsewhere it is mentioned that he was of Cypriot origin. He studied at the Great School of the Nation and he also learned typography while working at the Patriarchal Printing Office and typesetting the first volume of the Ark of the Greek Language. At that time, he also learned the Turkish language. According to a tradition, Filimon, being a refugee child himself, found shelter in the house of the Ypsilantis family in Constantinople. With the help of the Ypsilantis family, young Filimon acquired a high education.

His action in Revolutionary Greece

In October 1821 when he arrived in the Peloponnese from Constantinople, he served as the secretary of Dimitrios Ypsilantis, with whose family he had been connected for a long time. In 1825 he entered the service of the Mavromichalis family, and returned to the service of Dimitrios Ypsilantis as the secretary of his staff until 1829. While he was in the service of Ypsilantis, he witnessed the failed siege of Nafplio (December 4, 1821) and the surrender of Acrocorinth by the Turks on January 14, 1822. He fell ill with typhus and was unable to accompany Ypsilantis in his campaign to Eastern Greece in 1822. Thus, after recovering, he was hired as a secretary of the Executive Authority by Theodoros Negris and copied the first Constitution of Greece which had been voted by the First National Assembly. Two months later, he went to Fthiotida to meet with Ypsilantis and then they returned together to Tripoli, where D.Ypsilantis took over as President of the Parliament. During the invasion of Dramalis in Peloponnese (July 5, 1822), he provided Kolokotronis with accurate information about the forces of the enemy's vanguard but also about the fortress of Argos Larissa, which was empty and so he could occupy it. He became the chief secretary of Dimitrios Ypsilantis, while from July 16 to July 19, 1822, his life was in danger in the battles against Dramalis. He worked as a secretary in the government of Georgios Kountouriotis and in the spring of 1825 as a secretary of P. Mavromichalis.

Filimon in the Kapodistrian period

Filimon declared himself uninvolved in all the anti-Kapodistrian unrest while until the beginning of 1831 he enjoyed the trust of the Mavromichalis family. Kanellos Deligiannis informs us that he was willing to collaborate with Petrobeis Mavromichalis for the best organization of the opposition in Mani. Deligiannis states that then Filimon resiled and betrayed Mavromichalis. In fact, a proposal was made to Filimon to publish an anti-government newspaper, but he refused. This is inferred by the fact that, as he confesses, he had joined the pro-government camp and he had also submitted a report to the Governor regarding the deteriorating internal political situation and how to overcome it. But the main reason was that he wanted to cooperate more actively against the opposition by publishing a pro-government newspaper. Filimon agreed with Kapodistrias that a precondition for the smooth functioning of the parliamentary regime was the distribution of national lands to the landless. However, there were obstacles that delayed this development. More specifically, the border demarcation of the new state had to be preceded so that these estates could be distributed to the landless after the assessment of the demographic situation. The accusations against Kapodistrias had to be refuted, which is why he proposed to Augustine Kapodistrias the publication of a newspaper entitled The Eirinikos, at the end of March and the beginning of April 1831.

Death

He had had

hemiplegia Hemiparesis, or unilateral paresis, is weakness of one entire side of the body ('' hemi-'' means "half"). Hemiplegia is, in its most severe form, complete paralysis of half of the body. Hemiparesis and hemiplegia can be caused by different med ...

since 1870. He died in Athens on January 1, 1874. He was buried the next day and was awarded the honors of a Major of the

Royal Phalanx The Royal Phalanx ( el, Βασιλική Φάλαγξ) was a military body composed of veteran officers of the Greek War of Independence, established on 18 September 1835. The Phalanx entailed military garrison duties, but mostly it was an honorifi ...

Writings

* Ioannis Filimon
Essay on the history of Filiki Eteria (Society of Friends)
Nafplio, 1834. * Ioannis Filimon
Essay on the history of Filiki Eteria
Institution of the Greek Parliament about the parliamentary system and democracy. Athens, 2021 * Ioannis Filimon (1859–1860)
Historical essay on the Greek Revolution
3 volumes (information about the publishing of the volumes varies) * Ioannis Filimon (1861)
Historical essay on the Greek Revolution
volume 4. In the first volume of his work, he deals again with the subject of Filiki Eteria (Society of Friends) as, in the meantime, he has managed to identify an unclassified part of the central Archive of Filiki Eteria through investigations and from the confidential relationship he had with Dimitrios Ypsilantis. Filimon does not hesitate to admit his mistake regarding the derogatory judgments he made about Emmanuel Xanthos in his first work, where he accused him of wasting Filiki Eteria's money and of being responsible for Skoufas's death. However, after reading the Apology of Xanthos, he restored the truth with an article in the newspaper Aion (March 19, 1839). * Ioannis Filimon
Short biography of N. Spyliadis by Ioannis Filimon Nafplio
1868, published by K Ioannidis Ioannis Filimon was one of the first historians to collect and publish some Ottoman documents, explicitly recognizing the importance of Turkish archives for writing the history of the Greek Revolution.

References

Bibliography

* * * Despoina Themeli-Katifori (1972)
"Ενέργειες του Ιωάννου Φιλήμονος για την έκδοση φιλοκαποδιστριακής εφημερίδος"
"Actions of Ioannis Filimon for the publication of a pro-Kapodistrian newspaper" Mnimon (Society for the Study of Modern Hellenism) 2: 273–296. * Kalliopi Kotsira
Από τη μυστικότητα της δράσης στη δημοσιότητα της μνήμης, Ο Ιωάννης Φιλήμων και η Φιλική Εταιρεία (Διπλωματική εργασία)
From the secrecy of the action to the publicity of the memory, Ioannis Filimon and the Friendly Society (Diploma Thesis) Athens, June 2013 * Kostas Lappa
Δοκίμιον ιστορικόν περί της Φιλικής Εταιρίας, Ίδρυμα της Βουλής των Ελλήνων για τον Κοινοβουλευτισμό και τη Δημοκρατία
Athens 2021 {{DEFAULTSORT:Filimon, Ioannis Greek MPs 1868–1869 1874 deaths 19th-century Greek politicians Constantinopolitan Greeks People of the Greek War of Independence Greek MPs 1875–1879 Greek MPs 1879–1881 19th-century Greek historians Historians of modern Greece 1798 births Journalists from Istanbul