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Rigas Feraios or Rigas Velestinlis (Greek: Ρήγας Βελεστινλής-Φεραίος, Serbian: Рига од Фере, Riga od Fere; 1757—June 13, 1798) was a Greek writer and revolutionary, an eminent figure of Greek Enlightenment, remembered as a Greek national hero, the first victim of the uprising against the Ottoman Empire and a forerunner of the Greek War of Independence.
He was born in the village of Velestino, Thessaly, near ancient Pherae (from which Feraios derives).
He learned about the French Revolution and came to believe something similar could occur in the Balkans, resulting in self-determination for the whole population in the peninsula; At this time he wrote the famous Greek version of La Marseillaise, the anthem of French revolutionaries.
Around 1793, Feraios went to Vienna, the capital of the Austrian Empire and home to a large Greek community. While in the city, he printed pamphlets based on the principles of the French Revolution, including Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and a New Political Constitution of the Inhabitants of Rumeli, Asia Minor, the Islands of the Aegean, and the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia — these he intended to distribute in an effort to stimulate a Pan-Balkan uprising against the Ottomans. He also published many Greek translations of foreign works, and collected his poems in a manuscript (posthumously printed in Iaşi, 1814).
He was betrayed by Demetrios Oikonomos Kozanites, a Greek merchant,[3] 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). 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 rescue by Feraios' friend Osman Pazvantoğlu. Their bodies were thrown into the Danube River.
A statue of Rigas Feraios stands at the entrance to the University of Athens. There is also a statue of his in Belgrade at one end of the street that bears his name (Ulica Rige od Fere).
Rigas Feraios was also the name of the youth wing of the Communist Party of Greece (Interior), in honour of the poet. A split of this youth wing was Rigas Feraios - Second Panhellenic.
Rigas' image is depicted on the 0.10 Euro Greek coin.
Photos by Julian Venter
Photos by Nikos Pallis