25 September 1849: Dies Theodoras the Turkophagous, a leading figure of the 1821 Greek Revolutiontranslated

Theodore Stamatelopoulos was a distinguished military commander and a leading figure of the Greek Revolution of 1821, known by the pseudonym Turkophagous. He was born in 1782 in the village of Tourkolaka in Megalopolis and was the son of klepht Stamatelos Tourkolaka and Sophia Karoutsou, sister of Kolokotronis's wife Theodora. Another version states he was born in 1784 in the village of Nedousa in Messenia. At the age of eleven, he left home with his father’s group and later joined the body of the chief klepht Zacharias Bambitzios, whom he eventually married to Angelina.

His bravery and physical attributes led him in 1805 to Zakynthos under Russian rule at that time. There, he enlisted in the Russian army, fighting Napoleon in Italy. Later, he returned to Zakynthos to serve the French, who had taken the island. On October 18, 1818, while in Kalamata, he joined the Philiki Etairia. With the valiant Theodoros Kolokotronis and Papaflessas, he contributed to the preparation of the National Uprising and on March 23, 1821, entered Kalamata together with other military leaders.

From the beginning, he was involved in the strategic plans of...