Pavlos “Kapetan Mikis Zezas” Melas

In memoriam

(Greek: Παύλος Μελάς) Hellenic Army artillery officer and Macedonian Stuggle fighter (Μακεδονομάχος). He participated in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 and (under the alias "Kapetan Mikis Zezas", Καπετάν Μίκης Ζέζας) was amongst the first army officers, with tacit government "encouragement", to take leave of absence and join the Greek Struggle for Macedonia. Although he was active for only a few months, he is celebrated as the first Greek officer to fall: Protomartyr (Πρωτομάρτυρας). Son of Michail Melas (Greek: Μιχαήλ Μελάς, 1833 – 17 June 1897), a Greek politician and merchant, who served as Mayor of Athens from 1 October 1891 – 31 October 1894. He married Natalia Dragoumi (daughter of politician Stefanos Dragoumis) in 1892, and the couple had a son and a daughter: Michael and Zoe. His nom de guerre was a combination of their pet names: Mikis and Zeza. With the co-operation of his brother-in-law Ion Dragoumis, the consul of Greece in the then Ottoman occupied Monastir (now Bitola), Kottas Christou, and Germanos Karavangelis, metropolitan bishop of Kastoria, Pavlos Melas tried to raise money for the economic support of Greek efforts in Macedonia. After the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising, he decided to enter Macedonia in June 1904, to assess the situation and to see if there is any possibility of establishing a military unit to fight the Bulgarian Komitadjis (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, IMRO) and the Ottoman Turks. He died on 13 October 1904 after being surrounded by Ottoman forces in the village of Siatista. The village was renamed Melas in his honour, after joining Greece. The exact circustances of his death are subject to much speculation: He died of wounds from Ottoman bullets; he was shot aacidentally by his own men; he killed himself; asked one of his men to finish him off, or was killed by the man on his own initiative. His comrades cut off his head and buried it in the church at Pisoderi, near Florina. His body was handed over by the Ottoman authorities to the metropolitan bishop of Kastoria and buried at the Church of the Taxiarch of the Metropolis. In 1950 his head was reinterred with his body. His widow's remains were exhumed several years after her original burial and reinterred beside him, in accordance with her wishes.

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