Did you know the story of the Greek heroine Laskarina Bouboulina?
Her History
Descending from a Hydriot family, she was born inside the prison of Constantinople (Istanbul) on May 11th 1771, when her mother, Skevo, visited her dying husband, Stavrianos Pinotsis, who had been imprisoned by the Turks. The arrest and imprisonment of Pinotsis was due to his participation in the Peloponnesian revolution of 1769-70 against the Turks. This revolution, which is known in Greek history as
the Orlof revolution, subsequently failed. At this time Spetses island was almost totally destroyed by the Turks for taking part in the uprising.
After Pinotsis’ death in Constantinople, mother and child returned to the island of Hydra, where they lived for almost four years, thereafter moving to Spetses on the remarriage of Skevo to a Spetsiot captain, Dimitrios Lazarou-Orlof.
From childhood, Bouboulina had a passion for the sea and for ships. She played by the seashore for hours and loved listening to the stories of the sailors and their talk of freedom for the nation, which had been suffering under Turkish occupation for four hundred years.
She was the unchallenged leader among her eight half-brothers and sisters, thus showing from a very early age her strong, almost stubborn character, her courage and her decisiveness. Dark in colouring, untamed and with a regal stature, she married twice, first at the age of seventeen to Dimitrios Yiannouzas and again at the age of thirty to Dimitrios Bouboulis. Life though was very cruel to Bouboulina, and both her husbands, captains of their own ships, died in sea battles with the pirates who were then raiding the coasts of Greece.
Her husband Bouboulis, a real menace to the pirates, was killed during one of the most heroic naval exploits of the time. He was ambushed by two Algerian pirate ships which he simultaneously destroyed and, as described by a historian at the time.
