In May 1864, the people of Kefalonia celebrated the Union with Greece. During the lowering of the British flag and the raising of the Greek flag in Union Square, where they planted the Tree of Liberty, everyone was filled with national pride as the first Greek garrison arrived. Thanksgiving services were held, speeches were made before a large crowd that cheered and waved flags.
The Ionian Islands were the first region to be annexed to the newly established Greek state after the completion of the Greek Revolution of 1821, thanks to the Ionian radicals who heroically fought against British colonialism, occupation, or "Protection," as it was officially called. Kefalonia was the cradle of this Radical movement. "The fighting spirit of the Kefalonians could not be restrained, nor could it bow to royal crowns any longer," wrote the local newspapers of the time.
On the day of the Union with Greece, an anonymous chronicler noted, "The English sat in the Ionian Islands for 54 years, 8 months, and 1 day."
The first radicals in Kefalonia made their appearance through proclamations and covert actions and managed to instill the revolutionary spirit in the islanders. Thus, the appropriate currents of awakening the people were created. The lower strata of the rural areas found salvation in liberation from economic impoverishment and exploitation. The farmers of Kefalonia lived in harsh conditions. Historian G. Moschopoulos explains, "As in any socio-political change, the role of the intellectuals is decisive, similarly in the Ionian space. Under the existing conditions, the intellectuals understood their great responsibility towards a people who might have had great potential within them, but awaited certain leading figures to release it." Merchants, artisans, craftsmen, shipowners and sailors, intellectuals, and graduates of European universities, along with the numerous farmers of Kefalonia, formed a united front against the English ruler and became the contributors to the movement.
The tough Kefalonian temperament quickly embraced the radical struggle. "A Kefalonian Radical" enthusiastically declared the journalist, critic, and historian, Gerasimos Mavrogiannis, later admitting in a local newspaper that he was a Radical and that almost everyone in Kefalonia was a Radical. His article in the newspaper was crucial for the history of the movement to take its known course.
In the resistance front, two radicals from Kefalonia, Elias Zervos Iakovatos and Iosif Momferatos, played a leading role. Zervos, a courageous fighter, politician, and journalist, played the most significant role in the struggle for the Union. His comrade had similar characteristics: unyielding, a journalist, incorruptible, an idealist, a romantic.
For the Kefalonian leaders of the movement, freedom was above all. Zervos had emphatically stated in a memorandum to the Ionian Parliament,"where a foreigner reigns, everything is false and shadow, the law is an ambush, justice is a conspiracy, virtue is a crime, freedom is a felony."”.
A published study by the Association of Philologists of Kefalonia-Ithaca states that the movement proclaimed National Independence as a social asset, natural and necessary, as a sacred duty.
“"It was the primary and initial step."”
Dr. Angeliki Giannatou has emphasized in her article that the Radicals were the ones who laid the foundations of the national liberation struggle in the Ionian Islands. As she says, they sought national restoration with social demands and improvement of the living conditions of the islanders. Their slogan was that of the French Revolution for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. And they succeeded. They permeated every form of intellectual and political activity of the islanders.
According to Dr. Giannatou, the first newspapers were also born in Kefalonia in 1849. "The Liberal" and "The Renaissance." The latter marked Greek journalism with its quality. With the democratic pen of its publisher, it sealed radical political visions such as those of equality and a republican democracy.
Zervos, together with Momferatos and the priest Paisios Metaxas, in the first issue of the newspaper "The Liberal," which was published on February 19, 1849, wrote characteristically: "We truly want to become and not just to be called Greeks. We want to unite into one nation, truly free and independent, with the whole Greek race."
Author Giorgos Karampelias notes that "the Ionians fought staunchly to maintain their identity, particularly on religious and linguistic levels. At the same time, participating partly in Western culture or at least developing within its climate, they became the observatory of Hellenism towards the West." He also speaks of the "miracle" of Kefalonian radicalism in the 19th century. And he explains, "The density of social and political struggles and the high intellectual level make the Ionian Islands an exceptionally unique case. The overall contribution of the Ionian Islands to the intellectual movement of the country will be invaluable. Scholars and enlighteners such as the Kefalonian Vikentios Damodos, writers like Terzetsis and Polylas, poets and authors like Kalvos, Solomos, and Valaoritis, politicians like Kapodistrias, will be at the forefront of Greek intellectual life. Here, in the Ionian Islands, an oasis of demoticism will be preserved when the wind of returning to the Attic dialect will blow in the Greek state."
Historically, the role of Kefalonia is not only praised for 1864 and the Union of the Ionian Islands with Greece. The newspaper "The Voice of Pylaros" clearly emphasizes the decisive role of the Kefalonians in the successful outcome of the 1821 Revolution. "Kefalonian shipping showed significant growth. In the decade of the 1810s, it had reached 113 large sea-going vessels!" Many Kefalonian shipowners and captains rushed to participate in the struggle of the Revolution. Archival material shows that the first naval conflict of the 1821 Revolution took place in the Pruth River, led by the brave Kefalonian captain Andreas Sfaelos.
The vision of the Radicals for social change remains timeless. Greece has not seen anything similar, according to historical analysts. It is an exhortation for unity and the confrontation of a peculiar undeclared war, whose forces may not be immediately visible, a war of gradual attrition and corruption. The verses of the Kefalonian poet Georgios Molfetas, inspired by the struggles of his compatriots, are highly instructive: "The young who are reborn must not forget that if they live a free life as Greeks, they owe it to those old champions, who, as prisoners in jails and exiles on rocks, unwavering in their sentiment and conviction, fought and showed the greatness of their island."
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