The Enigmatic Life of the Revolutionary Pirate LABROS KATSONIS

Lambros Katsonis will never return to his beloved Crimea. He will be murdered en-route from St. Petersburg. The circumstances of his death remain murky and unclear to this day. The same applies to his life and deeds.

Russian and Greek historians are still trying to piece together the puzzle of this enigmatic personality, one of the most important actors in the Mediterranean and Aegean during the second half of the 18th century.

Coming from a poor Greek provincial town, he became a Russian naval officer; then, a notorious corsair in the Mediterranean and after that, a ruthless and deadly pirate. Nevertheless, he ended up a Tsarist nobleman and recipient of the Order of St. George.

His turbulent life, full of daring exploits shrouded in the mists of legend, exhibits an unlikely mix of qualities – of naval strategist, pirate, and revolutionary; someone who had already declared his own war against the Ottoman Empire, almost 30 years before the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence.