(Written by the Unione degli Istriani, taken from the article “A falsare la storia ci si mette ora anche il Capo di Stato sloveno. Il caso tragicomico di Giovanni Capodistria a Lubiana”, April 23, 2021.)
Ioannis Kapodistrias, Founder and 1st Governor of Greece
Descended from an Italian Istrian family of the Republic of Venice
Originally from Capodistria in Istria (today Koper, Slovenia)
The lack of history and culture of a country can really cause delusions, especially in the case of a new state like Slovenia which wants to place itself on an equal pedestal to a universal colossus like Greece.
Yesterday, on Thursday, April 22, 2021, the President of the Republic of Slovenia, the unparalleled Borut Pahor, our neighbor, once again went about robbing the history and culture of others – our culture and history – during his meeting in Ljubljana with the President of the Hellenic Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou, elected just over a year ago.
Sakellaropoulou's state visit, the first abroad since she took office, began with military honors in the elegant Congress Square, followed by the exchange of honors in the Presidential Palace.
So far so good.
A tragicomedy, however, took place immediately after, when the two Presidents began a long conversation: welcoming his guest, Borut Pahor, evidently feeling inadequate, clumsily decided to start his speech by reviewing the long history of Slovenia and its long cultural relations with Greece.
“Long cultural relations with Greece”? What could he possibly be referring to?
Well, this is where the unscrupulous robbery occurred: Pahor mentioned Giovanni Capodistria, that is to say Ioannis Kapodistrias, the founder and 1st governor of modern Greece, emphasizing with bogus pride the supposed “Slovenian origins” of his family, which came from the city of Capodistria – our Italian city!
A perfectly-executed cultural robbery at the official State level; a dirty manipulation of history which, unfortunately, is all too common in these parts!
The theft of this important historical figure of Istrian origin – a shameless robbery comparable to the theft of Marco Polo who, across the border, is referred to as “Croatian” merely because he was (possibly) born on the Dalmatian island of Curzola – represents however only the latest incident: two years ago, in fact, President Pahor, during his state visit to Greece, already had the audacity to unveil a commemorative plaque in honor of the “Slovene” Ioannis Kapodistrias.
The second act of this comedy will be staged later today, when a “friendship bench” dedicated to the illustrious historical figure will be inaugurated by the two Heads of State in Capodistria – a city that was stolen from us, and from which thousands of our fellow citizens were expelled.
At this point allow us to explain very briefly who Ioannis Kapodistrias really was.
Born in 1776 in the city of Corfù, the main center of the Ionian Islands (at that time part of the Republic of Venice), Ioannis was the sixth son of Count Antonio Maria Capodistria and Diamantina Gonemi. The Capodistria family (Kapodistrias in Greek) had been in the Golden Book of the Corfiot nobility since 1679 by virtue of an ancestor who had been named ‘count’ by Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy and derived their name from the homonymous Istrian town which the family came from (Vittori was their original surname), while the Gonemi family (his mother's family) had been inscribed in the Golden Book even earlier (1606).
After studying medicine, philosophy and law at the University of Padua, in 1797, at the age of 21, he returned to his native island to practice the medical profession, but, being interested also in politics, he would finally embark on a long diplomatic career which – following the upheavals caused by the collapse of Venice and the subsequent French domination – will lead him first to become Russian plenipotentiary and then to command the militias of the Ionian Islands in 1807, the year of the Ioannina rebellion.
On April 18, 1828, the Greek National Assembly, meeting in Nafplio, elected Kapodistrias as the first president (kybernetes) of Greece, giving him a seven-year mandate.
Dear President Pahor, the history and cultural context of Ioannis Kapodistrias has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with Slovenia!
Inventing, boasting and stealing things from others never bodes well, especially for a Head of State!
