Ioannis Kapodistrias (11 February 1776-9 October 1831), known in English as John Capodistrias, was Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire from 1816 to 1822 (succeeding Nikolay Rumyantsev and preceding Karl Nesselrode) and Governor of the First Hellenic Republic from May 1827 to 27 September 1831 (succeeding Andreas Zaimis and preceding Augustinos Kapodistrias). Kapodistrias was the founder of the Greek state and Greek independence, and he was affiliated with the Russian Party. He was assassinated by his rivals in 1831.
Biography[]
Ioannis Kapodistrias was born on the Greek island of Corfu in 1776, and he was born and raised as a nobleman. Kapodistrias was educated at the University of Padua from 1795 to 1797, and he worked as a doctor on Corfu. He became one of the two ministers of the Septinsular Republic when Corfu was organized as a free and independent republic, and he established authority in all of the seven Ionian Islands. As Minister of State, he organized the public sector, putting particular emphasis on education. In 1809, two years after the French put an end to the republic, Kapodistrias entered the service of Czar Alexander I of Russia and became a member of the foreign service, ultimately serving as Foreign Minister from 1816 to 1822. His ideas were a progressive alternative to Klemens von Metternich's aims of Austrian domination of European affairs, leading to Metternich undermining Kapodistrias' position at the Russian court.
In 1822, Kapodistrias took an extended leave of absence from the Russian court to join the Greek independence struggle against the Ottoman Empire, and he toured Europe to rally support for Greece before arriving in Nafplion in 1828. In May 1827, he became "Governor of the Hellenic State", with Nafplion serving as Greece's first capital. Kapodistrias was known to express his feelings towards the other Greek leaders with harsh language, at one point saying that he would crush the revolutionary leaders. However, he re-established military unity, reorganized the military, introduced the first modern quarantine system in Greece, signed the peace treaty that ended the war with the Ottomans, introduced the first modern Greek currency (the phoenix), organized local administration, and introduced the cultivation of the potato to Greece in an effort to raise the living standards of the population.
Downfall and assassination[]
Kapodistrias' murder
By 1831, Kapodistrias' government had become hated by rich and influential merchant families of the Greek islands, leading to the islands rebelling against him. Only the assistance of the Imperial Russian Navy led to the rebellion being crushed, but much of the Hellenic Navy was lost in the process, weakening Kapodistrias' position. The final straw was Kapodistrias' imprisonment of Petrobey Mavromichalis, who had successfully led an uprising against the Turks. On 27 September 1831, Kapodistrias was stabbed to death as he headed to church, with one of the assassins shooting him in the head after he had been stabbed.