The Zographos Mausoleum

Christakis and George Zographos: Father and Son

 Christakis  Zographos                        Χρηστάκης Ζωγράφος

 Born 1820 in today’s southern Albania        Died 19 August 1898 in Paris

George Zographos                                   Γεώργιος Ζωγράφος

Born 1863 in Paris                                                    Died 1920 in Athens

Section 4, Number 522

This mausoleum is the largest monument in the First Cemetery and is as shrouded in mystery as it is in scaffolding. We were intrigued. There was no name apparent and its style, not to mention its size, is strikingly different from any other tomb in the cemetery. We investigated further and discovered that it belongs to the Zographos family. Interred within its imposing walls are two men whom we knew nothing about and yet who are both significant pieces in the mosaic that is modern Greek history. 

Their Lives

The Father:

Christakis Zographos: The Benefactor

Born in present day Albania and educated in the Ioannina’s Zosimaia school (set up by the Greek Zosima brothers to aid in the education of Greek students in the Ottoman empire) Christakis went on to join his father in Constantinople in the money exchanging business and quickly rose to be one of the wealthiest bankers in the Ottoman capital. 

The period from 1850 to the 1880s was a golden era for bankers. This was especially true of ones who had forged friendly relationships with the Sultans and were on hand to lend them money on a personal basis. These loans  allowed the Ottoman state to function, the sultans to enjoy their lavish lifestyles, and the bankers, many of them Greek, to become fabulously wealthy – earning interest rates of 12 to 18 percent in those relatively tax free days (tax free for the very rich anyway). His relationship with the Ottoman ruling elite was so close that he gained the nickname Effendi – a Turkish title roughly equivalent to “Sir” and normally reserved for Beys or Pashas.

A Greek Philhellene!

It is likely that Christakis Zographos believed that the Greek population still living under Ottoman rule would remain under Ottoman rule and could thrive there, becoming an important part of a modernized empire. Therefore, great deal of his money was donated for the purpose of the education of Greeks within that empire’s boundaries: mid level schools and a Greek library in Constantinople, endowments to universities in Munich and Paris for Greek studies, and a college in Epirus for teachers of Greek. He believed in the power of education to change lives, Greek lives in particular, and invested his wealth where his convictions lay.

He was also a great benefactor of the Patriarchate in Constantinople, serving on the Patriarchate’s cleric-lay Board and contributing to the education of priests at the Chalki Seminary. 

 Like so many wealthy Greeks in the nineteenth century, Christakis Zogaphos was a cosmopolitan, spending the last years of his life in Paris, a sojourn which certainly influenced the choice of a mausoleum. 

When he died, he was declared a Benefactor of the Greek nation and the Church and his body was brought to Athens. 

The Son

George Zographos: (1863-1920) The Ruler of The Short Lived Independent State of Northern Epirus

That Northern Epirus (now southern Albania) existed for a brief time as a legal entity was news to us and something of an ‘aha’ moment. We had assumed it was an unfulfilled bit of Ioannis Kolettis’ ‘Great Idea’ of Greek territorial expansion when, in fact, it was a part of it that was briefly realized. 

George Zographos completed his studies in Paris and in Germany. Cosmopolitan like his father, he was a citizen of both France and Greece and would eventually become a member of the Greek parliament. Immediately after his studies he occupied himself with looking after his father’s vast land holdings in Thessaly (which had just become part of the new nation), not entering parliament until 1905. He was briefly Minister of External Affairs under the Rallis government in 1909. 

At the end of the Balkan wars he was appointed governor in Epirus by Eleftherios Venizelos after the Greek army had liberated it. But the big powers returned it to Albania under the Protocol of Florence, and the disappointed Greek Albanians made their own move, declaring the Independent State of Northern Albania  (Aftónomos Dimokratía tis Voreíou Ipeírou) on Feb 28, 1914. George Zographos was named its leader with the tacit agreement of the Greek state. This new state lasted long enough to issue stamps:

The Protocol of Corfu in May of the same year confirmed the fait accompli. But the First World War intervened obliterating the Albanian state mechanism as it had existed in 1914 and changing the political climate too. During the long war, Zographos gave up his command of a state that no longer really existed and became once again a minister in parliament as well as a governor of the Bank of Greece. He died in 1920 and was buried in the family mausoleum.

After the Greek debacle in Asia Minor (1922) left Greece’s foreign policy in tatters, the Independent State of Epirus sank without a trace. 

Well, not quite …  

No portion of Greek history, even its spectacular failures is ever forgotten. Many Greeks still believe that Northern Epirus should be Greek. Books have been written on the subject. Golden Dawn, then Greece’s far right neo-Nazi party   now outlawed) , attended vigils outside of the Zographos tomb. Others do today. They consider George Zographos as an icon of their ultra nationalist cause. 

Τετάρτη 17 Φεβρουαρίου 2016

http://esvh1914.blogspot.gr/2016/02/o-e-1914.html

 I like to think that neither Zographos would be very happy with this attention of groups like Golden Dawn.  But, once the living are dead, their legacies can be shaped by admirers or detractors and they must helplessly endure the various epitaphs written for them by those who follow …

The Mausoleum

The mausoleum as you approach the cemetery

You cannot miss this mausoleum. And you should not. It is etched against the horizon as you approach the cemetery’s main gate. Its style is French baroque and resembles, in miniature, Napoleon’s tomb in Paris:

 

As it was...

  Les Invalides

       

Whether or not the comparison with its occupant was intentional is a moot point but note that there is even a small circular railing inside the mausoleum allowing only someone with bowed head to look at the burial chamber underneath – a la 

Napoleon’s tomb:

 

The Opening from Above 

The opening from below 

An elaborate detail on the façade, beautifully executed!

At the cemetery, the only clue to the person(s) inside the tomb is this bust on the western exterior:

                       

                                           

It is an excellent likeness of Christakis Zographos done by one of Greece great sculptors, Demitrios Philippotis.  It was this bust that led us to our discovery of the mausoleum’s occupant.  We could find no reference to the tomb’s architect or, in fact, why it is so abandoned. 

On a bare back wall of the interior a script reads, Today and Forever (Hebrews 13-8). and on a side wall: Vanity, all is Vanity (Ecclesiastes1-12).

Given the tombs present state of dilapidation, this seems like a prophecy come true. Today it sits in semi-ruined splendor, awaiting an architectural savior or, at the very least, its own Shelley to consider the fate of grand monuments dedicated to human ambition…

The Map

Section 4, Number 522