“We left the port of Hydra on Friday”. This is the first entry in the logbook of the brig “Leonidas” of the brothers Yakovos and Emmanuel Tombasis, who sailed from Hydra on March 19, 1826 to participate in a naval mission to assist the inhabitants of the besieged Messolonga, shortly before they tried to leave their own. This phrase became the title of a book released at the end of 2022 by the Sofia Foundation. The publication concerns previously unpublished manuscripts. diaries of the ships “Leonidas” and “Themistocles” of the Topazis brothers and supplemented by introductory texts and commentary by Iphigenia Vogiatsis (curator of the permanent exhibitions of the National Historical Museum) and Dimitras Koukiou (deputy director of the EIM). The texts were transcribed by Anna Kandia, curator of the EIM Historical Documents Archives Department.

In addition to the Messolong campaign (March 19 – April 10, 1826), the publication contains the diary of “Leonidas” (October 10-30, 1826) during the Samos campaign, the last stopover of the Ottoman fleet in the eastern Aegean. after the destruction of Kasos and Psara.

“In Trickery”

The book also includes a diary of the Themistocles corvette from the campaign against Volos (March-April 1827) in the context of diverting the attention of the Greek fleet in order to achieve the salvation of the besieged Athens, when most of Central Greece was lost to the Greek rebels. All three diaries keep snapshots of the dramatic moments of the Game. The latter, in particular, represents so far the only source for this mission, with the exception of a few references in the press of the time.

An entry in the ship’s diary dated April 11, 1827 testifies to the prevailing military situation: “We approached Trickery first, until a pistol was fired from the stern and we started a war, other ships soon approached, and steam-powered [σσ. “Καρτερία”]and the war escalated. The enemy, having four batteries in different places, and ships lying on the shore, and several soldiers in the port area, beat us incessantly. […] In this battle from [μεν] no one was killed or injured on our ship. Aris was killed from the ship, and two were wounded, and an excellent English gunner was also killed by a steam engine. And the ships also received a little damage, but not enough damage.

The ships took part in the campaigns of Messolongion, Athens and Volos during the Greek Revolution.

In the “Leonida” diary, each inscribed page is divided by a vertical dividing line into two columns: the left one is thinner, the column is marked with the day and date, while the right one expands the text describing the events. It follows from the form and writing of the text that its author practiced phonetic writing and possessed elementary writing skills. He describes the events in simple vernacular language and uses many nautical terms, idioms and words of Latin origin or Italian Greekisms (all terms are explained with copious and informative commentary footnotes by the curators).

On the other hand, the diary of the Themistocles seems to have been compiled by a highly educated person. His handwriting is calligraphic, edited and orthographically correct, and his language is smooth and clean, interspersed with nautical terms. It is also much more representative of the diaries – or “newspapers” as they were called – of the ships of that time, since it contains three columns: on the left, the hours of the day are marked on the basis of Byzantine clocks, on the second – indications of wind direction with abbreviations, and on the third — the main chronicle of the case. From the research conducted by the curators and from a comparison of the document with another diary of the same ship during the campaign to Alexandria (July 1825), which is kept in the archive of historical documents of the Historical and Ethnological Society of Greece, it turns out that its author is Georgios Skoufos, later Viceroy of Attica and Mayor of Athens in the period 1857-1862.

The diaries were found on the estate of the Tombazi brothers in Farakle, Evia. After the Revolution, having lost their ships and most of their possessions during the Strife, the Tombazi bought Farakla and Mantudi “in partnership” with other Hydrayans – since they “partnered” in their ships – Farakla and Mantudi, where they became economically active. There, the diaries were found by a family member who, after the death of the two brothers, collected their personal belongings and wrote them down.

Picture of events

A reading of the diaries – transcribed as well as in the original, which is listed at the end of the publication – combined with the curators’ introductions for each campaign and their extremely helpful comments on terms, persons and events (which reveal an in-depth knowledge of the subject, primary sources, as well as secondary literature), gets a good idea of ​​the events of the three campaigns. At the same time, he gets an idea about the living conditions of the sailors on the ship, their habits, the conditions of naval battles during the years of the Battle, etc.

The edition is decorated with rich pictorial material and supplemented with an introductory text that tells about the life and work of the “learned Tombazi brothers”, descendants of one of the most ancient families of the Hydra, originally from Vurla in Smyrna.