This year, even in unprecedented and adverse conditions, we commemorate the 200th anniversary of the 25th of March 1821, which historically marks the date of the beginning of the heroic Greek Revolution against the Ottoman yoke. This struggle for the return of the Greek people holds a top place in the popular consciousness and remains a basic source of inspiration, which all Greeks need as a value-based foundation for our national self-awareness and unanimity and as a compass for a worthy path to the future.

There were innumerable heroes, both by name and invisible, who wrote «the great and the many» that «their trisvathi soul» told them, as Solomos characteristically mentions in «The Free Besieged». This unique Greek soul was available to men and women in the great Struggle of our Nation. But in historical memory it seems that the Greek women, who stood brave beside the brave, worthy beside the worthy, and heroines beside heroes, have not been given the honour and glory they deserve. We have a moral duty to pull the Hellenes of the Twenty-One from the margins of history and lead them to the peaks of National Memory. Heroines who fought for freedom and sacrificed themselves so that they would not fall into the hands of the enemy, but also women who gave their property to the struggle and died in conditions of absolute poverty.

Undoubtedly, of course, it was mainly Manto Mavrogenous and Laskarina «Bouboulina» - Pinotsis who were rescued from oblivion and honoured. Manto Mavrogenous (Trieste, 1796 - Paros, 1840), at the beginning of the Revolution, went to Mykonos and stirred up the inhabitants against the Turks. With ships equipped at her own expense, she pursued two hundred Algerians who were ravaging the Cyclades and later fought in Karystos, Fthiotida and Livadia. For the Struggle she disposed of all her property. For her overall contribution, Ioannis Kapodistrias awarded her the honorary rank of Lieutenant General, an honor unique to a woman. After the Revolution, persecuted by Ioannis Kolettis, she returned to Mykonos and in July 1840 she died in Paros, poor and forgotten.

Laskarina “Bouboulina” Pinotsis (Constantinople, 1771 - Spetses, 1825), after two marriages, disposed entirely of a huge fortune to buy ships and equipment for the Greek Revolution. Bouboulina, having already become a member of the Society of Friends in Constantinople and being the only woman to be initiated into it, in the lowest degree of initiation, since women were not accepted, as she returned to Spetses, she secretly bought weapons and ammunition from foreign ports, which she then hid in her house, while she began the construction of the ship Agamemnon, her flagship, with which victorious battles were fought in the national struggle.

Behind these two brilliant heroines, in the background of history, thousands of women fighters sacrificed themselves on the altar of national independence. Many were honoured by the popular Muse. In 1803, about 60 Souliot women, in order to avoid slavery and inevitable rape, decided to end their lives and the lives of their children by falling off the cliff of Zalongo, as recorded in the well-known folk song: «farewell, poor world».

Admirable courage was also shown by the Mesolonghi women «free besieged», who throughout the long siege of the stronghold of western Greece helped in every way in the defence: transporting materials for the fortification works, treating the sick and wounded. When the heroic exit was decided (April 10, 1826), after the terrible famine, many women in men's clothing followed, holding their swords in one hand and their babies in the other, while the unarmed women joined the middle of the column with their children. These women met the same horrible fate as the men of the Exodus, and those who managed to return to the city committed suicide, were slaughtered or captured.

The list of heroines in the struggles for the National Regency is endless and impossible to fit into the framework of an article. However, it is worth mentioning one more time the sceptered Maniatis women, a lesser known but equally brilliant page in the epic of 21. «VICTORY OR DEATH!» This motto was written on the revolutionary flag of Mani with the blue cross. In June 1826, during Ibrahim's second attack on Duro, Mani women of all ages, with harvest scythe, with stones, with sticks, with teeth and even with their nails, fought off the Egyptians! Ibrahim, who had already slaughtered the Mesolonghians, but also Papaflesas with his 300 men in Maniaki, failed completely to subdue the untamed Mani.

HONOR and HONOR to the heroines of the national liberation struggle! There is only one word that fits them “GODS”!