Anastasios Karatasos (1764 – January 21, 1830)

Anastasios Karatasos (1764 – January 21, 1830)

From the village of Dovras north of Veria in Macedonia, he was a military commander during the Greek Revolution and one of the most important fighters of the revolution from Macedonia.

Karatasos was a Klepht operating in Macedonia in the late 18th century. By the time of the Greek Revolution in 1821 and inspired by the leader of the revolution in Macedonia Emmanouel Pappas, who had initiated a revolt in Chalkidiki in 1821, Karatasos was inspired to do the same.

In response to the continued sacking, looting and raiding of villages in western Macedonia by the Turk-Albanian hordes, Karatasos led a revolt, along with other Macedonian revolutionaries Zafeirakis Theodosiou and Angelos Gatsos, in the town of Naousa in 1822.

After liberating the town, Karatasos and his men defended the town against several Ottoman attempts to recapture it. Finally, after receiving thousands more re-enforcements, bringing their total number to 20,000, the Ottomans broke through and destroyed the town, massacred civilians, raped women and kidnapped children.

Karatasos managed to save himself and his family and by 1823 he was continuing to fight the Turks, first in Thessaly and then in Sterea Ellada and the Peloponnese. He dies in Nafpaktos in 1830.