Anastasios Papadopoulos (1896 – December 2, 1922)

Anastasios Papadopoulos (1896 – December 2, 1922)

Also known by his pseudonym Kotza Anastas, from Herakleia in Pontos, he was a Greek warrior and chieftain during the Greek resistance against Turkish conscription, atrocities, massacres, ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Greeks of Pontos.

Grandson of the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Amasieia and from a large farming family in Pontos, he like many of the young Greeks of Pontos, were mislead into joining so called “labour battalions”, which were essentially Turkish death camps, where they put Greeks to work, for no money, food or water and used them until they perished.

Anastasios Papadopoulos, with many other young Greeks, would flee these camps and join up with Greek guerrilla groups who were organised in the Mountains.

At the age of 20, Papadopoulos became leader of his own group of fighters, the Turks meanwhile, continued burning Greek villages to the ground, raping and killing Greek civilians, while taking many as slaves.

Under Anastas’ watch, many Greeks were saved and protected by him and his ever growing force, successive Turkish armed groups, tried multiple times and were always defeated by Anastas and his men, throughout late 1921 and most of 1922.

These successive Turkish military failures, cause them to come to an agreement with Anastas, for the safe removal of the Greek women and children being holed up in the Mountains.

But during this supposed period of amnesty, the Turks attacked Anastas, murdered him and then beheaded him, placing his severed head on top of a telegraph pole in the village of Ezenous.

For the cowardly barbarian genociders, Kotza Anastas was their worst nightmare, for the Greeks of Pontos, he was the symbol of resistance and salvation.