This year marks 200 years since the three victorious battles – at Verga, at Diros, and at Polyaravos – fought by Maniot forces against the Turco-Egyptian troops, when they attempted to invade Mani from three different directions and conquer it. The heroic resistance of our ancestors, organised into combat groups, but also including hastily armed elderly men and women, prevented these invasions into Mani and overturned the intentions of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt for the complete occupation of the Peloponnese and permanent dominance over its land, as had been agreed with the Turkish Sultan. Given that bicentenaries of major historical events constitute anniversaries of a special character, and are therefore celebrated with grandeur throughout the world, the question arises: how do the authorities in charge (the state administration, the regional administration and the local government) intend to organise the 200th anniversary of the Maniot Victory Battles of 1826 and, above all: what specific weight do the two municipalities (δήμοι) of Mani —which represent the only organised collective expressions of the Maniοt region during the modern era— give to this bicentennial in their priorities?  Will this special commemoration once again be an opportunity for routine public events, or will it become an opportunity for reflection and a strong push regarding those substantive actions that we should have implemented, so that those battlefield epics of our ancestors might serve as a constant point of departure for reconsideration and as a continuous transmission of a timeless message to all, about how freedom is safeguarded?

We, the non-profit association MANIOT SOLIDARITY and the monthly newspaper it publishes, within our limited means, have started actions very early, since the summer of 2025, with the aim of raising awareness among the authorities in charge, starting with the most neglected anniversary, that of the Battle of Polyaravos, which for many years has been celebrated far from the site of the battle, on the opposite hill and at the small chapel of Panagia, while the parish church of the settlement is in danger of collapse! (The letters we sent to the MPs of Laconia, to the Mayor of East Mani, and to the Bishop of Mani are posted on our website www.maniatiki.gr, in a special folder entitled: 200 YEARS SINCE THE MANIOT VICTORIES OF 1826. In the same folder we will also include any further awareness-raising actions we undertake). However, it is not only necessary to highlight the site of the Battle of Polyaravos, through a) the opening of a road to the settlement where the three-day battle was fought, b) the repair of its parish church, and c) the upgrading of the celebration of Polyaravos battle to one of regional character; it is also necessary to carry out projects to highlight the sites of the corresponding battles at Diros and Verga.

On the seashore of Diros, at the site of the decisive battle, a magnificent monument was erected 20 years ago, created following a donation by the Mitsakos merchant family and materialised under the care of Professor Grigoris Skalkeas. The placement of the monument signifies an obligation to transfer the festive events from the square of Pyrgos to the seashore beyond the Diros Caves, following the preparation of a suitable area. An important step in this direction has been taken with the establishment of a “performance” reenacting the Battle of Diros against the landing forces of Ibrahim, which was established a few years ago and takes place on the afternoon of the eve of each anniversary. But this is only a first step toward transferring the site of the main festive events to the area where the main battle took place.

Anyone who participates in the annual commemorative events for the Battle of Verga feels uncomfortable due to the disproportion between the height of the statue of the Maniot warrior and the narrowness of the space it overshadows. We made an earlier proposal to the then Mayor of Kalamata to widen the space where the events are held, at least through the preparation of a small technical study and the implementation of a minor technical project to cover the neighbouring small stream and thus expand the area for the festive events. It was received positively, but did not proceed to implementation. Characteristic, moreover, is the fact that, in order for the urban planning study of the settlement of Verga (promoted by the Municipality of Kalamata for 30 years now) to be completed, the Council of State (Συμβούλιο της Επικρατείας), during the preparation phase of the relevant Presidential Decree, recently made an observation that the Wall of Verga, from which the armed Maniots confronted the Egyptian cavalry, should first be registered as an archaeological site with a Protection Zone. The implementation of this order of the Supreme Court, by the archaeological service of the Prefecture (Αρχαιολογική Υπηρεσία Μεσσηνίας) and the Municipality of Kalamata (Δήμος Καλαμάτας), could make this monument accessible to the general public, as over time it has become inaccessible.

The historian Dikaios Vagiakakos, within the framework of a major pan-Maniot cultural event two decades ago, had submitted a proposal to establish events under the title “Victories” (Νικητήρια), which would include annual Pan-Maniot celebrations, held in rotation at each of these battlefields, combined with an annual athletic running race to and from the three battlefields (Verga, Diros, Polyaravos).

We, as a minimum debt of honour to those who played the leading roles, with the limited means at our disposal, will undertake and continue to promote during the coming period actions to raise awareness among the numerous and dispersed Maniot community, so that the bicentenary of the Maniot epics of 1826 may lead both to an upgrading of the celebration sites and substantiation of the events, with the aim of extending their historical memory over time.

THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Mani, closed off until only a few decades ago, now finds itself subject to the many forces unleashed by its recent opening, forces that have brought wealth and new inhabitants, but also foreign customs and imported ways of life. And yet there remains one powerful element, permeating its entire historical horizon and stretching into the future, drawing strength from the deep roots laid down over the previous five centuries of struggle for independence and self-governance: the quality of generousity or magnanimity (ευψυχία) or which, starting with the pursuit of individual and family prosperity, expands naturally into a love for the region and its people.

The paths of magnanimity in the years when Mani was sealed off from the outside world were simple and unobstructed in their expression through practical works and tangible results. Now, in the open horizons of the modern era, magnanimity must contend with difficulties, if it is to manifest itself in ways demanded by the very roots that nurtured it. Along with the money, many foreign models and behaviours entered our region, and they tend to separate the shared impulse toward individual advancement from the broader prosperity of the region itself. In a geographical space long marked by limited natural and economic resources, as ours was for many centuries, the tendencies toward nouveau riche lifestyles were non-existent, and any economic differentiation among the members of the community was particularly limited. To some extent, of course, these constraints persist in the modern era owing to the extreme fragmentation of land – which today is valuable in many ways – thus preventing the accumulation of substantial wealth through the sale or economic exploitation of large areas for tourism investments.

The problem reveals itself chiefly in the inability to form strong centers capable of implementing common actions of supra-individual benefit – actions whose positive results could then diffuse across the wider region. The long-standing policy of the central state to weaken Mani’s administrative unity – by partitioning it into two Prefectures (νομοί), by truncating and later abolishing its two provincial administrations, and by cutting and tailoring the new local government units according to petty political expediencies – constitutes the starting point of the erosion of the traditional tendencies toward collective undertakings of generalised benefit.

There is, however, another traditional inclination toward pettiness (μικροψυχία) – which requires strong social counterweights if it is to be confronted when it manifests itself by certain members of the community during efforts to advance common investment programs. We will mention briefly only one such example: the story of the olive-oil processing and standardisation facility in Neochori of Western Mani, built in 1990 by the Agricultural Cooperative with European Community funding and without financial burden on its members. Later machinery and large tanks for processing and storing oil were sold off, and the building was transformed into a brewery, its debts growing year after year, while the olive oil of local producers is sold in bulk at disgracefully low prices. With the two municipalities (δήμοι) now the only remaining living social cells in the region, all hopes for generating results of broad social benefit necessarily are directed toward them. Unfortunately, during the fifteen years they have operated within these administrative boundaries, no noteworthy social outcomes have been recorded – not even from the management of the specialised European Community Program for Mani in 2010, echoing what occurred in the 1990s with the similarly specialised program for our region funded by the European Community.

The social processes by which new residents are assimilated in any region evolve dynamically. The strong assimilates the weaker and integrates them into their own way of life and transmitting their culture to them. In Mani we know this assimilative process well – both through lived experience and historical record. We know that the powerful genetic and cultural foundations of the ancient inhabitants of our land, the Eleftherolaconians, absorbed into the social body the numerous groups of other tribes who migrated here after the medieval period. For the Maniot space, in the modern era, to be once again an assimilator – this time of individuals and groups bearing stronger cultural characteristics who now settle in our region – it is essential that our ancestral magnanimity awaken and overcome our advancing pettiness. Yet the magnanimity of each person, however it manifests, cannot by itself lead to cumulative results. Only through our representatives in the two local government institutions of our region – and through close cooperation between them, purged of petty political motives and ambitions of self-perpetuation in power – can the Mani of the future emerge dynamically as the continuation of the Mani of our heroic ancestors.

THE EDITORIAL BOARD

An increasing number of news reports concerning public contracts, whether they refer to intangible goods or to construction works, have recently appeared in current affairs. The multiple potential approaches to their content provide the opportunity to shed light on their until now silenced aspects which, in many cases, bear unlawful characteristics that reach as far as financial irregularities at the expense of the public, for the benefit of specific individuals or groups involved in the management process, and ultimately for favoured individuals. The fact that the tentacles of these situations reach into the political system with its many versions creates even stronger destabilising tendencies in the social fabric, because this strengthening of the tendencies toward corruption undermines the foundations of social cohesion and of the common course along the path of progress and prosperity.

With the general decline of social morality now confirmed, it appears that the main possibility for dealing with such situations lies in reinforcing the principle of competition among the teams managing the projects carried out through public contracts. Once competitive interests are identified and specified during the drafting of the tendering terms for the projects, and subsequently maintained during the long course of the projects’ development and the monitoring of their social results, it is certain that they will protect public funds as well as the social benefits that the projects’ design aims for.

To avoid theorising, we present a case in which the principle of competitiveness was effectively applied through the formation of competing interests among the teams participating in the implementation of the projects: During the second half of the 2000s, the Ministry of Public Works was headed by George Souflias as minister and Polytechnic Professor Themistocles Xanthopoulos as deputy minister. At that time, the European Union’s priority was the opening of reliable and safe road axes that would bring the peoples of the European Union closer in terms of travel time. The crucial element for this goal to be implemented were the tendering terms of the projects, which would lead to the achievement of the goal through reliable procedures. The key elements of these conditions, which the ministry leadership successfully formulated, were: a) tendering through the process of Public–Private Partnerships (ΣΔΙΤ), with funds from the state, the European Union, and consortia of private companies and banks; b) a complex repayment of construction costs through grants from European Union funds and long-term concessions for toll collection; and c) The inclusion, within the construction cost, of maintenance for the entire duration of the contract.

With this complex set of terms, the construction works escaped the exclusive supervision of the state’s Technical Services, since the Technical Services of the Banks also participated—with indeed a strong capacity for intervention. Thus, a competitive framework was formed between the construction consortia, which sought to reduce construction costs in order to generate higher profits, and the Banks, which sought to optimise the quality of construction, thereby ensuring the safe repayment of the loans they had granted, in combination with the reduction of operating costs during the total time of toll management concession. Ultimately, from these compositions of purpose and conditions for the projects’ implementation, the result was: a) the obligation for quality construction in order to avoid damages that would lead to costly repairs, and b) the smooth operation of the road axes for the benefit of travellers—an element that translates into long-term social benefit.

Elements of a competitive framework in the operation of the construction sector of public contracts were also contained in the same ministerial team’s proposal to create a few, but highly capitalised, public works construction companies that would undertake the execution of projects with reliability and credibility. One of the goals of this initiative was also the linking of construction with the undertaking of long-term maintenance. The proposal was fought by various kinds of interests, among which petty political expediencies and guild mentality are no exception.

Result: instances of poor workmanship have flooded current affairs due to the decline in construction quality, the tolerant legislative framework that sustains these phenomena, and the denial of responsibility for the poor workmanship by everyone—both contractors and supervisors. In our immediate surroundings, we have for years observed how the poor-quality asphalt resurfacing done two years ago on the Kardamyli–Areopoli Provincial Road, on the straight stretch between Stoupa and Agios Nikolaos, is being dealt with. Large potholes have formed on the asphalt in two or three areas roughly in the middle of the roadway, and they still remain in the same condition! Apparently, no one is responsible for carrying out the repair and ensuring safe driving for those travelling by car.

                                                                                                     THE EDITORIAL BOARD