This timeline combines information about the cities in which Ioannis Capodistrias lived, as well as important stages in his career. Thus, the visitor can get a clearer picture of the life of this great European politician, in relation to important events of his time and the places in which he lived.
The Capodistrias family, formerly known as the Vittori, arrived in Corfu from the Venetian held Dalmatian Coast; more specifically, from the Cape of Istria (Capo d’Istria, modern Koper) in the 14th century. The sub-branch of the delle Murra family was raised to the aristocratic title of count by the duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel II, in 1689.
The aristocratic family of Ioannis Capodistrias’ mother, Adamantine Gonemis, came from Famagusta, Cyprus. The family settled permanently in Corfu in 1699, following the Ottoman victory over Cyprus and then Crete.
Ioannis Capodistrias was born in Corfu in 1776, the sixth child of Count Antonio-Maria Capodistrias and the noble Adamantine Gonemis. He was raised in an aristocratic and religious environment, which shaped his principles and beliefs to a great extent. The Ionian Islands at that time were under long-lasting Venetian rule.
He studied medicine in Padua, Italy, like all well-to-do young men of that time in the Ionian islands. Having finished his studies he returned to Corfu, where he practiced as a doctor and surgeon, later as the director of the Ottoman military hospital, until he was won over by politics. Today he is included amongst the 40 most notable graduates of the University of Padua. On the orders of Napoleon, the French had just conquered the Ionian Islands.
The Septinsular Republic, founded in 1800, was the first autonomous Greek state, under the supervision of Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Ioannis Capodistrias held vital governmental positions and became involved in its administration in the areas of defence, trade, and education. However, he would soon have to find work off Corfu, as, with the Treaty of Tilsit (8 July 1807), the Ionian islands were ceded to the imperial French.
Lefkada was one of the islands comprising the Septinsular Republic, the first autonomous Greek state, under Russian and Ottoman suzerainty. In 1807, Ali Pasha of Ioannina moved against the island with Napoleon’s support. For the better defence of the island, the Ionian Senate decided to send the young Capodistrias as temporary military administrator. There, he met many of the Greek chieftains who would later play an important role in the Greek Revolution.
Capodistrias settled in St Petersburg, following an invitation from the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire to serve in the country’s diplomatic corp. He arrived in the Russian Empire's capital in January 1809, following a very difficult journey. He never got used to the Russian climate. However, he did learn Russian and studied in the extensive libraries of the Hermitage and the imperial family. Initially, he was appointed state council to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Capodistrias stayed in Bucharest for three months in 1812, before moving together with the Russian military headquarters to the battlefield, in one of the last theatres of the war against Napoleon. He worked for the signing of the Treaty of Bucharest, which ended the war between Russia and Turkey.
The twenty years of war, starting from the French Revolution until the fall of Napoleon, forced the representatives of the old regimes to seek a mechanism to avoid another European war. As a result, they convened the Congress of Vienna and the Holy Alliance of the great powers was formed. Capodistrias participated in the congress as a prominent member of the Russian mission, and stood out for his ingenuity, dynamism and flexibility.
Following Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo in 1815, Capodistrias, as head of the Russian diplomatic mission, accompanied Tsar Alexander, who appointed him Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs. In Paris, Capodistrias tried to save France from the expansionist tendencies of her neighbouring states. He also helped sign the treaty that created the United States of the Ionian Islands under British ‘protection’.
The victorious powers wanted to establish a representative national assembly in Switzerland, in order to extract the country from the French sphere of influence. The Russian side of the negotiations was undertaken by I. Capodistrias. He made a significant contribution to the shaping of the Swiss constitution which guaranteed Swiss neutrality. In recognition of his achievements, the city of Lausanne and the cantons of Vaud and Geneva named him honorary citizen.
Capodistrias had visited London in 1819, with the Tsar’s permission, to protest against the oppressive policies being exercised by the British High Commissioner Maitland in the Ionian Islands, in breach of the Treaty of Paris. He returned to London in 1827, as the newly elected governor of Greece. The British government did not encourage him to accept his post of governor and rejected all requests for essential financial aid.
In 1821, the leaders of the Holy Alliance decided to meet in Leibach, with the aim of suppressing the uprisings in Spain, South Italy and Serbia. The work of the congress was shaken by news of the Greek Revolution against Ottoman domination. Capodistrias, who was there as Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, managed to prevent the intervention of the European powers to suppress the Greek Revolution, thus protecting the revolutionary flame that had been lit in his homeland.
He tendered his resignation to the Tsar when the latter hesitated to support the struggle of the revolutionary Greeks. He moved to Geneva, where he mobilised European circles in favour of his compatriots, who were fighting for national independence. He met Jean Gabriel Eynard, a Swiss banker and philhellene, who would later support Capodistrias’ efforts to form the Greek state both morally and financially.
He was unanimously elected first governor of Greece by the 3rd National Assembly of the revolutionary Greeks in Troezen. His decision to accept this invitation would bring him into Greek lands for the first time, where he would try to realise his vision of a new nation state.
Aegina had joined the Greek revolution during its first weeks. A whole new suburb was created in the city when refugees from the island of Psara sought shelter there following the terrible destruction wrought by the Ottomans. Ioannis Capodistrias disembarked in Aegina in early January 1828, to take the oath of office as governor in the island’s cathedral and to lay the foundations of the new Greek State.
It had been decided in 1823 that Nafplio would be the temporary seat of the revolutionary government. Capodistrias moved the capital of the Greek state back there in 1829. He embarked on an extended social welfare program, promoted education, land reform and organised the administration and the army. He was assassinated outside the Saint Spyridon church in Nafplio by his political rivals in September 1831.
Following Ioannis’ death, Augustino, his younger brother, temporarily took on the position of governor of Greece. Augustino returned to Corfu in 1832 with his brother’s remains, which were buried at Platytera monastery.
