03/11/2013 by Petros Papapolyviou

The unveiling of the bust of Michalis Stivaros took place in Ioannina on Monday, October 28th. Stivaros was born in Pedoulas in 1892, and was the son of Michalis Stivaros and Pinelopi Chatzitheodosi. He was named Michalis after his father passed away a few months before his birth. His family was a branch of the Papachristodoulos Leventis family from Lemythos, from which Archbishop Kyprianos II, Archimandrite Makarios Myrianthes (later Archbishop Makarios II), the Myrianthopoulos brothers, and the families of Evélthontos Schiza and Anastasiou G. Leventis descended. He graduated from the Semi-Gymnasium of Limassol (1910) and the Pancyprian Gymnasium (1911) and enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Athens. On October 6, 1912, a day before the other Cypriot students in Athens, he voluntarily enlisted in the Greek army and was placed in the 1st Battalion of the Independent Cretan Regiment. His unit left for the mainland front on October 23, 1912. There, together with the other Cypriot students, he fought in the deadly battles of Peston and Aetorachi.

According to the official records of the Ministry of Defense, he was killed in Bizani on December 5, 1912, but the date is likely incorrect, with the more probable date being December 16th. For a long period in Cyprus, his mother considered him missing. His name is engraved on the memorial column of the fallen students of the Semi-Gymnasium of Limassol (now in the courtyard of the Laniteio Gymnasium), on the memorial column of the fallen students of the Pancyprian Gymnasium, and on the memorial column of the fallen students of the University of Athens.

His bust in Ioannina was placed by the "Athanasios Ktoridis" Foundation and the Stivaros family. They also erected a similar bust of Stivaros in Pedoulas, at the modest monument to the Cypriot Balkan War fighters, in the courtyard of the Chapel of the Holy Cross.

In Ioannina, the city of legends, Stivaros' bust was placed in the lakeside park of Katsari, almost opposite the island of Kyra Frosyni, next to the bust of the Mayor of Limassol, Christodoulos Sozos, who was also killed while volunteering at Bizani in December 1912, fighting for the freedom of the people of Epirus. This created a unique "Cypriot corner" on the shores of Lake Pamvotis, which must be visited by Cypriot travelers and honors its initiators and the Municipal Council of Ioannina, which unanimously accepted the placement of the bust, as part of the celebrations for the centenary of the liberation of Epirus.

The only surviving relic of the twenty-year-old volunteer from Pedoulas is an excerpt from a letter he sent to his former teacher in Limassol, Cleovoulos Myrianthopoulos, which was previously published. In it, Stivaros writes after his enlistment in the Greek army in October 1912: "What I feel these days since becoming a soldier, I have never felt before. I feel that my body and soul have doubled. I am tireless despite the heavy equipment. The Cypriot student group is sure to honor both the homeland and our parents and the educational institutions from which we learned the great patriotism."

Today, a hundred years later, the "homeland, parents, and educational institutions" are still searching for figures like Sozos and Stivaros, for guidance and hope...

Published in "O Fileleftheros" newspaper on November 2, 2013.