Ion Dragoumis

Ion Dragoumis (; 14 September 1878 – 31 July 1920) was a Greek diplomat, philosopher, writer and revolutionary.

Biography

Born in Athens, Dragoumis was the son of Stephanos Dragoumis who was foreign minister under Charilaos Trikoupis. The Dragoumis family was a prominent Greek family, which originated from Vogatsiko in Kastoria regional unit. Ion's great-grandfather, Markos Dragoumis (1770–1854), was a member of the Filiki Eteria revolutionary organisation.

Ion Dragoumis studied law at Athens University and, in 1899, entered the diplomatic branch of the Greek Foreign Ministry. In 1897, he enlisted in the Hellenic Army and fought in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897.

In 1902, Dragoumis was made deputy consul in the Greek consulate at Monastir (present-day Bitola). In 1903, he became head of the consulate at Serres and later went on to serve in Plovdiv, Burgas, Alexandria and Alexandroupolis. In 1907, he was assigned to the embassy in Constantinople.

In 1905, during his time as the Vice-Consul of Greece in Alexandria, Dragoumis met and started a love affair with the writer Penelope Delta, who was married to the businessman Stephanos Delta. Out of respect for her husband and children, Dragoumis and Delta eventually decided to separate, but continued to correspond passionately until 1912, when Dragoumis started a relationship with the famous stage actress Marika Kotopouli.

Dragoumis became instrumental in the Macedonian Struggle. In Macedonia, a new Filiki Eteria was founded, under the leadership of Anastasios Pichion from Ohrid, whilst in Athens, the Macedonian Committee was formed in 1904 by Dragoumis' father, Stephanos Dragoumis.

In 1907, he published the book ''Martyron kai Iroon Aima'' (Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Blood), which presented his views on the situation in Macedonia and on what the Greek government should do to more properly defend the Greek element there. During this period, he also toyed with the idea of a Greek-Ottoman Empire, believing that Greeks, already having control of commerce and finance, would also gain political power in such an arrangement.

In 1909, the Goudi Revolt broke out and his father, Stephanos Dragoumis became Prime Minister of Greece. However, the Military League decided later to invite Eleftherios Venizelos to become Prime Minister.

In 1910 he founded collaborating with philologists and writers (Vlasis Gavriilidis, Nikos Kazantzakis, Alexandros Delmouzos, Alexandros Papanastasiou, Manolis Triantafyllidis, Lorentzos Mavilis) the Educational Club (Εκπαιδευτικός Όμιλος), an organization for the promotion of Demotic Greek language, while he was writing also articles in the philological magazine "Noumas" (with the nickname ''Idas'').

When the First Balkan War broke out, Dragoumis travelled to Thessaloniki as an attaché to Crown Prince (later King) Constantine.

In 1915, he resigned from the diplomatic corps; having entered Greek politics as an independent, he was elected to the Greek Parliament for Florina Prefecture.

With the outbreak of the First World War, he was in favour of Greece joining the Entente, but gradually and during the National Schism he disagreed with Venizelos' policy and became hostile towards Venizelists. In 1917 he was exiled to Corsica by the French and Venizelists, from where he returned in 1919.

On 30 July 1920 an attempt was made by two royalists to assassinate Venizelos at the Gare de Lyon railway station in Paris. The next day, 31 July, Dragoumis was stopped by a Venizelist Democratic Security Battalion (Δημοκρατικά Τάγματα Ασφαλείας) in Athens and was executed as a form of payback.

Though her relationship with him ended many years before, Penelope Delta