Kottas

Konstantinos Christou (Κωνσταντίνος Χρήστου, Bulgarian and Константин Христов, known as Kottas (Κώττας), was an insurgent leader associated first with the pro-Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and later with the pro-Greek irregular fighters during the Greek struggle for Macedonia. Christou was born in the village of Rulja (Greek Ρούλια/Roulia, Macedonian Slavic Руља, now known as Kottas in the Florina regional unit) in 1863 and was president (community leader) of Roulia, from 1893 to 1896. He began anti-Ottoman rebel activity in 1898, and then killed four local Ottoman officers. Later he became one of the first leaders of the Macedonian struggle. A Slavopohone, he had a Greek identity. Kottas initially was a member the IMRO movement, however, he felt deceived after he ascertained the real purposes of the Bulgarian-directed IMRO, against the Greek Macedonians, the day that Marko Lerinski ordered Kottas to kill a Patriarchate priest, he decided to join the Greeks (Hellenic Macedonian Committee). He began to hate Bulgarians and started to fight them. He was sentenced to death by IMRO twice, both times for murders of IMRO members, and was also accused with the pretense of theft. Kottas entered ties with the Greek bishop of Kastoria, Germanos Karavangelis, in order to organize the struggle against the IMRO. His mission was to kill IMRO leader (voivode) Lazar Poptraykov and other leaders, in order to protect Greek civilians, and his troops were funded by Karavangelis. Gotse Delchev had repeatedly pardoned and vainly tried to reform Kottas before he was finally outlawed by the IMRO, after entering the service of the Greek bishop. At the time of the Ilinden Uprising (1903), when all old wrongs were forgiven and forgotten in the name of the common struggle, Kottas had been received back into IMRO, ironically enough, mainly thanks to the insistence of the same voivode he set out to kill, Lazar Poptraykov. During the uprising, Poptraykov had been wounded and had taken refuge with Kottas, who used the opportunity to kill him and present his head to the Greeks. The Greek bishop was however wary of him on account of his Slavic mother tongue and hatred of Turks. His behavior towards the Ottomans was an obstruct to the Greek tactic, because many times, it was necessary to co-operate with the Ottoman officers against the Bulgarian enemy (IMRO).

Kottas, a veteran klepht (brigand), kidnapped Petko Yanev, a Bulgarian seasonal worker recently returned from America, and tortured him and his family until he had extracted all the savings, which Yanev had brought. Yanev, however, complained vigorously to the vali Hilmi Pasha himself, and to foreign consuls. The British consul pressed the vali to act, and eventually Kottas was arrested by the Ottomans. He was executed by hanging in 1905 in Bitola. His last words before hanging, in his native Lower Prespa dialect, were "Zhivja Gritsja. Slovoda ili smrt!" ("Long Live Greece, Freedom or Death!"). The loss of Kottas was detrimental to the Greek movement. After his death, a lot of volunteers from free Greece came to Macedonia to participate in the struggle, beside the locals. He has surviving descendants in Greece today. He used to say: "The difficult part is to kill the bear first, and then, it is easy to share the skin."