62
to whom he looked up to in those early days which included: Emanouil Dadaoglou, the
anarchist who led the revolution against King Othon in 1862; Alexandros Sehinas, the
anarchist∕educator who assassinated King George 1 in Thessaloniki on March 18,191358;
and above all, the organizers and participants of the student movement that resisted the
military junta between 1967 and 1974 in Athens. As he explained to me, these
individuals embodied the perfect balance of vision and action: a potent mix of rhetoric
and force, which he felt was the only means of actualizing real social change. While in
England he also read works by Mikhail Bakunin (Bakunin 1916; Bakunin 1990), Tolstoy,
the first Greek anarchist publication in the daily “Light” (Φως) published on September
3rd 1861, and other more contemporary anarchist texts (especially the periodicals
Solidarity and Riot) some of which were passed to him by friends in Athens who had
become involved in anarchist circles. Upon his return Nikos skipped the obligatory
Greek military service making him a draft-evader (αvυπoτακτoς); although Nikos had
somehow obtained official discharge papers: a feat he shrugs off as quotidian and
uninteresting. After a year of considering his options Nikos sought to become involved
with the only group he felt could improve the life of Greeks, the anarchists. As a young,
educated, and energetic individual he moved easily within the organization meeting
evermore influential people and becoming more deeply involved.
For years Nikos wrote rhetoric, tracked media, and helped develop strategy, but
his biggest talent was in organizing public action. In time Nikos became more deeply
involved in this latter aspect of his work necessitating his isolation from his moderately
anarchist friends like those individuals who participated in anarchist action occasionally
58 The assassination made the front page of the New York Times on March 19'h. Of note, Alexandros
Schinas worked in the pantry of the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City before moving to Greece to start
an anarchist school.