History of cyprus

Eoka members list
Makarios
Digenis meaning

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Georgios Grivas

Greek Cypriot army officer and resistance fighter

Georgios Grivas (Greek: Γεώργιος Γρίβας; 6 June 1897 – 27 January 1974), also known by his nickname Digenis (Greek: Διγενής), was the Cypriot founder and leader of the Greek and Greek Cypriot paramilitary organisations Organization X (1942–1949), EOKA (1955–1959) and EOKA B (1971–1974).^[1]

A specialist of guerrilla and asymmetric warfare, he was one of the main actors in the Cypriot War of Independence, securing the independence of Cyprus against the British Empire.^[2]^[3] He died only six months prior to the 1974 Cypriot coup and subsequent Turkish invasion of Cyprus.^[3]

Early life

Grivas was born in Trikomo on 23 May 1898,^[4] the fourth child of Greek Cypriot parents Kalomira Hatzimichael and Theodoros Grivas. He grew up in Trikomo.^[5] After attending his village school, he studied at the Pancyprian Gymnasium in Nicosia from 1909 to 1915, living with his grandmother during this time.^[6]

Early military career

In 1916,

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George Theodorus Grivas

(1898–1974)

Greek-Cypriot patriot. He was proclaimed a national hero by the Greeks after the Cyprus settlement and promoted to lieutenant-general, the highest rank in the Greek army.

Born in Trikomo, Cyprus (then part of the Ottoman Turkish empire), the son of a grain merchant, Grivas was educated at schools in Nicosia and Athens. In 1919 he entered the Royal Hellenic military academy as a cadet, joining a Greek nationalist group that favoured union of Cyprus with Greece (‘enosis’). He adopted Greek nationality in 1919 and fought with the Greek army in the Asia Minor campaign, during which he was decorated for bravery. Between 1925 and 1933 he studied military techniques in France, returning to Greece to lecture at the Salonika training school.

At the outbreak of World War II Grivas joined the general staff of the Greek army. He commanded a division in the Albanian campaign (1940–41) and established an underground resistance group called X, which developed into an extreme anticommunist nationalist movement in 1945. During the 1950s Grivas led an undergr