Roxani Soutzos
Roxani Karatza-Soutzos was a Phanariote Greek cultural animator, initially active inside the Ottoman Empire; the daughter of John Caradja, sister of Rallou Karatza-Argyropoulos, and wife of Michael Soutzos, she served as Princess-consort of Moldavia in June 1819April 1821. This matrimonial arrangement united the powerful Caradjas with the more politically frail Soutzoses, but the two Phanariote clans were soon at odds with one another—Roxani favored her adoptive family. The break was initiated in late 1812, when Caradja was made Prince of Wallachia under Ottoman tutelage. Serving as the Great Dragoman, Michael also competed for that position, and worked to topple his father-in-law. The latter finally abandoned his throne in late 1818, but Michael lost the competition to his second-uncle, Alexandros; he was compensated with the Moldavian throne.
During her short reign, Roxani fully backed her husband's cooperation with the Filiki Eteria, and helped instigate the Greek War of Independence, which began on Moldavian soil in February 1821. As it became apparent that the Eterist cause would fail, Michael abdicated and decided to emigrate with his family—making Roxani the last-ever Phanariote Princess in Moldavia. The Soutzoses were evicted into the Russian Empire, settling for a while in Kishinev—where Roxani networked with two literary figures, Alexander Pushkin and Jean Alexandre Buchon. They were allowed to live there only until 1822, when the Ottomans asked for Michael to be extradited. After a three-year detention in the Austrian Empire, from 1825 they settled together with the Caradjas in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and involved themselves in political intrigues. They were left financially destitute after the Eterist adventure, obtaining intercessions on their behalf from Swiss banker Jean-Gabriel Eynard; for a while, Michael took his family to Geneva.
The newly proclaimed Greek Republic, which was generally anti-Phanariote in sentiment, ignored the Soutzoses throughout the 1820s, even as they pledged their allegiance to its government. Following Eynard's interventions, Michael was assigned to be a Greek diplomatic envoy in Bourbon France, but ultimately marginalized as a dangerous supporter of the Russian Party. The subsequently established Greek kingdom assigned Michael to various positions, including that of Ambassador to Russia. Roxani lived with him in Paris and Saint Petersburg in the 1830s, as did their first-born son, Ioannis "Michalvoda", who was the legation secretary. The princely couple spent their final decades in Athens, where Roxani was heading a literary salon. By the time of her death in 1868, her in-laws included Greek academic and Romanian politician Dimitrie Sturdza.
Biography
Early life and ascendancy
Roxani was born in 1783, which made her slightly older than her future husband. She descended not just from the Caradjas, but also from other major Phanariote clans of the Ottoman realm; her paternal grandmother Sultana was a Mavrocordatos—making Roxani the great-granddaughter of John II Mavrocordatos, who was Moldavia's Prince in the 1740s, as well as a distant descendant of pre-Phanariote Moldavian royalty. Roxani's mother was Eleni Skanavi, daughter of a Phanariote banker. The couple had four other children. The best known among them is Princess Rallou, born in 1799 at Istanbul, who married Georgios Argyropoulos. John and Eleni's youngest daughter, Smaragda, married Spyridon Demetrios Mavrogenis; they also had two sons, Georgios and Konstantinos.Roxani's father ascended to the position of Great Dragoman in 1812, and appointed Michael "Michalakis" Soutzos as his secretary. Michael and Roxani were known to have been married the same year, though genealogist Constantin Gane argues that they may have already been wed around 1800. Their first child, Ioannis "Michalvoda" Soutzos, was born on 30 August 1813. He was followed by three more sons—Gregorios, Georgios, Konstantinos—and three daughters—Rallou, Eleni, Maria. Of these, Georgios is known to have been born in 1817, and Konstantinos in 1820. According to an 1817 report by Prussian diplomat Alexander Freiherr von Miltitz, Michael, a "singularly handsome man", had, before his marriage, "barely had the means to support himself; since his marriage, he receives from his father-in-law a monthly stipend of seventy thousand piasters, and at times extraordinary installments of another fifty to a hundred and twenty thousand piasters each."
In late 1812, Roxani's father had obtained the throne of Wallachia, a Romanian-inhabited client-state of the Ottoman Empire, like neighboring Moldavia. This also meant a political rise for Argyroupoulos, who seconded his father-in-law as Caimacam, and was later Great Ban over the Wallachian fief, Oltenia. As reported by Prussian diplomats in October 1815, at a time when Caradja had disappointed Sultan Mahmud II, Michael Soutzos was a favorite for the throne in Bucharest. He finally took over as Great Dragoman in October 1817, after purchasing support from Halet Efendi, the influential Ottoman courtier, who was also his alleged partner in fraudulent deals. He saw this position as a stepping stone toward the Wallachian throne, and spend money on bribes to obtain his appointment.
In Wallachia, the Caradjas were promoting Greek culture—in late 1817, Princess Rallou founded in Bucharest "the first professional theatrical troupe in the Romanian lands." Such initiatives were increasingly manifestations of Greek nationalism, supported by Filiki Eteria, the anti-Ottoman secret society. 1817 was also the year when Bucharest was visited by Eterist Nikolaos Galatis—although he did not manage to recruit John Caradja for his cause, he initiated Roxani's brother Konstantinos; her Argyropoulos brother-in-law was also a member, and as scholar Elisavet Papalexopoulou suggests, there is reason to assume that Princess Rallou was also an Eterist, or at least an applicant. In late 1818, anticipating Ottoman revenge, Prince John fled Wallachia, finding safety in the Austrian Empire, and then in the Swiss Confederacy. This incident exposed Halet and his retinue to persecution by the angered sultan; as Prussian Leopold von Schladen argued at the time, Halet was not entirely neutralized, and it was still possible for Michael Soutzos to take over in Bucharest. The throne went instead to Alexandros Soutzos, who was Michael's aged second-uncle. The Sultan's decree barred almost all Phanariotes, but not the Soutzoses, from holding princely offices in either Wallachia or Moldavia.
By 1819, Michael had started business as a restaurateur in Bucharest, being granted Dudeasca Inn by his boyaress mother, Safta Dudescu. He was finally appointed Prince of Moldavia on 24 June 1819, with the expiration of Scarlat Callimachi's seven-year term of office; Smaragda Mavrogenes-Callimachi, who was Roxani's maternal aunt, had been her predecessor as the princely consort. Upon his departure to Moldavia, the new ruler had already caused scandal with his extravagant spending and his toleration of corrupt practices. As noted by Gane, the Soutzos ascendancy remains poorly documented in traditional sources, but is somewhat rich in visual documents. This is thanks to Moldavia being visited by an artist from the Frenchman Louis Dupré, who drew portraits of Michael, Eleni, and, more unusually, a picture of the princely tent, which includes Roxani and two of her daughters. This itinerant court welcomed the last arrivals in the Phanariote clientele of Moldavia, such as the Romalo and Cozadini families, and including Sultana Cozadini, who was Roxani's chambermaid. As the junior Prince, Georgios Soutzos performed as godfather at Sultana's wedding to a Moldavian boyar, Ioan Cuza.
Eterist revolt and exile
Despite Ottoman expectations, Soutzos' short reign was marked by his full support for the Eteria, which had established bases in the Bessarabia Governorate. The Prince and the Eterist chief Alexander Ypsilantis conspired together to start a Greek War of Independence from Moldavia, with Soutzos pledging his wealth, as well as the entire military forces of Moldavia, to the realization of this goal. In February 1821 a Russian spy, Pavel Pestel, recorded rumors that Soutzos was made aware that the Eterists and the Arnauts were preparing a revolt, but had asked his boyars to keep quiet. According to his own testimony, Michael was not informed in advance when, later that month, Ypsilantis and his Sacred Band invaded Moldavia, thus initiating war with the Ottomans. Pestel reports that the Moldavian ruler visited the Eterist commander soon after his arrival, tolerated his pillaging of his subjects' property, and took personal charge of the Eterist recruitment drive. He was also in the audience at Iași when Ypsilantis recited his proclamation to the Greeks.The princely couple followed news of the Eterist advances, as well as of the parallel uprising in Wallachia. The Freiherr von Miltitz alleges that the revolt was helped along by Michael, who ordered his more cautious great-uncle to be poisoned, ensuring a power-vacuum in Bucharest. In a letter to her father, dated 19 March, Roxani expressed the hope that the new government in Bucharest, formed around Postelnic Constantin Negri, would be fully Eterist. She optimistically urged Prince John to leave his place of exile and join them in Bessarabia or Moldavia-proper, claiming that the Imperial Russian Army was readying itself to join the war on the Greek side, and that Moldavian Greeks had collected 3 million piasters to help the cause. As noted by historian Nestor Camariano, John Caradja had no way of passing through Austria without being arrested, and probably no intention of even attempting the journey.
Both the Ottomanist segment of the Phanariotes and the Moldavian boyardom violently rejected Ypsiliantis and Soutzos; the latter was excommunicated by the Ottoman Greek synod. Prince Michael, who had unsuccessfully asked for Moldavia to be remade into a Russian protectorate, handed in his resignation on 29 March ; he then asked the Russian consul, Andrey Pizani, to protect him and his family—this request was granted. On the night of 11 April, the Soutzoses evacuated Moldavia, settling in Russian Bessarabia. They lived in Kishinev, the gubernial capital, bunking with the Bessarabians Bogdan and Petrache Mavrogheni, in whose home they met Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. The Princess also met and befriended French scholar Jean Alexandre Buchon, who lived at Ovidiopol, and who later dedicated her his Chronique de la conquête de Constantinople. As Bouchon notes therein, he often discussed the history of Greece with his Phanariote host.
The Ypsiliantis interregnum and its aftermath saw the definitive end of Phanariote rules. In Moldavia, a senior boyar, Ioan Sturdza, took over as Prince, with Ecaterina Rosetti-Sturdza as his consort. The Greek rebels of the Peloponnese, meanwhile, sought to recognize both Caradja and his Soutzos son-in-law. On 9 January 1822, the Peloponnesian Senate opted for a Phanariote monarchy, and elected itself a 12-member regency council . Caradja was appointed its chairman, and Soutzos its vice-chairman, with a boat being sent in to pick them up from the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, which was Caradja's country of residence. Russian Emperor Alexander I's turn against the Eterists ensured that the Ottomans could ask for Michael to be extradited; this in turn led to his expulsion from Russia, also in January 1822. On 2 March, he was apprehended at Brünn, in Austrian Bohemia, reportedly trying to make his way to Livorno in Tuscany. Chancellor Klemens von Metternich, who "would not allow any Greek to cross over from his states into Greece", had Michael deported to Gorizia, in the Kingdom of Illyria. His family also joined him in this Austrian exile, and were by his side as he crossed through Laibach on 26 March. Initial rumors, that Michael had been granted a Russian passport allowing him safe passage to Livorno, and then by sea to the Peloponnese, were officially dismissed that April. The runaway Prince spent the following three years as a prisoner in Gorizia.
Michael was allowed to leave for Tuscany in early 1825, joining the Caradjas in Pisa. In a letter from 1826, John Caradja speaks about "my unfortunate son-in-law Michalakis ", a man of "complete stupidity", as aspiring to become King of Greece. As Caradja notes, this project was supported by Lord Cochrane, after Soutzos' coaxing of Cochrane's wife—to whom he gifted dresses owned by Roxani. The indignant Caradja asked his nephew, Alexandros Mavrokordatos, to continue taking care of the Soutzos children, implying that Michael was incompetent. The Countess of Blessington befriended John's son Konstantinos, as well as the Argyropoulouses and the Soutzoses, during her passage through Pisa in January–April 1827; the three families dined together, but never discussed politics. She describes Michael as having "superior abilities", and Roxani as a "very amiable woman".