Family Name: Velestinlis
First Name: Antonios
Birth Date: 1756
Birth Place: Velestino
Death Date: Sun, Jun 24, 1798
Death Place: Belgrade
Main places of activity:
Place From To
Constantinople 1773 1779
Place From To
Bucharest 1779 1795
Place From
Vienna 1795
Personal info:
Education

Feraios came from a wealthy family of merchants, native to Perivoli, in Western Macedonia, then part of the Ottoman empire.

He started his education in classical literature and mathematics between Zagora and the near city of Ampelakia, Larissa.

After moving to Constantinople, Feraios went to the Greek school of the Phanar, where he studied diplomacy, politics and mastered different languages: Demotic Greek, Wallachian, Turkish, French, German and Italian.

In Bucharest, the scholar Demetrios Cantartzis completed Feraios's education, teaching him Romanian and Arabic.
Career

Feraios' career evolved within the highest circles of Phanariots officials administrating the Danubian principalities for the Sultan. His official functions allowed him to become part of an extensive diplomatic network that he took advantage of for his political and revolutionary purposes.

After teaching at the local school in Kissos, thanks to his family connections Feraios became the tutor of the sons of the Dragoman in Constantinople Alexander Ypsilantis, and from the mid 1770s onwards performed the role of secretary for the latter.

When Ypsilantis was named hospodar (lord, master) of the Wallachia province, Feraios followed him to Bucharest in 1780, after he had overseen the completion of the education of Ypsilantis's sons in Constantinople. As Ypsilantis was banished by the Sultan for the organisation of conspirational activities Feraios that may well have been part of, the latter's duties as secretary continued in service of the freshly appointed Nicholas Mavrogenes, who later named Feraios caïmacam (governor) of the city of Craiova.

After Mavrogenes's death, Feraios came back to Bucharest without any official function, living with his mother out of the produce of the lands he had been gifted during his service. Some sources suggest that in1796 Feraios may have been working as interpreter for the chancellor of the French consulate in Bucharest, Constantin Stamaty.
Translations Other Works

translations activities

Financially supported by the Greek diaspora in Vienna, Feraios's activities as a translator were inextricably intertwined with his revolutionary undertakings and republican ideas.

He translated from French, Italian and German into Demotic Greek, with the aim of circulating Western works amongst his compatriots: the pedagogical purpose of Feraios's activity as a translator was to prepare the awakening of the Greek nation, its uprising against the Sultan and the creation of a pan-Balkan federation inspired by the ideals of the French revolution.

secondary bibliography references

Apostolos Dascalakis, Rhigas Vélestinlis : La Révolution française et les préludes de l'Indépendance hellénique, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Sorbonne University, Paris,

Dimitrios Karabelopoulos, 'Le Florilège de la Physique de Rhigas Vélestinlis et l'Encyclopédie. Première identification d'un modèle', in Anatypo, Bulletin de Liaisons n°12, 1996, 129-39.

Anna Tabaki, 'Rhigas entre les Lumières et le romantisme', Actes du colloque international "Rhigas Vélestinlis (1757-1798) intellectuel et combattant de la liberté", Éditions Demos, 2002.

Dimitrios Karabelopoulos, 'Introduction', in Rhigas Vélestinlis, Œuvres révolutionnaires, Société scientifique des Études sur Phères,

Kelly Papaïoannu, 'La constitution de l'identité balkanique dans l'œuvre de Rigas Vélestinlis', Études Balkaniques, 1, n°17 (2010), 279-93.

Translations

  • Les contemporaines, ou Aventures des plus jolies femmes de l'âge présent

  • Translation Title: Σχολείον των ντελικάτων Εραστών
  • Original Author: Rétif de la Bretonne
  • Original title: Les contemporaines, ou Aventures des plus jolies femmes de l'âge présent
  • Publ. Year From: 1780 to: 1785
  • lang: French
  • Note:
  • Translation: Σχολείον των ντελικάτων Εραστών
  • Pub. Place: Vienna
  • Pub. Date: 1790
  • Lang: Greek
  • Note:

    Feraios' version (which translates 'School for Delicate Lovers') includes six novels from the first four volumes of de La Bretonne's anthology. Prompted to meet the taste of his Phanariots patrons in Wallachia, the translation is nonetheless free and interspersed with Feraios' personal considerations on marriage, family and the relationship between men and women, which downsize the erotic contents of the original texts.

  • Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers

  • Translation Title: Φυσικής Απάνθισμα
  • Original Author: Denis Diderot, Jean Le Rond D'Alembert (eds.)
  • Original title: Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers
  • Publ. Year From: 1750 to: 1764
  • lang: French
  • Translation: Φυσικής Απάνθισμα
  • Pub. Place: Vienna
  • Pub. Date: 1789
  • Lang: Greek
  • Note:

    Feraios' Anthology of Physics draws on many different sources to create a compendium of the latest Western European scientific achievements, in order to circulate it among Greek communities. While the preface quotes Rousseau's works at length, Feraios also mentions Voltaire, James Ferguson, Fontenelle and the minutes of the Academie des Sciences in Paris in his volume.

    Chapter XXIV is a translation of the articles Circulation du sang and Phosphore taken from the Enciclopédie (Karaberopoulos 1996).

  • La Bergère des Alpes

  • Translation Title: Ηθικός Τρίπους
  • Original Author: Jean-François Marmontel
  • Original title: La Bergère des Alpes
  • Publ. Year From: 1766 to:
  • lang: French
  • Translation: Ηθικός Τρίπους
  • Publisher: Poulios brothers
  • Pub. Place: Vienna
  • Pub. Date: 1797
  • Lang: Greek
  • Note:

    Feraios' translation of Marmontel was one of the three constituting The Moral Tripod, and insisted on patriotic liberty to stir up the same feelings among his Greek compatriots.

  • L'Olimpiade

  • Translation Title: Ηθικός Τρίπους
  • Original Author: Pietro Metastasio
  • Original title: L'Olimpiade
  • Publ. Year From: 1733 to:
  • lang: Italian
  • Translation: Ηθικός Τρίπους
  • Publisher: Poulios brothers
  • Pub. Place: Vienna
  • Pub. Date: 1797
  • Lang: Greek
  • Note:

    This translation of Metastasio was one of the three constituting The Moral Tripod. Feraios made use of L'Olimpiade to show the continuities between ancient and modern Greece, to fan the flames of the revolution for his motherland.

  • Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce, dans le milieu du quatrième siècle avant l'ère vulgaire

  • Translation Title: Νέος Ανάχαρσις
  • Original Author: Jean-Jacques Barthélemy
  • Original title: Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce, dans le milieu du quatrième siècle avant l'ère vulgaire
  • Publ. Year From: 1788 to:
  • lang: French
  • Translation: Νέος Ανάχαρσις
  • Publisher: Poulios brothers
  • Pub. Place: Vienna
  • Pub. Date: 1797
  • Lang: Greek
  • Note:

    Feraios' translation only includes the fourth tome of the original work, together with his several comments paralleling the present situation of Greece under the Ottoman rule and the ancient liberties of its people.


  • Kurzer Begriff aller militarischen Operationen

  • Translation Title: Ο Στρατηγός Κεβενχύλλερ ή Στρατιωτικόν Εγκόλπιον
  • Original Author: Ludwig Andreas Graf Khevenhüller
  • Original title: Kurzer Begriff aller militarischen Operationen
  • Publ. Year From: 1755 to:
  • lang: German
  • Title: Maximes de guerre: relatives à la guerre de campagne, & à celle des siéges
  • Publisher: Chez Lacombe
  • Pub. Place: Paris
  • Pub. Year: 1771
  • Lang: French
  • Note:

    This translation fron German to French was completed by Charles Gédéon, Baron de Sinclaire.

  • Translation: Ο Στρατηγός Κεβενχύλλερ ή Στρατιωτικόν Εγκόλπιον
  • Pub. Place: Vienna
  • Pub. Date: 1796
  • Lang: Greek
  • Note:

    Feraios translated the French version of Khevenhüller's military treatise to furnish ready and available instructions to organise the Greek forces fighting for independence.

calamaio

By:

  • Giovanni Lista