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Attempts to save a legend

Kostas Michos
July 8, 2024
7:50 am

“You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.”

J. Carter

A radio show dedicated to our hero

On November 29, 2024, the radio producer Nikolas Angelidis on the radio station “The Voice of Greece”, made a tribute to the life of Panagis Coutalianos. During the show, interesting information and songs related to this topic are heard. You can listen to the entire show at the following link.

https://vog.ert.gr/ondemand/The-story-of-the-legendary-Koutalianos-29-Nov-2024/?lang=en

Sites related to our history

The story of Coutalianos has been the subject of research for some other websites, which we mention for the information of our readers.

The “Coutaliana” page is a simple project that is more broadly related to the history of the village of “Nea Coutalis” on the island of Lemnos, to the settlement of the refugees in this village as well as to various issues of everyday life. Of course, such a page could not miss the athlete Coutalianos, to whom an extensive comment is dedicated.
(https://koutalianoi.blogspot.com/?m=1)

Another page entitled “Coutaliana” is the one above. Its administrator was a certain Sarantis Vassiliou who is no longer alive. The introductory paragraph in the text referring to Coutalianos is of interest:
“In the gymnastic exercises I do I can lift a weight of 1,500-2,000 okadas ( unit of measurement of weight during the Ottoman Empire ), I carry 3 cannons, one on the shoulder, one in the armpit and one between the legs. The cannons fire and I remain still. With my hands I can also bend iron three fingers thick. With my fist I kill a buffalo, and many more …”.
The specific self-advertisement of the athlete, we assume that the administrator of the page discovered it in some old newspaper, which we have not yet located. Unfortunately, this short paragraph is not accompanied by a date, nor by any reference. So we present her without any further comment, hoping that one day we will be able to cross her.
(https://koutaliana.blogspot.com/search/label/%CE%9A%CE%9F%CE%A5%CE%A4%CE%91%CE%9B%CE%99%CE%91%CE%9D%CE%9F%CE%A3)

In the article entitled Antonio Panay : The Wonder of the Nineteenth Century and his Grand Greek Circus, which was published in The National Herald newspaper, by the Greek-American journalist Steve Francos, reference is made to an old publication advertising a performance by Coutalianos in USA. Steve Frangos seems to be unaware that the Antonio Panay mentioned in the article is none other than Coutalianos himself. The columnist makes a comment related to the tours made by that first Greek circus in the USA. (http://hellenicgenealogygeek.blogspot.com/2017/02/antonio-panay-wonder-of-nineteenth.html)

The above Russian-speaking Cypriot website cites an article relating to a speculation that Coutalianos was of Cypriot descent.

Also interesting is the case of the above Turkish website, whose administrator is Professor Alp Batman who probably comes from this island. The page refers to the history of the island of Ekinlik (formerly Coutalis) from which of course Coutalianos could not be missing. We congratulate the Turkish professor for his objective approach to the facts and wish all Turkish citizens health, love and peace.
(http://batmans.dyndns.info:81/maint.html)

Some were making efforts to approach the true story of Coutalianos. But these efforts were left in the middle. We can only dedicate Klaus Schulze’s “Shadows Of Ignorance” to them…

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