Aristotelis Valaoritis

Aristotelis Valaoritis was a Greek poet and politician, one of the main representatives of the Heptanese School. Writing in the spoken, demotic language on themes drawn from the Greek War of Independence, he came to be regarded as a national poet of Greece. He served as a deputy in the parliament of the United States of the Ionian Islands, where he advocated union with Greece, and later in the Greek Parliament. His best-known works include Kyra Frosini (1859), Athanasios Diakos (1867) and the unfinished O Fotinos. He was the great-grandfather of the poet and writer Nanos Valaoritis.