Mikelis Avlichos was a Greek

Greeks

The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and scholar.

He was born in Lixouri

Lixouri

Lixouri is the main town on the peninsula of Paliki in the island of Kefalonia, one of the Ionian Islands of western Greece. Lixouri is the second largest community in Kefalonia after Argostoli and before Sami and is the capital of the small peninsula...

, Kefalonia

Kefalonia

The island of Cephalonia, also known as Kefalonia, Cephallenia, Cephallonia, Kefallinia, or Kefallonia , is the largest of the Ionian Islands in western Greece, with an area of . It is also a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit...

. He remained in Lixouri until his graduation from the Petritsio high school and then completed his philosophical

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 and philological

Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

 education in Berne

Berne

The city of Bern or Berne is the Bundesstadt of Switzerland, and, with a population of , the fourth most populous city in Switzerland. The Bern agglomeration, which includes 43 municipalities, has a population of 349,000. The metropolitan area had a population of 660,000 in 2000...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 and other centres of Europe.

In his early years he was influenced by the radicals Andreas Laskaratos

Andreas Laskaratos

Andreas Laskaratos was a satirical poet and writer from the Ionian island of Cefalonia or [Kefallinia]. He was excommunicated by the Greek Orthodox Church because his satire targeted many of the church's eponymous members....

 and Andreas Momferatos and during his teenage years was already associated with them. While in Berne, he met the Russian

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 anarchists Mikhail Bakunin

Mikhail Bakunin

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism. He has also often been called the father of anarchist theory in general. Bakunin grew up near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French Encyclopedists,...

 and Peter Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin

Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...

 and he adopted their philosophies.

His poetry follows the Heptanisian

Heptanesia

Heptanesia can mean:*Ionian Islands, a group of seven larger and some lesser islands in Greece*Seven islands of Bombay in India. Heptanesia is the earliest documented name for the islands, mentioned by the Greek geographer Ptolemy in his geographic works....

 tradition and he was the last to write in this style. His reasoning was revolutionary and he opposed the social order he lived in.

As the poet Kostis Palamas

Kostis Palamas

Kostis Palamas was a Greek poet who wrote the words to the Olympic Hymn. He was a central figure of the Greek literary generation of the 1880s and one of the cofounders of the so-called New Athenian School along with Georgios Drosinis, Nikos Kampas, Ioanis Polemis.-Biography:Born in Patras, he...

 wrote in his obituary, "He was negative to the current social structure and he hated militarism and war".

In his poetry referred to political or social affairs, treating them satirically or ironically. He is characterized as an atheist, a theoretical anarchist and a radical.

In 1887, after ten years of study abroad, he moved to Corfu

Corfu

Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...

due to health reasons and at the age of 34, he returned to Lixouri, were he lived until his death.

His poems where published posthumously and many of them became songs.

Sources

• Antidogma [Navplio] 2 (2006).
• James Sotros, The Greek Speaking Anarchist and Revolutionary Movement (1830-1940) - Writings for a History, in: No Gods-No Masters, December 2004